Hermosillo and Sahuarita

Sorry I haven't updated in so long, time is such a limited commodity! To bring y'all up to date I'll start with Hermosillo...

Hermosillo, last city in Mexico, and the hottest! Temps were over 100 almost every day. Once again I was alone in a host family that spoke no English, but I had hot water for the first time in Mexico!!! YAY! My family was awesome though, I had two host sisters, 22, and 29ish I think... and the older one had a three year old daughter that was a princess, baby of the family and absolutely adorable. In Hermosillo our CIs were refurbishing some 20 basketball courts around the city.. This entailed repainting the lines, sweeping, and cleaning up the parks that were around the court. Our last show in Mexico was interesting, really good, but there were thousands of crickets that were all over our stage and dressing rooms. (we were performing in an outside venue) Also, during the show a nest of baby spiders hatched in the girls' dressing room, so at intermission when we went back there there were spiders over all of our stuff! EEEEEEKK!!!!! I freaked out when I saw that and was fairly disturbed the rest of the show. A funny thing about all the bugs is that some of the crickets were on people during the show, one girl even had one go down her shirt while she was onstage and had to stand still the rest of the song with a cricket down her shirt! And what's more impressive is that she actually did it! So our last city in Mexico was lots of fun and I really enjoyed being there

On Monday we came back to the USA. HOORAY!!! Its so good to be back in the states. As much as I loved Mexico it was really a challenge to be there. My host family here in Sahuarita rocks and I'm roomed with Linda from Finland and Cheryssa from New Jersey. Judy and John are our host mom and dad and they are so much fun. They are a Methodist family and last night we all went to youth group and made a presentation about UWP and played some games with the youth. It made me miss Fusion so much! I love all our youth workers and youth members and wanted to send a special bit of love to y'all since I've been thinking about you so much. This Sunday we're going to church (for the first time since I've left home), and then going to Olive Garden for lunch, YAY PASTA!!

This week's CIs have been amazing I've helped paint a new part of a fitness center at La Posada, and hauled logs out of a creek bed in Maderra Canyon to make way for a new bridge being put in there.

Today was a really cool day, we went to an elementary/middle school and did our Stand for Peace presentations for all the classes in the school. I did a third grade class this morning and a seventh grade class this afternoon. Stand for Peace is a presentation that UWP does to promote peace, diversity, and community action. We play games, do educational activities, and just have fun with the kids. We also teach them the "stomp" or rhythm portion of our show. My morning class gave me thank you notes after we performed a mini show for the school telling me how much they enjoyed the lesson and wanted us to come back. Its the most amazing feeling in the world to know that you may have changed these kids' lives and that you certainly made their day.

Tonight we went to La Posada, a local retirement community and served the residents dinner, we got to sit and talk with them throughout dinner and to perform a little for them as well. I served eight residents from all over the country (Maine, NY, Virginia, South Dakota, and more) who have moved here to AZ to retire. The residents were amazing and I got a wonderful dinner to boot!

Tomorrow we have regional learning on an organic farm out here, and I'll update you on that later...