Hola from sunny Mancora!

Today we went with one of the volunteers who is teaching English in the primary school here and we met the kids (all 25 of them!) that will be in one of our 4th grade English classes when we start teaching in September. They were VERY full of energy and VERY eager to learn. As soon as they saw us arrive they all started dancing around chanting "ingles" which means "English" in Spanish. It was very cute and they are all extremely fascinated by white, English speaking people and smile a lot at you and want to be close to you. It was chaotic, but we have some skills we can bring to focus them a bit more, so I think we'll (especially Shelly) be able to handle them. ;) We'll have 10 different classes of students in grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 and they each meet for 45 minutes once per week.

We're also drumming up some business for our tourism English courses that we'll be starting in September for adults. I am very excited about that project too. Almost everyone that we talk to at the market or on the street is interested in learning English so that they can better communicate with the "gringos" who are visiting Mancora. It gives us a new perspective on teaching English. We want to do whatever we can to meet the needs of the community and learning English seems to be what so many want/need so that it will improve their livelihoods and give them confidence in learning a new skill too.

We have met several young girls (15 years old) that already have babies of their own. One girl, named America, who works at one of the kiosks on the boardwalk had to drop out of school to look after her baby. They don't have any opportunities here to continue their education as an "adult", which she seemed very sad about. Another need but not quite enough time to fill it while we are here I don't think. We take so much for granted. One big thing I have learned to stop saying is "There MUST be a ???here in town" because in most cases when I say that, there isn't?like a place to buy a calendar for example. Can you imagine any of us trying to live in Canada or the US without a calendar?!!! And this is not because they've become obsolete due to their use of palm pilots and blackberries (ahem). J

For fun, we've been to the beach quite a few times to swim in the ocean, but it has been VERY windy here, so it's not that great for suntanning. ;) A popular water sport here for those who can afford it is kite surfing, which is amazing to watch and looks very fun to try. The only downside is that it is $40US per hour and on average takes 8 lessons to become competent. On our wage (chuckle) I think we may just have to enjoy it from the beach! We do hope to take surfing lessons though which are much more reasonable at $10US per hour and are taught by our friend Robby who was a professional surfer in Hawaii.

I also found a yoga class that I love! It's at one of the local hotels and the "studio" is outside under a thatched roof that overlooks the ocean with the sound of waves crashing in the background...I just LOVE it! We are able to arrange our schedule to fit that in twice a week, so I'm sure we'll be standing on our heads with the best of them in no time!

Thanks for all of your messages and e-mails and thoughts you are sending our way.  We miss you and think of you often.

Will let Shelly share a bit more with you now!

Stacy

This past week has had us settling a little more to the surroundings. We are getting use to where to buy things and how much they should cost. There is usually a trip to the market everyday to buy a couple of bananas, or a pineapple (pina) or some bread.

Everything is close by us, just a walk across the street to Ruth's, which is open until 11 at night. We discovered that she has Oreo cookies. Good thing to know if you ask me!! She carries almost anything except fresh produce. The market is where we usually go for those things. Food is pretty cheap here. Twelve bananas ( platanoes) for $0.60, a kilo of rice for $0.60, a kilo of sugar for $0.90 and a can of tuna for $.060.

The main highway, The PanAmerican runs through Mancora. On either side are stores. These stores are small and often run out of part of their house. You can see into their living rooms as you place your order. The stores tend to fall into a few categories: clothing for tourist folk, small corner stores, internet places, restaurantes and a couple of bakeries.

One end of town is different from the other. One end more tourists and the other more people. We haven't discovered the other side streets yet, but we are looking into getting used bicycles to tour around on.

Right now it is winter here, so the tourist season is not into full swing. Most come for the beaches. Speaking of which, we have been enjoying the beach most days. It is about a 10 minute walk down to the beach, or you can take a moto for 30 cents. We brought our goggles and we have been swimming for 45 minutes -1 hour. Great exercise. There is the Mancora beach which is close and then there are other beaches that are about an hour walk away which are less busy. One is called Pacitas and is just stunning.

