I'm staying in a really nice neighborhood it seems from what I've seen. There is a gate with guards as you come in and I had to go meet them so they would recognize me. This is my street.
(In case you didn't know... Mexico City is in a big valley and there are mountains everywhere. At night the lights are awesome. I'll take a pic of it asap.)
This is the whole house where the three of us live. It's a normal sized and layed out house. Which from what I can tell so far is not the norm but isn't abnormal.
This is my little guest house. I have my own bedroom and bathroom which is nice and weird all at once. Last night was the first night I wasn't freaking out a little bit on the inside when I walked out the back door of the main house to my own room by myself. I'm never by myself at night haha or usually ever so it's been an adjustment.
And this is inside my room.
So here's a little more about what I've been doing since I got here.
Last week on Thursday I went out to La Raza again (where I'll be working Monday through Friday. Monday through Wednesday the street Chavos (not kids... but what they call them... Basically between kids and adults haha). Thursday they have a church service and Friday they go and talk to people in the streets to spread word that they are there. They don't have a sign or really anything that lets people know that they are there. I might try and talk them into letting me paint something on the front of their building or make a sign that they can at least put out front on Thursdays so that people know. They've been at this church for about a year and they still don't have many people coming to their service. Thursday night there were only 5 people including 3 kids. I feel like it would be fairly obvious that a sign would be needed, but we'll see how it goes.
We went to a couple houses near the church and talked with a few of the families that hadn't been in a while. La Raza is one of the sketchier and poorer parts of the city and it was crazy how this family was living. They were living in a sliver of a building and there were tons of people in there. I really don't know how many. I sat there on an old mattress and listened as the couple I was with talked to the family members. I sat there listening and trying to look around as much as I could without being rude. I wasn't surprised necessarily, I just really didn't know what to think.
Everything here is made out of concrete and lots of the time it isn't painted or anything and the floors don't necessarily have any kind of finishing. Everything is dirty. There is trash everywhere. A few times when I've been on the bus I have seen a whole section of a building (like what used to be a store in a downtown looking area where there are different store fronts) that has caved in and there are just piles of trash and junk in it's place. It's hard to understand how they can live like that. I haven't taken my camera with me much yet, but I will this week so you can all see a little more of the city and understand what I'm talking about. I haven't felt like I'm unsafe or in danger and all of the Mexicans I'm working with guard me (not really the right word but what can you do) and definitely look out for me.
Friday I went to where some of the chavos live and was surprised. They were in the center of the city where a lot of the more legitimate shops are. It looks more like a normal city that you would think of. They had some old nasty mattresses and some tarps propped up like tents all a long on of the sidewalks. They all had a wad of stuff in their hands and were sniffing it every 30 seconds or so. From what I understood it's some kind of cleaning supply that's really cheap and really common among them. All I know is that we all went and washed our hands after every group of people we went to talk to. All of them were asking me where I was from and if I had a boyfriend which was kind of funny. I kept telling them that they need to come down to the center and I'll teach them some English. That might have helped a little bit, but we'll see what happens tomorrow.
I've had some really interesting conversations in both Spanish and English since I've been here with all kinds of people.
The people here are wonderful and so welcoming and patient. It's been way easier to meet people here than it was in Spain for sure. The problem is that everything is so far away. Once I get home from work its like 7pm (I have 3hrs worth of bus rides every day) and its too late to do anything because you don't want to be on the buses after 10 which means you have time to go somewhere and get right back lol. The city is absolutely enormous. I'm working on getting a map so I can actually figure out how far I go in my hour and a half commute. Traffic is absolutely awful here.
Anyways... that's probably way too much to write in a day, but I hope you are all doing marvelously!!!
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