Ok I know I've been lazy since I arrived to Mexico but it's been a crazy busy few days, plus I'm fighting a cold and feel extra tired (especially with Brazil 4 hours ahead!). Anyway, IM IN MEXICO and loving it. Theres probably not a better place to end this long Latin American journey where I find most familiarity (Spanish and especially the food) and also a strong culture that I seem to be infatuated with.

I guess I should start from the beginning: another one of Father Al's schools. After almost 20 hours of traveling then waiting 20 minutes to get off the plane and almost 40 for my luggage, I was exhausted. And I already felt a cold coming on and people coughing around me made me paranoid. I found the sisters easily as always and we drove almost an hour to the school, Villa de Los Ninos, in Chalco, Mexico. Even though it was only around 9pm, it was 1am my time and I just wanted to pass out. I met the boss lady, Mother Cecilia Lee who is Korean but speaks great Spanish and is hard as nails. Her personality is so much dryer and direct than the sweet soft spoken sisters.

Anyway, once I rested and regained some energy, I realized this school is huge! It's like the size of a college campus, but I guess with about 3000 girls you need a lot of space. But this place has like 5 or 6 buildings, a few soccer fields, 2 big gyms for mass and presentations, like 10 basketball courts, a track, gardens... I was shocked. On Saturday I ate breakfast and I (with 2 sisters) went straight to visit the Pyramids of Teotihuacan. I had been wanting to visit the pyramids long before I arrived (and there are many more in Mexico that I'd like to see someday) and it was really cool. So impressive how so many years ago the Aztecs made their own city and to see where they had ceremonies (which Aztecs are famous for their regular human-heart sacrificing to the Sun God), it was cool. They must have asses of rock because I climbed to the top of the biggest one and those stairs are steep! After the pyramids we went to the Basilica of Guadalupe. One of the sisters told me the story (Which you should look up, it's very interesting!) of how she arrived and spoke to an indigenous man and they built the basilica there for her. She also explained to me why the indigenous Mexicans took to Catholicism so easy, there were signs such as she spoke their native language and had suns and moons on her gown (which were the Gods they worshiped previously). Very interesting. Also I saw where my Great Uncle Al had come to visit so many years ago.

As usual, the girls at the school were smitten with me and giggled when I walked past them and waved hello. If I started a conversation with someone, it took 2 minutes before I had 30 plus girls surrounding me. They all always ask first if I met Father Al, I feel bad that I'm family and I think they expect me to have stories of him. And of course the marriage question. The girls are all very sweet and I enjoyed time talking to them, visiting their dorm rooms and on Sunday afternoon we had about 60 or so girls in the gym dancing to music on my iPod. But the best part of all was after mass on Sunday, the girls did their typical welcoming show full of cultural dances, choir singing and at the end they bring me on stage where I can see all 3000 girls sing together for me. It was beautiful, and especially because I'm so in love with Mexican culture and music. I couldn't help but cry a little thinking about the poor and dangerous parts they came from and seeing how happy, strong and proud they are now. It's funny because one of the sisters told me that my grandfather always cried when he visited and saw the kids' performances.

Well that's about it about the school, I'll save the rest for another blog.