Marissa in Mexico: El rancho se llama SANTA ROSA!!

After anxiously anticipating the rural life adventure in Mexico for 3 weeks, my new BYU friend, Hannah Trimble, and I got dropped off in what we like to call "el medio de la nada" ("the middle of nowhere") in a rancho/ little rural village called Santa Rosa! Arrangements for us to stay in the village we were previously staying in didn't work out, so the INAEBA organization contacted a family in Santa Rosa who housed BYU students like us several years ago through this program. The Rural Mexico Literacy Internship was active for about 17 years, and then dissolved until last year. So

Everyone this square-mile radius seems to be related somehow to the family we are living with. Their names are MARTIN and MARTINA! So I should feel right at home, right?! Except that someone takes the donkey down to the river every morning to fill buckets with water to bring back to the house for cooking and washing (if you feel like it).

This morning we woke up to the sound of roosters that sounded like desperate death cries! Martina and her daughter, Beatriz, were already hand making corn tortillas in the kitchen over a fire stove. Hannah and I each took 3 fresh ones and walked about a hundred yards up the hill to the school, which is a "secundaria" and "preparatoria" for students from about ages 12-18. We met with some of the teachers without any notice in advance who quickly welcomed us, introduced us to several classes, and put together a schedule of when we can basically take over the hours designated to English teaching for each grade! We are going to be busy, busy! Hannah and I are both minoring in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at BYU, so we are excited to have this experience!

We have also started talking to the guy in charge of literacy teaching through INAEBA in this area, whose name is Erick and is our same age. He has a list of adults who are working on high school level studies. We are also free to seek out more adults who don't know how to read/ write and offer to tutor them using the teaching techniques we were trained on briefly in Irapuato.

When we looked around with our suitcases yesterday at this place we'll be living, surrounded by cactus, goats, pigs, and donkeys... for a minute I second-guessed my decision about what I'll be doing for the next 3 months of my life! But thankfully we have already met many amazing people, including adorable little kids who like to follow us around and are fascinated by us. Our family and Erick are looking out for us, and every weekend for the next 8 weeks we are catching the buses/ taxis back to the city of Guanajuato where we'll reunite with the rest of our BYU group who are having their own experiences in other ranchos. Hannah and I are definitely the farthest away from the kind of civilization we're used to. Lots of bug spray and hand sanitizer is getting us by so far...

I'm so grateful that through school and my mission I've been able to learn Spanish as well as how to positively interact with people of other cultures! I'm recognizing, though, that I lack a lot of knowledge and practice in both as areas as I try to understand! This experience will help me mucho!

I think the Lord gives us opportunities to stretch ourselves. As we know, as we try to be selfless and give what we can to others, our capacity to give and receive His love is increased. (Matthew 16: 25)

Hannah and I get to stay in our own little casita, which looked like a storage shed until they moved things around and brought a bed in. Yes, this is where we live. The rest of the family is right next to us in other little buildings equally blue. It's very much the same color as my bedroom when I was 14...