Menos de 5 Meses

Tuesday June 19, 2012

It’s a quiet and cloudy day in Mineral del Chico. I’m sitting waiting for Lindsay and our PC bosses for our annual Peace Corps visit. Since I haven’t blogged in awhile and I have a few minutes on my hands and I’m in reflecting mode because of the fact that my bosses are coming to interview us on our current projects, I decided to write down a few thoughts.

Things are rapidly changing and coming to an end, though nothing seems to be bringing closure quite yet. A little over a week ago, I finished my spring quarter at Fuller. I was extremely excited to be done but really the end of the quarter was anticlimactic. It wasn’t like walking out of my last final of the spring semester at PSU. I just sent an email and I was done. The work for my seminary classes has been overly challenging. My classes make me question the world around me and make wonder about the faith I have grown up to understand. I am glad to have this opportunity and the time of solitude to reflect on these huge questions as I live in the middle of the mountains with a few extra hours on my hands, but I am also glad to have a little break this summer. I took these classes to answer questions that have plagued me over the years and even more so here in Mexico, but I am left asking many more.

My English classes will also end next week, but I think they’ve been done for a long time. I have several solid students that come every week and will work until the end, but after Spring Break, as in any school the lack of motivation is apparent. Right now, my students are reading and translating Dr. Seuss books, which has been a really fun project for them. They seem to enjoy putting to use some of the English they’ve learned over the year.

My host family’s restaurant has come to a stand still. It only needs a little more work, but they’re been preoccupied with new babies in the family and keeping up their regular business of selling plants. I’m not worried about it though. I know they’ll finish it in time, and I’m excited when that day comes!

Any day now, we should be sending our guidebook of Mineral del Chico and Parque Nacional el Chico to be printed. (and as I write I’m being interrupted by our good friend Victor to talk about the upcoming federal elections as he blows smokes in my face… I want to jump off a tall building…) Anyway, the guidebook is Lindsay’s and my baby and the only thing we are wishing these days is that that thing gets printed and distributed before we leave – well even before that – like tomorrow if possible. We’ve put over a year’s worth of work into it and are ready to see it in the hands of tourists all over the park.

While all these things are starting to slowly wrap up, I’ve gotten myself into another little project… actually it’s a huge project. I want to build a high school in my community and we’ve just over the past month opened discussion with the State Secretary of Education to find out exactly what they require when building a high school. It’s a long and in-depth process and we’re only at the beginning, so we’ll see what happens and how much or little I can be involved before I go home.

On a personal level, things are good. We’ve been so busy that Lindsay and I haven’t traveled in a long time, but we’re planning on changing that soon. We’ll be going to Oaxaca again in July and possibly to Veracruz as well. In between all our little and big projects, I’m trying to take advantage of all Mexico has to offer in these last few months. I know I’ll miss this place like crazy and the people even more, so it’s time now to aprovechar every minute I have left. 

From our last trip in March to San Blas