Mexico the mainland

Meanwhile our cast has hit the mainland of Mexico so fast that the last day has arrived before I realized it. So before I leave this amazing country, a large update on the last part of cast B Mexico tour! The interesting moments in the past 3 weeks have lined up, but interesting experiences were most definitely the threat of a major storm and the panic of the audience, having the mayor as a hostdad, staying in a family that only knows Spanish and realizing that our Mexican tour is over!

Tepic
Our first Mexican mainland city was far more green than any of the Mexico places we had been too. Interesting about this city were the surroundings: green hills covered with fog, a old vulcano and the ocean on a 1 hour driving distance. Bizarre for me this week was not staying at a host families' home but in a host families' hotel. Instead of experiencing the pleasure of being served random Mexican food I could to choose from a menu list (however, this was pretty random too, since I did not understand anything of the menu card).



Since I'm part of the admissions teams for the Mexican part of our tour I had the chance to visit some local universities and schools. It is so interesting to observe the differences, like tiny class rooms and totally different hours in the day (much earlier because of the heat). And the cool thing is that everyone is so amazed by "Oooh Belgium..." or "Oooh he can say some Spanish words".

Our show day experienced some serious challenges. Toilets that did not work, nails lying around the stage, backstage that was open to see to everyone that was walking around there, for myself a heavy cold, but this was all nothing compared to the storm... Suddenly during the show lightning came up all around the area of our show. And then it happened, rain during our open air show... All people suddenly ran towards the stage (one of the spots that had a roof), some were even standing on our stairs, close to our electrical equipment, everything... Luckily it was at the last song of the first half. We just hoped that the rain would go away, and you know what? It did! At the end they even called "otra" for the first time in our whole tour!



Culiacan
A long drive up to the North brought us to the 1 million people counting city Culiacan. As soon as we arrived Arnab from Bangladesh, Josh from the US and Humberto from Mexico found out we were happy to be hosted togeher. But not only that we also had the honor to stay at the Mayors house. Soon we found out his children were in their twenties and really friendly to us. And of cource the topics we discussed during this week were often related to city-issues, but really interesting.



Culiacan had very interesting volunteer projects. Our main project (where our benefits were going to) was casa Valentina, a beautiful project where children with cancer can stay if they lack money. Some of these children are so much older in what they say because of their life experience. Really wow...

As admission team is was also really exciting since we had the chance to go to a "values"-event. What? That's what we thought to. But they combined this discussion topic with famous comedians, politicians, etc. to make it appealing to young people. Eventually we also got the chance to go on stage here. Awesome experience.

Hermosillo
This week I'm hosted together with Anthony from the US in a super-friendly family but without English-knowledge. It's such a funny situation because with my French and English combinations I try to make clear what I want to say. This is definitely the way to learn a language, but it also make the desire greater to learn Spanish!

In this city our big project is fixing 21 basketball courts over the whole city. In poorer regions of the city we are re-painting or building for the first time basketball courts. Together with local youth we worked side to side to have a court ready at the end of the day. Over the whole city little Up with People groups were doing the same thing, what made it way more special.



Looking back on Mexico I realize that this part of the world is so interesting and I definitely need to see more to get a better picture. It is so different from Belgium and I'm sure that there are a lot of things still to improve here. But at the same thing I've figured out some things we should improve at home too... Read more...