June 12
This is the nicest and prettiest view that we've had so far of our two volcanoes. The one on the right is closer and is active. The one to the left is further, is inactive, and is bigger.
This just cracked me up- it's a sign on the way to Comala advertising land for sale, but if you look closely, it's the hood of an old car that someone's written on and then tied to the tree.
This is a group of kids dancing a traditional dance at the ceremony where the governor of the state of Colima came to see us. Not us us, just the town.....
Sugar cane trucks come down our road and turn this really tight corner. A couple of times a day, one gets stuck. I tried to give you an idea of just how little space there is for them to maneuver, but you still just can't really tell how tight it is...
This is the sugar cane ash that falls on us occasionally. They're about 1/4 inch wide and two to three inches long. The first time one fell on Cecily, she screamed in terror because she thought it was a bug.
Adorable little boy reading a book to his sister in the Queseria migrant labor camp where we gave out clothes.
One of the little Nahuatl girls in Queseria.
More of the little girls in Queseria. They are Nahuatl and come from the state of Guerrero to work the sugar cane fields during the season. Very very poor.
One of the mothers taking the clothes she chose for her kids. Does anyone recognize anything? I took a picture of one girl who was already wearing one of Audrey's old shirts, but it's on my mom's camera.
Mothers lined up to choose clothes.
Me and Lety doing a presentation of books to a class in Villa de Alvarez.
Cute little boy in Queseria waiting for someone to read a book to him!
Audrey and Elliot on their way to school. Grandpa took them in the old van one day and almost didn't make it out of this ravine!
Where's Elliot- can anybody spot the gringo?
The clothing that we brought up to Queseria, all laid out and ready for the mothers to come and choose.
Ceci and her friend Bianca.
Elliot was reading stories to Cecily one night and the two of them were just giggling away. I tried to catch them mid-giggle.
Audrey standing with her classmates at the ceremony for the governor.
Some of Audrey's friends. Briseida, Bismarck, Daniel, and Audrey.
Dear Family and Friends,
We survived our first week without Dad here. Just barely. We really miss him and were all really excited to get a phone call from him the past weekend. One of Cecily’s favorite pastimes is to watch the slide show on our computer and find pictures of Daddy.
On Tuesday, Audrey and Elliot started school- or Adri and Elian, as they are known here. Diego, who works with Project Amigo, talked to his wife Nelly, who is a teacher in 4th grade and she arranged for the kids to go to the last month of school here. Elliot is in Nelly’s class, which is actually 4th grade, and Audrey is in Chuya’s 6th grade class, because 7th grade would have been in another school and in another city. So Audrey’s repeating 6th and Elliot’s skipped 4th. The teachers are assigning them little things to do, like looking up lists of words, but mostly are just letting them sit and listen. The first day was really hard. The kids all lined up for their flag ceremony and the directora introduced Audrey and Elliot and had them go get into their lines and they were just the two most lost-looking forlorn little puppies in the world- two little blondish heads in a sea of dark ones, looking around confused as the kids recited things and sang songs. Cecily and I left them there, but went to check on them a couple of hours later. They both seemed to be fine. The next two days were filled with tears, but finally, on Friday, they walked to school on their own- if not happy about it, at least resigned. Diego and Nelly’s son Bismarck is in Audrey’s class and he’s been taking special English classes, so he knows enough to at least help her. Elliot found a friend who just got back from spending five years in Oregon, so our struggle there is to get the two of them to speak Spanish instead of English. But at least Elliot will go to school now. The street outside our house is always filled with kids asking if the two of them can play. Sometimes they’ll look out and tell us that they don’t even recognize the kids that want to play with them. And sometimes they want to play with Cecily. We went to the plaza today because the schoolkids performed for the governor who had come for a visit, and Cecily was a nervous wreck by the end of it because everyone wanted to hold her and touch her and hear her say something. We think it’s kind of funny, because we don’t think she looks that different from them. But we think our kids are going to survive now, and we might now even need group therapy in a few years because of it.
I started going out to schools this week to deliver the mini-libraries I came to help with. We donate about 100 books to each school’s library and we also give out books to about 20-40 kids at each school. We’re having the teachers fill out questionnaires and they all say that there just isn’t much support for reading here. Most of the kids we’re visiting have never owned a book in their lives. Which is a shame because they have some of the most adorable books down here. . I’m afraid I’m probably going to be bringing home my own mini-library in August. Teachers haven’t really been trained on how to use these books in their classes- only textbooks- and so that’s also one of the things that we’re doing, showing how to use these books to support other kinds of learning. It’s been interesting to see the difference in the schools depending on the kinds of neighborhoods where they are situated, and to see the responses of the teachers. Lety, who is my partner, is also telling me a lot about the “school culture” and the workings of the bureaucracy having to do with schools. It’s all been really interesting and really fun.
It has rained a few times this week, and once really hard today. Everything cleared up so that we had the prettiest view we’ve ever had of the volcanoes.
