Friday Morning

Good Morning.

The boys were up way, way too early this morning. School starts here at 7:00. But long before that the sky was a beautiful blue, which I haven´t seen in months in K.C. The morning doves were doing their thing...and in general all was in bliss. Then the kids started to come to school...all 2000 of them.

Around 8:00 hunger struck! With the help of Javier, who goes to school in Jeff City, we walked to the local taqueria. Where ever you see a word associated with meat, just think fish. Anyway, I digress. Hermosillo is a beautiful city. The streets in this neighborhood are lined with palm trees and the centers of the boulevards are planted with orange trees. The morning is cool, but getting warmer by the minute. The taqueria was awesome, it is on the corner and open-air...and busy. Always a good sign. They had barbacoa, lengua, cabeza and a couple other choices. So for the picky eaters, who wouldn't try the beans last night, had tongue tacos for breakfast...a liked them! They thought we were just kidding, then slowly they realized that we weren't. Barbacoa is the meat scraped off the cows skull...very tasty and tender. But it is a common persons breakfast.



We went to a bank and exchanged money...so they all have some pesos in their pockets. Next to the back was a little strip of businesses: Dominoes, Blockbuster, Subway and Baskin Robbins. Globalization in action.

We are back at school. The boys are watching a soccer game at school. It is 10:40 here and the school kids just finished break, so they were here socializing.

Last night, the Correl´s (Javier´s parents) provided dinner. It was here at school by the swimming pool. The boys loved it...again, tacos and beans. But what tacos. Just remove all the awful things that are called tacos by franchises started in Wichita. These leave juices running down your arm. Wow!

The point of the last paragraph was to let you know the evolving plan, but I got hung up on food as usual. We are having the boys spend every night we are here at the school with a curfew of 11:00. I told them if they are late, they will be grounded the next day. They will eat lunch and dinner with their host families and shower, etc. there. But every night they come back here. We will arrange breakfasts, etc. as needed.

You probably know this, but teenage boys stink. We are in the newly remodeled pastoral center, which is the old Brother´s house. They have turned the old bedrooms into dormitories, so the boys are all in two rooms. And when they took off their shoes, my God, it was rank. They finally put their shoes in the hall. But by this morning, thanks to cross-ventilation and lots of deodorant being applied, at least my eyes didn't water when I walked in.

Today at 12:30 the boys will go with their hosts to lunch. At 4:30 they will be back here in their fraternities to do some prep for next week and then at least some of the fraternities are having dinner together.

As bad as my day was yesterday, poor Richy, who is in charge of missions, it was was worse. He was devastated. They have prepared a year for this. Tee-shirts were printed. Food purchased, medicine kits stocked. Well, the kids found out yesterday at 7:00 am when they arrived at school. All the girls were crying, literally. They all called their parents, dang cell-phones. And then their parents all called the school. It was pretty crazy evidently! The Legionnaires of Mary were calling this their Mega-Mission years. They had posters printed, the works. I feel sorry for the kids in all the villages who will not have the missionaries this year.

All of the parents of the exchange students...both K.C. and Jeff have come by schools and told us...anything they can do, just ask. So we know we will be taken care of.

I am having a hard time accessing email. But will keep trying different things. This is proving so much easier. So check often, I will update as much as possible and the plans keep evolving. Keep breathing and praying, but we are all good.