So I wrote a big old entry last night... pressed publish... went to bed... and now it has disappeared into the abyss of the internet. But I guess that will just add to the suspense about what my last week of camp was like. But I am home safe and sound :)

Camp

So I've spent my last day here in Mexico City. I'm leaving for camp which is in Cuernavaca. I'll be internet free for the next week. I get back to the city here at midnight on Sunday and then I have to leave for the airport at around 8 Monday morning. So, the next time I write I'll probably be in the States.

Thanks so much for all your support!!!!

Another Funny Story

So as I was talking to my mom on Skype this morning, I realize that I'd never written about this little occurrence that happened last week.

As you know if you've been reading my blog, I've been working in the kitchen with a blind ex chef, Memo. He has pretty much no fear despite his disability. He's worked in a kitchen all his life and the whole phrase "I could do it with my eyes shut" is how he lives every day.

This being said, it was my first day in the kitchen with Memo. We work with gas stove tops at La Raza. I personally had only used one once before coming to Mexico. One of the ranges lights itself, but the other range you have to light with a lighter. Well, all of the first set of burners were filled this particular morning. I was cutting up something on one side of the kitchen not paying much attention to what Memo was doing. I thought he was stirring something. All of the sudden I hear a FFWOOOSHFF. I look over and the flame is so big that it is swallowing the pan in tongues of orange and yellow. Memo is standing there about to catch on fire and is feeling for the pan, looks back in my direction, and asks, "Did it light yet?" I run over there to turn it down telling Memo, "Yes! Yes! Back up! Wait a second! You're not going to have any eyebrows." All the time Memo is just standing there with his little smile on his face. And that is how our work together began. It's been an adventure. From then on, I always stepped in to light the burners.

I Almost Forgot

I was attacked by some kind of crazy bug or something. I woke up this morning and my lip was numb and swollen. Right now there's no more swelling, but it's still numb. It's crazy what some little animal can do to you. I have just looked all around my room including in my bed for the culprit and I didn't find anything abnormal. It looks like this one will remain a mystery.

Last Day at La Raza

The past week's been super busy. All kinds of meetings and goodbyes. I got to go to their mini Olympics for street kids. There were probably 200/ 300 people there. It was crazy. But I knew like 40 of them so it was kind of fun. We caught up with a bunch of them that hadn't been to the Center in a long time. The next day, we had 25 people show up at La Raza. We can only take in 16, but it just goes to show how many people are in need and find a place in our center.

Today was my last day and Paty and Alex made me Pazole which is a super traditional Mexican dish. It's basically giant corn soup with shredded beef. They eat it with tortilla chips and sour cream. So good! Mexican food in the states is nothing like what I've eaten here. Tortillas are the same... Rice also... but everything else is completely inaccurate. It's way better the legitimate Mexican way.

Here's some pictures from this past week.

This was today after my goodbye meal.


And these are from my last few days with the Chavos.

Cooking Catastrophe

Okay, so it wasn't really a catastrophe, but I have three burnt fingers as a result. Let's just say frying things isn't my talent in the kitchen.
I was on quesadilla duty (making about 60 of them filled with some kind of zucchini filling- so good). And here, they fry them... so that means I was putting them in the pan, flipping them over, and then putting them away. As you may know, oil jumps at you when there's water in it (I never knew the cause until this week). So, since there is water in zucchini, the oil was going crazy. But I pressed on in the kitchen. Memo (the blind chef I'm working with) obviously cannot do this part. I mean, I'm down three fingers and I can see perfectly fine. Anyways, as I was placing one of the quesadillas in the oil, it splashed up at me, attacking my fingers.
End of Story

Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be my last day with all of the guys there. I cannot believe that it's almost over. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I feel like I'm finally getting to the point where I can joke around with them and now I'm leaving. But at the same time I'm ready to get home, so you just can't make me happy :).

