Corn Husks (and Other Short Stories)

Just when the beauty of Puebla and its people are capturing me, it's almost time to be packing my bags and heading back to Utah! Yes, this is my second-to-last blog post ("finally," some of you are probably thinking), and while I anticipate many joyful reunions I will dreadfully miss Puebla. The picture on the left was taken from the main window of our Employment Center here, just a sampling of the kinds of afternoons and mornings and sunrises and sunsets that I have had the extraordinary privilege to get to know here. The clouds do mean that it rains a bit more than we would wish at times, but they surely make for a beautiful sky.

The past week in Puebla was magnificent. First of all, along a work line, we taught two workshops and were blessed with excellent groups in both. The first was in the employment center, where we've become quite comfortable teaching these days (our fifth or six there now). The other was in the La Paz stake, the church building that we have probably visited more than any other because of institute and dear friends in the stake, so we also felt right at home there. I posted a couple of pictures from the two workshops, to give you a little bit of an idea of the joys that we experience during our work...

Taylor and I, doing our (much-acclaimed) skit of how not to approach an interview. Yes, the tie around my head is there every time. Perhaps it's a bit exaggerated, but we have a ton of fun and usually get the participants to crack up once or twice. :)

Among the many things I could point out about this picture, I will just mention two. First of all, the cute little girl that appears to be pushing me away here is actually one of my best kid friends here (well, usually -- you know how that goes some days). She is not pushing me because I smell... at least, I don't think so. Second, some of our best friends here in Mexico are in this picture. I'll probably get pictures with most of them before I go, but if not remind me to pull this picture up and show ya'll. :)  Oh, and third -- as indicated in the bottom corner, we did indeed travel through time and teach this workshop in 2007. It's definitely a talent.

Tuesday I had the awesome opportunity to attend a cultural event put on by the La Paz stake, with whom we had the workshop later in the week. At right is the only good picture I got, but the whole thing was a ton of fun! There were dances from all around the world, and the costumes and practice that went into it were mind-boggling. My favorite part was when the family that invited us had their kids get up to dance. The mom was sitting next to me and every few seconds was poking me and saying, "Did you see that? Are you taking pictures? Oh look, that's Abraham (her son)! Oh, there's my Ashley! Are you taking pictures? Wait, no, don't take pictures -- take a video!" Gotta love moms.


Of course, as promised, I did visit Nealtican again on Thursday. First we visited a family that attended our workshop there last week and had an absolutely scrumptious meal with them. Aurora (the mom) made pozole, a corn and meat soupy thing, but this one was quite spicy and full of flavor. After I got over the shock of the first bite and wiped the tears from my eyes, I was in love and ate my way through three huge bowlfuls. I love Mexican food. After dinner, we took a photo...

...and toured their beautiful house a bit. He is a civil engineer, so has a bit more money and experience than many people here, allowing him to construct a beautiful two-and-a-half story home on the edge of town. From their roof you can see almost the whole town. His next project is to build Nealtican's first hotel!

After the food, we headed into town to find the family that was going to teach us how to make crafts out of corn husks. It was so cool the kinds of stuff they've made! Just recently they participated in the "corn festival" of Nealtican, so we were lucky to find them working that night (José Primo, our host in the picture above, told us about them). It took them a little while to wrap their heads around the fact that two white students were in their tiny town and wanted to learn how to make crafts, but once they'd plumbed us for enough information they were so obliging and kind. We worked for a couple hours, and I made the white flower-covered branch you see below! The rest, of course, were made by the family earlier, but I had to take a picture to prove what incredible things you can do with corn husks. We're going back this week too, to learn a bit more and see what else we can do.

Finally, in day-to-day news, yesterday was laundry day. For those of you curious about the everyday events of life, we ascend the two stories to our roof every time we do laundry to hang it out to dry. Other than the time that it takes, and the fact that they end up a bit stiff without fabric softener and dryer, it's been a fun experience. However, during the rainy season, you have to keep on your guard in case the clouds roll in and drench your clothing while you're not paying attention! I got lucky yesterday -- one of the few afternoons with no rain in the last month. And to prove it, below is the picture...

