So i mentioned the IV team that was here in my last post but to give you a better idea of how awesome they really are here are a couple videos that show just two of the projects they worked on while they were here. The first video is of Yolanda and her graffiti class and the second is of Honey and her dance class that she worked on with Albert and in the videos are just a few of the youth and teens we have been working with. Enjoy!
If you want to learn more about what the InterVarsity students did during their time in Chimalhuacán you can read about their experiences here:
There are very few times in your life when you can see your own future, but when you do it is sure to change something. Do you know the story of Alfred Nobel? The story goes that when Alfred’s brother died the newspaper mixed up his life with his brother’s, so one day while drinking his morning coffee he was able to read his own obituary. To his dismay he was remembered for the destruction and devastation associated with his most famous invention dynamite. Instead of destruction he wanted his life to remembered for peace so he went on to invent the Nobel peace prize.
I had a similar (yet admittedly less profound) experience yesterday as it was the InterVarsity team’s last night and we had a going away fiesta for them. To be honest, over the past week I have been looking forward to returning home. It was not that i was not enjoying my time here, it was more that i was caught up in thinking that when I return I only have less than a month at home before leaving for South Africa. The fiesta last night changed that mindset completely as that will be me in two weeks having to say goodbye. Last night i was able to see, from the testimonies of the people in the community, the impact that the InterVaristy team was able to have and what it meant to the people here. Through their sharing I was able to see the deepness of the relationships they were able to form in the four short weeks they were here and it made me realize that i have the opportunity to do the same. Not only that, but this community and the people in this community are some of the most amazing people i have met in my life. As we were dancing everything from Salsa, to Meringue, to Usher and other American club music, to punk and everything in between, for about 2-3 hours, in the hot and sweaty community center, with people from all ages and all types of backgrounds it began to sink in how special these people are and how I need to take advantage of every opportunity I have in the remaining two weeks to take it in. On a side note if you were wondering where the second part of this title comes from, its because i was asking my roommate from Guadalajara why they don’t have fiestas like this on a more regular basis to keep kids off the street. He replied that they do and they have free alcohol. I found this a strange technique for a Christian organization to embrace and he must have seen it in my face, because he quickly replied, “wait no it’s alcohol free!” It’s a completely understandable mistake because directly translated from the Spanish is would be free alcohol, but its a good reminder to be careful how i translate things here lol. Here is a little taste of the fiesta….
I am extremely sad that i couldn’t share my last two weeks remaining here with the InterVarsity team. They were three of the most amazing people i have ever met and I hope our paths can cross again sometime. The first day I was here, as i arrived half way through church service, i remember spotting three young people across the way and thinking that they could be the IV team, but they all fit in pretty well so i wasn’t sure. After service they came up and introduced themselves (well two of them did) and then they introduced the third as their community liaison who only spoke Spanish. I continued for the next 10 minutes or so talking with them and politely talking with the Spanish speaker as much as i could making a fool of myself talking about the food, weather, or anything i could remember from Spanish class five years ago until they finally cracked and admitted that she spoke English too and was actually from California. That was the start of an amazing three weeks with the team where they welcomed me as one of their own and helped me feel at home here. They were three amazingly unique people who always knew how to have good time but also continually challenge me to learn more about myself and take more away from this experience. It’s funny because for the first week they kept saying that they saw me as this semi-older person who was taking time to be with them but in reality they taught me so much about how to enjoy life, interact with the people here, process what i was seeing, and seek God in everything, that they acted as my mentors. I am thankful for the three weeks i was able to spend with them and I pray that they bring the same love, joy, enthusiasm, and wisdom to wherever they go and to whoever they meet in life.
