This has been a long day! Today I rode on my second camion, but this time it was just me and Andrew and I was without Lina. Turns out I’m not an expert yet at riding the bus and we wound up missing our stop on the way back to Huehuetoca.
Today Andrew and I met outside for the micro (pronounced meecro) at around 8:15am. We were beginning our first journey down to Las Aguilas, and we needed to be there to help teach an English class at 10am. Not long after we had waited at the corner of the street, a micro came up and Andrew and I got in. Everything was going good until a little ways down the road the micro made a different turn than the one I had ridden in a few days ago. I began to get nervous and at the next intersection I told the driver to stop and let us out. After this we decided to walk back up the street and eventually we found our way back to the main street that leads into the Urbi village that we are living in. At this point a taxi pulled up behind us and we decided to go ahead and just take a taxi up to the camion stop.
Once we got up to the camion bus stop, we were just in time for the next camion and hopped on. Before we got on I made sure that the bus was heading the right way by asking the driver if he was headed to “LaFord” (or the Ford Manufacturing Plant). As the bus started to go we both sat down and got ready for a bumpy ride. As we got closer to our stop, I continually asked other passengers if we were close to the Ford stop. Thankfully some passengers were nice enough to help me out and let me know if we were getting close. Eventually we arrived after about a 30 minute trip in the camion and got off. From the bus stop we walked two blocks in Izcalli until we got to Casey’s house.
Once at Casey’s house we took a taxi with their trusted driver, Manny. This part of our trip was nice as we got to talk with Manny and enjoy his high quality driving (he’s not a “cafre” – that’s what they call the crazy drivers here). After a short ride with Manny we finally reached our destination of Las Aguilas. It’s pretty crazy to me how our commute was close to 2 hours to arrive there, but this experience today really showed me firsthand what many Mexican citizens have to go through every day just to get to work.
Following our arrival at Las Aguilas we started our second day of English class that we’ve taught this summer. As was the case last week, only a few kids came to the 10am class. This was nice as we could practice our lesson with a smaller crowd before moving on to more kids later in the afternoon. I think this second day of English classes worked quite well, and this is thanks to Kylee coming up with creative ways of teaching the kids. Once we finished this session around noon, Andrew, Kylee, and I went back to their apartment to eat some lunch and talk before the next session at 4pm.
The next session at 4pm came around and what a difference there was in attendance! We had only 3 or 4 girls in the first session, but this second session had close to the 30 kids. When you get that many kids in a room it gets loud and things can get out of hand. The sad thing is that Andrew and I had to leave an hour early so we left only Kylee with them from 5-6. Why did we leave early? Well, we had a surprise birthday fiesta to go to for Terri. This birthday party was in Huehuetoca so we had to repeat all of our travelling we had done earlier – this time in reverse.
From Las Aguilas, Manny drove us back to the camion stop in Izcalli. From there we got our camion that would take us back up the highway to Huehuetoca. Everything was going well until we got closer to our stop in Huehuetoca. While looking at landmarks and all as well as signs, I never say a sign on the side of the road that clearly said Huehuetoca on it so I didn’t get off the bus. There’s a large hill that is a good landmark for where we live now and so I was looking at it. As it started to pass by I knew there was a problem and walked up to the bus driver. When I asked where the stop for Huehuetoca was, he replied “Detras” (or behind).
At this point I asked him to let us off and we wound up in what looked like the middle of nowhere. The stop for Huehuetoca was at least 2 miles behind us now and so I didn’t have any recollection of where we were save the hill in the background. I decided to call Casey and we started walking towards the first main road that ran parallel to the highway. Casey didn’t answer, so I walked up to a tienda (shop) and asked the lady where the main avenue was. She pointed in the opposite direction from where the bus had brought us and we decided to walk towards that way.
To make a long story short, we started walking and got a great view of the countryside next to the Urbi where we live. Eventually we came upon the very same intersection where we had gotten out of the micro earlier that morning and we knew we were next to the Urbi. From there we decided we were close enough to walk back to the mission house and so we walked the next mile or so all the way back. Once we arrived to the party we were able to share our story with the partygoers and eventually sit down and relax. We had a great time at the party and finished the night off by playing “Never Have I Ever” in Spanish.
This has been a long and exciting day so it’s time for bed. I know now how to take a camion and not get lost, but then again getting lost was kinda fun too.
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