2 More Days 'Til Arizona!

This week has definitely been one of the more...interesting ones I've experienced thus far. Aside from having tequila literally shoved down my throat and having two near death experiences, everything has been pretty great! If ever there was I time I've missed the United States (Texas especially) on this tour, it's definitely now.

Since Monday was a travel day from Culiacan to Hermosillo, the majority of the day was spent on the bus. As a matter of fact, the bus ride was a solid twelve hours, peppered with random security checkpoints, during which we had to get off the bus for anywhere from 10-20 minutes while the military searched for smuggled fruit, bombs, and drugs. We finally got to Hermosillo around 8pm and attended a late night celebration for independence day. We were privileged to be in the presence of the Governor of the state of Senora for his annual reception which was way fancy. During the reception, we were told to mingle with the people that were there (mostly government officials, so it was right up my alley) and the first man I met just so happened to be named Alan Aguirre! Since I was wearing my name tag, he saw that we have the same last name and gave me his business card so I could check his website and look at his family tree, which reminds me that I still need to do that.

Tuesday was a regional learning day. We traveled an hour up the road to the town of Guaymas for a lunch with the mayor of that town. He had a very nice meal prepared for all of us, and after lunch we got to use the pool (and for those that were feeling ambitious, the beach) at the resort where the lunch was being held. We stayed for about three hours before boarding the buses to take a guided tour of the city of Guaymas and after nearly two hours, we began the bus ride home.

Wednesday was our first CI day in this city and was probably my best CI experience so far. Along with six cast mates, I painted a basketball court and beautified a park that was covered in graffiti. It was very strange to see such a well developed playground and basketball court in the community we were in because it was an extremely poor area. If you reference my last entry, you can see pictures of a severely poor community in Los Cabos, and this area was very similar in nature. The best part about this community service project was that after about an hour of working on the playground, approximately 30 children living in the neighborhood came out of their houses and began helping us improve the park. By the end of the day, everyone was painting, sweeping, laughing ,and having a great time. I really enjoyed the project because I felt like for the first time in my Up with People career, we were accomplishing our mission; inspiring others to take action and responsibility for the communities in which they live. Though the mission statement is something that is meant to happen over an extended period of time, the immediacy of the results that we saw that day were absolutely incredible, and at best, inspiring to me as an UWP participant.

Thursday was also a CI day, but before we did that, we had a few internal activities. We started with an education workshop about our own personal mission and vision for our lives, which was rather interesting. We all made a recipe for our lives, which was just another way of getting us to materialize our ambitions for our future and it also gave us something to look back on in a few years to see how we're progressing toward our goal. We also did a really awesome activity in which we all taped a piece of paper to our backs and our job was to write what we could genuinely see each other doing in the future on each other's backs. At the end of the activity, we all got to look at our papers and see what people wrote, but it was very difficult to distinguish who wrote what because it was about a 30 minute activity and with so many people writing things on you it's easy to lose track. When I read my paper everyone said things like "Politician" or "Attorney" and other awesome things that I aspire to be. I was way pleased with the way it went, so I put my paper in my journal so I can reference it later in life.

Thursday night was very interesting for a few reasons. I'm not sure if anyone has ever heard of the crazy traditions that exist in Mexico, but believe me, I saw first hand that they do exist. We went out to eat at a really nice Mexican restaurant and the food was amazing! After we ate, we stuck around for about two hours to watch the Mariachi group that was playing there and they were really great. But, at about 10:30 or 11:00, things turned crazy when the waiters turned into sombrero wearing, mustache sporting, noisemaking hombres with a fiery passion for tequila shots. They would dress up in their typical Mexican gear periodically throughout the night and sneak up behind unsuspecting patrons, slam a shot glass on the table, proceed to make an excessive amount of noise, and literally force the tequila shot down the person's throat. And to top it all off, they'd give your head a nice little shake to ensure that you swallowed it all. So, Sandrine (my roommate from Belgium) and I were completely horrified that we'd be put on the spot, but were reassured several times by our host mom that we would be fine because we're "out of towners." However, as she was assuring us of our so called "safe" status, the hombres showed up behind Sandrine and victimized her. Afterwards, I was understandably paranoid that I would be next because everyone in the restaurant knew that I was a Texan and in town with Viva La Gente (Up with People). I was constantly looking over my shoulder and kept my wits about me, until about an hour or so later, when I was beyond tired and could barely keep my eyes open. I put my hand on my chin and relaxed my eyes, only to be astonished by the tequila touting hombres slamming a shot glass on the table next to me, so as you can guess, I too was victimized. Luckily (or not) the hombres had terrible motor skills and managed to spill the majority of the tequila on my clothes and I only had to stomach a small amount. I was beyond livid. I was definitely in the mood to go home.

Today was crazy! I started out at a children's hospital as a CI project in which we were solely responsible for making the kids smile. I had to wear a clown nose which totally clashed with my outfit, but I had a great time anyway. It was awesome to get to see kids smile who wouldn't normally do so otherwise, given their unfortunate circumstances. Later in the day, we went to fix up yet another basketball court and once it was finished, we had a mini show in the neighborhood which turned out to be very successful with many people in attendance. Tonight we went to Starbucks (one of the very few in Mexico) which was my first time to go since I was in the US and much to my surprise it tasted exactly the same as it does back home. Unfortunately, it took them 298734 hours to get it ready, but it was well worth it once they finally did. Oh, and in case you were wondering, they wrote Brian on my cup here, just as they did in the US on what seemed to be a constant basis. I don't think I stutter or mumble when I say it, so it could just be that poor hearing is an international issue.

Tomorrow is a free day to spend with our host families and we plan on going to eat lunch together and then maybe bowling or a movie.

City Hall...or something like that.

Fireworks! Viva Mexico!

A group of overemphatic patriots.

The Texans...Jenny from Austin, Me, Javi from San Antonio.

Representin' the hispanic heritage.

One of the best meals I've had in Mexico was at the Mayor's Luncheon.

Yet another beautiful beach.

This gazebo was designed by the same guy who designed the Eiffel Tower.

Russ (Maryland) and Marieke (The Netherlands) anticipate the Pigeon's presents. Bleh!

Nathalie (Sweden) paints some of the kids' names.

Ryan working with kids and smiling!?

They demanded a picture, so a picture they got.

You'd never believe how excited they were to paint unless you were there witnessing it.