I cannot really explain how much I am learning here at the Gateway. Every day is a new experience with many new things. Even the food we eat is a new experience. Wednesday, the cook bought a pig from a guy who needed money, and brought it back to the gateway. And I got to experience a pig butchering. Which I never want to hear again. I didn’t even go outside to watch because I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat the pig if I saw it die. It was terrible to listen to though L
We went to a prison Tuesday. To get into the prison, we needed to turn in our id’s and they stamped our arms and our hands. Then we were taken into a room and checked for weapons and drugs. Then we were brought down a long hallway into the prison. The prison had two sides: a girl side and a guy side. It was not as much of a prison, as a prison village. Each side had like a little strip of tiny houses where the prisoners live. The girls side also had a big courtyard with grass and trees, and a little church. The prisoners were allowed to have children and keep them until the children turned 5. Then they had to go off to school. But they also had little businesses that the prisoners ran. The mens side had a little prison village, but also a clinic/mental hospital, and a huge church.
Organic gardening was our theme to learn this week. I learned how to compost and how to grow things without insecticides/pesticides. We planted carrots and radishes, and each team got a box to plant their carrots/radishes in. Whichever team has the highest weight in produce by the end of training will get $200. We also went worm charming- yes I stuck a stick in the ground to look for worms. And I got no worms. Apparently my skill as a worm charmer needs to be perfected. Ha. Actually I blame it on the Mexican soil. It killed every worm…(Pictures below of my worm charming skillzzzz)
We also visit our family at least twice each week. A while ago (not sure when- but before we met them), AIM gave our family goats, a pig, chickens, and just recently rabbits, to take care of – in order to get some sort of income. But when they put up the goat pen, they had to take down the kid’s soccer goals. So Friday, we brought the family new soccer goals from Jonathon, the director of this base. It took us an hour to put them together, and of course the directions were in English not Spanish. And none of us knew the word for hammer (martillo), pole (poste), net (who knows what that is), or Velcro fastener (??). I guess I don’t use those words in a normal conversation. So in horrible Spanish we proceeded to help the family put together the nets. It was mostly us saying “aqui” (here) and “alli” (there) and ayudame (help me). Haha. But the family loved the nets and we played futbol with them for a while.
