Day 6- Friday- Last day
Missy was so saddened by my lack of blogging that I decided to get on top of it for her sake. This is a sad day to blog about though! After some drama with the vehicles/who had what keys, we headed over to Ellie's house to do as much work in our last day as we could. Some worked on rebuilding the tire retaining wall along the edge of her property that was against a gully where the floods earlier that month had washed out a lot of material.
We all felt like pretty legit mexicans after having mastered the skill of making tire retaining walls. Okay, I never got the hang of it, I mostly helped out shoveling dirt into wheelbarrows to use for filling in the wall. The other half of our group at Ellie's house was working on an addition we put in onto the house.
The bottom part was laid on Monday and Tuesday, the upstairs front half was framed Wednesday and Thursday, then they framed the back and boarded up the front Friday. It was fun to work with some of the kids I hadn't been able to the rest of the week. Some of the kids were at the orphanage putting together the bunk beds that had been made during the week, a few were at Padre Jaime's doing the outside of the housing for the school there, and a few worked on digging the hole for the septic tank still. We were lucky to be at the house, because Brent bought us all paletas from his ice cream amigo.
After this we went and ate at the clinic and got ready for the beach! It was a colder day, and so I didn't really plan on getting into the water at all. I was glad we'd gone to the beach Thursday when it had been a lot warmer. We went south, to Rosarito, to a small open beach area.
Erin and I had fun goofing around on the beach. We were trying to get a good cartwheel picture, but ended up with some handstand ones instead.
We all really enjoyed being able to take off clothes and soak up some sunlight into our poor, wintery white skin!
We made a sand castle, complete with all of the things a mexican castillo would need! --taco stand, soccer field, seashell hot tub, water slide, trap door, and moat.
We buried Jason in the sand.
We collected a bunch of seashells to take home too. In all, it was definitely a good traditional beach-day holiday.
After we shook off all the sand, we drove in to Rosarito and did some shopping at the market there. It was a bit of an adventure, since one of the 15 passenger vans broke down, so we had to fit everyone into the other two vehicles. After shopping, we headed back into Tijuana, to go to the LDS meetinghouse for a party that a local member was having for us. We hit some hard core traffic, and we got to keep ourselves entertained so we didn't lose our minds-- cramped up in the vans, starving, tired, sandy, going between too hot and too cold (terrible air movement in those vans I tell you) and just being worn out in general. We made it back to the clinic, and some of the kids changed, and we headed over to the church (I got to pick up my car at Mirna's house on the way as well!). It was very much worth going to the church, we had these super super delicious tostadas, and got to see some of the locals for the last time. We went back to the clinic and had a little devotional, which was super cool, and then got started on the cleaning that needed to be done before we could head out. I was in charge of the cleaning, but I was worn out to the point of apathy, so luckily Andy, Mandy, Sheridan, Ise, Erin, and Hailey did a great job of just cleaning anything I pointed at. I have no idea where they got that energy and ambition from, but I was glad that I wasn't having to prod anyone to be productive 'cause I sure wasn't up to that!
Erin was dancing down the dry-floor-area runway, but stopped to yell at someone to not walk between the chairs, where it was recently mopped and still wet.
Eventually I collapsed into bed, not looking forward to finishing cleaning, packing, and then the long drive the next day...
Day 7- Saturday- All good things must come to an end
We rose early Saturday morning and started cleaning up our room and the rest of the upstairs of the clinic. This is the room I stayed in. You can see Madi in the corner, next to her bed which was up against the wall. At the foot of her cot was the door way with shower curtain into the bathroom. Against the far wall was where Hailey's cot had been, then you can see my ground mat where I slept, a standing groundmat where the other Erin slept, then the brown blanket and some space at the head of where Shelby and Chantel slept. It was pretty tight quarters! Those of us on the ground were prone to waking up spooning with our neighbors.
We mopped the floor behind us on our way out the door, and were homeward bound!
Nearing the border, apparently Andy had forgotten to keep his passport out of his bag--so while we were moving slowly forward, he switched seats with Mandy so she could drive while he climbed out the window, and opened the roof rack, got his bag out, got his passport, put everything back and climbed back in. I'm sure that the mexicans enjoyed watching the crazy americans haha.
We all made it across the border, safe and sound, and everyone in my car fell asleep as we started back north. I watched for a sign telling me to get onto I-15, but never saw one (I'm not the only one who did this! Pretty sure there is a lack of signage!!), so we ended up into Riverside and then took a bunch of toll roads to get onto a highway that took us over to I-15. It was an adventure, but we got to see some pretty coastline and hills of blooming flowers. Ended up costing us some time though. And like 4 bucks in toll fees.
Sheridan and I switched driving again, then stopped in St. George for dinner with Erin's brother, then Provo to get some gas and trade out stuff with my mom again. The last leg from Provo to Logan, Sheridan drove. It was rough! It was about 2:00 am at this time, and we all were so tired! Luckily we made it home safe and sorted out everyone's luggage and into their beds for some much needed sleep after a long week of hard work and play!
Hoping for a return trip: July 10th, 2010!
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