Longest Post ever! Viva La Gente!

Longest post in history!: Viva La Gente (Spanish for Up With People)

It´s been a while, I know! I just now realize how dependent I was on internet! I want to upload just so much, and want to send some emails, but that´s not possible without internet! Man, that blows, so I´m typing this in word at the moment, and put it on a USB-stick, so I don’t have to type everything in my precious internet-time, just to save some time. If the time-sense is wrong in this or other posts, it’s because of that exact same reason.

Anyways, today is Thursday, just so you know.

So, I forgot to mention something in my previous post, that I still want to read again when I get back home: during the pit-stop on the way to Breckenridge a few students (incl. Jenny, Josh, Mayke, me and more) all ate a living worm! Just to check how it would be. à Awesome, you should try it sometimes!

Ah, good times,

Well, back to Mexico. This week in La Paz is just awesome! Although the heat is just killing me like never before (average temp: 40 degrees Celsius, little over 100 Fahrenheit)!
We’ve been doing a lot of things voor CI here (CI= Community Impact, meaning leaving a mark where we’ve been). I’ve been doing:
- Painting a graffiti wall white that surrounds a baseball stadium (Where our first Mexican Show is!)
- Cleaning a park from garbage and also painted the walls there as the start of an Anti-Graffiti-Campaign.
- Cleaning 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) of road from trash, and sweeping it too

But, you know, being in the place that’s said to have the most beautiful beaches of the world (which I highly agree too, for so far I know), it just had to happen: BEACHTIME WITH THE WHOLE CAST!

Man, that was just plain good. We got to spend some hours on the beach with everyone. The water was exactly the right temperature (not cold, but nicely warm) and we swam, played water-rugby and what else! I even had my personal fish! (I got this 3 cm long fish swimming around me for half an hour or so)

We’ve also been at a museum and a local church during “regional learning”. I made some pictures. The museum told mostly the history of Mexico, and most of it involved the Spanish suppressors.

I met some really interesting people today. “Conscience” is the name of their organization, meaning both “consciousness” and “through science” in Spanish. They are, just like UWP, an organization that want to help others by keeping the environment clean. They work at the beach mostly.

So I talked to Emmanuel today a lot, who is a member of Conscience. He is also a tourist guide in La Paz and a biologist of the local nature. Because of that, he knows a lot about the history of La Paz and he told me the story of how the earth came to exist, as told by the original inhabitants of Mexico. (And believe it or not: there are a lot of similarities with other stories of other cultures that never met them).

I got his email-address, and I will ask him to maybe write down the story so I can post a (short) part of it here, if you all like that.

Also, I learned how to play “Shogi” yesterday, which is the Japanese form of Chess. It only has a bigger field (9x9 tiles), more units (9 different pieces, 20 starterpieces) and additional rules (like the rule that units upgrade into stronger versions or that you can place units you “defeated” on your side of the field). It’s really interesting, but Chihiro taught me well, and I think I got all the rules after one round of playing. I hope we’ll play again soon, but it takes a long time…

In case you were wondering: Yes, I won, big time

What else… hmm… oh yeah, we did a short version of the show yesterday to promote the “big show” for Saturday. I think we got a lot of attraction to new people, and I’m sure our sponsors got their attention too. My job was mainly: passing out flyers, and I think I got a hidden talent for street-vending: I gave away about 100 flyers , which almost doubled the #2.

=== Friday:

Little update on Friday. I hoped to be able to use internet today, but Murphy’s law prevents me from having it… My hostdads (Anthony and me live with 2 guys, (Peter and Victor?) that work at the same company) left yesterday, and they won’t be coming back today… Maybe Peter will come back tomorrow for the show, but I don’t know about Victor. Anthony is still setting up in the baseball stadium, so I’m kind of home alone, trusted with the key to guard the house.

My “hostmom”, which is Peter’s girlfriend You (at least, that’s how you pronounce it…) brings Anthony and me to our location every day, and she cooks for us too, every once in a while. Tonights dinner was good: scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese. The first non-taco –or-other-Mexican-food in a week!

Also, the filmcrew from North Carileina (Need Anthony to change that word) that traveled with us for 2 weeks now left today. It was a very emotional depart. You know, it’s strange how much you can attach to people in such a short period amount of time.

