After Los Cabos, the next destination was Tepic, which was the southernmost city on our tour. But in order to get there, we needed to board a ferry for a 6-hour ride across the Gulf of California to Mazatlán, and then it was an overnight bus ride to Tepic. This was one of the most memorable times on the tour because I got to see the sun set in the middle of the Gulf of California, and it was one of the most beautiful things I've seen next to Obama clinching the Democratic nomination.
In every city, we have what are called allocation meetings, where we get information on our host families, and a host code to be able to find them. This time around, we all had to dress up in silly costumes so that our host families would be able to recognise us. My roommate that week was Rafa from Brazil, and of course we both had to dress up as soccer players. After we got dressed, we took part in a fashion show which went down the center of the shopping mall. It was one of the most surreal things that I have experienced. The mall was packed full of excited people, and two people on stilts lead us down the hall to where the catwalk was. All along the way there were people with cameras taking pictures and waving excitedly at us. In Mexico, a couple of Viva la Gente songs have become a part of the culture, especially De Qué Color es la Piel de Dios, or What Color is God's Skin in English. It's a song that they teach to all the children over there, and so every time we sang it, the whole audience would join in. And wave their cell phones. It was pretty awesome.
And to talk about awesome, my host family was really cool. My host Mom in Tepic was Gloria, and it so happens that she requested to host me because she's a physical therapist, and she works with people with disabilities every day. My host Dad was Gonzalo who works for the government. He was like a giant kid: every time he would pick us up from our day, he always kidded around with us, and cracked jokes. It was really cool because when it came to Spanish, Rafa and I worked as a team. Everything he understood, I couldn't, and everything I understood, he couldn't, so we became each other's translators. My host brothers were really cool as well. The host brother that I met, Juan, is nineteen years old, and he's been all over the world conducting a youth orchestra in Guadalajara. His friends call him "Tucán," because he used to eat Fruit Loops every morning for breakfast. My other host brother, that I didn't get to meet, but I felt like I knew him, is Luis Ernesto Franco who is a model and has been in many television shows and movies in Mexico. I was told by my host mom that he's seeing the Mexican version of Jennifer Aniston, and it was so cool to talk with her about her sons because I could feel the pride that she had for them.
The CI that I helped out with was a college fair with numerous booths, and I spent 5 hours in the languages booth (naturally) writing people's names in Russian. It was really cool, because I sat next to my friend Yordi from Ethiopia, and she taught me some of the Amharic alphabet, which is really difficult to learn, but it was fun learning from her. After the college fair, it was time for the cast to pile in cars and trucks for our promotional parade. For about an hour and a half, we rolled through the streets of Tepic and sang Viva la Gente and Cielito Lindo at the top of our lungs from our cars.
Tepic was one of my favorite shows because instead of performing on a removable stage, we got to perform on a concrete stage that actually didn't move when everybody was dancing all at once. When you're performing on a removable stage, and 92 people are doing the same move at the same time, you kind of feel like you're surfing, so it was nice to be able to not feel like I was taking my life into my own hands during the show.
On host family day, they took Rafa and I to see the lagoon. It was like I was looking at a post card. The water was a combination of azure and turquoise, and I could harldy believe the beauty that was laid out before me. After seeing the bird's eye view of the lagoon, we ate at a resaurant that overlooked it. While we were there, Tucán noticed a girl that was one of Gloria's clients, and brought her over to the table. She was eight years old, and had CP, and had been mainstreamed since the beginning of school. It was great to see Gloria interacting with one of her clients, and I could see instantly that she was more than their physical therapist, she was like a second mother to them.
Mondays are the hardest part of the tour, because that is the day that we have to say goodbye to the family that treated us like one of their own for the past week. It was especially hard this week to say goodbye because I really connected to Gloria and Gonzalo. But I know that I'll see them again, and that we'll always keep in touch.
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