The IV Team
So I spent most of today working with my students designing their t-shirts for the business class I teach. One of the teams used the screen printing machine we purchased my first week here and we were successfully able to make the screens (using only a normal printer and the sun!) and produce t-shirts that look amazing. I spent a few hours with another team looking through different graffiti designs for their t-shirts and then they printed a bunch that they will try to sell this week. It was fun to be able to spend time with the kids and it was amazing to see their energy and enthusiasm as they were making the t-shirts (I hope that that can translate into sales!). I then met up with the our pastor’s wife, who is from Zimbabwe and has many connections in South Africa, and we were able to talk about Africa and her past in small business development and microfinance in Zimbabwe (Isn’t it amazing how God works, what are the chances of me meeting someone with connections in Africa and is involved in business development during my short time here in Mexico). We didn’t get to finish our convo because she had worship practice but we will continue it later. I then went to church, and this was actually the first Shalom service that i was able to attend all the way through. I always love going to churches in another language, especially when they are small and intimate like Shalom is here. There is something powerful about prayer and worship in another language and knowing that while i might not understand all that is going on God does and it is pleasing to Him. After church a bunch of us then went to the fair/carnival that is going on on our block for the weekend. The fair is complete with some of the most terrifying rides (not because I don’t enjoy carnival rides, but because it seems like at any moment they could fall apart or a car could fly off and decapitate an innocent passerby like myself) that were placed so close together with no protective fencing around them (so any wandering child could be taken out by a teacup or Ferris wheel), and carnival games which included throwing baseballs at real glass bottles, or shooting unattached BB guns for a prize of a bottle of tequila and a mixer. It was interesting to take this all in, but by far the most interesting part for me was the firework show (that still hasn’t ended as i still am hearing fireworks explode every once in a while) but included a man holding a molded bull on his head with flairs and firworks coming out the back which looked something like this (only with an unprotected crowd standing only feet away) which i will leave you with until next time…..
So I spent pretty much all of last weekend exploring around Distrito Federal (Mexico City proper). On Saturday Albert and I met one of our friends from CCFC, who had been helping out with the TUI kid’s program for the past week, in the city center and explored around there a bit. It was cool to see the central plaza or the Zócalo which was filled with protesters because it is bordered by the National Palace on one side. Next to the Palace on the adjacent boarder is the National Cathedral which is surrounded by street vendors which stretch a couple of blocks. We were trying to find the hostel where our friend was staying and ended up on the wrong side of the square (the one with all the vendors) and it could very well have been the thickest crowd of people I’ve tried to walk through all the while having vendors yelling at the top of their lungs or through loud speakers trying, mostly in vain, to get the passersby interested in their wares. It was a bit overwhelming but we eventually made it to our friend. We then walked through the city to the Plaza Tecnología (the area of Mexico City dedicated to selling electronics) to try to find a good deal on an external hard-drive, but that was another overwhelming experience and we weren’t able to complete our mission before we had to leave to pick up our other friend who was arriving from the airport. Walking through Mexico City was strange because although we were around all the tourist sites, including partially excavated Aztec ruins that the Zócalo is built on and a number of museums, there were barely any foreign tourists (I guess if you are going to travel to Mexico you’re going to go to the beach).
On Sunday we went into a different part of the city (remember each trip into the city is about a 1.5 hour bus ride from Chimalhuacán to the bus station in the city,plus the time on the metro to wherever you need to go) with one of my roommates to visit her church near Coyoacán. I was with the three InterVarsity students as well as Albert, our friend from CCFC and of course my roommate. As the pastor came up to speak one of the InterVarsity students got super excited and started talking to my roommate in Spanish. I came to learn that her pastor is actually a famous rapper named Fermin IV. Of course i looked him up online and he is actually pretty legit. He was part of a Mexican rap group called Control Machete and was even featured on a Cyprus Hill track. Check him out in his early gansta days…
He then became Christian and is now a Christian rapper and pastor of the Semilla de Mostaza (Mustard Seed) church in Mexico City, which has plants all over Mexico and even the south-western United States.