Not Mexico Related

Okay so random side note... I've been reading a ton while I've been here.. I'm on my 3rd series and 9th book. But right now I'm reading this series by Lynn Austin called the Chronicles of the Kings. Its the whole story of Hezekiah (from the Bible). I'm on the second book and they're so good. They put all of the passages together and then illustrate it with what they know with history. The whole story has come alive for me and I'd highly suggest it. I've gone back and have been reading some of the Old Testament passages to read what's actually there. Anyways, I was just sitting here thinking if you need anything to read... that would be my suggestion. :)

2 weeks from tonight I'll be back in Indy. Can't wait to see you all!

2 Weeks left

So I've been doing more thinking the past few days than anything else. Saturday I decided to go on the Hop on Hop off bus. Not exactly that exciting. I'd been to the places that it took me to already and they really didn't have much to say about anything. I was kind of assuming there would be more to see since we are in the biggest city in the world (some say... depending on what you're counting I guess), but if there is, the tour didn't show it. As I was sitting on the bus all by myself (I took the bus so at least there would be people around), I kept comparing that tour to the Hop on/ off bus in NYC. It's the only one I'd been on before. In doing that it hit me all over again just how poor they are here. The quality of living... the expected house/ apartment... the norm of how people make money by selling whatever they get their hands on... it's so much lower than in the US. I wish you could just see it and spring over here for a day just to look around and get a glimpse. It's not that the normal person is starving, just that the norm is so much lower on the scale. They have what they need. And their needs are defined much differently than ours. How does that happen. We expect so much.... "need" so much. And most of it is so much of a waste and unnecessary.

Another thing that has really hit me this week as I've been reading and thinking has been just how thankful that I am for hope and the hope that people can change. As these guys are coming in it's so apparent that everyone has given up on them: their family for the most part, the government, employers, the education system, even they themselves. They don't have people who love them... in fact most people are afraid of them and ignore them. But more and more I just keep thinking that still God loves them. He still created them in his image. He still is brokenhearted when he sees what has become of their lives. But there are people who are showing them love. There are a few people who have grasped what that love and hope from God means and are trying to share it with them. God is pretty much their only hope. I mean he's the only thing all of us truly have hope in, but for them especially that is an extremely obvious thing. It's easier to see in their lives how little worth our lives have on earth. Being here has made me realize that no matter how good a meal we can feed them and no matter if we can help them learn how to read, that only gets them so far. They are still left without hope if they don't have a relationship with Jesus and know that they are forgiven through his death on the cross. They might live a little bit easier and have a fuller stomach, but the love part... the part where they realize that God loves them and that they can change with his help is the most important of all and the only thing that truly matters.

Okay... on a lighter note... I'm making Macaroni and Cheese for Alex and Paty tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about it. They've been teasing me about my cooking skills since I've been here saying that that is probably why I don't have a boyfriend. I think it is their mission to find me a husband asap haha. So tomorrow, I'm going to show them how it's done in the USA (without Kraft).

This week is also the Mundialito which is the street kid Olympics. Apparently every summer all of the street kids (kids as in 15-40 yr olds) organize an olympic contest. They divide up into teams depending on where they live and this mostly revolves around which Metro stop their closest to. Then they have all kinds of events. They tell me that volleyball is included. It's 2 weeks long at the winning team in the end gets a trophy. I think it's kind of hilarious, but we're going to be there this week catching up with some of them who haven't come to the Drop In Center recently. I'm pretty excited about it. Alexandro told me that this is going to make me realize just how many street people there are in the city. Apparently they have estimated more than 3 million. That's insane if you ask me.

Well I'm off to bed. Pardon my grammar errors because I didn't read this through before posting it. We'll just hope it makes sense.