On Thursday we went up to Queseria to the migrant worker camp to deliver the clothes that all of you sent down with me. I took lots of pictures of the adorable kids. Most of them are Nahuatl Indian. The teacher at the school up there, Tita, is really amazing- part elementary school teacher, part social worker. Each mother there was able to take two articles of clothing for each child that they had. But Tita made them do work so that they could earn the clothes. They had to spend a certain number of hours helping to clean up around the school. When we got there, there were mothers scrambling to get in their hours so that they could line up in time. Then Tita gave them numbers according to how much work they had done, so that those who had helped the most got to have first pick. And I noticed that she really knew who needed and deserved more help, and would let some mothers have an extra article of clothing, and others not. Thanks so much for all of the clothes that all of you sent. I wish you could’ve seen those cute kids for yourself. And now living here for a while, I don’t know how they survive with only two changes of clothes because it’s so dusty that everything gets filthy after one day. I’m having to wash our things a lot more than usual.
We were feeling really lucky this week to have been so well taken care of by the people here at Project Amigo. On Monday we found out that we had no gas. Diego came over and found that the pipe that links the gas tank to the main pipe had corroded, and he fixed it. Then on Tuesday morning we woke up and had no water. Apparently there was corrosion in the pipes and also the hose (not the pipe, the hose) that went from the street to the house was leaking somewhere, so they got someone up here to fix that. He ended up putting in a nicer hose that gives us somewhat better water pressure. Then, on Wednesday, our tank on top of our house started raining on us because it wouldn’t shut off. The plumber, Don Jose, came back and said that the floatation device was full of mud (?!) I jokingly asked my mom what was going to go wrong on Thursday, but she told me to go away because I was giving her a headache. This really is a wonderful organization and I’ve been so impressed with everyone who works for it. And it’s neat the way Ted just lets everyone have the freedom to see needs and come up with ways of meeting them. I’ve really enjoyed working with all of them.
Mommy is going to fly home on Thursday. She needs to have someone look at her hip because it’s not getting better. We’re going to be sad, but we know all of the other cousins will be glad. At least Grandpa will be here for another couple of weeks so that Cecily can march up to his room and plop on his pillow. Cecily’s getting progressively less clingy. We tried to go to church in Colima on Sunday, but she got sick about 15 minutes after we got there. She lost her lunch one more time on the way home, and after a few doses of Pepto Bismol, seems to be okay. She’s just cute and fun wherever she is. We were walking home from the park today and a little 3 ½ year old boy said to her “Adios, Chula!” (See you, cutie!). It was really cute. And she was singing Old MacDonald in the car and she said that on the farm there was a mommy, and the mommy said “Drive, Drive, Drive”. Because that’s what mommys say- or do.
The bread here’s amazing, the tortillas are too, the fruit is so good, and so fresh that you can taste different things in it than you can in the bananas and mangos where we are. The juices are really good and the dairy products actually taste like you know dairy should taste. The Cheetos are too spicy, the cookies aren’t gooey enough for our taste, and we haven’t been able to find any salsa that we would consider “mild”.
So, Audrey’s surviving all of the boys teasing her, Elliot’s picking up some soccer moves, and Cecily is surviving without any cottage cheese.
We’re sending home sweetened condensed goat’s milk candies and mango suckers dipped in chili powder with Mommy. Put in your requests if that’s not what you want from Mexico.
Jenny, Adri, Elian, and
We survived our first week without Dad here. Just barely. We really miss him and were all really excited to get a phone call from him the past weekend. One of Cecily’s favorite pastimes is to watch the slide show on our computer and find pictures of Daddy.
On Tuesday, Audrey and Elliot started school- or Adri and Elian, as they are known here. Diego, who works with Project Amigo, talked to his wife Nelly, who is a teacher in 4th grade and she arranged for the kids to go to the last month of school here. Elliot is in Nelly’s class, which is actually 4th grade, and Audrey is in Chuya’s 6th grade class, because 7th grade would have been in another school and in another city. So Audrey’s repeating 6th and Elliot’s skipped 4th. The teachers are assigning them little things to do, like looking up lists of words, but mostly are just letting them sit and listen. The first day was really hard. The kids all lined up for their flag ceremony and the directora introduced Audrey and Elliot and had them go get into their lines and they were just the two most lost-looking forlorn little puppies in the world- two little blondish heads in a sea of dark ones, looking around confused as the kids recited things and sang songs. Cecily and I left them there, but went to check on them a couple of hours later. They both seemed to be fine. The next two days were filled with tears, but finally, on Friday, they walked to school on their own- if not happy about it, at least resigned. Diego and Nelly’s son Bismarck is in Audrey’s class and he’s been taking special English classes, so he knows enough to at least help her. Elliot found a friend who just got back from spending five years in Oregon, so our struggle there is to get the two of them to speak Spanish instead of English. But at least Elliot will go to school now. The street outside our house is always filled with kids asking if the two of them can play. Sometimes they’ll look out and tell us that they don’t even recognize the kids that want to play with them. And sometimes they want to play with Cecily. We went to the plaza today because the schoolkids performed for the governor who had come for a visit, and Cecily was a nervous wreck by the end of it because everyone wanted to hold her and touch her and hear her say something. We think it’s kind of funny, because we don’t think she looks that different from them. But we think our kids are going to survive now, and we might now even need group therapy in a few years because of it.
