Cofradia de Suchitlan
I had to make these pictures really small so that I could upload them on my computer- the internet here isn't very fast or strong and the big pictures wouldn't transfer. I hope if they are too small that you can click on them and they'll be a little bigger.
If you look very carefully in the center, in the smoky sky there is the volcano with a little puff of white smoke coming out of it.
These are some of the stores along the plaza. The one with the video games seems to be the most popular.
Cecily walking toward the plaza. She likes to go up into that rotunda and say "Pretty! It's pretty!"
This is the house of the newcomers- Audrey Elliot and Grandma and Grandpa Parnell. There are two bedrooms and a bathroom. This view is from the door of the living room that you go out to enter the patio.
Mom and Dad's bedroom- that window goes out to the front of the house. Sometimes the kitties fight underneath it at night. Grrrr...
This is the main house bathroom.
This is the kitchen- you have to go in a different door to get in here.
This is the inside of the hacienda. Underneath this is where they have their big dinners, like the one they had for us yesterday. The whole kitchen is there and it's not at all covered. It's just open space! That's also where I'm sitting right now because it's where they have wireless internet. To my back as I'm standing taking that picture are the offices of Project Amigo- because this is actually a courtyard, it's not the street.
Grandma and Grandpa's and other visitors' bedroom.
The side front of the house where Cecily has her tea party stuff and where we can sit and eat. It still feels wierd to us....
The front entryway of the house- the best shot I can get because the road is very very tight in front. The lady who cleans our house, Rosi, jumped out of the picture just as I snapped it!
In this picture I'm standing in the front door and you can see the door that leads out to the patio and then the newcomers' house. It's a tiny living room. I think you're supposed to spend all your time outside..
This is one of the really pretty entrances to the offices of Project Amigo.
Cecily's bedroom or Cecily and Audrey's bedroom, whatever Audrey decides. This is in the main house and that window looks out on the front of the house.
Elliot's or Audrey and Elliot's bedroom, whatever Audrey decides. The cat comes with the room, I guess. That is the semi-shy cat. There are a not-shy, a semi-shy, and two super-shy cats.
Dear Audrey Elliot Grandma Grandpa Anna Caroline and Mary, (May 24)
We didn't sleep last night because we had mosquitos buzzing in our ears. Cecily woke up with bites all over her face- she looks like she did when she had the chicken pox. We told them this morning that we were surprized because we'd been told that there weren't mosquitos up here, but they told us that there aren't any "mosquitos" because that's what they call the kind of mosquitos that carry malaria, and there aren't any of those up here, but that, yes, there are "sanguiones" (I'm not sure if I remember that right). Those are regular mosquitos. And we didn't bring any mosquito cream- it's all in the van with you, I think. We bought some here and also bought a little fan that we're hoping will stir the air up enough so that Cecily can sleep because the mosquitos can't land. We had the big fan on for a while last night, after we heard the buzzing, but it actually got really cold with the fan on.
We had lunch with a lot of the people that work for Project Amigo. They are very smart and very kind. They also told us that there are a lot of different kinds of summer camps that you can go to here, just like there are in Logan. You can go to Soccer camp or science camp, or English camp. I don't know if you guys need English camp. All of those would take place in the bigger city, in Colima. The Hacienda where we met was more like what I expected our house to be like. It is really beautiful with lots of tile and lots of huge plants flowering. Lots of wood furniture, very pretty. I think the house we're staying in is more typical of what people here live in- I think it's actually even nicer- and I also think that Project Amigo has had it for less time and they haven't fixed it up the way they have a lot of the other houses. It's funny, because here the outsides of the houses are sometimes very plain and boring and they really kind of look like a factory door or something, and then you go inside and on the inside of the house, in the patio, is where all of the trees and flowers are.
We drove down to Colima today and found both of the LDS churches. We aren't sure which one we will go to. The one that is furthest away from us is the one that Bruce Powell went to, and it's actually easier to get to because you can follow more major roads. We got lost A LOT. There are tons and tons of one-way streets and we would just barely think we knew where we were going and we would come to a one-way street!! The neighborhood where that further church is is really pretty and reminds me a lot more of what I think of when I remember Spain and Cartagena. I really liked it and it made me feel more at home and comfortable than I feel here. I guess I need to get used to different kinds of places. We found a park with a lot of slides and we even went to Walmart! Don't tell anyone that we went to Walmart on our second day in Mexico- it just happened to be right next door to the cool park and the park itself didn't have parking. Those are our excuses. Those two things are right next to that furthest church.