Yesterday we went to another little town called Los Organoes about 16km away. There was a great point that had some perfect waves. We will bring a boogy board next time. This is also the place to go for surfing lessons, which we will hopefully try soon too. The local guy says that he gets people up everytime, so hopefully me too!

We stumbled into a little hotel bungalow style place yesterday looking for food. People are so accommodating here. Cooked us up some rice with shrimp and served it with a cold beer. The view from the hotel was awesome. On the way back to the motos from the beach we run into these two guys on the beach with a bag of disgusting looking, smunched up seafood of some kind. I inquired as to what they were doing, and it turns out they are looking for bait to use when they go on the boats. Kind of like looking for big night crawlers back home. Anyway they all you see is this little head poke up through the sand as it smells the bait and then they grab the head and this 3 foot long worm thingy comes out. We will post a picture of it.

This past week was also filled with goodbye parties. Four of the volunteers left this week to head back to their schools as most are in college/university. So from Wednesday night to Friday night we had going away parties. It is customary here for the friends and family stop by and drink and laugh before they send you off. They served banana chips that are called chiflaes and are amazingly good. We are now down to 6 people from 10. This will hopefully allow us to change the eating schedule to a little earlier too.

If you think of any easy recipes send them our way. We have no oven or barbeque so sometimes it is more challenging to find thing to cook. But I am not complaining. We are lucky to have a propane stove. So many people here in Mancora still only have fire to cook over. It is sometimes a strange feeling to look out my window and see others with no roof or door or lights. The electricity goes out here several times a week and sometimes for several hours. As volunteers we can afford to buy clean drinking water, which is readily available, but for many who only have the water supplied by the town it is hard. The water is only on for 4-5 hours a day and so they have to fill their containers and then boil the water. It still isn't really safe to drink even after boiling, but it is all they have.

I don't know how these people cope. Where does their hope come from? Is is their faith, their faimly, their ignorance of what could be? I can hardly stand when the sand and dust is tracked everywhere in our house. These people have dirt floors that they try to water down a little to keep it from blowing around.

Yesterday as I was looking out my window I saw our neighbor lady sitting behind her daughter. I thought she was about to get a hair cut. As a kept observing I watched as the mother began to look for and remove the lice from the daughter's hair. These are not dirty people. It seemed such and ordinary thing to do, once a week or so. Later I saw the daughter picking out her mother's hair as the mother looked over the hair of the younger son. There they were all one behind the other. The boy had a lollipop in his mouth and was just a regular kid. The father was sitting in another chair reading the paper. It made me feel ashamed at how much I take for granted. That I would just be able to go to the store and buy the right kind of shampoo and get rid of them. Also how I want them to have what they need when I have so much. The inequity of life is evident here. The infrastructure that we complain about at home is non existent here. There are no laws for noise or health care or protection of children and women. Maybe in Lima, but not here.

Yet somehow the spirit of the people is not defeated. They still take pride in their appearance, and in their homes. They have been more friendly this end of town. I guess because maybe we are seen as not so touristy and we have the opportunity to get to know them better.

The other day when we were looking for the meat place to pick up the meat for tacos, we had people directing us and following us through the streets trying to help us. We met a young girl 15 who had a 2 month old baby. She was helpful, but we still had to come back to the house to find Gabby and she found it with us. If you want meat here, you must go get it or order it early in the morning for the evening meal. They usually only pick up the amount for the orders of that day. They don't have a way to keep more on hand.

Spanish is starting to stick more. It is an entirely different skill to be able to read and understand and actually speak. I have been taking more lessons with Gabby and she is a great teacher and the conversation skills are improving.

Well that is all for now. Keeps us in your thoughts, you are in ours. We miss you! Drop us a line sometime.

Shelly