me anima que tengo ojos

Today I'm going to write a blog amidst pictures. Exhibit one: Fútbol. Me gusta jugar fútbol, pero no lo puedo hacer bien. Es mas facil simplemente mirar, y me encanta los jugadores latinoamericanos, porque pueden jugar muy bien. Es un partido bonito que ver.
Basically I just said that your hair looks nice. Or maybe that I like futbol, otherwise known by estadounidenses (Americans) as soccer. Why we decided to give it a name by which it is not known by....anyone else in the world? I do not know, but we seem to like to do things like that. Kind of like the military, which does complicated things like call hats covers.
There's not much grass in Reynosa. There's not much green, actually. There's a ton of polvo (dust), though. In fact, if you ever wanted any dust at all, it's the perfect place to go. Naranjito is even worse, 'cause it's a little more rural, so the dust gets blown around even more whenever there's wind. The above picture was taken from the van.

Exhibit two: cleanliness. I have another picture where there were a couple of people standing in a pile of garbage. I'm not sure what they were doing, and I didn't see that again, so I don't know if trash scavenging is a common thing. In my observation, Mexicans just kind of throw trash out the window, no worries. There's garbage everywhere. It's so so foreign to my understanding of beauty, or how to take pride in one's land.

This is my cool friend Alyssa (pronounced a-lease-uh, not liss). I think that's Francisca's dog. Exhibit #3 = perritos, a common theme from both years.

I'm not sure what this kid's name is, but I thought it was a cool picture. Exhibit #4 = bicycles. There were several boys, as well as some older youth, that rode around a lot. I think some of them think that they're cool. They weren't.

Exhibit 5 : The young life guys. Brad at top, and Kyle at bottom. I'm actually not sure if Kyle does younglife. Brad actually I had seen around the group of younglife kids that are friends with my roommate form last semester, jen. These kids like to climb a lot, and I've seen them around climbing in Raleigh. Continuation of normal habits.

Exhibit #6: el problema. Graffiti is a pretty huge problem. When we had a cookout for the community on Thursday night, one of the things we had gotten for the kids was chalk. Pastor Alfredo asked us to make sure the kids didn't use the chalk to draw on the paredes (walls), because they try to avoid instilling in them the value of vandalism. It was sobering to realize that something as simple as chalking can perpetuate a bad mindset. Later, while I was drawing with some of the girls, some young teenage boys came over and asked for chalk. As they headed straight for the nearest wall, I stopped them-"Oye, el pastor dijo que no debemos dibujar en las paredes." They immediately lost all interest in the chalk! Any doubt in my mind from the pastor's warning was erased.

Exhibit 7: La Iglesia. The church had been painted, and got its beautiful black railing since last year. When we first pulled up I think I gasped in shock at how beautiful it looked.

Exhibit 8 : para alabarTe. I love church in mexico. Or even with Mexicans in Waxhaw. It's so different from the fluid, harmonious stuff I'm used to. Everybody participates. The lady on the right is Pastor Alfredo's daughter in law, whose name I forgot. His son's name is also Alfredo, and their three little girls are muy bonitas. The lady on the left is Francisca (sp?), and providence built her house three years ago (the year before I first went). She is one of the individuals from the community that we really work to continue a relatoinship with every year. Wonderful, godly woman, with a wonderful family.

Exhibit # 9 : mi corazon. This is Pati. She is one of the most beautiful little girls I have ever known. Sunday, when she wasn't in my lap, she was up with a tambourine and several other girls keeping rhythm. Later, when a group of us went to the school to tell people about the cookout, we arrived during recess, and she found me and started talking torrents and torrents, which hadn't happened on Sunday. Then we played some games with all of the kids. All of the girls joined hands and walked around in a ring around the rosy style circle, and the little girls had some little chant, and at some point we all sat down. I didn't know what they were saying. The circle got bigger and bigger, and was a terrible, compacted circle, and all of the boys kept running in and out under our arms. Some of us gringas took the initiative to get everyone to back up and make a huge circle. Pati is mi bonita, and I should have put her in my carry on.

Exhibit #10 la bonita, otra vez
Exhibit 11 is blurry. dang.

Exhibit 12 : sonreindo. Look at that smile. Exhibit # 13 : apparently I missed the notice that we were having a serious, smiley picure. Christina went last year, and Johanna is in my small group. Both of these girls are very dear to me, definitely some of my closest in Raleigh.

Exhibit 14 : Our Fearless Leader, Josh.

Exhibit # 15 : housing. This is a nicer looking example of a house.

What Exhibit are we on? Christy and I might be regretting those big WHATaBURger!!!s. I got a double cow burger. And ate the whole thing. Not sure what she got. This theme of barf-faced-ness would be continued at the end of the week, when I spent six hours of my Friday evening and into the morning barfing up large amounts of nothing and small amounts of water and that pink medicine stuff. A few others got sick, too. We weren't sure what it was from, because there wasn't really a common factor of food. However, A. I've now gotten sick from Mexico, which seems to be a necessary experience in life, and B. We were back in Texas, so at least there were first world hotel comforts. Also, C. Amanda and Christina were troopers and took care of me. And D. Mrs. Nash gave me mommy advice the next morning when I called and mine wasn't around.

Exhibit 213843870 : Andres. Andrew went last year. He's a cool guy. Even though he tried to steal my camera. This is still in the Whataburger, before we went into Mexico, beginning of the trip.

Exhibit # C = comiendo. C is for cookie, or for comer, which are both nice things. This is inside the church. The inside is painted blue and white, which are the colours picked by Faith Ministries for all of its buildings. Quite nice.