It is very very smoky tonight. I think there are a couple of forest fires close. This is the very very dry season. The rainy season starts in a couple of weeks, and everything is very brown and dry and it is SOOOOOO dusty! Cecily is absolutely filthy at the end of the day, and there isn't a bath here- only showers- so we took one of the Tupperware things that holds blankets out from under the bed and made her a little bathtub. She's still chasing the kitties around trying to find them. She was very good on our trip to Colima, and her favorite part was when we found the cottage cheese! We couldn't find any peanut butter cups though. We bought Hershey Kisses and peanut butter and we'll have to make our own.
So, we've thought that maybe you guys should pack some more peanut butter cups, if you can get them through customs, some curry, some baking powder and baking soda (can't find any yet), and that's all I can think of right now.
We love you and miss you so much. We hope to have everything figured out for you before you get here. I'm going to try to post some pictures of our house on our blog- check it in the next little while and see if they're there yet.
If you look very carefully in the center, in the smoky sky there is the volcano with a little puff of white smoke coming out of it.
These are some of the stores along the plaza. The one with the video games seems to be the most popular.
Cecily walking toward the plaza. She likes to go up into that rotunda and say "Pretty! It's pretty!"
This is the house of the newcomers- Audrey Elliot and Grandma and Grandpa Parnell. There are two bedrooms and a bathroom. This view is from the door of the living room that you go out to enter the patio.
Mom and Dad's bedroom- that window goes out to the front of the house. Sometimes the kitties fight underneath it at night. Grrrr...
This is the main house bathroom.
This is the kitchen- you have to go in a different door to get in here.
This is the inside of the hacienda. Underneath this is where they have their big dinners, like the one they had for us yesterday. The whole kitchen is there and it's not at all covered. It's just open space! That's also where I'm sitting right now because it's where they have wireless internet. To my back as I'm standing taking that picture are the offices of Project Amigo- because this is actually a courtyard, it's not the street.
Grandma and Grandpa's and other visitors' bedroom.
The side front of the house where Cecily has her tea party stuff and where we can sit and eat. It still feels wierd to us....
This is one of the really pretty entrances to the offices of Project Amigo.
Cecily's bedroom or Cecily and Audrey's bedroom, whatever Audrey decides. This is in the main house and that window looks out on the front of the house.
This is the bathroom in the latecomers' house.
Hi kids! (May 23)
We're here. We tried to take some pictures of you but the batteries we had in the camera aren't charged. We'll take pictures tomorrow- right now there's too much smoke and humidity in the air anyway, and you can't see the volcanoes.
Our trip down was good, but the first flight was a little too bumpy for Cecily. She kept calling it a bumpy slide. The man who picked us up from the airport is named Diego. He has two kids- a 12 year old boy and a 7 month old daughter. His wife teaches 4th grade at the school here in town. The kids here will be in school for another month. He thinks that you guys should go to school with the kids for the next month- Elliot can choose 3rd or 4th grade and Audrey can do 6th grade again (because they don't have 7th and 8th grade in this town). You guys think about it.
It took us about two hours to get from the airport to our house because Diego kept taking us to different places to show us. He took us to a really good bread store and he drove us around Colima, Comala, and Cofradia when we got here so we could see what they were like. Colima is kind of like a Mexican Logan, about the same size, with lots of people walking on the sidewalks, though, unlike in Logan. Comala is kind of like Spring City- it's really pretty and lots of tourists like to go there and walk through its pretty streets. That's where the good bread store is. And Cofradia de Suchitlan doesn't remind me of any town where we live. It's about as big as Spring City, but not as well kept-up,and the people live closer together, so it is smaller. All of the roads are made of cobblestones, so we were laughing that we're bringing a stroller- we'll have to use it when we go to other cities. Everything here is just a little more run down than where we live. There is more garbage lying around, and it looks like when houses fall apart or when they burn, people aren't very quick to repair them. But the houses are painted these bright colors that you can't believe. And on the drive we saw mango trees and banana trees and coconut trees. And we have a grapefruit tree in our backyard.
Our house is much smaller than our house in Logan. There's a gate you have to use to get into the front yard, and then on the porch there are two doors- one on the right goes to the kitchen, which is not connected to anything else in the house. The one on the left goes into a small living room and there are two bedrooms and a bathroom. then, in that living room, there is a door that goes out into the backyard and another building with two more bedrooms and a bathroom across from that. And there is a little shed in the backyard that has two big sinks- one with a scrub board, where our clothes get washed! It isn't quite the rainy season here, so everything is kind of dry and dusty. There are chickens wandering around in the streets and you can hear them crowing all the time. Only one of the cats will come near us, and Cecily has been bossing her around all day. She took a swipe at Cecily once, and it scared her almost to pieces.
We miss you and can't wait until you join us. If you think of any questions that I haven't answered for you, let me know. I'll take pictures and send them as soon as the batteries charge.
Mom
We're here. We tried to take some pictures of you but the batteries we had in the camera aren't charged. We'll take pictures tomorrow- right now there's too much smoke and humidity in the air anyway, and you can't see the volcanoes.