I feel like a lot of people I love are leaving all the time. Or maybe it’s me leaving…
whatever…

I hope they will join us in our facebook-group (dread, another thing I can’t do without Internet), so that we can all stay in touch.

What did I do today. I was on “Explorers team”, which practically meant you could explore the city without any objective at all. I used my time mostly staring at the sea, trying to find a bookstore (I found 3, one with only Spanish books, one without comics and one that just closed for holiday and moving and stuff…), eating ice-cream (mango-flavored) and I made another friend in La Paz: Rahoule, who is a street painter. I gave him my business-card and I hope he will send me an email someday. He was a really nice guy, that told me the store I met him (one of the bookstores) was the first shop in La Paz ever!
I’m learning every day!

Ooh, ooh, I almost forgot! I bought Christmas-presents today! Hahaha, maybe I’ll post a picture of it ASAP, because it’s real fun, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise yet… I don’t know what to do, but I’m really excited already!

=== Monday:

I’m currently on the travel bus right now. We have a 2,5 hour ride ahead of us, so I have some time to write down my thoughts now. Okay, no internet, but this word-thingie works great for me at the moment as a replacement!

So, let’s start where we left off: Saturday was a showday. We pretty much practiced parts of the show again, and since we’re in Mexico, we practiced the Spanish songs a lot. I mean, we need to perfect those.

It was the first outdoor show and the first show in Mexico, so it was very exciting. Bad thing was that it was raining all afternoon, so we were very late with preparing the stage (since the lights, beamer, screen and everything else was not allowed to get wet), and performing was hard on a slippery stage. It was dry during the actual show though, so we could do it anyhow. The atmosphere and conditions were just awful! For the 3000 people in the audience: it was still great! Thanks for coming!

Yesterday, Sunday, was the first time in 2 weeks we could actually sleep in. It was great, sleeping until 1 in the afternoon! A good earned rest, considered we got home at 3 AM, and the day before was a 20 hour day.

So after sleeping in, we just spent most of the day at home, relaxing. Good, Sunday is a restday!

Later on in the day, Victor, Peter, Anthony and me left with a few of Victor’s friends to some kind of house out of town. It was beautifull. It was a two story building with like no walls on the upper floor (so you could actually stand on the roof, which we did) and seeing the sunset above the see and the city was just good. Me and Anthony had some good and serious conversations. About life and our lives and that kind of stuff. Maybe a bit late, but I feel a lot closer to my roommate now.
Better late than never!

And now we left. Too bad, I really got to like La Paz, even though it’s hot as hell! It’s a place that’s good to live.
I want to come back here someday. I will really miss the people here!

Now, I’m out of inspiration, and I’m going to fool around with my busdates now!

==== Tuesday:

Okay, so today was the first day in Cabo Saint Lucas (If that’s how you spell it, I am a lucky person, since I don’t know how to spell it!) I know my host family has wireless internet, but since they don’t know the password, I still can’t upload this whole post! Dread!
Probably tomorrow =)

So, my hostfamily. I live with a mother and child. Lorenza and son Steven from 12 years old. Steven just got back from a “tour” through Europe, (last stop: Hamburg), so now he has a jetlag, like I had a month ago! He joined a “global village”, which is like UWP: children from around the world live together for a while, while taking care of each other. I really like that initiative!

Today: today was “regional learning day”, which means that we get to travel around town and that kind of stuff.
- we started with a few presentations. First: Venezuela, since two people in the cast/staff are from there, and they wanted to share stuff about their culture and country. Second: Philippines, since we will be getting there in a few months, and it would be stupid to go there unprepared.
- Afther that, we went on a trip to the outskirts of town. We went to the part where people literally live in huts! I felt so bad for them! Really, I even felt worse when we left, and we barely did anything to help these people.
However, they were smiling all the time, and a woman there told us that it means it was a good sign we came. It meant that the world hadn’t forget them!
So we played with the children there, and we actually had a lot of fun with them. I’ll definitely upload some pictures from that experience here!
- When we left there, we went to see a local waterfall. It is one of the few places in the whole state where there is fresh water every time of the year, and since this region is considered a “desert climate”, this waterfall is an oasis. It was really beautiful, but the battery of my camera went to heaven, so I don’t have any pictures…
On the way back, some of us were riding in the open back of a truck. We got a free mango, and it was truly delicious! It hasn’t been getting any chemicals or something, and the flavor was truly divine =)
- Last but not least, we went to on a cruise ship! This was just plain awesomeness! We got a live band, we could watch over the sea, and we could get as many drinks as we wanted for free! We even got dinner there, and I got 12 (!) rounds of sushi! Man, I love that stuff!
Something worth mentioning is that we saw the famous “arc” of Cabos while cruising. Only, on the moment I didn’t realize it was famous, but I still remember it, since there were some sea lions right next to it.
I also got some tequila there, but I think it was a little bit stronger than at my previous host family’s house. Oh well, I didn’t go over the limit, so I was fine =)