Love you all, and hope all is well wherever you are!

Nealtican

Nealtican, you ask? You mean you've never heard of it? Well, don't feel too bad if you haven't -- few outside of Puebla ever have, and even many of the city's inhabitants don't recognize the name when I mention it. But among members of the Church here, it is a legend. It is a small town, only about 10,000 inhabitants, and lies on a little-used highway that runs through the countryside and up past the great volcano Popocatepetl. But about 80 years ago, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ arrived here with a few missionaries, and a small but powerful branch was established. Over time the fire of faith spread from house to house, and several wards were formed. Just five years ago the town split off to form its own stake, along with several other tiny towns that surround it, and it is already the biggest stake in Mexico. Just a few months ago Elder Bednar came to Puebla not to visit one of the main city stakes but to speak at the stake conference of this tiny town, drawing a record attendance of two and a half thousand members at the meeting. Rumors abound that the stake will be split into two as soon as arrangements can be made, and it wouldn't suprise me -- the people we met there were incredible.

Yes, we finally got to visit! Nealtican only lies a few miles beyond my dear Santa María Acuexcomac, which I've visited almost a dozen times since being here in Puebla, but there were always school assignments or invitations to attend to in Santa María that kept me from making the extra trip. Besides that, Nealtican always felt a little special to me, as if going there would somehow leave an indelible impression on me, and knowing that we were scheduled to teach a Career Workshop there this week I felt unable to force myself to visit earlier. Finally the time came for the workshop, and this Friday and Saturday we drove the hour out of town, through the fields, past Santa María, and into Nealtican. It was surprisingly similar to our other workshops: the participants were a bit late, the specialist very kind, the refreshments excellent, and the group quite a bit larger than normal but not unmanageable (40 both days). But Saturday, when I bussed out to visit the town a few hours before the workshop, I still felt an oddly special feeling for it. The picture below was taken that afternoon, when I climbed a hill next to the town to get a better feel for it. A few notes on that picture follow, along with some others from the town...

Nealtican. Note the big Catholic church in the middle of the town -- still the focal point of historic attention, but no
longer the religious center of the town. Straight past the church, at the edge of town, you can spot the red-roofed
LDS stake center (see below for a close-up). Just out of view on the right is one chapel, while two more lie just to the
left outside of the picture. Since the coming of the Gospel, the town has blossomed as a center of commerce in the
region, with small factories of block for construction blossoming everywhere.

The stake center up close, where we taught the Career Workshop to
40 wonderful saints of Nealtican.

The entire street outside the stake center flooded during the workshop!
If you click on the picture and look close, you can see it rolling onto the
dirt road like a Wyoming rapid, and out into the fields.

The graduating class at the Nealtican workshop.

The rest of that Saturday was absolutely charming. The simple faith of the people, their willingness to participate, their desire to work hard and start businesses, all were incredible. And the sincere gratitude that almost every single person expressed at the end of the workshop was wonderful. I left that night feeling comforted and strengthened for the week ahead. Indeed, I couldn't keep myself away from Nealtican for long -- Monday I headed out with a friend and ran into a family from the workshop, who promptly invited us back for lunch on Thursday and set up an appointment with a friend to learn how to make traditional figures out of corn leaves. I'm excited to see what comes out of Nealtican next.

Another fabulous adventure this week was the adventure on Monday with Manuel Navarro, a friend that I've made here in one of the wards we attend. I had mentioned my visits to Santa María in a conversation with him, and he promptly asked if he could accompany me on my next trip. So we traveled the familiar old highway to the little town (see above), and worked for a little while on the map of the city that I have now almost completed. He is just a pure, good individual, and it was a wonder to see him gushing about the joys of country life and the view of the mountains and the pure air and the fields and the beauty of Mexico -- it made the trip all the greater.

One of my map-making excursions -- I'm sure they wonder
what in the world a white guy is doing walking around
town writing things down on a notepad!

