Culiacan, the city of friends

So, it´s now Sunday, and tomorrow is the new travelday. Now, an update on the end of Tepic, and all of Culiacan:

So, indeed, we were going to the beach at Sunday (last week). We kind of experienced “Hurricane Season”. That meant, after some time in the sea and on the beach, it started storming and the sky started to burst lightning and stuff everywhere!

After some time, we left and we started packing.

The next day was another travel day. I had Riikka as my traveldate (after having her as my roommate, I know it’s strange), because we were late and both forgot to find someone to be our traveldate…

I just want to say that I will really miss my family in Tepic. They were awesome!

After a while, we arrived in Culiacan! Yeah! It is such a beautifull place!

Lately, it has been known for it’s drugsproblems and violence. I want to say: Culiacan is amazing.

Okay, we heard some gunshots once, and another day I saw some military people standing somewhere, but it is never as bad as they say. In fact, the people here are very open and friendly! They really suffer from the current name of Culiacan, and that’s sad…

So now I’m going to tell about what I did.

We skipped Regional Learning on Tuesday for once, so that meant that we started right away with Community Impact. I was signed up to play with kids with disabilities, but they put me in a food shelter instead. There, me and some other people were sorting beans. In total, the 8 of us sorted out about 50 kilograms of beans in a few hours.
It felt really boring to do it, and that lunch was 2,5 hours late wasn’t helping either. However, when we actually had lunch, I started to understand why we were doing it. We sorted beans for people who don’t have anything to eat, and we were making sure they had good food.

Oh well, learning process, anyone?

Wednesday was an amazing CI! Again, I wasn’t going where I was supposed to go (I was supposed to watch a movie with kids with disabilities that day). About 8 guys of the cast went to the “men’s shelter”. It is like a home for people who were addicted to drugs and are recovering. All of them were men (hey, it was the Men’s Shelter, remember), and at first, I think they didn’t know what to think of them.
So we got a tour around the grounds. The Teacher showed us what was where.

After a while, we took a “break”, where we got some soda and all sat around a table. The guys from the shelter were doing some other things still, and we hadn’t interacted at all. Not a good atmosphere then.

And all of a sudden, someone played some music. We were doing suggestions about who was going to dance, and after everyone of the UWP group, and the teacher had danced, the men were all coming outside, and the teacher called them to dance to.

That might have been the most awesome moment ever. Within minutes, they brought out a huge jukebox with I don’t know how many songs on there! Everyone was dancing for no good reason, and it was just awesome!

The best dance we had was “Noa Noa”. It’s in our Mexican Show too, and we taught them to dance it. Really cool! Best song ever!

After a while, we helped them with making cookies (since that is what they do for a living). I can say from the bottom of my heart: these were the best cookies I ever tasted. There was a lot of love in there!

When we were finished with the cookies, we got to the grounds, and played soccer. First UWP vs Men Shelter. Ended up in a 1-3 victory for the Men Shelter.

After that, a mixed game with 3 Uppies and 3 Shelter guys on each team. Again, my team lost (not because of me ;) ), but we had so much fun.

Then we all had lunch together in the church. I talked to some people about The Netherlands and Mexico. The differences and the things we share, you know.

After that, we left, but not after we danced another round of Noa Noa! Bwahaha, just thinking about it makes me grin and smile!

Those people are just the best guys ever!

So, Marten (our Cast Manager) was also there, and we just made sure they got some free tickets for our show. In the end, they got about 10 tickets for both of the shows (we did two shows).

It was so amazing! They really were the heart of the audience, standing up when someone they knew entered the stage, and when we did Noa Noa, they just exploded!

Backstage, we were just talking about how much we will miss these guys.

It was just 3 days that we know eachother, but it looked like we were all buddy’s for life forever.

From the bottom of my heart: I, and the rest of the group, will miss them.

So, we did two shows. Both of them in the same place: a basketball stadium. The audience was not as full as we’re getting used to. After audiences of 3000, 250 seems like not so much. However, I tried not to look down, and made the most of it. You know, especially since the men shelter men were there!

After two (long) showdays, we finally had our regional learning day. It was basically: Go to a famous garden (green), go to an awesome science museum (1,5 hour was too short), and take a ride on a zip-line.

Later on in the day, our hostfamily (And Stewart and Gijs’ family, since they are real family) went to the swimmingpool. We had a lot of fun.

At the end of the day, we went to a club. There were a lot of Uppies there (of course, they announced we would all go together), and I spent some quality time with a girl at the bar. She was Sueng- Beom’s host-sister, I think. You know, talking and drinking and stuff.

So, now it’s, ow dread, it’s already Monday (after midnight), but I will just say it’s Sunday. So, it’s Sunday, and we spent almost the entire day sleeping, swimming and drinking Tequila in the pool. We had some good times =D

Now, I will upload this whole bunch of stuff!

Enjoy!

Greetings from Freddy,

Bubbayz!