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Saturday, March 18, 2006
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Friday 17th 2006
Friday ended up being a decent last day here in mexico. It was planned for us to go hand out rice and beans at a garbage dump and a nearby dump neighborhood. We split up in two teams that morning and I stayed with a team here at the orphanage that filled bags with rice and beans for handing out. Another group went back to california and separated clothes like we had done on tuesday. My group was done pretty quickly though and had about two hours free while we waited for the other team to get back. I ended up using that two hours to play with some of the kids. I started with two of them and we came to the computer and I showed them how to play with Microsoft Paint. They were really excited about that. Eventually like six kids were surrounding me and all wanted to hold the mouse to draw stuff. It was really cool. We drew little stick figure pictures of ourselfs and I typed our names above our heads. It was good fun. We actually did that until the other team came back, It was cool that the kids were so interested in that. After they returned we ate a quick lunch and then loaded up the vans with the rice and beans and stuff. Before we left though Sara brought us into the chapel and she wanted to explain what it would be like ahead of time and give us some directions. Turns out that our Liberty team was assigned the surrounding neighborhood and the catholic team was assigned the garabage dump itself. When I heard that, I was somewhat dissapointed again because I wanted to see what the garbage dump was like. The neighborhood we went to was pretty shocking and it was hard to see people live in those conditions, but I have a feeling the dump was even worse and in a way I wanted to see that too. It was a truly great experience to have the opportunity and hand out the food to the people living in those neighborhoods though, and I was glad to have that chance. I wish we could have known some spanish better so we could talk to them some more. Mostly all we could say was "God Bless". It was a good experience and you begin to see the world through different eyes when you look on that lifestyle. After we ran out of rice and beans we then got back in the vans and headed over to the womens shelter to see the kids over there. The view from the hill it was on was amazing and you could see the city all around. After going inside we found out that most of the kids were at school unfortantly so we weren't able to see probalby 70% of them. BUt the few that were there were so cute and fun to play with. They loved having us there and were excited to have some attention. One girl in particular that I played with laughed a lot when I would just touch her and play with her. She was so cute. It was sooooo sad though when they were told we had to leave now. She went from a big laughing smile to a straight face with almost no emotion. It was so hard to see that. I was just thinking that all thier life's consisted of was people leaving. They never have any consistency and I'm sure that is soo difficult for them. Anytime they feel comfortable enough with someone to love, they end up being left behind as that person goes back to thier own life. I can only imagine the scars that can bring in a little childs life. Hard one to think about....
That was the last main thing we had to do here in MX before we setup to leave the next day. After we finished at the shelter we returned for a quick break to the orphanage. Another group from Sandiego was arriving and they were bringing a bunch of things for the kids too. They had a big night planned with them with activites and stuff. They were a group of highschoolers and they just came down for one night to do this. So while they setup and had thier little party, our group had to go out for dinner. When we got there it was two hours before our reservation though, so Sara has us do some shopping down the main street for awhile. There wasn't much that was too different from the first place we went the first day though so it was kinda just to kill time. One store we found was a lot different though and Allie really liked that place. I got some on video. We ended up wandering back to the restarunt about 45 minutes early but they let us in that time so that was good. The meal was pre-selected by sara for all of us before we even got there so we all had the same thing. It was good, but it would have been nice to try a variety of what they had. It was rice and beans (of course) with an enchalada, taco, and burrito. I wasn't able to quite finish mine though. I think I ate way too many chips and salsa before hand. The restarunte was the same place we had dessert the other night, so the band was there to sing again and everything. It was nice once again, but some of the team wanted to get back to the orphange and see the kids once more since we were leaving the next day. They didn't want to sit and just hang out, I didn't really blame them though. I thought it was good that we left when we did. We arrived just in time as the kids were heading to bed. Everybody ran to see the kid that clings to them most and was able to say goodbye to them. It was a sad, but fun sight to see. After the kids fell asleep, I pretty much went upstairs and tried to go to sleep too. That other group that was here though was sprawled out everywhere so we had to figure out a spot where our bags would lay flat. Plus lots of them were watching movies on laptops and stuff and being really loud while doing that, That made it difficult to sleep. Anyway, I set my alarm for 6am since we would be leaving at 7am and finally fell asleep.
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posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 8:52 AM
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