adiós Irapuato...

From PLAMAC


From Valencianita


Mí familia enfrente del restaurante de Silivia y Antionio
(Carlos el hijos de Silvia, Silvia, Antonio, yo, Guillermina, Fransicso)


Mí amigo Alexi enfrente de lechuga

Progress in the garden! Alexi and I finished inside two weeks ago. We have been working outside of the green house preparing a field for the womens group to start planting. The day before yesterday, my final day with Alexi, we finished the work outside. I am going to keep in touch with this fine young man through email thanks to his aunt who is a student in Irapuato.

Mí clase en Val. We had a nice big party and played Bingo our final day.

They insisted I take a bite of the cake without my hands. As I went in one wise guy, Pepe (the fella next to me in the picture above) pushed my face right into the cake. I am going to miss that community a whole lot.

I made English books for the students. That was a miserable four hours of cutting, stapling, folding, coloring... At least the students enjoyed them and hopefully will use them a bit. I put in all the vocab and verb rules that we learned.

I have been spending two or so hours a day for the past two weeks helping out and learning in this bike shop. At Alcance Victoria, the homeless shelter, there really was not much for me to do. It was great getting to know the guys, but I felt utterly useless standing there and sweeping up wood when possible. They understood though and I am happy I got to say goodbye to the fellas at the shelter too. However, I know a little bit (I thought) about the bici.

Don Raphael and his wife have had this bike shop for 40 years. Same place, same times, same everything. While Rapha works on the bikes, his wife Michela sells snacks and watches her novelas and jokes with the customers or one of hundreds of family members constatly stoping by the shop. I was there during one of their grandsons birthdays (they have a BUNCH of grandchildren and four great grandchildren). I was pulled into thier house, fed, and met a large majority of the family. Incredible family. Incredible. Further Rapha is the nicest most patient person I have ever met. Period. Not only did he put up with my spanish, he watched and aided as I struggled my way through changing tires, spokes, and gears. I will not ever forget these two incredible people.

One day while it was slow, Michela showed me the pictures from their 50th wedding annivesary. They had a mass and then a party. Very very pretty.

AND I am able to keep in touch with the family. This is Alverado. He is their grandson. He just graduted high school and is awiting his results from exams. He is going to study Medicine. We chatted a whole lot and exchaged emails and facebooks. My final day there he gave me a necklace he made out of avacado shell with my name carved into the shell. I was floored. Amazing family...

In Guadalupe I was invited to a mass at the 7 in the morning. I left well before the sun came up. Thankfully I was the only bike on the road, no cars either. It was a beautiful mass. Congregations from around Guadalupe came as well. After mass there was food for all. Bike, faith, food... good way to start the day!

I was given two t-shirts by my students in Val, a baseball signed by Alexi, and the necklace from Alverado, AND hundreds of experiences. I am so blessed to be able to leave Irapuato with, I would say no regrets (except that my spanish is still sup par!)

¡Adiós familia... you will be missed!