One of the singular experiences that Manuel and I had was visiting Gloria Azcatl. You may remember her from a blog post a few months ago -- she was the first person I met in Santa María, a simple woman, quite closed when we began talking but very willing to be friends once she realized my intentions were good. She was making breakfast and lunch for a committee of neighbors that were gathering donations for the yearly fiesta in August -- the week after I leave Mexico --, and she invited me to come and eat that day. We did so with gusto; it was a simple fare, but nice and spicy and well-cooked. I am still a bit taken aback by the house, however, and amazed that they've been able to make it there so long. I've included a picture below:

Gloria's house, with my good friend Manuel by the window. The usually-
empty living room is filled with tables for the committee members, and the
end of the room is occupied by the community saint that she is taking care
of this year. The cinder-block walls, concrete floor, unsealed windows
and doors, and constant flies were all witnesses to the simple life she
and her daughter lead there. But despite that, they are so generous.

The other fun adventure from this week was hosting a small dinner party at our house this last Sunday! Elder Myers -- who I have had the privilege to teach with several times -- finished his mission on Monday, and in addition an investigator that we had taught together was going to get baptized this last Sunday, so we planned a dinner for after the baptism. She ended up with cold feet and no baptism, but we decided to go ahead with the meal anyway and starting prepping the food at 11:30pm on Saturday! Only in Mexico... it was a great experience helping them make pozole (a soup made of corn and meat) late into the night, and after church we had a wonderful time with the missionaries and friends and more people in our house than ever before. I leave you with a few pictures from that night, and warm wishes from the central highlands of Mexico. Hope all is well with everyone, wherever you are!

Elder Solis, myself, and Elder Myers on Elder M's last day.
They were a great companionship.

Pozole!

Catching Up With Time

In case the post title didn't make much sense, it's been a crazy and wonderful week. On Tuesday and Wednesday we taught the Career Workshop to a very small group (9 the first day, 3 the second day). There is something about groups of less than 6 or 7 that makes the group a bit shy about participating... but we love 'em anyway. And this group even had someone who got hired after our first day of workshopping, which is a definite first!

After that first workshop, Taylor and I woke up early Thursday morning and headed off to Mexico City for a temple trip. Remind me next time I go (probably not for a while, because it closes in two weeks) that it takes a lot longer than I was thinking... we left Puebla at 7 in the morning and didn't get back until 9 at night. However, the traveling wasn't too bad and to save money Taylor and I decided to trust his GPS and walk to the temple. The fascinating sights (shaded streets, a huge parks, scooters pulling pedestrian carts) made up for the hour-plus that it took us to make the journey, and the temple was definitely worth it. The big spire was under construction, but it was still enormously beautiful -- inside and out.

Taylor walking ahead of me to the temple. The unusual nature of
maintenance on Mexican streets means that this pole could have
been there for a day or six months, depending on the politics of the street.

Some times in life, you just need to go to the temple. I suppose this was one of them. I was taught, I was healed, and I was strengthened to go forward and do the very best I can -- despite my weaknesses. I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life. It means everything to me.

We came back from the temple tired but grateful, and Friday we were back in the classroom, this time in a neighboring stake. Our group turned out to be one of the biggest (and best) groups we've taught during our entire stay in the country. For the first time Taylor and I decided to split the group in two, something we'd considered doing after our first couple big groups but hadn't had enough participants to do thereafter. We switched every hour or so, never letting the participants get settled down with one instructor, and enjoyed the different dynamics of the two groups (and the different people who showed up between the two days). There is nothing quite like teaching in this world -- so difficult, but so rewarding when you see progress.

Friday night was marked by our attendance at the local YSA dance! We were hardly the best dancers there (Mexicans know how to dance, and how to party), but we managed to learn a few steps. Taylor has been working a bit on his dancing skills in his spare time with friends, and has made some significant progress. As for me, let's just say a couple of classes would do me good as well. The picture at the right has some killer red-eye (lucky Mexicans don't have to worry about that for some reason!), but shows the general atmosphere. I'm dancing with our good friend Carol Gallardo, and behind me are two gringos (the only two besides me in the whole room). So fun. Though I'm sure a couple of people were wondering how the elders got permission to go dancing until one in the morning...

