Keeping in touch

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So as most of you know-
I'm in Mexico for about a month helping out a missionary family in Tepic. Emily Cormier who is from Sussex originally but studying sciences in Halifax is also here to help out. Neither of us knew of each other's plans to come but both planned for almost identical dates. She is staying 10 days longer and arrived just a bit before me. So far both of us have been helping the children with their school work- Emily usually helps them with their sciences and math while I help them with their history, geography and language arts.
Every day so far has been very busy- the days start at 6:30am when we go for an hour long walk. We then come home and have breakfast around 7:30am. Afterwards we clean up from breakfast and the kids do their chores. Because of the dryness and cement infrastructure, things get very dusty. They need to sweep and mop on a daily basis. The children start their school work at about 9:00 and work until lunchtime (around 1:30 or 2:30). We have our main meal of the day at lunchtime and then they continue to finish up their lessons afterwards. We leave to pick up people for the evening meetings at the hall in Tepic which are finishing up tonight. Marcus and a local brother Sergio are preaching nightly. I have been surprised at how much I understand from the meetings. I have compiled my own Spanish-English dictionary which I work on during the meetings. Madeleine (12) or Samuel (10) have been translating unknown words for me during the meetings. I have discovered that meetings are far easier to understand than conversational Spanish. Each meeting night is kind of like a Spanish lesson- an hour of listening/singing and then another half hour of communicating.
I have been having some major camera issue since I've arrived. I seem to have been plagued with a bit of a camera curse for the past few months. As most of you know, my Canon S2IS broke while snowboarding in Tremblant near the end of the season. I was without a camera for a month at least when my dear sister Emma-Joy sent me hers to use for my Mexico trip. And then... my dearest Vincent GAVE me a brand new FUJI film which I absolutely love(d). A week after its purchase- it broke (by manual force, not a mal function of the camera) and its diagnosis was ''unrepairable". So Marcus lent me his camera "until" mine got fixed. Yesterday I went to bring it to brunch at Shelly and Jason's (missionaries from Iowa, US) and could not find it anywhere. I looked high and low, we even went to check to see if I left it at the TACO stand from the night before, but they hadn't seen anything. I looked in the van, cleaned our room, looked in Sam's room, etc...but to no avail. I was pretty upset- assuming the worst, it had to have been stolen at the Taco stand or dropped on our walk, etc. I was in our room pouting when Evelyn can running in saying, " YOU ARE SO SILLY, WHY DIDN'T YOU LOOK ON THE COUCH?" It was hidden under the arm of the couch- you don't understand how happy I was. I had looked for a few hours. So that camera problem has been solved.
Yesterday we went for a mother's day brunch at Jason and Shelly Wahl's. It was delicious! In the afternoon, we went to check out Tepic from a mountain where most of the city can be seen. It is where many indigenous people reside. Afterwards we checked out the Mother's Day festivities (which is a huge deal here in Mexico). Businesses closed early and people buy stoves, couches, etc for their mother. We shopped around- I picked up some sunglasses, Emily bought a skirt and we all got pedicures for a measley 90 pesos each (9 bucks each). It was fun!
Tomorrow we leave for Ciudad del Carmen. It is a 24 hr+ drive and we will be stopping in Veracruz. If you check the map, you will find that we will cross almost the whole country- I am excited to see the sites!
I am loving it so far and will have plenty of stories to tell. I also plan to make you some Mexican food when I get home.
I miss and love you all!

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