Jenelle the Chef

So this week I've spent a ton of time in the kitchen helping with the food since that is what the lady who left used to do. We have completely rearranged and cleaned the kitchen (it really needed it). In addition to that, it's me and Alejandro's brother who are working in there. Memo is blind but he was a chef in Cancun at some ritzy restaurant before. He can cut things up better and more consistently than I can and he can't see what he's doing. It's great. He can guess weights and quantities better than anyone too. He tells me things like... Oh, just put about 2 kilos in there. And of course that means absolutely nothing to me haha. What makes it more funny is I have ("had" before this week) a very small vocabulary of kitchen terms. The difference between a pot/pan/sauce pan/ladle/spatula/colander etc is a whole different thing when you are the one that has to find the unknown object for him and he has to feel each one to see if it will work. I can't just pick it up and show him to ask if it's the right thing. In fact all forms of communication are a little more difficult because I tend to use a lot of motions and non verbal communication. However with Memo this doesn't exactly work since he can't exactly see those things. So it's been a lot of me trying to describe things and finally walking over to him to hand him what I'm talking about. I might be making it sound worse than it is, but still... it's been a fun experience. We've been having a great time and he's bound and determined to get me to be a chef. It's hilarious. I have the rest of this week and next week at the Center. I can't believe it's almost over!

Long week with sightseeing and a little drama

So this week... has been an interesting one. Last Thursday I found out that one of the couples at La Raza had been transferred to another church and won't be working with us anymore. In a way it is a good thing but there will be a lot of adjustments to make. I think it's going to open up a lot of opportunities for the center that were not able to happen before for various reasons. Tomorrow I'm going to be in on the meeting with Paty and Alejandro's bosses (kind of like the district pastors) and I'll be able to be a part of it and give my ideas. I'm really excited because I think that what they do, they do well, but they are missing a few things that I think could drastically help them. Plus I'm the only one that has a social service/ psychology/ etc background (or part of one) and they are really appreciating my thoughts and ideas about things. I definitely feel useful.
So that whole situation was a little bit of drama. Today there were three of us and 2 volunteers instead of 5 of us and 1 volunteer. I'm definitely thinking it's for the better but like I said, they will be adjusting until after I'm gone. I'm only going to be working there this week and next week. My last week I'm going to be a counselor at their church camp. It's an actual camp with cabin type living. I'll be in charge of 10ish kids. It will definitely be a stretch for me, but last week I was thinking about Moses when he kept telling God that he couldn't talk very well so he couldn't do it. I guess I can't use that excuse anymore haha.

Friday there was a group of people from the US here. They are thinking about becoming missionaries and starting raising funds to come to Mexico in the next two years. They were doing all of the touristy stuff as well as seeing an overview of all of the ministries OMS has in the city. So, I joined in their touristy ways and went to the Center of the city to the Zocolo. The cathedral is down there so I got to see that and then the other two girls and I took a little adventure around. They'd seen everything before, but I got to see it for the first time. We had so much fun. One of my favorite things about Mexico is the fruit juices. All freshly made. Some of them are kind of like smoothies. Delicious! (The best one I've had so far, I got on Saturday with them... sooo good)
This is the cathedral.


We also went to the Basilica of Guadalupe. Guadalupe is the godess of Mexico even though it's through the Catholic church. Back in the day when the Spaniards and the Aztecs were battling it out, one of the bishops was praying for peace. He wanted God to show him a sign using Castillian roses. An Aztec man kept having a vision of this woman on a mountain. She told him to go and tell this bishop that he had seen a vision. They didn't believe him. He went back to the mountain and told the vision and so she told him to pick the flowers and put them in his cape. He held up his cape to hold all of the flowers and went back to show the bishop. When he let down his cape, there was an intricate picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe (the woman in the vision) and the flowers were castillian roses. To this day, the cape is in the basilica and all of Mexico come on pilgrimages to see it.

Old Basilica on the hill where the Aztec saw the vision


New Basilica


This is the monument to what happened.


This is the famous cape in the basilica.


And this is the lines of people waiting to see the the cape from underneath... yes they have a moving floor to get the people through.


And modern day indulgences... pay for a service to get your relatives out of hell/ etc.