After church we traveled by bus to a market in the heart of Coyoacán to get the famous Tostados of Coyoacán, which was some of the best food i have ever had. As we were waiting to get seats my friend from CCFC and I eyed some people holding corn covered in some delicious looking substance. We were extremely hungry at this point and decided to try to find some to eat to hold us over until tostados. We successfully found the stand selling the corn and waited in line for a bit until we got to the front and saw that they were smothering the corn in straight mayo topped with some other spices; we passed and I do not regret my decision. After tostados we then explored around this part of town which was much nicer than the city center. From what I could tell this was a more artsy, tranquil, and upscale part of town with green trees! and artists selling their work along the street. On the way back from Coyoacán we stopped at a Wal-Mart to do our grocery shopping which was an interesting experience which started with us getting off the bus, dodging through crazy Mexico City oncoming traffic to the median where we snuck through a hole in the fence onto the dirt soccer fields which composed this median, then repeating the process on the other side, and then the whole thing again in reverse with bags of groceries in our hand, and ended with us on a crowded bus with me standing next to a man drinking beer and snorting solvent glue (a drug of choice around here).
The next morning as I went to coach soccer I was pleasantly surprised to find one of the groups from the entrepreneurship classes I am teaching at the field. I learned that they had come their to sell their t-shirts and had actually sold some successfully. It was cool to see their excitement and I hope that their success continues and it seems like they like their business so much they might try to continue it after the program. It was also great to have my friend from CCFC there, first because he’s a great guy and secondly because he speaks Spanish. Usually at the camp i coach at in the morning there is no other people there that speak English so i have to get by by using a lot of spanglish, hand gestures, and demonstration of the drills. Having him there made it much easier and i was even able to have a great conversation with one of the kids who also coaches at the camp and is in my entrepreneurship class. I was able to learn more about his family and why he moved to Chimaluacán (a rough story) which i would have never been able to do on my own because of my lack of Spanish skills.
Anyway just wanted to give you guys a quick update about what i have been up to and i will leave you with my current favorite salsa song…
I am so thankful that i was invited to the InterVarsity mid-trek retreat last weekend. Sure it was great to study theology (more to come on that later) but it was just great to get to know the other InterVarsity students and to hear their stories about where they are from and about their experiences thus far on the trek. It made me miss InterVarsity back in Boston and reflect more on if I am called to InterVarsity staff or maybe something a bit different. I realized last weekend that being in those situations is where i thrive and find life, which i think is why i felt drawn to college ministry in the first place. However, I have also learned during my time here that I can still be involved in college ministry without being InterVarsity staff (which i knew before) and can even do it in a different country (which i had never thought of). This could look many different ways whether it be getting involved in college ministry through a local church or even a Christian NGO with a focus on young adult development.
I came to many of these realizations this past weekend and God taught me so many things on so many levels. I will attempt to share them here although I do not believe I can do them perfect justice.
Lesson 1: Sin
Since we are young we are taught what a sin is….doing something bad. It is getting drunk, lying, disrespecting your parents etc. What i learned this past weekend is that those are not sins, they are the consequence of sin. Sin, at its core is not trusting in God and who he is. In the story of the garden of Eden God said you may eat of ANY tree you want, but you have to TRUST me, I know whats best for you please do not eat of this one tree. Adam & Eve ended up eating that fruit not only because of their selfish desire, but because they had adopted a distorted view of God because they decided not to TRUST in what he was saying. Instead of having their best interests in mind, Adam and Eve lost site of who God was (a plentiful provider) and thought he could be holding out on them. This made me reflect on the sins in my life and I tried to explore in what ways am I not trusting God. I came to the realization that I am not trusting God to provide me comfort and provide me rest. This is because ever since owning my faith about 4 years ago I have always been in Christian leadership and always trying to serve God. Therefore, I have been looking at my relationship with God as hard work, not a place of rest, and have searched for that rest elsewhere. I realized that sometimes I just wanted a break from being a Christian, because i had a distorted view of what being a Christian means and who God really is. I need to learn to trust God to provide my rest and comfort, not just the power to achieve great things.
Lesson 2: The Bible is more relevant that I ever imagined
Allow me to take you through a brief study of Ezekial 22. We saw through the retreat that throughout the bible God refers to three main systems that govern our lives they are the religious, political, and economic systems (obviously each has many subsets but these are the three the bible addresses over and over again.) The religious system not only refers to religion but the values a society holds, whether it is the value of hard work and freedom in America, or that of family here in Mexico. The political systems refer to the systems we put in place to allow people to live in a structured way. The economic systems refer to how societies choose to share their resources. God had a specific idea in mind for each of these systems: Religion-to build a religion of relationships with God, each other, and the earth, Political- To purge evil, establish justice, provide structure, Economic-to eradicate poverty by creating wealth (if you want to learn more about this read the book of Deuteronomy). When we see these systems working as they should we have Shalom.What we see in Ezekial 22, however, is a social commentary of how we have corrupted each of these systems.