Now I’m tired, and I have to go to bed! Tomorrow will be an early day, and I hope I can (finally) upload this post (which has more than 5 word pages, size 11, right now).

==== Wednesday:

I don’t know what to think about today. My hostfamily couldn’t drop me off after 7, so I was an hour early for the normal “drop off” at 8. I read some Shonen Jump while waiting.
So what we did, was mainly waiting till our pick up trucks came to pick us up. After another hour of waiting, we finally drove to our destination, which happened to be “Casa San Juan Diego”, which is a place to help poor people, migrants and other people who have a poor change of living (like those in the slums I saw the day before).

What we did was mainly play with the kids. We played some fun games with them, and we sang for eachother. They were really cute and cool!

After they had left, we were kind of doubting what to do. We were supposed to go painting, but since the paint wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow, we were in a tight spot. Lucky for us, there was enough to do!
So in the end, we ended up gardening and making everything cleaner, so that these people have a decent place to live. Just to treat them some respect, you know?

In the break I decided to call my grandparents. I know they are going to move to Belgium for a while, and I thought I just had to call them. It was really good to hear their voices again.

I love you!

==== Thursday (again)

As you might have guessed, no internet yet. I hope I can use my hostmom’s internet this afternoon, since I’m getting behind on everything! I got a hell lot of pictures I still need to upload, and I can’t do that all at once, with one USB stick, so I’m sorry, but you have to wait for the pictures a little longer again…
I can’t help it…

So, today was again at the Casa San Juan Diego. This time, we were moving rubble, and painting a wall, basically. It was a tough job in the blazing sun, but it was to give the people that come there some respect, and a decent place to live.
Again, my wait in the morning was long and lonely…

Tomorrow will be like that again, so that’s going to be fun on the showday!
I am thinking about taking my music sheets with me and learn them by heart. That way, the performance point of view will be better!

I don’t have a lot to say… And I also don’t know what to say. I just want internet and upload this big-ass post!

==== Monday:

Okay, few rough days, and I’m on the bus again! Man, 2 weeks without internet is rough! I want to read my email, send some too! You know!

So, what happened the last few days?

Friday and Saturday were performing days! Both were outside, and again, they were in baseball stadiums, just like in La Paz! They like their baseball stadiums here, you know!
Well, about this place: They were actually 2 places, and the group got divided in 2. I stayed in Cabo San Lucas. So, we performed in both places and they were both just plain awesome!

When I was looking for my hostfamily the second night, I had to take around 10 pictures with people that were wild about the show (100% feminine) and a lot of autograph, most of them for little kids that bought a picture of the cast.

Yesterday, Sunday, my hostfamily took me out to the desert. I didn’t know what to expect, but when we arrived there I understood: We were going to ride on ATV’s! (Like little buggy’s without roofs, hmm… motorcycles with 4 wheels, that kind of stuff)
At first, it was a bit scary, me riding one of those machines, but after a minute or 2 I somehow felt a “click” or something, and all of a sudden I got really into it, knew how to change gears, knew when to add or loosen gas. You know, I got the feel of the machine!

We started on a mountain, and the first part of the tour existed entirely on gravel roads and hills. The second part, however, was on a beach, and we took a break there. So during the break (of around 1 hour) me and my hostbrother were driving across the beach and the dunes the whole time! We did some races and really got into it! I even raced my hostmom (and won big-time ;) ) and I had so much fun!

After that, we went up the mountain again, and with my new skills, all the rubble, gaps and hills were a piece of cake! Hahaha, new skills are the best!

When we were done on the ATV’s, we went to the beach! Our plan was to go waveriding, but me and Steven went in the water right away and when we met more people from UWP, we decided to stay where we were.

