Photos from the first five days in Tamaula

Party for graduation of the primaria.







Violetta and her bottle of 'refresca' Pepsi for the party after the inauguration.

Inauguration of the new Prepa for the Prep@net program they have here in Tamaula. There are no professors for their highschool they have Internet and follow courses and are evaluated through their online courses. It is challenging but there are 12 hight school students enrolled in the program. One of the students from tamaula scores the highest out of all the Prep@net programs in the state of Guanajuato!

Violetta

More kids in Tamaula

Working...or playing with the kids

Kids from the school in Tamaula

GORDITAS!!!! with papas and chile!

I went mud hopping with the girls! it was very dirty and muddy...BUT FUN!

Boxing lessons to the Tamaula kids :)

With Laura!

The way you wash your cloths. I did it and it takes time! No running water in tamaula.... so no washing machines.

Chile! Very ?picante? but very good! the women dry them then peel them, and voila!

Home made sling shot, works very well!

Filtered 'chiva' (goat) milk. They make cheese here in Tamaula and are starting a buisness, so they need funds in ordeer to get more goats, a tractor and milking machines. They need two goats in order to get 1L of milk and 1 brck of cheese takes 2L of milk. Do the math...

Don Pedro's Birthday party. We ate mole!

Arrival and my first five days in Tamaula

This has been my fifth day in Tamaula. We were very well received by the community and we are placed in families. The family that I am living with lives in the center of the town in a blue and white house. Th mother is name Josephina , and she is living here with three of her daughters that are still at home. The eldest is Silvia, she is 27, then there is Rosita who is 16 and finally their last one Karina who is 11. The family is very caring and enjoys having us here. I am in this family with two other girls from Chicago with the Latino Progresando Theatre group. The father is in Athens, Georgia and the brother Rudolpho also left to"al Norte" when he was only 15. There is no running water but they have had electricity for the past 3 years. Everyone is very welcoming, I have been to different homes just walking aroud an all just invite you in to have a seat and eat some "comida". I think I have never eaten so many tortillas in my life!!!! For breakfast, lunch and dinner tortillas that are freshly made in the morning from ground corn. I have really been enjoying the food and talking with all the people here. They all have interesting stories and the kids that we are working with are full of energy and life. They are curious and love using my camera to take pictures! Some even are very good pictures. I will try to post some...I need to put them on a USB key.
Otherwise our boxing trainings have been going real well. Most of the kids and teenagers come and are all very excited to learn and participate in the boxing program. We installed a boxing gym with two heavy bags and one speed bag. We are trying to get them motivated to start training on their own and not only reach out to the male population but also to the girls and women of the town.
I will post picture soon. It is a beautiful town and the people that live here love it, even though there is no work, they cannot really explain their true reason for loving to live here in Tamaula..

Night stay in Irapuato

We had a great time in Guanajuato. It is a beautiful city with a lot of lfe and many colorful houses. The view from our hostel was magnificent. A patchwork of colors with mountains in the background.

We are now in Irapuato. We stayed the night at Adrinana´s colonial home! We are stalking up on snacks, WATER and meeting with the crew to talk about our mission, our expectations and regroup to have a game plan. Our boxing crew is a good solid team and even though I am the only girl with them. I hold my own, I showed them my fencing equipment, and showed off my jump roping skils¨:D

I am not on my computer right now but as soon as I can I will upload pictures!

Arrival and First day touring Guanajuato

Arrival at the airport. I got my bags checked completely...of course...

We went up MANY steps in order to arrive at our cute and wonderful hostel. With the luggage I seriously got a good calve work out.


Some art at the restaurant we ate at: a Mexican celebrity...Frida Kahlo's auto portrait.


MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!


Here are two plazas that we visited in the city of Guanajuato. The plazas come alive, mariachis are playing, vendors, little kids selling chicle, young teenagers hang out. The plazas are central to the Mexican city of Guanajuato. What is special about this city is that there are many plazas and each have their own character and feel ;)


There is a legend to this street that towns people tell tourists and they also describe all the ways of kissing! The legend is that lovers lived right across the street from each other. The young girl was from a well off family and the young boy from a low class family (like many love stories). The balconies to their homes were built so close that they could kiss from their respective homes! This is where the guides described all sorts and ways to kiss to cite a few examples there wall the kisses described by the guides!

El beso monaguillo tocar la campanilla

El beso arabe salva ba saliva biene

The end of the legend is tragic, the father of the young girl could not stand the relationship of the couple and the legend says that he ended up killing both of them.
Taxi ride back to our hostel after a full day of touring the city.

The first two weeks!!!!

Here is a video of the Chicago Youth Boxing Club, the group with which I will be for the first two weeks of my trip to Mexico. We will be 4 students from the University of Notre Dame and there will also be other athletes from the boxing club. We will also be joining the Latinos Progresando group for this immersion in Mexico.

I sure hope to learn some self defense skills :D

I will be in Mexico on Friday! YAY

HOME Documentary by Yann Athus-Bertrand

EVERYONE must watch this movie. Here is the trailer, but the full versions are on Youtube.



CLICK HERE to watch the English version.

CLICKER ICI pour regarder la version française.

CLICK AQUÍ para mirar la versión español.

GivesMeHope.com (GMH) - Like FMyLife, but for optimists!.

A new site that two of my friends launched this past week. For instant pick-me-uppers!

GivesMeHope.com (GMH) - Like FMyLife, but for optimists!.

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