Political: “There is a conspiracy of her princes within her like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they devour people, take treasures and precious things and make many widows within her.”-Ezekial 22:25
Here, princes refer to the political system and it refers to them as lions. How do lions hunt their prey? They are not faster than an antelope so they have to slowly sneak up on their prey and at the last moment pounce on them. This is easy because they weigh 4 or 5 times as much as the prey they are hunting and simply overpower them by jumping on top of them and allowing their pressure to bring the antelope down. Once the antelope is down with one swift stroke they cut the antelopes spinal cord and the prey dies. Does this not sound just like the oppressive governments we see today, putting pressure from the top down on the weak, and once they are down finishing them off. We studied this in light of politics in Mexico and the analogy is dead on (ask me personally if you are interested in learning more of this).
Economic: “Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey; they shed blood and kill people to make unjust gain. ” Ezekial 22:27
Here officials refer to the economic system and it refers to them as wolves. How do wolves hunt? They hunt in packs and once they find prey they spread out and then give chase. Each wolf starts taking pieces out of the pray while it is still on the run, slowly weakening it and weakening it until it can’t go on any longer and falls. Once fallen the wolves eat their prey alive. Does this not sound like our economic systems today that are slowly weakening society, and especially the poor in society, and once it finally traps the poor it continues to eat them alive. This is an amazing personification of debt and how our economic systems work.
Religious: :Her prophets whitewash these deeds for them by false visions and lying divinations. They say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says’—when the LORD has not spoken.” Ezekial 22:28
The priests and prophets, representing the religious(value) system are referred to throughout Ezekial 22, and elsewhere they are described as eating the scraps which fall of the table. Does this not sound like our value systems today. They are put in place to serve the economic and political systems and their goals. The people put forth not good and true values, but values that serve the interest of the powerful. Whether in secular or religious settings the people putting forth these values live off the payoffs from the people in the economic and political systems.
Ezekial 22 ends “I (God) looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.” This is a call for all of us to stand up to these corrupted systems and return them to their original and good purposes.
Lesson 3: Where I fit in
So I am not an overly emotional person, but for some strange reason i started getting emotional when we were talking about the economic system in Ezekial 22. We were discussing how banks in Mexico charge exorbitant amounts interest, one even charges 7% interest PER MONTH. If anyone gets in any type of debt with this bank they are finished, this is SLAVERY. I thought to myself “why am i crying when we re talking about a bank?” However, in my studies of economics and microfinance over the past few years I have seen how this type of trap can cripple communities and individuals and i think i was grieving with God at this great injustice. I think part of the call in my life is to address economic injustice particularly and confront the systems as laid out in Ezekial 22:12 that accept bribes to shed blood, take usury and excessive interest, and make unjust gain from neighbors by extortion.
Lesson 4: Community
On a somewhat unrelated, but interesting note, I learned a lot about how i have been interpreting the bible. I saw that i have been taught to read the bible on an individual level but this is not how the original readers would interpret the verses. They thought in terms of the community not the individual.
ex: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength- Deuteronomy 6:4
How do you interpret this? I have always interpreted it as “Kevin, love God with….” But that is not what it says nor how it would have been originally interpreted. This is addressed to a nation, not an individual. Try reading the ten commandments with this mindset, it opens up whole new meanings! I learned that community is very important to God, as God is inherently community (the trinity) and was in perfect community and love before creating the world. He created the world as an outpouring of this love, just as parents create children out of an outpouring of their love and he gave dominion over the earth to the humans to create Shalom here on earth. Don’t you find it interesting that when God created the earth he said is was “good”, not perfect, this leaves room for humans to make improvements and to work alongside of God to establish shalom here. Unfortunately we began to mistrust God and handed dominion over to evil powers instead of ourselves (the fall). But the good news is that those evil powers have been defeated in Jesus and God is still calling us to bring about Shalom on earth, and to do so in community. Christianity is not only about saving souls …it is about joining a movement to create Shalom here on earth in all the systems God created, religious, political and economic.
