Summer Heat Wave

www.flickr.com/photos/mexicanmananda

First an explination of the photos. Most of them are from when there was a short term team here from Nipawin, Saskatchewan. The Lucha Libre is something that resembles WWF wrestling from the U.S., but all the wrestlers wear masks and it had started out as a way to make political statements during the days when to do so publicly was a health risk. The church I work with El Encuentro, had a baptism service during the time Nipawin was here. If I remember correctly about 10 members of the church were baptised along with one member of the short term team. It was so fun to see my friends taking that commiment. The last picture is of Heather Paty while she was still here... taking a nap with our chihuahua. Really he had just endured a photo shoot so that Heather could have some memories of him.

Now I will go on to talk about the true title of this entry. It is VERY warm here. Okay now I know I can't complain, many of you would probably want to be enjoying constant heat, and the days are beautiful... until you step into either my bedroom or the metro. I love my room, like while as much as maybe someone can love a room anyways. BUT it has a slanted metal cieling... which means its pretty much deadly in there during the afternoons. However its the nicest place to be in the whole house at nights as it coolest off the fastest as well. As for the metro its always hot, its just more noticable now. Soon the rain will come... soon.

With the heat wave comes flies or "moscas". As we leave all windows and doors open during the day (the hallway of our house is like a courtyard so all room doors are actually to the outside) flies come in. I came down for supper the other night and decided to practice my fly swatting skills. After I missed the first um probably five times my brother Enrique informed me that his record for a day was 43. Being the competitor that I am, I decided it was time to become skilled in swatting flies. I got up to 13 before I got bored. Enrique then informed me that the 43 recorde was from when he worked a paper store and was bored all day everyday.

During this same night an interesting event occured in my life. I saw my first rat. I know I know I have lived in Mexico City for eight months now and I have only just seen one rat. One would think with the size of the city and amount of people there would be many rats, and I think that quite possibly there are, but so far it seems God has provided my easily squirmish self safety from them. I guess New York City actually has the biggest rat problem in the world. Anyways, so I'm sitting at the kitchen table facing the door. Enrique and Lupita are sitting facing me. Suddenly I see this shadow out of the corner of my eye, it was at the top of a wall that is next to our house, but not really IN the house. So I think to myself "oh it was just one of the neighborhood cats". BUT THEN it came back... and it was not a cat. I pointed, speachless unable to tell my siblings what I had just seen. They looked at me like I was crazy cause it was gone already and they didn't see it. So trying to remember the word for rat I stumbled "rata, ratan, raton, rato..." they figured it out anways. My sister looked at me and with a glimmer in her eye said "and this is why you should make sure your bedroom door is fully closed at night", Enrique added "otherwise you will make yourself a new friend". Yes apparently there are not many rats or mice either in the neighborhood because we have really nice cats hanging out, but from now on everytime I leave my room once its dark that door is COMPLETELY closed behind me as before I did leave it unlatched at times to let it cool off more.

Well I only have two more months left here and much more to experience. Enrique informs me that the family has plans to make sure I leave well. One of the things on the list is to improve my stature :) as I apparently slump my shoulders. I am excited for this time as I finally feel content in all that I do here and even in speaking Spanish. Speaking of speaking spanish I just took another placement exam today as I will be joining another classroom setting, and found out that I will be put in the Advanced class. That pretty much made my day... and makes me want to speak spanish more and more and more.