Saturday I spent the evening with one of my favorite families in Puebla, the Ramirez fam. They are very involved with the youth and young adults, with a few kids right in that age group and an exchange student (Nancy White from BYU-I) staying with them. So I've come to see a lot of them, and decided to attend a BYU Management Society meeting with them in the evening. And then we went out for tacos àrabes in the evening! "Arabic tacoes," translated, though I'm not sure if they're very Arabic. Excellent food though, and better company.

Finally, Sunday was a great experience. We studied one of my favorite chapters in the whole Book of Mormon in Sunday School, Alma 24, and my awesome companion Taylor Fletcher taught the lesson. It was a beautiful reminder of the things I love most about the Book of Mormon. Then right after, I ran to our next ward to give a talk followed by a Sunday School lesson (I'm teaching the "Teaching: No Greater Call" class for five weeks before I go). Such good timing -- though I was as nervous as ever giving the talk, I felt the Spirit so powerfully as I prepared and gave it. I always learn more when I get assigned. And I have the best Sunday School class -- five or six powerhouses every week, plus an incredible manual.

Well, nothing else left for me to do than to say goodbye from my cubicle, high above the city...

Love you all!

Sunrise in Puebla

This was taken from the summit of the small hill that dominates my favorite
little town in the countryside, Santa María Acuexcomac. Covering the
summit is the town cemetary, where I went early one morning to study.

Perhaps it's fitting that this picture looks east, towards the rising sun, the birth that repeats itself every twenty-four hours. This week has been one of reflection, renewal, and preparing myself for the month that remains in Mexico and (more importantly) for the years that will come afterward. And of learning to look towards the light.

Early Tuesday morning I woke up with a fever and headache, and still groggy I decided to take a couple Ibuprofen and head right back to bed. When I woke up in the morning I felt a bit better, but trying to go about my normal routine I found my strength entirely insufficient. After a few hours I decided to head back to bed, where I spent the rest of the day. That evening my dear employment center manager, who has unofficial care of us while we're here in Mexico, called to check on my. Informed that my fever continued unabated (along with bowel troubles), he had his wife (a nurse) get on the phone. She promptly prescribed several medicines for a stomach infection, and told me to skip right off to the pharmacy, buy them, and get right back into bed. The fifteen minutes that it took to get to the pharmacy and back might as well have been fifteen days for how much I enjoyed them, but I managed to get back without fainting and promptly fell into bed. By the next day I felt much better, and with a priesthood blessing that day I was practically back to full strength by the weekend. I am indeed blessed that it wasn't worse, and that my health has been generally so good here.

One of my few consolations during a very sick Tuesday was hearing the semi-toneful strains of a mariachi band from my room. I walked out the door, looked down the street, and found the picture you see at the right! It appears the man had hired them to play for his sweetheart -- a great gesture. But they were literally there for twenty minutes, and when I looked the couple wasn't dancing or anything... awkward? :)

By Thursday I even felt good enough to attend the middle school graduation of a dear friend, Raquel Tiro. It is her family that I have made such good friends with in the countryside, and her parents asked me last week if I could be the "godfather" for their daughter at her graduation. It's a simple tradition, consisting primarily of taking flowers to them at the end of the ceremony, but they didn't want her to be the only one without congratulations and flowers. It was absolutely a pleasure. The ceremony was strangely similar to US ceremonies, but the middle schools wear graduation robes (they call them "togas") just like high schoolers. The event was held on the school's outdoor basketball court, groups of students danced, students and faculty members spoke, and I felt oddly comfortable. Except for being the only white guy there, which ALWAYS gets me funny looks in that town. I suppose it's just such a phenomenon to have their cultural events attended by a foreigner. But as soon as I get to talking to them about it, they love the fact that I'm getting to know their culture. Miguel (the dad) and I had a great talk about that during our meal after the ceremony, what learning a new culture does for your horizons. They are such great people. I will miss the Tiro family.