So that scratches the surface of what i have been learning here. Now for a quick update on day-to-day things. So at the retreat last Saturday i actually came down with food poisoning from tamales that Albert and I had purchased off the street the day before. I didn’t start feeling 100% until yesterday so that has made things a bit more difficult. This week I have been coaching soccer in the mornings as part of a summer program that TUI runs and then prepping and running the entrepreneurial classes at night. I have been able to take a stronger role in those because Albert has also been teaching a dance class which requires a lot of work and is his true passion. I am happy to be able to have a little more ownership of the class and to allow him to do what he is passionate about. I am also excited because our friend Dave from CCFC is flying in today and will be staying with us the remainder of the time. We will be going into the city later today to pick him up and explore a bit. Until next time here is a video of one of the programs that TUI runs. Although i am not involved in this one directly it will give you a better sense of what is going on around me.
When I first arrived two weeks ago Albert and I were looking out from our roof at the ocean of gray cement buildings that surrounds ours, each not quite complete with rebar stretching into the sky while discussing how Chimalhuacan has developed over the past 20 or so years and he made the comment, “Newer isn’t better here.” He was specifically referring to the architecture and the fact that all of the surrounding buildings are in a constant state of construction, but this has become my theme for the past week or so.
In America we take it for granted that newer is better. Our culture is hung up on the newest fashion, the newest technology, the newest artists. Even our cities, while most seek to preserve the historically important sites and buildings, are constantly rebuilding themselves to be as modern as possible. The cities in the developing world do not have that luxury. Here the newest buildings aren’t the metal and glass skyscrapers in the heart of the city complete with neon lights and the newest architecture (with some lucky exceptions). No, here the newest buildings are located on the fringe, the outskirts of the city where land is still cheap enough to buy, and start as four concrete walls and a ceiling, with rebar sticking out hoping for the day that it can be part of a second room, or maybe even a second floor. These new buildings are built slowly, only as fast as the family can afford to add new amenities, and are not built by a construction company with cranes and machinery, but by the hands of the family living there and some helpful friends placing cement bricks one at a time. Mexico City is one the largest if not the largest metropolitan areas in the world as “Mexico City” continues to swallow small town and large commercial center alike into its limits. Chimalhuacán, in the not too distant past was a lake that separated Mexico City from some of the outlying commercial towns that developed from old trade routes. The lake has since been drained and the land divided by the government and sold to the multitude of Mexicans flocking to the city. In America, this area would be a brand new development, complete with mansions and manicured yards for the wealthy business class and their families who want access to the city and all it has to offer. Here it is the opposite…..
My Street "Calle Ollita"
American culture is also obsessed with new ideas, whether in the form the newest invention or newest science. Last weekend i had the opportunity to join the InterVarsity team in their mid-trek retreat and learned more than i can share here. One of the things i learned though, is that especially when it comes to the bible, when we try to apply our new ideas to what we read we can loose out on so much of the richness of the original meaning and our modern theology reflects this. At the retreat we traced the evolution of modern philosophical thought and learned that our modern worldview is shaped by many ideas that developed from past thinkers, and the pattern has been to think more and more systematically-vis a vis- systematic theology, and more and more individualistically-i.e. how does this passage apply to my life personally. While this is not inherently a bad thing and systematic theology has much to offer, the Christian story is much more than a collection of theories,thoughts, rules, and dogmas. When we think of Christianity in this modern way we loose out on the richness of it and end up missing the point entirely. This past weekend we were able to step back and look at the bible as it was intended, as a story addressed to a people and this was life changing to say the least. I will try to share more in depth about this in a post later this weekend…keep me to that.
I would like to end by sharing a blog post from one of the InterVarisity students that is also working with TUI here in Chimalhuacan. Anything I would write might be newer but definitely would not be better. I find it hard to express the injustice i see around me everyday but she did it perfectly here. Enjoy!
