August 7th - Boxes are Exciting!

After getting up, showered and dressed, I had a little breakfast here at the volunteer house. I wanted to start this blog about a few observances that I didn't pay much attention to (having lived in México), but may be "different" from what most Americans are accustomed to:

1. Eggs are not refrigerated - they say that when they come straight from the farm, they'll actually last longer if you don't refrigerate them.
2. Milk comes in boxes/cartons and is not refrigerated until you open it. They "process" it in a way that does not require refrigeration for the milk before it is opened. You can also buy milk in small bags (smaller than the bags you get at Kwik Trip...approximately pint-sized).
3. The soap for washing dishes comes in a solid, the most common brand is called "Axion". You use one of those green scrubbies and put a little bit of water in the container of soap (the container is slightly larger than a container of Cool Whip), and scrub all of the dishes with this. After all dishes are clean, you rinse them and allow them to air-dry. Dishes were ALWAYS washed like this in México, and I wanted to make special note of this, because I liked this soap and method MUCH better than our liquid soap that we use.
4. Toilet paper cannot be flushed in most restrooms/bathrooms. The plumbing is very sensitive in these countries, so if you see a waste basket next to the toilet, that is where you should put your toilet paper after you use it.

I went to the young girls circle this morning. Antonia, a girl who I had met yesterday, asked me to stand next to her. I have to be sure to get a picture of her, Lilian and Blanca. The last two I had met earlier in the week, but see every day. I'll still have to take a picture of Cynthia too.

As I was working in the storage room this morning - I had to get rid of all of the empty boxes from yesterday. Todd was next door in the principal's office, so I used his phone to call Robert (the elementary school principal). Robert said to take them out to the high school yard for the kids to put the grass clippings in. I have NEVER seen older kids like this so happy to get empty boxes! They just ran at me with smiles on their faces each time I brought more out.

I spent two hours this morning on the storage room before heading to the internet cafe at 11:20am to update my blog, but since the internet was down, I ended up hanging out at the restaurant with Esti and Todd. I had a baleada de pollo and a baleada de frijol, but decided I liked the taco de pollo that I had eaten yesterday better. Todd mentioned that he comes every summer, so I told him I'd most likely hook Andrés up with him next summer to help on the farm, in the yards, or at the school.

I spent a little over an hour in the school's storage room this afternoon doing more organizing. I have about 1/3 of it done now. When I came back to the volunteer house, I finished my 2nd book of the three that I had brought down. There was a 500-piece puzzle on a shelf, so I started that. Anita helped me with it for about an hour, then we went on a walk down to the farm. I took pictures of their horses and cows, and had to get a close-up of their bulldozer (for Noah to see). We saw the boys out playing soccer. When we came back, we worked on the puzzle until about 7:00pm before updating my journal and heading to bed.