The Tiro Family, in their backyard. From left to right: Miguel Ángel, Julio,
Antonia (mom), Raquel, Abe, and Miguel (dad)

I love mole.

Friday and Saturday we had a workshop in the evenings, with a really fantastic group. I am so grateful when the participants are eager to give comments and ask questions and participate in the activities. But mostly, when they're willing to open their hearts to each other and to us. It takes a little vulnerability, as a good friend once put it recently, but it is so worth it because that is when the best relationships and experiences happen. So with that, and our becoming more and more comfortable with the workshop material, the weekend passed wonderfully. Saturday morning was reflective, in between workshops, as I pondered on where I wanted to direct my life in the years following this experience. That reflection spilled over into Sunday, but I have been blessed with some inspiration and guidance that was sincerely needed. Saturday evening, however, was anything but reflective:

Bowling! Taylor, myself, and our dear friends (left to right) Sam, Carol, and Ami all hit the lanes on Saturday night. Taylor, our reigning sports champ in every sport that we have yet tried, wowed us once again.

Then, inspired by Taylor's still-abundant energy, we decided to go to the park for a little "parkour" -- using buildings and other normal objects to jump and fall and whatnot all over the place. Taylor was by far the most active, so much so that I failed to get a picture of him in action. But below is Sam:

 And I found that I hadn't yet lost the peculiar skill I gained of climbing huge poles barefoot! So I'll leave you with the image of me atop the pole, wondering whatever happened to my sanity...

Man, I love Mexico.

Elections and Farming

An Aztec legend relates the story of my beloved Popocatepetl and its sleeping companion (pictures of which seem to begin a fair number of my blog posts). An ancient warrior was sent to war by his king, and if he won the battle he was promised both the king and hand of his beautiful daughter in marriage. However, during a battle, reports were sent back to the daughter that her beloved warrior had died in battle. Her sorrow was so deep that it led to her death. When her warrior returned from battle, he was devastated to find his love had passed away. Impetuously, he lifted her lifeless body and carried it to the gods, pleading that they might make her immortal. In response to his plea, they turned her into a sleeping mountain (Iztaccíhautl, on the right in my picture) and placed him as a smoking volcano south of her, eternally watching over the body of his sleeping love. Well, I don't know how true that might be, but this was a beautiful picture I took early one morning this week and I thought the story would go well with it.


In other news, this has been a great week! The biggest event, though it presently has a minimal effect on my internship, was Mexico's presidential election yesterday. All week I was preparing for it, studying about it, and still was disappointed at the result. To explain, I should begin Thursday with a fabulous conversation I had with a professor of Political Science at the BUAP.

Doctor Paulino Arellanes is an experienced faculty member whose name appeared in local papers and in the minds of other professors often enough that I was intrigued before I even met him. He more than fulfilled my expectations. Our two-hour discussion covered themes of political history, current problems, and possible future outcomes of the election. Mexico's political history has been marked by a series of authoritarian regimes, it began as a colony from 1521 to 1810, then came dictators like Santa Anna and Porfirio Díaz until 1910, and finally from 1926 to 2000 they experienced the one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). This party allowed government corruption, ethnocentric policies against pure-blooded Indians, backward agricultural policies, and anti-US policy to become institutionalized in the country's politics. I also skip over some good things it did, but overall it was too focused on government handouts and keeping people happy today (securing its own power) to focus on long-term solutions to Mexico's deep-rooted problems of rural poverty, urban sprawl, lack of competitiveness in the global market, education, and corruption. Finally in 2000 a slight majority of Mexican citizens voted for the presidential candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), Vicente Fox. However, this party was formed by and for big businessmen and social conservatives (very Catholic), and while the policies have been more stable for economic growth, they have been less tolerant religiously and have made limited attempts to assuage the chronic poverty that still plagues the nation.

