It has been a bit over a week in Tijuana, and on the whole, it’s been great. It’s really interesting to note how different the cultures are in the base at Tijuana as opposed to Ensenada. The Tijuana base is much more organized and much more ministry-focused, which is definitely a plus for me. Almost every day, we have some sort of ministry that we are doing. Tuesday, we went after class to help out at Círculo Andante, which is a bi-weekly after-school program that YWAM staff does for children in one of the poor colonias around Tijuana. They usually do a story, songs, games, crafts, and a lesson of some sort. For me, Iván, and JP (as the three token guys on this excursion) that meant about 30 minutes of getting assaulted by tiny Mexican boys eager to wrestle. And about 25 minutes of being reminded that my arts and crafts skills have not progressed much beyond 2nd grade. Oh, well…
Wednesday was a bit of an intense day. In the evening, we went to Zona Norte, which is Tijuana’s Red Light district, to pass out soup, talk to people, and pray for them. While it was a relatively quiet night—there was a soccer game, so most of the usual suspects were gone—it was still a very heavy place. It’s really heart-wrenching walking past the endless files of prostitutes leaning against the city walls—young, old, most past their prime and overweight, most with a kind of numb, almost dead look in their eyes—and be able to do nothing besides pray. A lot of people from our team came back a bit shaken by the experience, and I think it might be a bit of a foretaste of the kind of experiences we will be looking at in India.
Friday was fun. After we finished with our day of classes, arts, base cleaning, etc, we went to the house of one of the TJ staff that lives in a neighborhood a few miles away. Every Friday, they invite the base staff over there to have games and desserts. It was strange to realize that it’s been almost two months since I’ve been in anyone’s house. There’s a strange comfort in sitting around a fire listening to guitar and singing in the background, even if the songs are all Mexican love songs that I don’t know. It kind of makes you feel at home. And yet, very far from home at the same time.
Saturday: pouring Mexican rains returned. One of the Mexican girls (Ruth Gasca) had invited me to go to her house with a few others from the TJ base. It was a very interesting experience. It was just me, Ruth, another female DTS student (also named Ruth), and a female staff member. It didn’t quite dawn on me until I was several minutes in the car that I was the only American, and the only guy. We drove into one of the colonias in the outskirts of Tijuana, where her family lived. After a while, the road became impassible because of the thick mud, and we had to walk the last 200 yards or so trying not to slip as we slid our way along to her house. She lives in a three-room house with her family, and the youngest 3 of her 11 brothers and sisters. I was treated to the usual Mexican hospitality, and her mom stuffed us with chili, served Mexican style (eaten with fingers and tortillas, which I managed to make quite a mess of), as well as several batches of home-remedy herbal tea (which actually seemed to do wonders for my cough). I caught what I could of the rapid-fire Mexican small talk that flew across the room, with very precious little to contribute even when I did understand. We played about three hours of Tetris. I discovered again that my video game skills are sadly lacking. It was strange being in the house of someone from a background so different than mine when she wasn’t a stranger—when I actually know her and have spent time with her.
Sunday: discover the wonders of Mexican medicine. After two odd weeks of coughing, I finally decided to swallow my nervousness and go with the group to visit a Mexican doctor. It was interesting. They just have these treatment facilities right on the street. In about 15 minutes, I was able to get an examination, a prescription, and have that prescription filled, all for less than 200 pesos: about 17 US dollars. Unfortunately, one of these prescriptions was an injection that had to be administered in the rump. Even more unfortunately, the only one in our DTS who had any medical training whatsoever was a female Mexican student who is prickly on the best of days, and this was definitely not the best of days. It was one of the more uncomfortable experiences I’ve had in a while.
In other news: we have finally found out more information about outreach. Our time in India is going to be split between three cities: Pune (in the northwest, close to Mumbai/Bombay), Goa (in the Southwest coast—and, for those of you film buffs, that is where the second Bourne Identity movie started out), and Kolkata/Calcutta (on the Northeast coast). Add about a week of travel time (including a 40-odd hour train ride between Goa and Kolkata), and you have our outreach. We will be in Pune for about three weeks. There, we will primarily be working in a street kids’ center with one of our YWAM contacts (an Indian named Joseph) who did his DTS in Ensenada about three years ago and then returned to India to plant churches and work with kids. We will be working with HIV-positive kids, and then building a house for a needy family. Following that, we will spend about two weeks in Goa working with tourists. We don’t know exactly what this will look like, but this will probably be the primary place where we use our arts focus, and we are now preparing several dramas and songs for that, as well as trying to practice photography. Finally, we will be spending about two weeks in Kolkata to work with the Sisters of Charity (Mother Teresa’s organization) and in another children’s center with Joseph. At least, that is (in broad strokes) what I think we will be doing. The blessing and the curse of YWAM is that you never quite know exactly until it’s happening.