Merida, A True Treasure

I have been overly impressed  by all that Merida has to offer. I Like to refer to the Yucatan Peninsula as a hidden treasure. There is so much good here, so much to be seen. The first thing I've grown to love is the beautiful landscape. From the surreal blue oceans to the Mayan Pyramids, I could basically write an editorial on all the reasons to visit this beautiful place, but I may sound too much like an advertisement. Besides the physical beauties and the wonderfully rich culture, the city of Merida has specialties unlike any other major city in Mexico. There are programs here that I have been so impressed with. Unlike many other corrupt cities in Mexico, there is a lot of government funding that goes towards after school programs for the community teaching the all sorts of skills like dancing, sewing, cooking, and painting that helps people sell their products to support their families. likewise, many kids who's parent's work in the city market don't see a need for education because they expect their children to simply take over their shops when they are older. Again with government funds, a program was set up on the fourth floor of the market to educate the children during the day so they don't miss out on a formal learning experience. This program takes the children out of the streets and helps them be able learn valuable skills to help their parents progress in their shops and gives them further opportunity

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Turning Enemies Into Friends. You are the Gift.

As I’ve been pondering on what Sharon Eubank would want me to take away from her devotional entitled “Turning Enemies into Friends” I have discovered a lot about myself and how I can make myself the gift in all my service endeavors. If I have learned nothing else, it is that people are important. People are more important than the service being performed, more important than the money being raised, and more important than any of the political factors that may separate people. There mustn’t be any strangers among us.

This time here in Merida has been interesting for me because I have had more free time than I am normally used to. We work in the mornings but because of the extreme heat we have the afternoons free. Sharon Eubank gives an excellent example of two animals that spend their free time differently, one being an eagle, soaring high into the sky, and the other a pig, rolling in the mud. I’d say that free time isn’t the most common commodity now days and thinking about wasting it made me sick to in the stomach. I have tried my hardest to use this time to make better habits that would help me be successful in my internship and that would be sustainable to make me better as I return home. I want so dearly to be as the eagle, working hard in my free time to soar high in the sky. I want to be clean, pure, and worthy of the atonement in my life. To do this, I have spent a lot of my time trying to learn all I can about the topics we teach here in Mexico. I hope that in doing so my conversations can be more uplifting and educational to all the people I interact with here.

I’ve realized in doing so that it isn’t always about what you know, but how you see people. We can know all the latest health trends, teach people about nutrition, or even supply opportunity to succeed and build new habits, but in the end, none of us know anything perfectly. We may all be a little right, but we are all wrong in some respects. That may only make sense to me, but I feel oddly okay with it. In the Book of Mormon we read about Ammon, a true prince to the name, that while working with the laminites, sees and refers to them as his brethren and nothing else. True learning and loving don’t happen until we see everyone as our equals. We are all brethren here, and there should be no more strangers among us.

Who are the strangers among us? Who are the people who don’t feel like they fit in? It is because of what they wear? The color of their skin? They way they talk? How do we get everyone on the same playing field to start with? True questions to ponder. “AND IF A STRANGER SOJOURN WITH THEE IN YOUR LAND, YE SHALL NOT VEX HIM.”

I believe that one of the biggest parts of not “fitting” in or continuing to feel like a stranger has a lot to do with the hunger for human contact. Not the kind of contact you get ordering food through a drive through, or passing others on the sidewalk, but the kind that makes you feel important, the kind that warms your heart and makes you want to smile, the kind that makes you want to interact more. A very powerful quote from her devotional reads “it’s not the clothing, not the hygiene kits, the school desks or wells. It’s you.”

To be the gift, I have tried harder to listen with patience, to speak with kindness, and to listen with real intent, and this has made the world of difference in my project, and in my life.

 

A Very Important Uber

I love that every day we can wake up not feeling any different, and then proceed to have a day that changes our hearts so dramatically. We were running late so we casually called an Uber, unusually cheap in mexico,  that showed up quickly and had a nicely air conditioned back seat. We sometimes talk to Uber drivers, but not always. We are usually pretty busy with lesson planing, and of course enjoying the cool air. We casually asked if he was born here and sure enough he was born up north in the state of Mexico. He mentioned he had spent some time in California and he said he had enjoyed it. We asked about his family and he told us of his love for his two kids, one son and one daughter. He then turned around and with a change in stature told us how his family was in California, but he had been deported back to Mexico and can no longer see his kids.  MY HEART! All of a sudden the stories of people being separated from their families became real and my eyes were stinging and my thoughts buzzing like bees stuck inside the car. He continued to tell us his story and how after he and his wife got divorced he was forced to leave the country and he's been waiting 7 years to be able to live with his kids again. I was now on the other side, seeing this father struggling to work and build a life for himself in Mexico as an Uber driver just waiting to be reunited with his family. Still trying to  understand how we resolve these hard economic problems and find more beneficial solutions to the problems we face every day. Not sure how that can be done yet, so I'm just trying to be empathetic and listen with an open heart, I've learned so much from it. Maybe one of these times I'll know more and be able to help on a different level. Hoping. 

