We walked down both sides of the street, with everyone offering us something “at a great price” or “almost free”. Ben sat in a hammock chair and bargained the guy down to $6. He then asked me how to say “later” in Spanish, and everyone walked around the rest of the day, saying “luego” to everyone. I’m not sure if that meant anything to them, as everyone is selling the same thing, and I’m sure they know you’re not coming specifically back to them. Soon, we found the Canada store and after shopping around a little, we headed upstairs to eat at Garcia’s. It was recommended by Jeff (since it’s clean and the water’s okay), and is a very nice restaurant. It reminded me of the Chinese restaurant on my New York mission trip (for those of you who know what I’m talking about). The inside looked much the same, and it was above the street stores. Many of us had steak, but those of us who really like Mexican (Michael, Lee, Maria, and myself), got the Mexican plate. (A note of warning to anyone who ever goes to Mexico, when you say “rare”, they could put that thing back out to pasture, and if you say “medium rare”, it’s still bleeding.)
After leaving the restaurant, I stopped to look at a couple of hammocks. The lady told me she’d give me a great price and started at $15. I said no, knowing that Ben could’ve given $6. She moved on down to $7, and I walked away. Then she yelled “50 cents”! I turned around, laughing, and asked if she’d take $5. She did, and I had my first Mexican hammock chair. We crossed the street there and headed back toward the border. We stopped quite a few more times, and a couple of the boys bought massaging bug-type things. They’re made of wood.
As the group continued on, Lee asked me what my degrees were in (I had told him earlier that I was a recent graduate of UTK), and when I told him Spanish and French, he asked how good my Spanish was. I told him that I can understand much better than I can speak it, but that I had no problem understanding all of the services yesterday. He was happy about that, and said it would come in handy (boy, he wasn’t exaggerating at all).
Lee warned the kids not to joke around in customs, and we had no real problems going back through. My passport took 5 times to scan, so I decided to just stick with my driver’s license for the rest of the trip. KC and Laura had lost their IDs, but since they’re under 18, the customs agent didn’t mind and let them through. We rested and cooled off (the heat index was 115 degrees that day) back at the motel.
Around 4:15, we took the van and met Jeff, Sandra (his wife), Alyssa, Jim, Andy (Jim’s wife), and Heather at the church. The part of Reynosa that we were going to was about 25 minutes from the motel. The border town was very dirty, just a factory town, so Ben and I pestered Jeff with questions about everything. As soon as we reached Reynosa, I was reminded of Honduras. The crime is nowhere near as bad, and it’s nothing to see children playing everywhere, but at least the streets of Teguci have pavement. These were made of dirt and completely gulley-washed.
We moved outside after seeing that the room we were to work in was stifling. It had little ventilation and little light. It was a good thing, in the end, because we wound up with over 35 kids, and they wouldn’t have fit in there. Two little girls, Daniella and Jenni, walked up first.
They came and sat by us while we got the crafts together. I introduced myself and then most of the group. We spent the rest of the time learning “Como te llamas” and “Me llamo” and laughing at KC trying to just pronounce “Hola”. Eric, the pastor of the church, asked if anyone wanted to go with him to pick up kids, but none of the Spanish speakers were listening, so I asked Rosa to repeat what he said. She didn’t think I spoke Spanish, but soon found out that I did, when I translated for Eric. Chad left with him, on the van, and came back with kids hanging out of the windows.
We all went inside to sing, with Eric playing the guitar and Rosa leading. The first song was “Levanta tu casa” and I picked it up fairly quickly. It doesn’t have an English equivalent, but with it stuck in our heads for the rest of the week, the entire team was soon singing along. We also sang “He’s got the whole world in His hands” in Spanish, and Tonya was very quick to ask if that was it. Many of the team just sang along in English. The kids were already hanging all over our teens. KC had found a little guy, 5 years old, that wouldn’t leave his side.
After singing, they split the group by ages, in two, and the younger ones came outside to do crafts with us. We made thumbprint caterpillars (or whatever the kids decided, since they were just happy to be painting). On the top of the page, we wrote “Thumbody loves you… Dios te ama.” One of the little girls had on the top to a Vols cheerleading outfit. It made me wonder if possibly one of the Calvary teams, that I know have been to Reynosa, could’ve given it to her. Who knows?
After 20 minutes or so, the groups changed places, and the older kids came out. Some of the teenage boys didn’t want to fingerpaint, so they made tie-dye crosses out of coffee filters. I worked with them, since fingerpainting doesn’t require much translation.
Once they were all finished, we began passing out cookies and Kool-Aid. No one had warned our teens that Hispanics don’t eat a lot of sugar, so they gave some of the kids seven cookies and three cups of Kool-Aid. I’m sure they were wired all night. On the way back across the border, Jeff explained that they shouldn’t have more than three cookies and just one cup of Kool-Aid. Jeff explained again about being quiet and serious at the border, and the customs agent came around to look in the double-doors of the van, but we had no trouble.