All that information is a summary of books, talks with other citizens, and Dr. Arellanes. This Sunday Mexicans went to the casillas to vote, and it is apparent that the candidate of the PRI, Enrique Peña Nieto, has won, putting the formerly corrupt and inefficient party back in power. Explanations abound -- the PRI has an excellent history among peasants and the poor, often putting them in trucks and driving them to polling stations to vote, and though it is not likely that this was widespread during the 2012 election I have talked to enough people from this economic situation to know that the tradition of voting for the PRI is still very strong. Another possible problem is that many of the pre-vote polls showed the PRI with a 20% lead over the next candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (of the PRD), most likely convincing people that it was a done deal, but many think those polls were funded by the PRI itself because the real split was only about 6%. Finally, the major problem is the lack of good information for many Mexicans. Most of them, with little education and limited access to the internet, rely heavily on tradition and the television for their political opinions. And there is a widely-spread charge that the PRI paid Mexico's dominant TV carrier (Televisa) to promote its candidate and proposals on its airwaves -- and Televisa is relied on by between 60 and 80% of Mexicans. Additionally some journalists claim that the PRI exceeded the government's limit on campaign spending and... oh, I should stop there. The point is that many, myself included, are convinced that democracy's worst side showed itself here, with a misinformed public bringing a powerful and self-serving party back into power after only 12 years. Well, we'll see what the next 6 years (one presidential term) bring...

That was longer than intended. And I'm afraid that I currently know more about Mexican presidential candidates than I know about Romney and Obama... but I have a few months to fix that. I have become more convinced down here, however, that politics really can and does make a difference in our lives. What a blessing that we live in democracies where we have at least somewhat of a say in politics.

The rest of the week was mostly filled up with workshops. We got to experience two very different groups -- early in the week, we had one of our most willing groups yet, and had a ton of fun with them. The weekend began with a group that was much harder. They were great people, but many of them questioned the usefulness of our material and were not eager to participate in the sometimes-silly activities. About halfway through the second day, however, after several activities that helped them to interact a bit more, Taylor and I started feeling comfortable enough to joke and be a bit more friendly with them. By the time we finished, I definitely thought that our participants had opened  up and were finally getting what they needed out of the workshop. That's a wonderful feeling as a teacher. I put a picture of the group above and to the right. One thing I learned? You can learn to love anyone, with prayer, persistence, and a good attitude. And usually they learn to love you!

One of my favorite things from the week was a trip to the countryside on Friday, supposedly to finish my map of Santa María. However, I decided to stop in at Miguel and Antonia's house, and that was the end of my plans. I just love hanging out with them... Miguel and his son were just heading out to their fields to spread fertilizer and prepare the ground for a few hours, and of course they asked me to come right along. Once out there, they placed a sombrero on my head, gave me a bucket full of fertilizer (apparently fertilizer is by far their biggest expenditure as farmers), and set me to work walking between rows and throwing it out...

Then I got to watch Miguel and his son Miguel Ángel fight their unruly horse to plow a few rows in order to plant beans sometime this week. This was the first time the horse had been hooked up to the plow all year, and it's never the most cooperative beast by all accounts, so the bucking and running and stopping made for quite a show! I wanted to give it a try, but they seemed to be having enough trouble without a gringo stepping in.

Finally I ended the day by trying to mount that same horse. They told me it would buck me off for sure, but instead...

All right, I admit, it's an entirely different horse! This is actually their neighbor's horse that they take care of at times, a much more docile animal. It hardly moved a muscle as I jumped on, took the picture, and slid back off. All in all it was a wonderful day, and Miguel and I even discussed the challenges of subsistence farming and government programs and cooperatives during as we spread fertilizer. It's so nice to talk with someone with real experience in all of that stuff. And with such a different life from that which I had growing up.

Lastly, right before I left Santa María, Miguel and Antonia asked if I would attend the middle school graduation of their daughter to be an escort! They said they'd really come to enjoy my company and trust me, and would appreciate the gesture. Of course I wholeheartedly agreed, so I'll be back there Wednesday and Thursday to attend a school graduation, accompanied by a Catholic mass and everything. What a country this is...