Mas Lomas

I realized I had forgotten how absolutely gorgeous it is in Lomas. Hilary and I got here, to my host family’s vacation home, Sat. night around 8:30. The rest of the family was away at a birthday party, but arrived at home soon after we did. The family had come to Lomas on Friday, and Hilary and I stayed in the city an extra day because she needed to be at church on Saturday, and her parents didn’t want her staying alone. Friday night was fantastic for me, because I’m the type of person who craves alone time and that doesn’t ever happen in my house. When Hilary and Chucho said they were going to the movies and invited me along, I declined and enjoyed the house to myself. I watched more t.v. than I have in the past 4 months. I laughed hard, and watched an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition so I cried hard too. I cooked up some chorizo, which I knew would make me sick, and enjoyed my totally self-absorbed night alone.
Saturday morning none of us wanted to get up. Chucho and his sister, Pris, stayed with us also. We needed to leave at 10:00 to get to church on time. That’s the same time that I started waking up teenagers. We got to the church an hour or so late. I didn’t understand why we were supposed to be there anyhow, but no one seemed upset that we were late. Actually, we had to wait for the other youth to get there. Hilary taught them a skit to the song Jesus Mesias, or Jesus Messiah. They worked on it for about 3 hours, it was pretty good by the end of the day. I look forward to seeing them perform it.

As Hilary and I were trying to find our way to our bus to come here, one of the guys from church texted her because some of the youth wanted to hang out with me. He said they hadn’t had time with me and wanted to spend time with me. Awww… they’re so great. It’s been difficult building relationships because I’ve been back and forth from Mexico to Zapotitlan so much. I haven’t really had the opportunity to stay in one place long enough to pursue friendships, but now that I’ll be in Mexico for the next 4 weeks that’s something I really want to do. I’ve often, said that when I leave I don’t want to be “that gringa that was here for a while”. So now I really need to work on relationships with more people than just my family. Well, now being tomorrow after we get back to the city.

Last night (Sunday) we went to papa Roberto’s sister’s house. Before we went, mama told me that the house is big and there is a lot of food. The food was out of control. They just kept sitting things to eat in front of me. No matter how much I said “no, gracias, estoy llena (no thanks, I’m full)” the food kept coming. Actually, I guess it wasn’t as bad as it felt. I managed to turn down the cake, I ate the amazing tostada with shrimp, turned down the peanuts, ate some corn cake (mmmm…), only ate 1 piece of the candied fruit thing, only a bite of a sweet…. empanada (I think), and too much gummy candy. Rach, you would have loved the gummies. They were spicy and sweet …and muy rico! I’m not sure what I liked more the tostada, or the corn cake…both were delicious! When we left the house, after eating and eating and eating, we stopped for dinner. Wait, what??? I was very confused. We stopped at a taco place, which apparently had amazing tacos. My family recounted the food that I ate in order to convince me to eat more, decided I hadn’t had enough and that I really should eat some tacos. Despite their persistence, I won the battle and managed to leave without so much as tasting a piece of steak.

I’m hungry…and my family will be up in a bout 2-2 ½ hours. Today we’re heading back to the city. Normally it takes us about 1 ½-2 hours to get here, but today it will probably take 4 hours to get home because of traffic. I remember the same thing from last year when I was here. It’s ok, hopefully I’ll sleep on the way home. I didn’t sleep much last night because I wanted to get up for the sunrise this morning. I guess because I was trying to wake up before my alarm so that it didn’t wake up Hilary, whose room I was sharing, I kept waking up all night. It was worth it though. Not only did I see the sunrise, but I also get this great alone time.