Our trip down was good, but the first flight was a little too bumpy for Cecily. She kept calling it a bumpy slide. The man who picked us up from the airport is named Diego. He has two kids- a 12 year old boy and a 7 month old daughter. His wife teaches 4th grade at the school here in town. The kids here will be in school for another month. He thinks that you guys should go to school with the kids for the next month- Elliot can choose 3rd or 4th grade and Audrey can do 6th grade again (because they don't have 7th and 8th grade in this town). You guys think about it.
It took us about two hours to get from the airport to our house because Diego kept taking us to different places to show us. He took us to a really good bread store and he drove us around Colima, Comala, and Cofradia when we got here so we could see what they were like. Colima is kind of like a Mexican Logan, about the same size, with lots of people walking on the sidewalks, though, unlike in Logan. Comala is kind of like Spring City- it's really pretty and lots of tourists like to go there and walk through its pretty streets. That's where the good bread store is. And Cofradia de Suchitlan doesn't remind me of any town where we live. It's about as big as Spring City, but not as well kept-up,and the people live closer together, so it is smaller. All of the roads are made of cobblestones, so we were laughing that we're bringing a stroller- we'll have to use it when we go to other cities. Everything here is just a little more run down than where we live. There is more garbage lying around, and it looks like when houses fall apart or when they burn, people aren't very quick to repair them. But the houses are painted these bright colors that you can't believe. And on the drive we saw mango trees and banana trees and coconut trees. And we have a grapefruit tree in our backyard.
Our house is much smaller than our house in Logan. There's a gate you have to use to get into the front yard, and then on the porch there are two doors- one on the right goes to the kitchen, which is not connected to anything else in the house. The one on the left goes into a small living room and there are two bedrooms and a bathroom. then, in that living room, there is a door that goes out into the backyard and another building with two more bedrooms and a bathroom across from that. And there is a little shed in the backyard that has two big sinks- one with a scrub board, where our clothes get washed! It isn't quite the rainy season here, so everything is kind of dry and dusty. There are chickens wandering around in the streets and you can hear them crowing all the time. Only one of the cats will come near us, and Cecily has been bossing her around all day. She took a swipe at Cecily once, and it scared her almost to pieces.
We miss you and can't wait until you join us. If you think of any questions that I haven't answered for you, let me know. I'll take pictures and send them as soon as the batteries charge.
Mom
Dear Audrey Elliot Grandma Grandpa Anna Caroline and Mary, (May 24)
We didn't sleep last night because we had mosquitos buzzing in our ears. Cecily woke up with bites all over her face- she looks like she did when she had the chicken pox. We told them this morning that we were surprized because we'd been told that there weren't mosquitos up here, but they told us that there aren't any "mosquitos" because that's what they call the kind of mosquitos that carry malaria, and there aren't any of those up here, but that, yes, there are "sanguiones" (I'm not sure if I remember that right). Those are regular mosquitos. And we didn't bring any mosquito cream- it's all in the van with you, I think. We bought some here and also bought a little fan that we're hoping will stir the air up enough so that Cecily can sleep because the mosquitos can't land. We had the big fan on for a while last night, after we heard the buzzing, but it actually got really cold with the fan on.
We had lunch with a lot of the people that work for Project Amigo. They are very smart and very kind. They also told us that there are a lot of different kinds of summer camps that you can go to here, just like there are in Logan. You can go to Soccer camp or science camp, or English camp. I don't know if you guys need English camp. All of those would take place in the bigger city, in Colima. The Hacienda where we met was more like what I expected our house to be like. It is really beautiful with lots of tile and lots of huge plants flowering. Lots of wood furniture, very pretty. I think the house we're staying in is more typical of what people here live in- I think it's actually even nicer- and I also think that Project Amigo has had it for less time and they haven't fixed it up the way they have a lot of the other houses. It's funny, because here the outsides of the houses are sometimes very plain and boring and they really kind of look like a factory door or something, and then you go inside and on the inside of the house, in the patio, is where all of the trees and flowers are.
We drove down to Colima today and found both of the LDS churches. We aren't sure which one we will go to. The one that is furthest away from us is the one that Bruce Powell went to, and it's actually easier to get to because you can follow more major roads. We got lost A LOT. There are tons and tons of one-way streets and we would just barely think we knew where we were going and we would come to a one-way street!! The neighborhood where that further church is is really pretty and reminds me a lot more of what I think of when I remember Spain and Cartagena. I really liked it and it made me feel more at home and comfortable than I feel here. I guess I need to get used to different kinds of places. We found a park with a lot of slides and we even went to Walmart! Don't tell anyone that we went to Walmart on our second day in Mexico- it just happened to be right next door to the cool park and the park itself didn't have parking. Those are our excuses. Those two things are right next to that furthest church.
