I never technically introduced myself in my first blog, so hi! Today you are reading the events of day 9 through the eyes of Gaby, or my Oaxacan Goddess title: Senora Diez Mangos!
Last night, as we headed in from dinner, we heard every student’s favorite phrase, “you get an extra hour of sleep, breakfast has been pushed back.” If you read Archik’s post yesterday (which you should’ve because skipping ahead is wrong), you’d know that the extra hour was much needed. The person to thank for this glorious extra hour is the Municipal President of Suchil. We were scheduled to meet with him at 10am, hence a late breakfast (an egg covered in tomato soup?), and learn more about programs they hope to implement to encourage growth within the community. After 30 minutes of waiting outside the President’s office and no idea as to when he would actually arrive, we packed our things and left. According to Richard, 30 minutes is the maximum amount of time someone can run late before it is considered rude and you’re allowed to leave, even in MST (Mexican Standard Time). We didn’t feel great about leaving, but hey, we are very busy people with lots of work left to do... We don’t have time to wait around for a president!
From there we headed home, aka the worksite. Like most days, we started slowly, waiting for everyone to fill up on coffee and vitamin C before Hannah M leads our group strech. Once the previous days blog post is up and our quads are loose we are ready to start! Ryan, Petri, and the Hannahs focused on securing the structure by drilling anchoring straps into the concrete and using silicon caulk to seal the polycarbonate panels from any potential water leakage. This doesn’t sound like much, but it is much more challanging when the concrete you’re working on is hot enough to burn through your pants… Archik, Minerva, Antonio, and I were reunited as Equipo Madera and spent the afternoon building trays for our drying racks and bopping to Ed Sheeran. One of the best things about our work becoming more routine is how quickly the Xuchil team opened up to us. Working together feels like something we’ve been doing for way longer than a week, and this morning during the group strech everyone danced it out, which is a huge step since its normally just me and Ryan looking like fools while everyone watches and laughs.
To no ones surprise, we had an amazing lunch (yes, there were tortillas) and sent Richard on another materials run because Equipo Madera is amazing and we are now making not 3 but 4 drying racks. We were so in the zone, we didn’t realize Equipo Base was packing up for the day and quickly wrapped up our work to walk back to the hotel.
On the way back, we took a quick detour at a nearby restaurant to enjoy some well earned, after work refreshments. Imagine this: you’ve just spent the last 7ish hours working in an outdoor structure meant to reach a minimum temperature of 110 deg. You’re in jeans, and probably re-wearing a sweaty shirt (all of your clean clothes are still wet becuase there was a huge storm and they were hang drying outside the night before). You are surrounded by people who inspire you, and smell just as bad. One of them is crying because she lost a bet and ate a whole chile, another is debating if a nearby dog would fit in her suitcase. Life is good.
The day only continued to get better as the team decided to go for a swim after dinner, and we spent the night searching for constellations, discussing 401k's, and hearing about the many adventures of our technical advisor, David. It was a day that felt completley normal yet full of special moments. These are becoming increasingly more common the longer we stay here, making our nightly highs and lows routine last a little longer each time. If you haven’t noticed from everyone else’s posts, we are loving every minute of this trip, the people we’ve gotten to meet, and the various types of pan dulce we have during dinner.See you next week, when I’ve hopefully earned my title and eaten 10 mangoes in one day.
Peace, love, deet
- Gaby y Team Mexico