Favorite things so far: pozole (this amazing soup made with chicken and hominy), the weather, my fellow volunteers, the beautiful greenery and flowers, the cats at the retreat center for whom I’m thinking up a plan to smuggle them home (sorry, Ehsan)Least favorite things: dodging traffic, the tarantula-sized spider I found in my bathroom at 6 a.m., the neighbor’s dog that starts to bark endlessly in the middle of the night (grrr…)
¡Hola todos! It’s my second full week in Mexico, and already so much has happened. We arrived on the 26th, after a weeklong orientation in Chicago that involved a lot of listening to speakers, small group meetings, and lots of discussions about our upcoming adventures, with a little Chicago sightseeing thrown in as well. It’s very odd to think that just two weeks ago I was sitting on the top story of the Hancock Tower in downtown Chicago, and now I’m here in Cuernavaca. It was kind of emotionally exhausting to talk about our feelings, hopes, and apprehensions so much, but it was good to get into the mind frame of this trip and spend time with fellow YAGMs (that’s Young Adults in Global Mission). Then, after a relatively short flight (compared to, say, the YAGMs going to Malaysia or South Africa) and two hour bus ride from Mexico City to Cuernavaca, we settled in for another ten day orientation. This one was much better, however, in that it involved much more going out and doing stuff than just sitting and passively listening.
Andrea, our country coordinator who’s in charge of us here during our stay, packed a lot into just over a week. We visited almost everyone’s worksite, which was really cool to see. For those of you that don’t know, I’ll be working at a community center and kinder in La Estación, one of the most marginalized neighborhoods in Cuernavaca that’s smack dab in the middle of the city, and at an after school program called Casa Tatic, that mainly serves the children of indigenous street vendors. The other YAGM worksites include another school program; a human rights foundation; an arts and crafts project for the elderly; an organization that builds wheelchairs for the handicapped; and an organization that works in Tlamacazapa, Guerrero, a very marginalized village about two hours outside of Cuernavaca. Quite a variety! I’m looking forward to hearing stories from everyone’s different placement.
Our orientation also involved a lot of group bonding at our oasis-like retreat center, the Cuernavaca Center for Intercultural Dialogue Development (or CCIDD; picture on left), and I’m happy to say that we have a very good group and we all (so far!) get along well. There are five of us total, including myself. Katie and Sarah will be working in Tlamacazapa for the year, although they’ll be in Cuernavaca three days out of every week. Katie jokes that they’ll be buff babes by the time the year is over; apparently, Tlama is basically perched on the side of a mountain, so there will be some steep climbing going on for those two. They’re both super fun girls; Katie was especially fun to tease about her fear of cats, though she claims that they just make her nervous (she also claims that one of the cats at the retreat center we stayed at for orientation bit her, when it actually just rubbed itself against her foot). But she has no trouble with cockroaches; she chased on out of Sara’s stuff and killed it with her Choco. No problem with disgusting bugs; terrified of kitty-cats. I’m really eager to hear some of their stories as their work progresses. Peter, basically the smartest kid to ever come out of South Dakota (he was on Teen Jeopardy and went to Princeton!) will be working at the human rights organization and the program that makes wheelchairs. It’s amazing to listen to Peter talk; he uses GRE words like nobody’s business (I like it when he talks in Spanish, because his vocab is more limited and I feel better about myself). Sara will be working with the elderly and the other school program. She’s also super fun, and can talk a blue streak. It’s hilarious to get her started on teasing Peter; that kind of became the theme of our orientation (good thing he has a sense of humor). We all told our life stories to each other, representing different stages with little sculptures made out of clay. It was really interesting to hear where everyone is coming from. We also spent a lot of time just hanging out, playing in the retreat center pool, playing cards, and getting to know each other.
Other than that, Cuernavaca is a nice city, though the extreme socioeconomic highs and lows of Mexico are both very evident; you can drive by beautiful, gated houses and glass-walled Starbucks and soon pass a neighborhood of ramshackle houses made with sheets of tin and cement blocks. The weather, however, is magnificent. Warm and sunny without being super hot or humid, though we’re in the rainy season, so it rains almost every night. I’m excited to explore the city more; we did a little walking tour of the city center and the market during orientation. The market itself is a giant maze of stalls, selling 
everything from DVD’s to shoes to handicrafts to poultry (the meat market itself was quite an experience, and I saw more than one pig’s head on a hook). We also visited Tepotzlan, a smaller community outside of Cuernavaca that has a market on Sundays and an Aztec pyramid perched on one of the cliffs overhead, which we hiked to. It was a great day trip; here are a couple pictures of the amazing views, and of the four YAGM girls enjoying them.Now the real deal is starting; orientation is over, I’m at my host family’s house, and I just finished my first day of work. I was apprehensive to leave my fellow volunteers, especially after we bonded so well, but my host family is very nice. It’s an older couple, Angeles and Fernando, and they live in a house that is literally perched on the side of a barranca, one of the many ravines that run through Cuernavaca. Their three children live not more than a five minute walk away (one lives next door), and they have several grandchildren and a great grandson. I’ve already bonded with their five year old granddaughter named, ironically enough, America. She’s a huge talker too, and a little ball of energy who loves to drink coffee. They’re making me feel like I’m just another member of the family. Angeles already had me marching with her in a religious procession through the streets of Cuernavaca with one of the schools she works with; Angeles and Fernando are both very involved with Base Christian Community organizations, which work a lot with political and social justice causes for the poor and marginalized here in Mexico. It’s fascinating to listen to the kinds of work that they do – every Saturday they go to the jail here and give food and mass to the prisoners. They’ve offered to take me along with them; that will certainly be an experience.
There’s so much more to tell, especially since I haven’t even mentioned how work went, but it will have to wait; this entry is too long as it is, and (if you’re still reading, or at least skimming it) I apologize. ¡Hasta pronto!
A great read, four stars!
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