Down to the Roots...

There is no better alarm in the morning than a rooster crowing at 2AM to give you a pre-wake-up call. In my case, the rooster put it off by 1 hour…lucky me. Fortunately, Mexico trained me well, and I went right back to sleep. However, I was awake by 6AM from the heat. Remember that tin roof that I talked about earlier? Well it makes my roof REALLY hot so I can’t even spend the day in there. So what did I do at 6AM? Kickboxing for about an hour before I couldn’t handle the heat anymore.

I had breakfast and begged my host family to take me to “La Finca,” the family farm. The kids love this place and they have a house there where the entire family spends Christmas every year. I got a chance to see how they get a coconut down from the tree and cut it open, how to plant certain fruit trees, and played Junior Monopoly with the kids.

We then squeezed into a “moto” which is a three wheeled motorcycle with a caddy in the back for us to sit to go home for lunch. Another trainee dropped by to hang out for awhile and we walked around the pueblo with her host cousin who invited us to the “fiesta cultural,” cultural party in the center of town. Lots of singing and dancing. Towards the end, I looked over at my host sister, Camila, the 7 year old, and asked her if she was bored and if she wanted to go home. She said that she was bored but that she didn’t want to go home because then she’d have to “share” her time with me. I grew up as an only child but fitting in here was almost immediate and I’m so incredibly lucky.

I’ve included a tour of my house and hope you’ll enjoy it.

From the left: my cousin Ana Lucia, sister Marcella (13), and sister Hellen (12)

Ana, my aunt, at the farm.

My uncle, Douglas (doog-las), after cutting down a coconut from the tree!

Natalie, Ana´s 2 yr old daughter who LOVES la finca so much. She´s also really good at pinching me when I don´t pay enough attention to her at home...as if getting bit my mosquitoes all the time wasn´t enough ;)

Tour of the house.

Water Works