Wednesday May 15th

Wednesday was an early start for the group because we had a 2 hour drive to a neighboring village of Merida called Tzucmuc. 

We were treated in Tzucmuc with incredible hospitality. The locals living in the village were eager for us to try the food that was prepared for later in the day. The taste testing was delicious. We then went to a celebratory mass for their patron Saint, Saint Isadore, which is the patron saint of farmers. We were greeted before the mass by Father Felix, which is the Preist of the village. The mass was beautiful, and was followed by music and dance for us because the locals were very excited to share their culture with us. After the singing and dancing in the church, we had a parade throughout the village accompanied by a band and fireworks. After the parade, the locals of the parish did a celebratory ribbon dance. After the ribbon dance, we had lunch at a locals house. The lunch consisted of pork tacos with a variety of salsas, hibiscus tea, and sweetened rice water. 

After Tzucmuc, we traveled to a village called Uayma. There we set up our hammocks in the churches courtyard and rested after a long day in the sun. We then drove to another village called Xcalacoop (shkalacoop) where we took part in another post-mass celebration that consisted of another parade, again accompanied by live music and fireworks. After the parade we met with Father Felix and enjoyed live mariachi with turkey tacos, soda, and suckers. 

From Xcalacoop, we returned to Uayma to have dinner with Father Felix, which was prepared by the local perish members. The dinner was fried hand made tortillas with chicken, onion and salsa in them. 

We ended the night with a group reflection and settled in to our hammocks. 

Monday May 13th

Hello everyone! Monday we started the day off with a quick breakfast with everyone and headed to the daycare.

At the daycare, which watches over children starting at 9 months old, until they’re 4 and a half years old. We started by playing with the children with bubbles and chalk. Then we went inside and played with legos and dolls with them. 

After, we went to Nueva Vida, an all girls school that teaches for children elementary school age. The school is an after school program that was created for families that worked during the day and couldn’t pick up their kids until later in the day. The school teaches the girls manners, Spanish, English, and computer skills to name a few. We got to know the girls by dancing and playing with them. We then had lunch with them which was chicken stew. After lunch our group split to help teach the girls English in smaller groups. For our service for Nueva Vida, we organized clothes for the girls, along with prepared expired medicine to be disposed of by the nearby pharmacy.

From Nueva Vida, we went back to the mission house and cooked lunch for ourselves which was spaghetti with sides. Our neighbor was gracious enough to make her homemade pineapple jello for our dessert. 

We ended the night with a group reflection focused on cultural foods and traditions surrounding said food.

Hello everyone! We are sorry we did not post yesterday. There were technical difficulties. 

Anyway, after 3 flights yesterday, we landed safely ready to get started! It was a long day, but well worth the wait. We landed with incredible energy being in a different country. We were eager to start serving with our best effort. After we unpacked we had dinner that our gracious neighbors made. After, some of the group went to a local mass while the other grocery shopped for our food for the week. Lastly, we ended the night with a group reflection!

Writing a quick note to let you all know our group landed safely in Buffalo after 3 flights today! After gathering our checked luggage and the other 3 Gannon groups were traveling with, we will hit the road for Erie on the last leg of our journey home!

Thank you all for keeping up with our journey and for the prayers, support, and donations you have to help us have this experience. We had a blessed time in Merida with our Mission of Friendship community! We are all so grateful for this experience and know the impact on our lives is a great one.

Thursday at Neuva Vida

Today we returned to Nueva Vida to work on various projects. We spent hours painting, continuing some landscaping and finishing up other miscellaneous projects. We continued to enjoy visiting with the young girls of the after school program. We had the opportunity to eat lunch with them and talk more, learning more Spanish and teaching them some new English words.

In the afternoon, we played tag with all the girls which was a lot of fun. The sun was shining and everyone was so happy to be together. We spent time getting to know each other’s names and all the girls continued to love hugging us and taking as many pictures as possible. 

In the evening, we went shopping downtown and had Mexican cuisine for dinner. Kevin happily finished everyone’s plate! After dinner, we enjoyed some delicious helado (ice cream) and went to Santa Lucía Parque in downtown Mérida to watch a traditional, cultural Yucatecan dance. 

Es Su Casa, Continued

Hola!

This is our delayed post about our day Tuesday!

We woke up in Uayma to a beautiful breakfast buffet made by our friends from the parish. During breakfast, we received a gift of traditional Yucatecan candies that the mayor sent for us to try! Afterwards we toured the rest of the church, including a climb to the top of the roof to look over the village! The church itself is gorgeous and is uniquely inspired by Arab culture - the only one around here designed in this way.

After the tour of the church, we had to say our goodbyes to Padre Felix. His joy and kindness will remain with us long after we are home! I’m talking with one of the local parishioners after dinner last night, Tricia found out that the man she was talking to had a friend named Don Emilio who makes pottery and invited us to visit him! When we arrived, we got to see the kilns he had built in his backyard and he did a full demonstration for us on his potters wheel! He talked about the materials he uses to make his items and the process they go through until they’re ready to be sold. It was a truly memorable experience!

The last part of our journey was a visit to a cenote nearby. A cenote is a natural sinkhole that is formed by collapsing limestone which reveals underground water. The cenote was beautiful and we were able to go for a swim! We hit a little snag in our day when our van broke down in the cenote parking lot, but the staff at the cenote were so friendly and helped bring a village mechanic to us. We were on the road after a few hours and arrived back at the mission house to find that Sylvia, the lovely woman who coordinates the family sponsorship program for the mission, had made us a delicious meal complete with dessert! We were overwhelmed with the kindness of Padre Felix, the cenote staff, and Sylvia all day and are deeply grateful! As many people have told us since we arrived in Yucatan, we truly felt like “Es Su Casa” (like this is our home).

Misión de Amistad

¡Hola los amigos y familia! 

We have passed the middle marker of our trip which is bittersweet. We have returned from the villages of Uayma / Tinum and started our work at the Mission of Friendship. Wednesday was full of hugs, dancing, and building relationships with the mission’s programs. Our amazing translator/friend José took us on a tour of all of the Mission programs Wednesday morning, which included the daycare, medical dispensary, and the Nuevo Vida after school enrichment program. After learning so much about all the help la Mission de Amistad has to offer, we spent most of our day with the school age girls. Hours on end were spent playing tag, helping the girls learn english, and teaching them dances. A few helpful group members (Kevin, Conner, and Caroline) started a landscaping project to help beautify the daycare. Dorian, Julie, and Marie got worn out quickly after a hard days work of Just Dance games. Kevin earned the nickname “un monstro” (monster) for his 6 ft stature and spent the afternoon being chased by 16 little girls. We all learned so much from the English lesson, and this program truly is trying to help enrich the lives of these young ladies as much as possible.