Un Empate

After a week and a half of happily eating food off the street and ordering whatever I felt hungry for, something finally caught up to me. Today, instead of going along with the founder of PEACE to listen to what the lawyers have to say about starting a microcredit business, I am hanging out on my bed, popping pepto and drinking lots of water. Awesome.

So yeah, let's backtrack a bit. On Wednesday, I went into Punta Mita to help out with the animal clinic although unfortunately, there really weren't that many animals to deal with. So, I decided to wander down to the main "restaurant row" of Mita and check out the PEACE boutique store. It is there that the women who work with Manos Unidas sell their wares, including all sorts of jewelry made from recycled newspaper, bottle caps etc., and household decorations. I snapped a few pictures and decided to buy a necklace with beads made of recycled paper to take home. Mita is an interesting town, with a very small population and an even smaller main thoroughfare and you can definitely tell it's very reliant on the tourist trade due to the number of restaurant workers and surf instructors standing in the street and asking any passersby for their business. Anyway, I didn't spend that much time in Mita but enough to see the contrasts between fenced in luxury villas and small, crumbling homes. This is a bit of theme around this area.

Wednesday night I had the best tacos of my life. A 15 minute drive from Bucerias is a town called La Cruz de Huanacaxtle and there is a restaurant, known as "Tacos on the Street" that has amazing meat tacos and quesadillas. The menu's super simple -- basically you can have tacos and quesadillas with meat or without meat -- but something about the way the meat is cooked gives it a smoky, juicy flavor that is out of this world. And the corn tortillas, handmade, are awesome.

With a good meal under my belt, I was ready to face Thursday which just basically entailed sitting in on a director's meeting at PEACE and then watching the Manos Unidas women at work, making their handicrafts. They were beading sunglass lanyards and were very nice and entertaining to sit with although I have to admit I did get lost several times in their rapid fire Spanish. My attempt to help them bead were rather pathetic so I just resigned myself to watching. The women make a small amount of money from their wares which the PEACE boutique pays them for by the piece, although right now, since there are fewer tourists around, there is less for the women to do. Most of the women are housewives or stay-at-home moms while a few run restaurants or clean homes on the side. It was great to see them at work and to hear them say how much Manos Unidas has helped them earn a sort of economic independence.

Finally, on Thursday night it was off to the PEACE party which was low-key. I got to see all 30 some-odd employees and workers together in one place and chat with them a bit. I didn't stay too long though -- just long enough to watch the little kids attempt to dance to the mariachi music playing off the radio.

And that brings me to this morning. I felt great and the day felt full of opportunity. So, I decided to go downtown before meeting with the lawyers to watch the opening game of the World Cup -- Mexico vs. South Africa. It was a good/ intense game that ended in a tie 1-1 but it was fun to watch with Mexican(and 2 South African)fans while eating breakfast...I only had a croissant and some fresh fruit (peeled) and a cup of coffee but as soon as I walked home, my stomach was not agreeing with me. This being the case, don't expect me to have much interesting stuff to write about for today then. It looks like a long, lazy day spent resting. Stupid Montezuma's Revenge....