SALT orientation in Akron, PA

Hello to all, and welcome to my blog! Hopefully this will be a good place for you to read and see what’s going on in my life this year . . . I have no idea what kind of time/internet access I will have for such things, but I’ll try to update it as often as I can. I also apologize that sometimes I tend to get long-winded (aka wordy) so I’ll try to keep these things on the shorter end so you actually read them all, but no promises!

I am currently sitting in the MCC Guest House in Mexico City. I just arrived here yesterday … the past week I have been in Akron, PA for orientation with all those from SALT/YAMEN!/IVEP. It was an incredible week. At the beginning we all compared it to the first week of your first year of college – it’s kind of awkward because you don’t know anyone, and you just kind of make friends with lots of people because they don’t know anyone either, and you feel like you’re friends but you don’t really actually know them … it’s an interesting sensation. But it turned into awesomeness – I made some great friends with people and the week was phenomenal. Well, it was also very boring at times, full of long days, and exhausting as well. We spent most of our time in sessions learning about MCC, logistics of SALT, living cross-culturally, setting goals, nurturing ourselves spiritually, oppression, self care, etc. etc. etc. Some of the sessions were extremely heavy and I left feeling as if I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. Others were very boring and I had to try to keep myself awake. And others were extremely helpful to be in dialogue with others. It was especially great because we had people from all over the world there for the different programs, so we were given the space to learn from people from so many different cultures. We would often divide up into regions – for instance one day all of us either coming from or going to Central America met (about 10 of us) and discussed/taught each other how things happen where we are from. (those social norms that we just inherently have ingrained into us that people coming to our culture wouldn’t necessarily know). It was a really great experience.

When I first arrived in Akron I found out I would be staying at the Manor House – not actually in the “compound” of the MCC Welcoming Place as I learned to call it. I was a little jealous at first because others in the compound had much nicer facilities (i.e. 2 people per shower instead of 10). But after about one day we all realized The Manor had it going on – it was full of people either coming from or going to Latin America, and we all made great connections and had tons of fun together. No matter how hard I tried I could never get to bed before midnight or 1 (even though we had to get up early) because it was always just such at good time at the manor!

Also during the week I had the delight of spending time with a select few individuals – Sara Groff stole me away for an evening. I also went to my Uncle Terry, Aunt Joanie, and cousins Alyse and Austin’s house for a few hours. My last night Kelly Shenk and Peter Koontz came to visit as well. So it was really nice to get to spend a little bit of time with those people throughout the week! Although it was interesting – those of us who left in the evenings to be with family/friends all discussed the fact that part of us didn’t want to leave – there was always so much fun and learning going on that we really didn’t even want to miss out on it. Evenings were full of just hanging out and talking, playing music, birthday fiestas and despedidas, and going to the park to play volleyball, tennis, etc. It was awesome.

So, enough about orientation. Now I’m in Mexico! woot woot. Yesterday morning at 8 am Marcos and I left for the airport. Marcos is part of the YAMEN! program and is from Argentina. He will also be in Mexico this year, though sadly very very far away from where I will be. Anyways, we flew out of Philadelphia … when we got to the airport I was so bound and determined to get McDonald’s breakfast (surprising, I know) because generally McDonald’s in other countries don’t serve breakfast and I wanted one last sausage and egg mcgriddle! … and so we set out on to find it – with all our stuff – we ended up walking for casi 30 minutes … and when we got there they weren’t serving breakfast anymore! It was slightly traumatizing. Ah well. Our flights were pretty good – Marcos thought he was going to die on the first one and I thought the same on the second one, but we survived. I was slightly depressed that in my one hour layover in Houston I was so close to my brother but didn’t get to see him L sorries jason! When we were coming into Mexico City there was a thunderstorm that we were seriously flying right into – I have never been so close to bolts of lightening in my life and frankly I was scared to death. And p.s. this city is HUGE. Like nothing I have ever seen. It’s incredible. And it’s right in the middle of all these mountains – it was really quite beautiful to see from the air. and i found out once i was here that it is the biggest city in the entire world...crazy...

So we got in around 6 and I was scared to death of customs – but it was easy breezy no problem. Ricardo (MCC Rep) met us at the airport. We came back to the MCC Guest House/Office where we met Kiara, another MCCer, and Marion (Ricardo’s wife) and their daughter Isabel (2 years old – SO cute). We all went out for dinner and words can’t describe how excited I am to be eating Mexican food for the next year. It is so good. I don’t even know what the name of what we had was – but it included meat off of those giant slabs of meat on rotisseries in the street that rotate round and round and utterly gross me out usually. Yeah – it’s good. And mmm spicy! If that is any indication of what I will be eating for the next year – I’m stoked!

So I will be staying at the MCC Guest House for I think the next two weeks (I’m not positive exactly…) The 27^th all the solteros in MCC (the single ones) are heading to an MCC retreat. I’m not quite sure why those of us who are single are going a day early…odd…but anyways, the married ones will come the 28^th. We’ll be at retreat until August 31 (I have no idea where it is). In the mean time I think I will be spending lots of time getting to know the city, learning about the country, and possibly visiting Cuernavaca (where I will be for the rest of the year)

My thoughts and feelings … well I told Marcos that I feel like I’m going on vacation. It doesn’t even feel like I’m going to be gone for a year, and frankly I’m so super excited to be here that I haven’t felt nervous or scared at all yet (well, minus when I was flying in a giant metal hunk right next to bolts of lightening and when I was going through customs). I am just really happy to be here. It’s going to be a lot of fun .. at least this next month I am positive about that. And the rest of the year too. I have talked to several people about my assignment – my living and working situation – and I would greatly appreciate your prayers for those situations and that I may have strength to deal with any challenges that may come my way.

I suppose that is all for now. Basically – I had a phenomenal week at orientation. And I’m super excited to be here now J Take care, and keep in touch. I will try to write again sometime soon about my adventures here in mexico city orienting myself to this country.

okay i´m not sure how this whole photo thing works, but i will try it out ...

mcc welcoming place - aka the compound

playing sand volleyball down in the park

MANOR HOUSE! - all of us either coming from or going to latin america

my roommates - dora y laura

mis nuevas amigas y yo heading off to our comissioning service

hanging out in the manor

we had all kinds of fun and fiestas in the evenings

we also danced thriller - there was a talent show where we were supposed to perform songs or dances from our culture - so of course what better to do than honor the king of pop.

if you want to check out our attempt at it go here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaW7_Z9y5WA (though keep in mind we only started practicing the night before ... )