the beautiful moments

So, instead of writing about the difficulties I sometimes face on my route, I think I'll write about the beautiful moments I had last week on route.

Now, when I first arrived in Mexico and went on survey, I thought that the land was kind of barren, sort of like a desert== with brown everywhere. In the weeks since it has totally transformed itself and is now filled with tons of different greens and browns and yellows.
On Thursday I needed to get from Mexiquito to the city. The city suspended bus service to Mexiquito about 3 months ago, so there's no 'easy' way in and out. However, I was told to just wait around by the entrance to town and someone would for sure give me a ride. So I waited there for about 30-45 minutes--- but not to worry, i wasn't alone-- there were tons of mexiquitans keeping me company. When a camioneta passed by I asked the family for a ride to San Pancho (the nickname for San Francisco del Rincon-- the city) The driver says, well, I can't go to san pancho but i can go to san francisco... I was amused to note that old men have the same bad sense of humor in mexico as in the U.S.
Anyway, I hop on the back and sit down with a bunch of boxes of empty beer bottles that the man was taking to the distributor (i think he owns a store in town). For the next hour we drove through the fields and finally on the highway to get into town. It was absolutely beautiful--- I don't know what it is about being outside with the wind in my hair, but it's really freeing. I get the same feeling when i'm on a boat in the ocean... Anyway, I arrived in San Pancho totally refreshed (which was good because the last part of my route was the hardest)

On Tuesday night, the kids in tortugas took me to meet Nati, the delegada. (a sort of mayor-type figure) She was amazing. She took us into her house, lit a candle, sat us down on the floor and started playing the guitar for us and singing songs. We were there for hours talking about life-- all of our fears and dreams. It was totally fantastic.

My kids made T=Shirt designs this week for a route t-shirt. We're called the bushitters because of that week when jackie had to go in the bushes. In any case, on the back is a drawing of our route, and in San Pancho it says "kirsten and Mafioso"== because I spend all of my time in San Pancho hanging out with the guy from the government, Juan Carlos, who we call Mafioso. I go into san pancho to get the t-shirt made and I decided to ask juan carlos if he knew where I could get it done. He insisted on getting them made and so asked me for the piece of paper. I'm really hoping he doesn't figure out that Mafioso refers to him.

In other news, this weekend was pretty good-- we have a TON of paperwork to do--- We have to write evaluations for all of the volunteers, close-outs for all of the towns, reviews of senior staff, etc. It's a good thing we all brought laptops! We've been playing a lot of spades and watching desperate housewives... It's still good the second time around!

Anyway, i'm off to go on route again.. I can't believe the weekend is over! I'll be back on Friday with more stories I'm sure. Hopefully more volunteers won't come down with cases of 'tristeza'