Mexico - Day 1

I had to wake up bright and early at 3 am to get ready and get to the airport last Thursday. Our flight left at 5:30 am and since it was international, we needed to be there a couple hours early. 

I traveled down with Carol, who is quickly becoming a dear friend. We had a fun time talking, doing crossword puzzles and talking some more. 

As we flew south we flew over the Grand Canyon.

Once we got to Phoenix we had just enough time to hurry to our next gate and board our next plane. We met Janet there (Carol's sister) and traveled with her down to Mazatlan. Rick (Janet's husband) and Ed (Carol's husband) had flown down the day before to get everything ready for us, and were waiting for us as we arrived. Theresa, the other woman from my church who went down, joined us on Saturday.

I've already told you a little bit about Rancho de los Ninos, but let me give you a tour. It is located in the very small town of Castillo - between the Mazatlan airport and the actual city of Mazatlan.

On the one side of the road sits the home where to boys live (pictured above). On the other side of the road sits the dorms where work/mission crews stay when they come for short term missions (pictured below).

You can see from the top picture that the boys are gated in, but they have a lot of outdoor room they can explore and play in.

This area is where we ate most of our meals and where we hung out in the evening to talk. My "hanging out in the evening to talk" only lasted two nights because I got eaten alive by bugs. The mosquitos weren't too bad, but those no see ums were just awful. I've been wearing pants ever since because my legs look so bad. I look like I have chicken pox.

Anyway....this building serves as accomodations for visitors to the Ranch. There are two separate sides so one can be used for women and the other can be used for men.

This is the inside of our room. You can see we slept with mosquito nets over our beds. We did this to keep bugs from eating us all night and also to keep scorpions out of our beds. I did NOT see any scorpions in our room, but Ed cleaned this room pretty well before we arrived and there were two in there. We kept our suitcases up off the floor and our beds were pulled out from the walls a little bit.

The home where the boys live also has two wings. Although only boys live there now, it's not an all-boys home. So there are two wings which can be divided into boys and girls when necessary. This is one of the rooms where 4 boys sleep.

Everything was painted very brightly and in one of the halls a church group had painted a jungle mural. There were also other various characters painted throughout the building.

 This is Carlitos, standing in front of the toothbrushes which are kept in the 

common living area just across from where the boys eat their meals.

 The first thing we did when we arrived was meet the boys and ate lunch with them. They had just gotten home from school and we were all hungry.

Mexican food is by far my favorite kind of food, and I was in food heaven eating authentic dishes.

 Cesar, Ed and Jorge (Jorge is the only boy who does not have mental disabilities. He has been at the ranch since the beginning, and shortly after he arrived was hit by a truck - I think he was visiting his mom. He was so badly injured that they did not expect him to live. With the love and care he got through the ranch, he not only survived, he has thrived. You can barely see the limp he has and the only scars from the accident are the skin graphs you can see on his legs.)

 Carlitos and myself

 gecko

After our delicious lunch, we promptly got to work. I worked with Ed and our job was to reattach this ceiling in the babies' room that had fallen. A previous work group had worked hard to insulate this room because it's the only room with AC, but because they did not have the right materials, it did not stay up.

So our job was to drill holes into the cement walls and ceilings, hammer wooden dowels into the holes and then screw into the wooden dowels.

For some strange reason, I was put in charge of the hole drilling and was master of the roto-hammer.

I got a little bit dusty.

But after three days of working in this room, we were successful in reattaching the ceiling and securing the walls!

I even got to see the room painted blue before I left.

Ed and Carol

Because several short-term mission/work teams come several times a year, the boys have become very fond of American visiting and look forward to certain things. One of these things is roasting hot dogs and smores over a campfire. And so, although it was 93 degrees, we had a campfire for the boys. 

 Carol and Julian ~ he doesn't look too happy in this photo, but his smile just makes your heart melt. 

After we had eaten, I got out my violin and played a bit for the boys. Little Carlitos just danced and danced!

And that ends my first day in Mexico!