A Day In The Life Of a Global Health Intern - MEXICO

What does being a global health intern entail here in Mexico? For this project you need a whole lot of creativity, heat tolerance, and a generous amount of patience. For me, being a global health intern here in Merida Mexico has been a different experience than I had imagined. To be perfectly honestly, I’m not sure what I exactly had pictured, and still I feel perplexed by the diversity of the challenges and opportunities that I have faced thus far. I had always pictured an internship to have a decent amount of structure, maybe a list of responsibilities that need to be accomplished, or possibly a great and obvious need for some sort of individual help. Working here every day has had quite the opposite impression on me, these people are amazing, and I find myself asking myself what it is I’m supposed to do on a day to day basis to effectively help them. A day in the life of a global health intern here has involved a lot of searching for how I can implement my skills and how I can assist these people in a sustainable manner. I often feel these people are smarter and more capable than I am, but from their humility have made me feel so loved and needed.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Taylor Smith’s new album, but she accompanies me in waking up every morning around 6:40am from a roommate’s cell exclaiming that she would never trust a narcissist, but they love her. What a way to start every morning right? A different mood than I’m used to but nonetheless a medium of waking up. We quickly get ready and head to breakfast which usually consists of eggs, pancakes, or my personal favorite, arepas.  Julieta or Guadalupe cooks our meals and always welcomes the hot morning with an effortless “Buenos dias!”. By 7:15 we are stepping out on the busy 62^nd street being welcomed by the smell of humidity and dense city air. Not my favorite smell, but accompanied by good memories of Uruguay and Brazil, so I quietly enjoy.

From pure good fortune we make it to our bus stop by 7:45 before the sun peaks over the building, but don’t be fooled, the heat is still prevalent. The kids start arriving around 8am with their smiley faces and poorly spoken “Good Mornings!”. Enough to melt my heart nonetheless. We teach five, forty-five-minute classes a day from kids ranging from 6-13 years old. The classes we teach consist of a solid English topic accompanied by at least one public health issue with an activity to finish. I work with Nathaly Vasquez and It brings so much joy knowing we share all our Miraflores adventure together.

The project site we work at is very small. It consists of a small kitchen, a back-patio area for the dance classes, a small library the size of my living room, and one small side room the size of my kitchen. We teach in the small side room without any chairs, desks, or paper and pencils. It is so hard to keep the kids focused with no air conditioning and the noise from all the other classes around us. It is so temping for them to just lay down and stop paying attention, and to be quite honest, it is even a temptation for me.

I have so much fun teaching them and getting to know them every day. These Mexican children have so much personality, spunk, and drive for life. At home, my mother is a kindergarten teach and I often stopped in throughout the year to volunteer in her class. I got to know the kids personally and loved them more than I thought I would! Surprisingly enough, far away from a classroom in Centerville Utah, I experience some of the same exact problems, successes, and feeling as I did in that classroom. We dance to the same music, they laugh at my same jokes, and respond to the same attention getters. Kids are kids anywhere in the world. My heart aches for the prejudices of the world and the problems seen in the news every day. The people here are different than us in appearance but the same in heart. They have the same humanistic worries, desires, and strive to do the best they can every day. I often wonder why that is not unifying enough.  After we finish our last class we start our journey home to eat lunch with all the other volunteers and plan as to how we will survive the upcoming heatwave of the afternoon. Happy days here in Merida indeed.

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Caribbean Love

As I have reflected upon the events of this internship, and even on the experiences from this summer, I have realized a lot about myself. I expected to be a little homesick and maybe even a little tired from all the work we do, yet I have found myself with a different set of difficulties I had not anticipated. I’ve learned so much and seen so much of the diverse culture that I have felt something change within me. It’s not the kind of change I can merely write about in a few paragraphs but rather something that would take more than one night struggling into the early hours to reiterate feelings onto a bright screen in a dark hostel room. I’ve learned to type quietly as to not wake my bunk bed partners. There is something awfully peculiar about loving a litter deeper, and with a little more sincerity. It is almost as if as I continue to love more, there is more of myself to love. No one is here telling me I’m worth more, in fact my worth hasn’t changed any, yet it feels easier to know it. Who would have thought this would be a problem?  I guess in a lot of aspects it’s not, but the more I feel it the more I want to help, the more I feel I can make a difference. I's a feeling of deeper responsibility, more responsible I feel for what I don’t do, when I know I can.

