Back from Mexico, and Simplified.

Back from Mexico.  Yep.  Went to Mexico for a weekend missions trip with my church.  It was an incredibly humbling and blessing experience.  I have never driven to Mexico before - it is quite an experience.  And yes, humbling.  Thank God for modern plumbing, and I am seriously thankful that I have a hot shower and a comfy bed to sleep in.

First impressions
1. There are no border checks or customs declaration needed when entering Mexico.  Like a club with no bouncer, no guestlist, and no one carding at the door.  Anyone can stroll right on in.  So...then...what kind of club would this be, if it were one...?
2. No easing into it.  You drive over a politically drawn line, and you are right smack into the country of Mexico, and for us, the city of Tijuana.  Looks...like Mexico.  If you'd only ever imagined Mexico, it's what you probably imagined it would be.

Little Village
Sunday morning I woke up and took a cold shower (not even lukewarm, I mean COLD! shower) for about 60 seconds and got dressed.  The shower is a small pipe that emerges from the wall of the restroom at the dorm site we were staying in.  The single pipe pours out cold water in a steady flow.  We had gotten up late, however, at least we ended up taking the fastest showers on record.  I had paint on my arm from the day before, when we had been painting crafts with the kids the day before which I noticed hadn't completely scrubbed off.

We got into the minivans and drove off.  There we were, driving along dirt roads into the mountainous enclaves of Ensenada.  When we went from the highway to the dirt road, I immediately felt the change in terrain, as I'm sure my whole group did.  We were bouncing around in the car as the road went from smoothly paved to rocky and hilly.  There was no railing, no curb, and no signs.  No lampposts.  This must be the real Mexico most people don't see, I guess.  After about an hour we finally arrived at our destination.  A small mountainside community (or village or barrio).  The restrooms were basically outhouses/port-a-potties.  We had been briefed that this community was tucked away from the city, and that many of its inhabitants were likely uneducated and such.

I looked around at the surroundings we had found ourselves in.  It felt like another world, another life.  Los Angeles felt worlds away.  This was someone else's life.  People lived here.  I wondered what it would be like.  Because life, as we know it, the life we are born into, how we are raised, have nothing to do with us and is beyond our control.  I wondered about this briefly and then focused on the task at hand.

We took a walk around, talking to the people we saw.  Kids were just outside playing.  Two women were cooking tortillas over a wood burning fire stove of sorts - they were rolling out the dough and making them by hand.  Legit.  We talked to them briefly, inviting them to come to church.  We talked to a few gentlemen sitting in front of their house and learned a little about their neighborhood, their families.

A few hours later and many activities with kids later, I sat down in the little church.  The migraine in my head had returned, throbbing at the temples.  I sat down on the small stage, one of the other kids sat next to me.  I felt winded, dehydrated.  Drained all of a sudden.  I grabbed a small piece of watermelon from the tray being passed around and realized that my hands were dirty and I didn't care and took a bite anyway.  I spit the black watermelon seeds into my bare hands.

I was amazed at how quickly life can get simplified.