I started going out to schools this week to deliver the mini-libraries I came to help with. We donate about 100 books to each school’s library and we also give out books to about 20-40 kids at each school. We’re having the teachers fill out questionnaires and they all say that there just isn’t much support for reading here. Most of the kids we’re visiting have never owned a book in their lives. Which is a shame because they have some of the most adorable books down here. . I’m afraid I’m probably going to be bringing home my own mini-library in August. Teachers haven’t really been trained on how to use these books in their classes- only textbooks- and so that’s also one of the things that we’re doing, showing how to use these books to support other kinds of learning. It’s been interesting to see the difference in the schools depending on the kinds of neighborhoods where they are situated, and to see the responses of the teachers. Lety, who is my partner, is also telling me a lot about the “school culture” and the workings of the bureaucracy having to do with schools. It’s all been really interesting and really fun.
It has rained a few times this week, and once really hard today. Everything cleared up so that we had the prettiest view we’ve ever had of the volcanoes.
On Thursday we went up to Queseria to the migrant worker camp to deliver the clothes that all of you sent down with me. I took lots of pictures of the adorable kids. Most of them are Nahuatl Indian. The teacher at the school up there, Tita, is really amazing- part elementary school teacher, part social worker. Each mother there was able to take two articles of clothing for each child that they had. But Tita made them do work so that they could earn the clothes. They had to spend a certain number of hours helping to clean up around the school. When we got there, there were mothers scrambling to get in their hours so that they could line up in time. Then Tita gave them numbers according to how much work they had done, so that those who had helped the most got to have first pick. And I noticed that she really knew who needed and deserved more help, and would let some mothers have an extra article of clothing, and others not. Thanks so much for all of the clothes that all of you sent. I wish you could’ve seen those cute kids for yourself. And now living here for a while, I don’t know how they survive with only two changes of clothes because it’s so dusty that everything gets filthy after one day. I’m having to wash our things a lot more than usual.
We were feeling really lucky this week to have been so well taken care of by the people here at Project Amigo. On Monday we found out that we had no gas. Diego came over and found that the pipe that links the gas tank to the main pipe had corroded, and he fixed it. Then on Tuesday morning we woke up and had no water. Apparently there was corrosion in the pipes and also the hose (not the pipe, the hose) that went from the street to the house was leaking somewhere, so they got someone up here to fix that. He ended up putting in a nicer hose that gives us somewhat better water pressure. Then, on Wednesday, our tank on top of our house started raining on us because it wouldn’t shut off. The plumber, Don Jose, came back and said that the floatation device was full of mud (?!) I jokingly asked my mom what was going to go wrong on Thursday, but she told me to go away because I was giving her a headache. This really is a wonderful organization and I’ve been so impressed with everyone who works for it. And it’s neat the way Ted just lets everyone have the freedom to see needs and come up with ways of meeting them. I’ve really enjoyed working with all of them.
Mommy is going to fly home on Thursday. She needs to have someone look at her hip because it’s not getting better. We’re going to be sad, but we know all of the other cousins will be glad. At least Grandpa will be here for another couple of weeks so that Cecily can march up to his room and plop on his pillow. Cecily’s getting progressively less clingy. We tried to go to church in Colima on Sunday, but she got sick about 15 minutes after we got there. She lost her lunch one more time on the way home, and after a few doses of Pepto Bismol, seems to be okay. She’s just cute and fun wherever she is. We were walking home from the park today and a little 3 ½ year old boy said to her “Adios, Chula!” (See you, cutie!). It was really cute. And she was singing Old MacDonald in the car and she said that on the farm there was a mommy, and the mommy said “Drive, Drive, Drive”. Because that’s what mommys say- or do.
The bread here’s amazing, the tortillas are too, the fruit is so good, and so fresh that you can taste different things in it than you can in the bananas and mangos where we are. The juices are really good and the dairy products actually taste like you know dairy should taste. The Cheetos are too spicy, the cookies aren’t gooey enough for our taste, and we haven’t been able to find any salsa that we would consider “mild”.
So, Audrey’s surviving all of the boys teasing her, Elliot’s picking up some soccer moves, and Cecily is surviving without any cottage cheese.
We’re sending home sweetened condensed goat’s milk candies and mango suckers dipped in chili powder with Mommy. Put in your requests if that’s not what you want from Mexico.
Jenny, Adri, Elian, and
posted by Parnell Willmores at 10:29 AM
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