Best Morning Ever...sarcasm

So before I get to this amazing morning I just had let's recap how the past week has been.

Advance Work is awesome! We had a team swimming party and then spent the evening allocating students to host families. After we were finished we "celebrated our successes" by going to dinner at Olive Garden. Later that week we worked more trying to get meals donated and I ended up getting a dinner fully donated for our show day. So to celebrate that success I went out on Saturday and got my hair cut. It's shorter than it's been in awhile. The team and I went to a kickoff breakfast for the United Way's Days of Caring. While we were there we took a team photo with the Gieko Gecko.

Ok..time for the morning. I woke up this morning and after making my morning trip to the bathroom I headed back to my room. However as I opened the bathroom door I noticed a little something under the bench outside of the bathroom. At first I thought it was a plastic toy but then the little thing moved and stuck it's creepy forked tongue out at me. Yes my friends, it was a snake, in the house. I ran to my room, hyperventilated a bit and cried. I ended up calling everywhere to try and find my host family. My host dad ended up being outside so he came to my rescue and got rid of the snake. This is a story that would only happen to me. Worst morning ever! But I guess it makes for a good story. I'd better hop in the shower so I can get to the office.

End of Mexico!

So surprise! I'm done with Mexico two weeks early, but I'll get in to that later.

Let's see, Cabo ended up being a pretty interesting city. I was the City Runner in that city, (meaning I ran the morning and closing meetings) with Eriko from Japan. However, the cast was split up between Cabo San Lucas and Cabo San Jose so we were split up too.

I already mentioned our Regional Learning day and how I felt about that, so I'll move on to our Community Impact Days. I did 3 CI days in Cabo. The first two were painting the baseball stadium for our concert with a group of youth from Cabo San Jose. The first day though the paint was so late that we ended up not really painting at all. The second day we painted all day with little interaction with the youth because we were so behind from the day before, so that was a bit frustrating but it's all part of the differences in culture and learning to be flexible. My last CI day was spent working with the founders of Mobilize Mankind, a group that provides wheelchairs to those that need them free of cost. We spent the afternoon unloading crates of wheelchair parts, putting the chairs together and touring the facility. It was especially fun because Stewart, a student with Cerebral Palsy, was there helping out too. During lunch a bunch of us challenged Stewart to power chair races and that was a blast.

The next city we went to was Tepic, Mexico. My roommate Fenna from Germany and I didn't get picked up by our host father, so we got to go home and stay the week with the host family of Angela from the US and Neele from Germany. It was amazing! They were a wonderful family with a beautiful home. Fenna's friends from Germany came to visit so we ended up with 6 of us staying there. We did a really interesting Community Impact/Regional Learning at a Sea Turtle habitat. We got to play with the baby turtles while cleaning up the beach to allow the baby turtles to reach the sea easily. I didn't get to do alot of Community Impact in Tepic because...here's the surprise...I got chosen to go on Advance Work! I spent this week in training because I got sent to Sahuarita, Arizona to help the Field Managers prepare the city. The rest of Tepic was all kind of a blur because I was gone so much for training. The concert was amazing! We finally got the encore we were hoping for. On host family day my host family took us to some old ruins and unfortunately a ditch was not marked properly so of course I fell into it and landed on my camera. So my camera is caput. But no worries, I bought a new one today so there will no lack of pictures from my time on Advance Work.

I arrived in Sahuarita two days ago with my partner Cindi from Singapore. We spent yesterday going out to lunch with one of the sponsors and an alumni and then met at one of the Field Manager Renee's house to be debriefed. Today we attended two faculty meetings to talk to the teachers and I worked with Renee on the Host Family database. So far it's alot of meetings and office work, but tomorrow Sarah, the other FM, and I are visiting one of the Community Impact sites. Everything is going so well and I'm really excited to continue with the rest of the two weeks.

La Paz/Cabo pictures

This is my BFF Kirk. The cast was so lucky to get to go on a evening boat cruise in Cabo. There was a band and open bar so we spent the evening dancing, socializing and enjoying the beauty of the ocean.
My friend Gis from the Netherlands and I.
My other good friend Javier from Texas.
Seungbom from South Korea.
The famous Cabo Arch.
These are from La Paz. This is Grace from China and her host sister Carolina.
One of our staff made a mistake in his Spanish and ended up saying "La Papa" instead of "El Papa" inadvertently calling the Pope a potato, so Paulina made a potato Pope and Cheryssa and I joined Paulina in reverence. Haha.
This is Annaka, Candace, Julie Holmes (hereafter referred to as Sherlock) and Anika at the elderly home in La Paz.
Jimena, Kelly and I working with power wheelchairs on CI day in La Paz.
I thought this mural was so cool. It was really inspiring to see the hope of a truly connected world where disabilities really didn't matter.


This is a video of the elderly woman I sang for at the home in La Paz. Isn't she beautiful?!

Tepic

We just arrived in Tepic, Mexico after a eventful Cabo. I was informed at the Cabo concert that I will be leaving the cast for two weeks on September 8th to do Advance Work in Sauorita, Arizona. I'm so excited! I'm sad to be leaving the cast and to be missing Cuilican and Hermosillo, but I'm ver excited to have the opportunity to set up a city for the cast and to work with the Field Managers Renee and Sarah.

My roommate Fenna from Germany and I were not picked up by our host father on the first day in Tepic so we have been placed with Angela from the US and Neele from Germany. Our new host family is awesome, so warm and welcoming and we might be staying in the biggest house I have ever seen. It's truly huge. Today we went to the beach and prepared a safe harbor for sea turtles. They were releasing some baby turtles into the wild tonight and they needed the area to be clear and safe for them. My friend Miguel and I adopted a turtle. We named it Miguelynn. Then we were given the rest of the day to swim and enjoy the resort. It was a very nice relaxing day. Tomorrow the cast starts the CI projects and I begin my first day of Advance Work training. This should be a pretty intense city. I can't wait to write more about it. For now enjoy some more pictures from Cabo!!!