People and Group 1

Friday Salsa Night and Saturday for Group 2

Friday night was salsa night. Rich was working after dinner with Fidelina and her eMac. But everything was dropped when our instructor came fashionably late. A bit of Meringe to start, and then the peligrosa Salsa. Many of us became a tangle of twisted feet and hands trying the beginner steps that our instructor taught us. We all bought T-shirts that said we survived Salsa dancing! Much fun was had. The teacher then danced a finale with Moriah. Cest manifique -- oops, I mean Fue fantastico! Una maravilla. Photos to follow....

On Friday, Rich decided to make a pilgrimage to Tepeyac. On Saturday he left the rest of the group. The group went to Xochicalco. Photos of Xochicalco to follow as well.

On the pilgrimage, Rich arranged a night at La Casa de Los Amigos. Took the 9am Morelo Ejecetivo to Taxquena and a taxi to La Casa. It was quite a tour of Mexico City as the driver had no clue where the street was that La Casa is on, nor did I. After a few tips from other taxi drivers, I arrived. Checked in and then I took the Metro to La Villa Guadalupe and found without much trouble Tepeyac. There are flowers and bird songs as the story promises... though a fair number of car horns, church organs and other noises. This is the start of the staircase...


The chapel has been updated, so little of the early church remains, this facade was done in 1953 or so.


The inside has been redone a few times as well, though it retains much of its original design. It is a small chapel, would seat 100 at most. Much of the chapel is altar and dias. Most pilgrims take their picture next to an early depiction of the third appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego. The appearance that provided the mantel...


The mantel of Juan Diego with the miraculous depiction of Our Lady is in a huge cathedral that could serve 10,000 with the plaza in front of the building. Below is as sharp a picture as I could get standing on a moving sidewalk in the semi-dark while a church service was in progress. The mantel is on the back wall of the cathedral behind the altar and the sightseerers are below the altar and out of sight and out of ear shot for the most part.

Here is my blurry picture of the mantel...



I thought about the money-changers at the temple as the entire hill and plaza had vendors all over. I did have a tasty sandwich and drink for a modest price however. I did not buy any memorias. It is also good to know that you can rent the entire cathedral with the mantel for a reasonable 50,000 pesos for a one hour service with four canters and ushers for up to 500 people.

This is a picture of some of the vendor wares just outside the plaza. Note that Frieda Kahlo gets equal billing with the Virgin of Guadalupe!


Thanks to Paul for making my pilgrimage possible. It was well worth it to me to make the trip. I got to re-live the story, see what has become of the legend over time and to be reminded of the hope and joy that exists here amid the brokeness!

Tomorrow at 6am, I will get up, take a taxi to the airport and meet Lenor and Moriah for our flight home.

Hasta luego to Mexico, to Service Learning Trip 2010 and to two great teams! And, of course, more pictures with captions will be posted later!

Catching up... Friday and a bit about Thursday

This morning most of us went to the Fundacion de Sergio Arceo to finish painting. We did a pretty complete job on the eaves in purpura (purple) and painted the apartment white. We had painted the roof of this building Thursday.

We then left for La Buena Tierra, to survey our great work (with a start by group 1) on the desk frames.

We joined Carl and Paul who had planted climbing vines and flowers in the little yards placed in the light wells at La Buena Tierra.

La Buena Tierra children said goodbye to us with song and dance. They also provided sweets to bring home to our church children (of all ages).

Then Univeral invited us to their Friday goodbye school barbecue and lecture on economics and politics in Mexico today. post NAFTA. The bad taste left by the impact of NAFTA was made up by the good food of Univeral´s barbecue. Chorizo, pollo, longaniza, y bistec with tortillas of course. Dick joined us here after tuning the piano for the Sisters. Some strings will be purchased and replaced, but the movement is fine and the cracks in the sound board are insignificant.

It is fiesta time here! San Anton is being celebrated. There are big puppets being worn (like the Macy´s parade only smaller. Traffic is being stopped and folks are having a feria por la calle or a street fair out front of Universal School.

Visits to the booths of the street fare outside Universal, then back to the Sisters for dinner and reflection.

Oh, BTW... Thursday we spent the morning at La Fundacion painting the roofs and listening to Soyla describing the situation with the Lomo de Mejio landfill and poisoning of the barrancas. Then in the afternoon, we napped, visited the Zocolo in Cuernavaca or looked for birds.

Saturday will be Xochichalco for most of the group, Rich may go to Tepeyec, stay in Mexico City and leave on his early plane. Paul and Mary will stay until Monday to close out our trip, but the rest of us will take Sunday flights. Your blogger will be adding material when he gathers the pictures from everyone just as group 1 has. More then!

Snatches from Week Uno

I'm happily back at home, thankful for many little blessings. Here are a couple of images I wanted to add. enjoy...

Lea and Gaby at the National Palace, Mex City.

Two sweet kids at La Buena Tierra.

Nico and Jill (co-directors) when we said goodbye at La Casa on June 1.

Pablo befriending a fairly scary street performer!

More Pictures (from La Casa)

The dedication of the orange tree that replaced the ficus that group 1 removed at La Casa. We sang Diego Orangeseed to the tune of Johnny Appleseed for the dedication.

The piano being tested after a day long repair and tune...

The finished dining room at La Cass thanks first group for making this possible!

Group 2 Wednesday AM

The group 2 picture.... (thanks for taking Terry Mast).

Had breakfast with the sisters at Guadalupana this morning. Most of us were up all night thinking about the stories of scorpions, the thunder and lightning as well as the tree frog serenade. Birds started singing at 6am and the Eeds were out getting more ¨life birds.¨ Prayers started later this morning to allow us to sleep in. Had a beautiful prayer service that had us reading and participating with the sisters. Breakfast was american style, with toast, bacon and fried eggs. Then off to La Buena Tierra to hear the story of the school and of Lizy´s involvement there. Fascinating and disturbing. Wonderful that the many miracles occured that had the school start and prosper, with no small thanks to a Sarah Yoder. Great that Lizy has been able to install respect for the school and its ways that make their programs possible.

Then we split up and painted desk frames that had been prep´d by the previous team. Or we taught computers to the the youngest group of children. These children had more trouble and the computers seem to be more difficult too. But very quickly we all enjoyed the games and worked with the difficulties... (Sorry for the sideways picture...)

Then we went to Universal to have lunch and swim in the pool. The sisters made us a wonderful picnic lunch! The pool was so cold compared to the hace calor!

More later...

Group 1 Photo

This is barry posting on annes acct. Here is a group photo of group 1 sin Maria and Pablo ;-( who are meeting the other group at this point. We're standing on the pyramid of the sun with the 'soon-to-be-climbed' pyramid of the moon in the background.

Mik, Anne and Barry all have their hundreds of photos posted on their facebook page.
barry's album anne's album miks album will have a link asap