Days 13 and 14

What did I do yesterday? I'm so tired I can't really remember. The heat has taken a lot out of me. The high temperature yesterday was 107 degrees and we still have NO air conditioning.

I've been diving into my house responsibilities, scrubbing the kitchen like crazy. It's pretty gross, and I'm glad to be making a bit of a difference. I keep finding random goo and dead bugs. Ew. At least it's getting better.

Like most things, the grime in the kitchen was easy to ignore at a distance...I hadn't taken a closer look to see just how bad it was. It serves as a good analogy to being here. There are so many problems, like the immigration crisis, that are easy to ignore when you don't see them up close. Once you've seen the problem up close though, and how troubling the grime is, one can't help but feel compelled to do something about it...


Afternoon/evening lightning storms gave us a brief respite from the heat. Wind, lightning, and a few raindrops brought the volunteers and guests to the rooftop and sidewalk both yesterday and today. Yesterday we saw a giant rainbow and a fiery sunset from the roof as stray raindrops alleviated the heat. Today we got a little bit more... we all smiled, laughed, and danced as the clouds blocked the oppressive sun for a brief period and showered a few drops upon us.

Yesterday I went to a Catholic mass at an all Spanish church in the neighborhood around A. House (Segundo Barrio). The Church was really beautiful and it was really fascinating to see what oftentimes is a big part of Latino culture. The church was run by Jesuits, and as Andrew (another volunteer who is majoring in theology) explained to me, this is unusual. The Jesuits typically only have Churchs/missions in developing countries, but frankly, Segundo Barrio might as well be one. We are a fifteen minute walk from the border and Juarez. I suppose they made an exception...

Today I continued working on the kitchen and got acquainted with the clothing bank, one of my permanent responsibilities while I'm here. Afterwords, Kyla and I decided that we NEEDED to go to a pool. It was just TOO hot. Fellow volunteers had told us about how they would sneak into the Double Tree pool downtown since they leave the door to the pool unlocked. We excitedly made our way there, but we faced a few roadblocks(figurative roadblocks, not real ones).

1.) We got a little turned around. Thankfully, I called my friend and he was able to help us out! Thank you!
2.) We then made it to the Double Tree, made it past the front desk and all the way up to the 7th floor where the pool is located. We then discovered that the pool was closed for maintenance.

We began to think of other options...there was no way we were returning to the house without cooling off a bit first. I then thought of the Camino Real, another hotel downtown. I called my friend from home again and asked him about it (does it have a pool? how do we get there?) We made it to the Camino Real!

3.) When we got to the hotel we had NO idea where the pool was. We didn't want to look lost so we just started trying out different floors. We finally found a map and made it to the correct floor.
4.) The gym and pool required key-card access (unlike the Double Tree)

We then waited casually, not wanting to elicit any unwanted attention, by the door. We missed it the first time someone entered the door to the pool, but we caught the door as another person exited.

Success!

The water was very cold and refreshing! It was wonderful.

Como siempre, espero que pueda aguantar el calor...