I woke up the other morning and checked the weather as usual but to my surprise this is what i found…
Yup that’s right, it says smoke….That’s something you don’t see every day. Not sure what Weather.com was trying to say, i checked the news but couldn’t find anything about fires in the area. My only other guess is that they could have meant smog, but that day wasn’t particularly smoggy. The first few days i was here i thought that the gray skies were due to the rainy weather, however, i have come to learn that there is a constant gray haze that hangs over Mexico City. On a clear day you are lucky to see blue sky if you look 45 degrees in the air. I’ve heard it’s getting better than it was in the past but the pollution here is the worst i have seen. We took a trip into Distrito Federal or Mexico City proper and crossed one of the canals that surround Chimalhuacan and i looked down to see a black and brown slowly moving sludge that was bubbling due to the sewage as the students i was with joked “¿Quieres ir a nadar?” or “Would you like to go for a swim?”
I would like to take this time to apologize that i haven’t been keeping up with this blog as much as I would like, but i have been a lot more busy than i had anticipated. We started the entrepreneurial training classes Monday night and spent all day Monday and Tuesday prepping for the classes (which are held 5 days a week for 2 hours a night) . Here is a video of some of the opening remarks…
We then took a trip, as i mentioned before, into Distrito Federal all day Wednesday with our students. The students are starting a screen printing business, so we took them into Mexico City, to the district where all the screen printing shops are so they could get some ideas for their product lines. Mexico City has developed very uniquely where entire sections of the city are dedicated to one industry, in this case screen printing. On one hand it’s hard to see how all of these shops stay in business as you walk down the street and they are all selling the same goods for blocks and blocks at a time. On the other hand, it is nice as a consumer to know that you just have to go to that one area to find what you are looking for. We then stayed up late Wednesday night to prep for Thursday night’s class because all day Thursday we went outside of the city to Transforación Urbana Internacional’s retreat center for the staff’s monthly day long retreat. At the retreat we explored different aspects of urban poverty and how we as Christian’s can be most effective in addressing this tremendous problem. We then had class Thursday night, and then the fiesta that i had mentioned i had been invited to was moved to Thursday night as well, so we headed their after class finished. It has been a busy week to say the least
The fiesta was at Albert’s host family’s house from last year and was to celebrate because two of the family’s children are moving on in school. It was a large family party complete with mole, cake, and plenty of dancing. It was great to experience Mexican culture so authentically and even with the language barrier I felt welcome and had a great time. After everybody was finished eating they brought out the cake, and instead of having a cake cutting ceremony, the two kid’s who the party was for sat down and took a bite straight out of the cake. The older boy, as he chomped down on his piece, had his head smashed into the cake by his aunt as everyone laughed and took pictures with their cell phones. The tables were then cleared, and the music was cranked up and we danced until we experienced some power outages around midnight. Every time i would try to sit down after a song to take a break another family member would come up to me and ask to dance. The only time i had a chance to rest was when i had the legitimate excuse that I didn’t know how to dance one of the more structured dances like salsa or cumbia when i could sit back and watch the experts do their thing, and it was pretty impressive (not quite as good as the last video i posted, but close lol).
I am now getting ready to head off with the director of Transforación Urbana Internacional’s to the retreat center again as he is going to be leading the InterVaristy group in their mid-trek retreat that he invited me along to this weekend. I look forward to learning more from him as well as getting to know the students who are here from InterVarsity better. I won’t have internet access again until i return on either Sunday or Monday so until then enjoy my favorite song from the fiesta last night.
So i landed in Mexico City yesterday and met my friend Albert at the airport. We then took the metro (which is nicer than the T by the way..Boston should get on that) to a bus, then took a two hour bus ride (even though it’s only about 10 miles away…Mexico City traffic is crazy) to Chimalhuacan where we are staying. We then went straight to church service and after church we all shared a meal together and I was able to meet everyone including members of the church, many of the people that work for Transformación Urbana Internacional as well as the three people from the InterVarsity Global Urban Trek team that are staying here.