We had a good time there!

So now I’m on the bus again, sitting next to Colin Duket (we had to search a buss date with the first letter in you last name), and I’m going to fool around in a minute!

==== Thursday:

Wow, it’s been a while! Dread, in fact, this is the third Thursday without internet!

Oh well, let’s pick up where we left: after the busride we went on a ferry for about 8 hours. After that, we were (again) on a bus again for another 12 hours or something like that. Anyways, when we arrived at our destination, it was already Tuesday!

Tuesday was more a day to rest (and we needed it, traveldays are tiring!). We were at this hotel with swimmingpool, but since I forgot to pack my swimsuit in my backpack, I had to do other things (which was very easy).
So I slept for a bit, watched some Hunter-x-Hunter with Eriko (watching anime with a Japanese girl is way more fun =P) and slept some more. After lunch and more rest, we did some workshops. We tested our global IQ (which included drawing a map of the world and test if you got some countries. In fact, my map was very detailed, and I only forgot the philipines (of all countries in the world….)) and did a review of Culture Shock. It was very interesting.

After that we had some pictures made for the newspaper, and then we left to meet our hostfamilies!
So this time our “clue” to meet them was very original. They provided a costume for us that we had to wear. While walking on a catwalk with their clothes on, they could recognize us, and that way we could meet! It was very cool to do, and I now have my first female housemate: Riikka from Finland!

My hostfamily exists of one mother, a son and a daughter, all grown up. They are really amazing. Only sad thing is: no internet again… Oh well!

So, Wednesday, we had CI day. Our CI was located at the beach, so we started with a 3 hour busride! (for original reasons). We traveled with some Spanish students from a Technology University, and we had quite some fun on the bus.

So, on the beach, we arrived fairly quickly at our CI-site. It happened to be a turtle-protection-place. You know, where they put all the turtle-eggs, and let them all into the sea at once to increase the survival-rate!

Luckily, I was one of the people who got the opportunity to dig out some nest! Believe it or not, but I gave birth to around 53 baby-turtles! I feel like such a proud father. Their names? I can give you some:

King Leeroy

Iceburner

Sir Arthur James

Blazing Wind

Marie Antoinette

Rafael

Donatello

Michael

Leonardo

Hehe, I got more, but it would just increase the length of this post, so maybe later!

After the baby-birth-place, we got some time at a pool near a beach. We’ve been playing games near the pool, played water-polo (which was way more fun than you would imagine) and me, Arnab and Joris went Boogie-Boarding on the waves in the sea, which was amazing, since there were very high waves!

Well, that was everything until Thursday! It’s still morning, so this is where I stop!

==== Sunday:

Oooh, finally, my computer again!

Thursday and Friday, for my CI is was going to Casa Hogar, or Casa de Niño’s as it is also known. It was a house for abused children that still have parents, but can’t stay with them. All these kids have trauma’s and they were all under 12 years old.

So what we did was basically painting (again). The only difference with the other paint-CI’s was that this time we were painting the home of these kids. There were about 18 of us and we painted the entire outside, the hallway and about 9 rooms in two days. (total of 7 hours)

It was very hard work, but it was for a good cause.

Saturday was showday. My day existed of: teaching the “quartet”-choreography to Josh, Arnab and Humberto, then, set up the stage. After that lunch and run through of the show. Later, we had dinner and we did the full show.

This was in fact the first time that we did an encore! Yeah! It was so amazing! Bwahaha!

Something I’ve noticed in Mexico: we are celebrities here! Man, after the show, in the mall, in the burger king, everyone wants to get a picture with us in it. I think I’ve had about 50 pictures made in Tepic only! I also signed a hell lot of autographs!

But the best part is when an old man comes up to you, and tells you he really enjoyed the show, and you in particular. That really touches my heart, and is better than signing bra’s.
Okay, maybe the same level…

Anyways, it is really good like this. Only downside is that they don’t feed you… dread, I was so hungry last night, and I couldn’t go buy food, since I had to sign pictures and take pictures.

Oh well, as long as we enjoy the fame =D

So now it’s Sunday, and I think my family plans to go to the beach today! Yeah!

Well, gotta go!

I lost my sunglasses…

Bubbayz!

Miss you all,
I hope my sister had a wonderful birthday,
Your present will be awesome ;)