Life in the _____ Lane

I realized that for some of you who are following my current adventure in Mexico, I have not provided any of the mundane, everyday details, that would actually, surprisingly enough, bring to life exactly what I am doing. For that reason I decided that it was time to share a little bit more with you about these sometimes seemingly boring details of my life.

This is the children's home where I am working.

This is where I use to live with three university girls, one of the cooks, and my roommate Yezmin (the children's home's accountant).



I just moved here...to the visitor's center at the Mission to share an apartment with Lynnae, a missionary from Washington.

I am currently working as the sponsorship coordinator. Each child at the home is sponsored by one or more people in order to cover housing, clothing, food and schooling needs. I help recruit sponsors, make sure sponsors are kept aware of things going on in the lives of the children, encourage the children to write to their sponsors, transition new kids into the Mission, translate letters, and anything else that needs to be done in order for the sponsorship of the children to run smoothly (by the way, anyone want to sponsor a child?). I never thought that I would travel to Mexico and get an office job, but here is my "corner" office.

I also get to spend time with the kids and on weekends help out with visiting groups as needed (i.e. taking them to tourist sites, picking them up from the airport, making sure they have what they need). When school starts I get the joy of helping transport the kindergarten students from school and making runs to town for school supplies. Since it is Mexico, I often have other jobs as well when I am needed...on-call babysitter, extra kitchen help, errand runner, helper in the planning of quincineras and soccer player.

Speking of which, one of my greatest joys has been learning to play soccer. The muchachas (adolescent girls) play in a local league, but are always short players, so their house mom and I have joined the team! For those of you who don't know, I don't think I have ever played organized sports, except for church volleyball, so this is a new experience for me and it is great fun to be the entertainment for the locals who are always surprised to see two tall guerras (white girls) playing soccer with a bunch of Mexican girls. Once we all learn to play a little more aggressively and how to pass the ball efficiently we should be pretty good. Personally, I really don't have any fancy footwork with the ball...I'm just glad when my eye-foot coordination allows me to make contact with the ball. Sorry I don't have a picture of this yet.

All that to say, life here is pretty normal when you leave out the fact that almost everyone here communicates in Spanish, the driving rules are completely different, I'm living in constant community with 70 other people, I stand out like a sore thumb anywhere I go, and all those other cultural differences. Here's to life in the cross-cultural lane!