WoW! Sorry I have been TERRIBLE at blogging this year! I went on a service trip to Tijuana the day after Christmas for a week to build houses with a group from Utah State, and I'm finally getting pictures posted... sheesh. I'll do better I promise. Anyway here's some pictures. It was hard to choose just a few :). But I must say that this trip was the BEST experience I've had to date. SO worth the money (which was actually realistically priced). I'm for sure planning on going next year as well. The foundation was went with is called Charity Anywhere and they do tons of trips all year long. Most of them are dental or medical trips to Ecuador. They do a few Tijuana/Construction trips as well as some to orphanages. The director of the foundation, Gordon Carter is a way cool guy and has a great story of how he got this program started. It's an incredible opportunity and I'm so Glad that I got to go. It was truly a humbling experience and definitely eye-opening for me. It made me so grateful for EVERY little thing that I have. Especially things that I never really thought of being grateful for - things i've taken for granted all my life. Ok now here's some pictures:
This is the sign we saw seconds before crossing the boarder...... ha. "No USA Return" Ha ha
This picture (and the next few ones) were taken in what our director called "The Valley of the Shadow of Death." It is a really poor area and it was incredible to see all the houses (more like shacks) covering the hillsides, some of them looking very unstable.
They split us up into groups to work on different projects. The group I was in got to tear down a house and basically build them a new one. It was amazing.
This is my roommate Jenni. Her and my other roommate Jessica came too. Here Jenni is standing in the house before we tore half of it down. The ceilings were very low and the walls were thrown together with pretty much whatever they could find (cardboard, wood, over doors, etc.)
Demolition... Step one: Tear down the very unstable roof. Seriously I'm so surprised no one fell through!
Originally the plan was to tear down half of the house and leave the other half, but due to complications we ended up tearing down another section leaving only about 1/4 of the originally house standing.
I was shocked at how seriously dirty it was there. There was a bit ditch behind their house where everyone dumped their trash!
Demolition step two: Tear down the walls!
Ha ha I love this picture! Pedro, the father of the family who lived in this house, plays in a little band (which is how he makes his living) so he brought out all of his instruments which are a snare drum, accordion, and a guitar, and made each of us play them! ha ha so here's a picture of our little band during lunch break.
His favorite song to play for us was that one that goes "Ay Ay Ay Ay"... ha something like that...?
One of my favorite parts of this trip was all the adorable little kids who would come over and watch us. I would try to talk to them which was hard with the language barrier, and I can't remember much spanish, but it was fun to try to communicate.
Andrea. She was so cute!
We American's attempted to play soccer with the little boys... it was kind of fun at first, but then it turned into dodge ball. Or in other words "try to hit the American's with the ball and watch them run!" ha ha they were kind of punk little boys, but it was fun for a little while.
These girls were SO cute! They lived across the street and would constantly be peeking their heads out the door watching us. We would look at them, smile and wave and they would just giggle and get shy.
Me and Jenni built a little roof for a room in the back of the house that pretty much was just a storage room. I was felt pretty proud of ourselves!
Roomies on the streets of Tijuana.
We all became pro hammerers by the end of the week!
I love this picture! We were taking a lunch break. I loved the food surprisingly! It was amazingly delicious! I was worried about that before we left, because I don't like spicy foods and have never been a fan of Mexican food... but this real Mexican food was amazing! I loved that everyday for lunch we had burritos made with whatever meat was left over from dinner the night before ha ha. It was great!
Chaco! This was the sad, scraggly, flea ridden pet of the family we built the house for. He was so sad looking, but so cute.
This was a pretty cool thing that happened! One day after we had the walls up and were working on the roof, a news station stopped by and filmed us and interviewed some people!
Yum! Street tacos
Here's when we decided we needed to tear down more of the house. So more demolition! Wahoo! Oh PS Mexico has the biggest spiders I have EVER seen and I thought I was gonna die! Uhh... it gives me the willies just thinking about it...
This is their twelve year old son Adam. He was sooo cute and sweet! He was a very smart boy and was very willing to help us out in any way he could. Literally he was right there if you needed anything... he would jump on any opportunity to help out. It was so sweet.
Yay for showers!
Jenni and I painted pretty much the entire house! I've always wanted to paint a house.
That's the roof that me and Jenni assembled.
Ignore the ridiculously big, puffy, and frizzy hair as well as the no make up...
Chillin' on the beach in Mexico! New Years day! What a great way to start out the new year! The water was freezing and it was windy... but still great!
Finished product.
I stayed an extra day with a group of people from the group. We hung out at the beach in San Diego, which was much colder than the beach in Mexico. We went to this place called Sunset Cliffs too which was way gorgeous!
