Speak N Say (are the same thing)

Alright alright, it’s been enough procrastination now. Here at last is the details of my trip to Mexico, hacked down into almost bite-size chunks for your reading pleasure. The trip lasted 8 days, from April 30th to May 8th. (Yes, my math is correct.) I’ll post these a few days apart so people have time to read it without feeling overwhelmed...you people have no idea how long this post might have been...

Day Zero: Liftoff
After nearly three months of preparation, the 17 of us arrived at the church parking lot between 10 and 11 am, luggage in hand and ready to go. There was some praying and some last minute sorting of bags (i.e. who would take the cooking equipment, sports stuff, toys, etc.) then we piled our bags into two large vans and were on our way. The one hour drive was marked with the typical jesting and boistrous conversation typical of a 20s subset. Upon arriving at SFO we checked in for the flight, checked all our bags, and began the long march down the terminal to our gate, having an overly expensive lunch.

A 4 hour flight to Houston (I saw how barren NV is and the oil fields of west TX), a two hour layover (Carol felt at home), a three hour flight to Cancún (it was dark by then, so nothing to look at), and a two hour bus ride to Valladolid (some played "Whiz Boing Bounce" and some of us attempted to sleep through their laughing).

We rolled in about 2AM. Saw my first scorpion at the hotel, on the stairs; about two inches long. One girl shouted "AUGH, It's moving!" to which somebody answered, "That would mean it's alive."

Bright and early we piled on the bus again, bags and all, and headed for our village, Teabo, which was about two hours drive from there. It ended up being closer to three because the highway suddenly vanished into a construction zone that looked more like a strip mining operation. The detour was a one-lane, hastily constructed dirt road that ran along side it and wound up and down and zig-zagged about over the rocky hills that hide beneath the Yucatecan jungle. I've never been off-roading in a charter bus before. But wait, there's more! Arriving in Teabo it became clear that Mexican towns are not built for tour busses. To get to the church, we had to abandon the attempt to get around one corner nestled between four cement buildings and three-point turn around two others. The drivers of those things deserve applause.

Disembarking and disembagging the bus, we were greeted by Roger (which has a strange pronunciation in Spanish), AKA El Sapo, who was the staffer of the organization that handles the projects we were participating in. He showed us the work that lay ahead for the men, the room converted into a kitchen for the women, and escorted us to the houses where we were to sleep. The families who normally lived there basically moved out for a week to accommodate us. The family of my house happened to have huts out back that they stayed in. Seen in the Yucatan, a lot of people still live in mud and stick huts with thatched roofs. However, the last hurricane that blew over killed enough people to convince the government to subsidize one-room cement & brick buildings for each household. A number of them have gradually evolved into two or three room houses for those who could afford it. More on that later maybe. Roger also showed us how to hang our hammocks and more importantly how to sleep in them. The proper method is diagonally, so it makes a flat spot for you to lay in. Unfortunately it still didn't save my back. We got ourselves situated and prepared for the week.

If this hasn't whetted your apetite, you'd better lay off the junk food, doofus.