This weekend we were able to take a trip to the Caribbean. Perks of living in Mexico! Much needed vacation from our busy work schedules here, even though every day feels a little like a trip. Saturday morning, we swam out to the brightest blue we could find in the Caribbean. The water was so buoyant and warm that swimming felt like moving through air.  looking around I was wearing one of those big teethy smiles that only a moment as such could produce. Grateful for those celestial moments that give you a little glimpse of heaven to keep you going forward.

How Invincible Are We?

We have had the opportunity to visit many Mayan ruin sites that have taught me a lot about the ancient culture of the Mayans. I've never been so excited to learn about history! Their stories are rich and full of symbolic religion. It confuses me to ponder how they knew so much so many years ago. Their structures line up perfectly to track the dates, important events, religion, and tradition. They build things in a way that transforms loud noises into sounds of birds and perfect echos. The Mayan civilization thrived for many years is an amazingly intricate and knowledgeable empire, yet we only see traces of them and their marvels today. I sometimes have to wonder, are we as invincible as we think we are?

The gospel helps us have the faith necessary to one day achieve eternal life. We are sometimes asked to do difficult things and to continue not knowing all the details, which can often be difficult, but the only way to develop in the way our Heavenly Father needs us to.  The Book of Mormon (which I love with my whole heart) has no officially declared location as to where it took place. I will not say I believe that it took place here or even anywhere in Central America, but I will add my testimony that God speaks to all his children wherever they are in the World.  For just one quick example, yesterday we visited the ruins of Tulum, a miraculous set of Mayan temples tucked up along the Caribbean seaside. Although the view was quite impressive, it was not the only thing that took my breath away. As I've spent my late nights in bed with my reading light studying of the old Mayan history and how it may have related to the gospel, I was delighted to find so many similarities. on one occasion, I found similarities with how Joseph Smith translated certain documents relating to the birth of Christ and the translation of old Mayan cities that had not be excavated. He found in 1830 that the birth of Christ was actually on April 6. In the city of Tulum, that wasn't excavated until 1837. They worshiped a white, male figure with a Hebrew face who's birthday was on that same day. On April 6th of every year, the sun perfectly rises between two pillars in their temple showing the significance of the date.  Later into the evening, the star Venus arises into position to show through a point in the temple that amplifies it as a really bright star in the night sky, showing the new star that had appeared at the birth of the God . The figure is put on all the temples has him in an upside down position, showing he descended from the heavens (possibly at the time he visited the laminites after his resurrection). The murals mark that this figure as the "living water, the light of the sun" and "life and light of the world".  I am not assuming that Christ came down to the people of Tulum, yet we know it must have impacted them enough to have such a universal symbol of the white God coming from the heavens in so many locations throughout the area.

Yucatan Love

My whole life I have appreciated many different types of culture and have learned to admire the differences in every place I visit. I have straight up been nerding out here about the Mayan culture and how it relates to Mexican history. Something I love about working in the community centers is that we get to be working shoulder to shoulder with the people who live there. I have learned so much about their rich history, traditions, and daily way of living. We laugh with them, stress with them, learn with them and learn from them. They joke about daily occurrences and I laugh until tears nearly run down my cheeks. They call me white girl and make fun of how I don't have a boyfriend. Just like my real friends right? They make my soul feel happy and alive with learning and progressing in my own life.

Yucatan culture includes an assortment of food, dance, traditions, and clothing. Did you know that almost everyone in Merida, Mexico sleeps in a hammock? Beds are sometimes no where near to be found within a home. A few small hand-woven hammocks hang from the ceiling in their place. The natives admit it may not be comfier than a bed, but still wouldn't change their traditions. It keeps them cool from the heat and gets their feet off the ground after a long day. Their typical dances involve a white shirt and pants for the boys or an elaborately embroidered white dress for the women with flowers in their hair and special makeup. We eat lots of Mayan dishes such as salbutes, poc-chuc, and panuchos. They are similar to tacos but with fried tortillas and special ingredients within. They love their colorful ornate houses and enjoy live music in every restaurant around the center. Their live music could make even the coldest person yearn for some good salsa.