It is very very smoky tonight. I think there are a couple of forest fires close. This is the very very dry season. The rainy season starts in a couple of weeks, and everything is very brown and dry and it is SOOOOOO dusty! Cecily is absolutely filthy at the end of the day, and there isn't a bath here- only showers- so we took one of the Tupperware things that holds blankets out from under the bed and made her a little bathtub. She's still chasing the kitties around trying to find them. She was very good on our trip to Colima, and her favorite part was when we found the cottage cheese! We couldn't find any peanut butter cups though. We bought Hershey Kisses and peanut butter and we'll have to make our own.
So, we've thought that maybe you guys should pack some more peanut butter cups, if you can get them through customs, some curry, some baking powder and baking soda (can't find any yet), and that's all I can think of right now.
We love you and miss you so much. We hope to have everything figured out for you before you get here. I'm going to try to post some pictures of our house on our blog- check it in the next little while and see if they're there yet.
Dear Audrey Elliot Grandma Grandpa Mary Caroline Anna chickens and cows and soon Nate!!!
We were woken up this morning at about five a.m. by rockets being shot into the air. There were about 30 of them every two seconds. The village is celebrating the Virgin de Guadalupe. The celebration is going to be three days long, so it’s just a little celebration, they tell us. I was actually already in bed with Cecily because she had fallen off her bed. We piled pillows all around her, but she still rolled over them and fell right off.
We had a hummingbird fly into the kitchen this morning when Cecily and I were eating. She thought it was a big bug. When we got here, there was a little lizard sitting on our couch. I guess they had sent him to welcome us. Cecily is having a hard time eating. The bread that you can make toast out of doesn’t taste right and neither does the cottage cheese. Even the Cheetos are really spicy. Thank goodness for juice and bananas and Cheerios.
We went out to Queseria with Jorge this morning. It is a migrant worker village for people who work in the sugar cane fields. Project Amigo has built a school there for Kindergarten through 3rd grade, and then if the kids prove to be good students, they can come into a bigger town for school. They are poor poor poor. They usually only have one or two changes of clothes. These are some of the kids that you are bringing down toys and clothes for. Their parents are Nahuatl Indians, and the teacher can’t even talk to some of their parents because they don’t speak Spanish very well, so she’s trying to learn Nahuatl. Jorge goes up there every Friday and he said we could come up with him. The kids were sad when we left. They’re kids who need lots of hugs and lots of love.
Jorge also said that they’re having trouble with the orphanage up here. A new group of Catholic monks- a new order- have taken over running the orphanage and they don’t want Project Amigo to come and help anymore. They’re really trying to smooth things over with that group, but we might not be able to see those kids. We will get to see the orphanage that only has girls in it (sorry Elliot!).
You guys be sooooo good for Grandma and Grandpa. Dad- would you like us to meet you in Colima and direct you to the town? Let us know what we can do to help you. Love you and Miss you!
Mom Dad and Ceci
We were woken up this morning at about five a.m. by rockets being shot into the air. There were about 30 of them every two seconds. The village is celebrating the Virgin de Guadalupe. The celebration is going to be three days long, so it’s just a little celebration, they tell us. I was actually already in bed with Cecily because she had fallen off her bed. We piled pillows all around her, but she still rolled over them and fell right off.
We had a hummingbird fly into the kitchen this morning when Cecily and I were eating. She thought it was a big bug. When we got here, there was a little lizard sitting on our couch. I guess they had sent him to welcome us. Cecily is having a hard time eating. The bread that you can make toast out of doesn’t taste right and neither does the cottage cheese. Even the Cheetos are really spicy. Thank goodness for juice and bananas and Cheerios.
We went out to Queseria with Jorge this morning. It is a migrant worker village for people who work in the sugar cane fields. Project Amigo has built a school there for Kindergarten through 3rd grade, and then if the kids prove to be good students, they can come into a bigger town for school. They are poor poor poor. They usually only have one or two changes of clothes. These are some of the kids that you are bringing down toys and clothes for. Their parents are Nahuatl Indians, and the teacher can’t even talk to some of their parents because they don’t speak Spanish very well, so she’s trying to learn Nahuatl. Jorge goes up there every Friday and he said we could come up with him. The kids were sad when we left. They’re kids who need lots of hugs and lots of love.
Jorge also said that they’re having trouble with the orphanage up here. A new group of Catholic monks- a new order- have taken over running the orphanage and they don’t want Project Amigo to come and help anymore. They’re really trying to smooth things over with that group, but we might not be able to see those kids. We will get to see the orphanage that only has girls in it (sorry Elliot!).
You guys be sooooo good for Grandma and Grandpa. Dad- would you like us to meet you in Colima and direct you to the town? Let us know what we can do to help you. Love you and Miss you!
Mom Dad and Ceci
posted by Parnell Willmores at 11:55 AM
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