Mexico!

It's astounding how few vocabulary words I remember from high school Spanish class. What can I say? It was already 4 years ago (yikes!).
I'm going to try to explain this weekend.
We left Friday night for a quick Avodah excursion down to Mexico. We stopped for the night with some school friends and woke up at 5 to cross the border. Instantaneous change. To make things short, we went to 2 different rehab centers for guys who had come from prison and needed help breaking free from drugs/alcohol. We went to an orphanage where there was a party going on for someones birthday. We had a grand time. The language barrier completely didn't stand in the way. We played the games with them, and ended up laughing hysterically at each other since we couldn't understand a word the others said. What a beautiful thing laughter and smiles are. Stalin also took this opportunity for revenge. While attempting to piece together a puzzle with 12 other people, while none of us could talk, and they had taken half the puzzle out (which we didn't know!) so we didn't have the complete picture, he dumped a bottle of water down my back. I pretended anger so he'd be satisfied and be done, but really it felt amazing- it was such a warm day! We ate all our meals at one of the men's rehab centers, and it was great to hear their stories, and how the center was really helping them. Sunday, today, we went to a Spanish church which was crazy different. Wonderful, though, and so welcoming. Afterwards, we took some crazy dirt roads to another rehab ranch. Not many Americans make it out there, and it was apparent why. I'm astounded our cars made it- the most intense off roading I've ever done.
I want to tell you about the second place we stopped on Saturday. The people we went down with are helping out a family. Brenda is the mom, and she has 1 girl and 6 boys. They all are crammed into a room the size of our dorm. And they consider it a blessing. I walked into their home and caught my breath. The smell was horrid. Flies were everywhere, baby food was sitting on a high chair, evidently a few days old, and dirty laundry was piled in old trash cans. When I finally got past my nose, I was able to see the family. It took about 10 minutes of grinning at the kids, making silly faces and making a fool of my self, and using my limited Spanish to admire the soccer shoes they were wearing to make friends. After that, though, I was in. They brought me outside to show me the dead puppy born behind the water tank, and the 2 year old, watching me admire his older brother's shoes. came to show me his, and, in the end, I wound up sitting on the ground in the house that I could barely breathe in to begin with, playing marbles with three-and-a-half year old Emmanuel. Open yourself up, and they are so willing to let you in. The culture is incredibly warm.
I learned later a little bit more about this family. The dad doesn't offer much in the way of support and the mother has to leave the kids each day to go find work. This means Rosie, the oldest (15), is left to take care of 6 brothers. When a church started to help them out (bringing food and building a house), the neighbors became jealous. Food was stolen, they called police making false accusations- resulting in 3 days of interrogation for Brenda, and someone had tried to rape Rosie. Imagine being 15 and having had such a life. And yet they were happy to let a stranger share their life for an hour.