I woke up a little later today just like I did last Monday because I stayed up late last night updating my blog and taking care of some other things from my life in the States (like email). Once I got up I found out from Lina that Andrew had come by to see if I wanted to work out. I walked outside after eating a light breakfast to ask him what we had to do for the day. He replied that we only had to help out with the women’s Bible study later at 4pm. I asked if he would be ok with climbing the large hill today and he agreed it would be fun to do.
I returned to Lina’s house and told her I would like to start talking with different people in the community today so I could keep learning the language. Lina (who knows quite a few people here in the village) was very happy to hear this and couldn’t wait to take me to one of her friends that worked a local tienda. So after I got ready, Lina and I left for our first stop at a cleaning supplies shop owned by a woman named Elli. Elli is from Uruguay and definitely has a different accent than the people here. After asking if I would be able to come by in the future to talk with her and learn the language, she replied “Whenever you want” (in Spanish of course). This was nice to know as I am looking forward to learning to understand different accents in Spanish.
Following our visit with Elli, Lina and I walked two houses down to visit with her sister that runs a small convenience store. As was the case with Elli, I was greeted nicely and was told that I could come by to talk in the future with Lina’s sister and whoever else was there. After talking for a while, Lina decided to leave me with her sister and her son to talk for a bit. I told them that we were planning on climbing the nearby hill today and her son, Ruben, said that he would like to come along. I was ok with this and asked him if he had climbed the hill before. He said that he had and pretty soon we were leaving the store to get Andrew for our climb.
Upon our arrival at Andrew’s house, we had to wait for him to get ready for the hike. Andrew also invited Christian (the son of the couple he’s living with) to climb with us and soon he was ready to go as well. From there we set off on our adventure up the hill, and pretty soon we were outside of the Urbi and into the surrounding countryside. After a little while outside of Urbi, we turned back to see what kind of view there was. Simply after a short while of walking, we were pretty amazed to see a lot of the houses below us. This first elevated picture isn’t even close to what we were going to see following our hike up the hill though.
After a while of hiking up the hill we had to start taking breaks to let our legs rest. These short rest breaks also provided a good time to take pictures, so I continued to take pictures periodically as we climbed the hill. As was the case with the pyramids we climbed this past Friday, it got harder to climb the higher we got. This was true not only due to the higher altitude but also due to the steeper hillside.
It took the four of us about 1 hour to get to the top of the hillside after our walking, and we looked down on God’s creation below. What we saw was a beautiful countryside with mountains in the background.
Also I forgot to mention that on the top of this hill there is a cross. Supposedly the Mexicans put crosses on tops of hills so that evil spirits will be scared away from the land below the cross. Since we’re on a mission trip, this made for a cool spot for pictures. After we enjoyed the view and took a bunch of pictures, I opened up my electronic Bible on my phone and read a short passage of scripture in Spanish. I read from Matthew 5 (or Mateo 5), which is the “Sermon on the Mount”. I thought this was fitting since we were on a mountainside pretty much. After reading this passage I prayed a little bit and we decided to begin our descent.
On the way down we moved slowly on the steep parts and had no problems getting back to flatter land. Climbing this hill reminded me of the one I climbed in El Paso (see picture below) before we went on our mission trip to Juarez last year. The difference was that this hill in Huehuetoca was much easier to climb down and we didn’t get stuck up there until nightfall like I did in El Paso.
Eventually we made it back into the Urbi village and I was ready to get some lunch. Before we headed back though, Ruben said we could go explore the Urbi school real quick so we decided to join him.
The school ground we explored was their primary school. We met a custodian there who was kind enough to let us in and show us around for a bit. The school is very simple and has an open feel to it (I took some pictures below). We were told by the custodian that one side is for morning school and the other was for afternoon school. I took a few pictures of some classrooms and one class that was outside for recess. After we took our short tour, we thanked the custodian and headed back to our homes for lunch.
After I ate a nice lunch I headed over to the mission house to help babysit the women’s children while they had a Bible study. I arrived around 4:45 (the Bible study was supposed to start at 4pm), but there were only two women so far and it hadn’t started yet. Soon a few more ladies showed up and so Andrew and I helped take care of their kids. These kids are quite rambunctious and don’t really listen to what you ask them to do. It was hard to let them have fun without letting them go places or do things that their parents probably wouldn’t want them to do. Nevertheless, no one got hurt or died or anything like that so I’d say Andrew and I did a good job.
Following our babysitting time, Andrew and I practiced basketball and talked for a while until it started raining. At this point we both went back to our homes to rest for tomorrow. When I arrived, I told Lina I was hungry and she started cooking sincronizadas for me. These are small quesadilla type things with ham and cheese in the middle of them. They’re simple and pretty good tasting. Anyway, that’s how I spent my 20th day in Mexico. I’m glad I got to start my language route today, and I look forward to building these relationships during my time here.
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