I was quickly informed by Albert that i am in fact the only white American living near this community, which explained many of the looks i was getting. The diversity of Transformación Urbana Internacional was one of the things that attracted me to come here, but i wasn’t expecting this much. The director is Swiss and is married to an African American women, the pastor is from Zimbabwe (and used to be the national director of InterVarsity there) and he is here with his whole family (I’m looking forward to conversations with him about Africa as he just moved to Mexico a couple of years ago), there is another man who is from New Zealand and lives here with his family who helps out with graphic design/architecture projects, my other two roommates are from Guadalajara and Venezuela, and while the InterVarsity Global Urban Trek team is American they all have diverse backgrounds.
One of the biggest challenges here is that almost no one speaks English and while i find it frustrating not being able to communicate as freely as i would like the people i have met so far have been nothing but nice, helpful, and forgiving (and google translate helps too). In less than 24 hours my Spanish has improved 100 fold so i look forward to that continuing. I can see myself getting more frustrated with this once the entrepreneurial program starts running tomorrow and i find myself wanting to contribute more than I can, but it will be a lesson in humility and put me a bit more in solidarity with people who don’t have a voice not because they CHOSE to go on a trip to a foreign country.
I spent my day off today with Albert showing me around the neighborhood and getting acclimated to life here. One of the best parts about this experience is that i have more autonomy and freedom than ever before in a foreign country (every other trip I have been on has been extremely regimented and planned) and that will give me a better taste of what life is really like. I had the chance to meet Albert’s host family from last year as well as many other people from the community. Everybody was welcoming and I was able to stumble through short conversations with them with the help of Albert (who is also learning spanish during his time here) and I was even invited to a fiesta next Friday. He also showed me the market where i can go to buy any food i could need, get purified water, and even do my laundry. About two blocks away there is a sports complex where Transformación Urbana Internacional cleared what used to be a trash dump a few years ago and then the city put in a sports complex with a number of dirt soccer fields, a cement what looks like a roller hockey rink (but is in fact another soccer field), a handball wall that must be 3 or 4 stories tall, and they are currently building some type of stadium. When we walked by today there were tons of people playing and watching soccer games and it is clear that there is a great passion for soccer here so i hope that i can get involved and form relationships through that.
Here is a picture of the street where i am staying…
…but don’t let this picture fool you, we are in a densely populated urban area with about 29,188 people per square mile (according to official statistics which are estimated to cut the actual population in about half). You can compare that to boston with just 12,752 per square mile and see that Chimalhuacan is officially twice as dense as Boston or unofficial quadruple as dense as Boston.
It has been just about 24 hours since arriving and I have already learned so much and I hope that continues. I have only gotten a glimpse so far at some of the programs that Transformación Urbana Internacional runs but i am impressed. For example the man from New Zealand just finished up a design program where he taught some youth in the area Adobe as well as some simple carpentry and architecture design skills. He was auctioning off two of the furniture pieces the kid’s made in a store he rented out today to raise money for the program. There are so many more things i would like to explore but unfortunately it is raining pretty hard here now (the weather for the foreseeable future is heavy rains in the afternoons with the temperature fluctuating between 70-80 during the day and 50-60 at night.) which is allowing me to catch up on some much needed rest.
Soooo my idea (as of now) is to try to end each post with some cultural gem that i have acquired during my time here. So to start off, today i learned about a new form of music/dance called Cumbia….check it out.
So I’m leaving for Mexico City tomorrow morning at 6am! I will be spending a month with a Christian NGO called Transformación Urbana Internacional and will be helping my friend, Albert, who is down there now, run an entrepreneurial training program with them (more details to come). I’ve never done this blog thing….but I’ll try to keep you guys updated with my thoughts during my time there and I’ll catch you guys on the flip side when i return Aug 6th…..but until then time to get pumped!
My name is Kevin Ryan and I graduated this past spring from Northeastern University in Boston and studied Social Entrepreneurship and Human Services. This summer I will be in Mexico City working with a community development NGO and then will be moving to South Africa in September from anywhere from 6mo-2yrs to work with the largest microfinance institution in South Africa. This is a glimpse into my mind on these travels.
Life's A Trip 