Monday Night En Mexico
Monday, Jun. 16, 2003

030616b After Service

Breakfast was great this morning. Laborio's wife, Maria, and her helper gals had refried beans and eggs fried with ham. We had fresh hot tortillas and hot sauce again. I ate my first fresh mango, which I always pronounced main-go, but they pronounce it like you'd say mongo in English.

After breakfast, we started getting ready for the medical mission. I was asked if I was a hairdresser. "No," I said. "Hoy? Si. But no."

I cut four or five kids hair. Paul did most of the work as I only did around the ears and the back of the neck on two of the kids. Paul also got a kid who was screaming bloody murder. I managed to get the kid to stop screaming for about 20 seconds by doing a funny little dance. However, 20 seconds wasn't very long compared to his haircut. By the time it was over, the little guy was exhausted.

I also cut a baby's hair for the first time in his life. He was a real wookie too. Yikes. But he was really good.

I cut hair and ran errands. At one point, though, I just talked to Noe Lee for about 40 minutes. Noe Lee is his first name. He also has two last names. He and Gerardo, or something similar, are the two people I talked to most today.

Gerardo came to me at one point and asked me what the word in English "maybe" meant. I actually couldn't think of the Spanish version of it, but after looking it up in a dictionary he said "possible!" (Pos-see-bley). Yes, and I should have known that off the top of my head.

Other words that Gerardo and I discussed were "clever" and "it." He was at a total loss over the word "it." I told him it was a pronoun, like el or ella, but for things, cosas. But also a situation or a place, even a dog could be an it, but a person would never be an it. He understood. After that, I realized how often we use the word it.

Lunch was a thick stew, navy beans, and Spanish rice. And of course we had homemade and fresh hot salsa and tortillas. The fruit we had was watermelon and cantaloupe.

We eat lunch around 2:30. After lunch I helped package medicine and swept up some. I also put the pews back in order from where we were doing the hair cutting.

At 7:00, we had an evening service. Steve gave a modified but recycled lesson that he's used back at home before. It was really raining hard for quite a while and it was hard to hear him since the tin roof that covers that part of the courtyard was very loud.

And speaking of rain, I found out that where we are, in the middle of Mexico City, they don't have water mains. The water we wash with and that comes out of the tap (but we don't drink it, no) is rain water. There is a giant underground tank and a pump which pumps water up to the roof. On the roof there is a big black tank. The cold water from the tap, well, it isn't that cold really. Or so say many people and I've noticed that at times too. However, when I took a shower this morning, the cold felt cold, however, the hot was scalding.

This morning I was sitting on the red couch downstairs in this odd, minimalist, palace-like house of concrete. I was waiting on the one bathroom under the stairs to be free. In came a woman and said "something something otro ba�o aqui". I didn't understand. She said "aqui" and it sunk in. "Here." Otro...I couldn't remember what that meant. It means other. But when she said Ba�o again...it clicked. There is another bathroom here. I showered in the bathroom they have in their house. It's door is on the outside.

In fact, the really nice house we are in, has no front door. The front door is before the 35 feet of arbor covered with bougonvilla and other flowers. The front door is right on the street and leads to the courtyard.

After service, we had a hot milk drink that had sugar, vanilla, and rice in it. It was really good. I had three glasses of it. They always have a little get together where people talk after each service. That's kind of neat.

Well, I have a day similar to today tomorrow. Today they closed the door at around noon since the line for the free dentist and doctor were very long.

Bath time.