Las Cañadas and our last day at Ranchos

April 5, 2016

We have been out of water for over 24 hours at the house. There is no water in La Salina so each house has their own water tank that has to be filled by a truck. Apparently we use too much water and we ran out earlier than expected. Unfortunately we ran out at about 6pm last night and the water guy, Chava, had gone home for the day. You don’t drink the water in Mexico anyway so that wasn’t really an issue. We had plenty of water bottles. But that meant we couldn’t do any dishes from last night’s huge homemade Mexican feast. No showers. No laundry. No hand washing. No rinsing sand off your feet after the beach. And….NO flushing toilets!!! Yuck! It’s a bit of a problem. You don’t realize how much water you use each day!  It quickly feels like camping. Mikey woke up in the middle of the night last night saying he thought he was going to throw up. Not sure if it was the tacos or the sunburn/dehydration, we quickly started to think how that whole clean up would go without any water! Yikes! We left this morning before Chava came to fill up our tank and when we got back tonight, it still wasn’t working right so Chava had to come and prime the pump and clear the air out of the pipes. There is very little water pressure anyway but now everything has to refill and recharge and when the water comes out like a trickle, it takes a while! I waited nearly an hour and thinking all was well, finally got into the shower to clean up after the long, dusty day. There are few things less satisfying than a cold shower with no water pressure. Rinsing long hair while shivering cold under a tiny drip of cold water is one of my least favorite things. I will gladly swim in the freezing cold ocean. I will happily go jump in a cold lake. I will throw caution to the wind and splash in an icy river, but put me in a cold shower and I am not a happy camper! But now that I am in my warm PJ’s and huddled under a blanket with long sleeves, long leggings and socks, all is well. Plus, it feels kind of shallow to be complaining so much about a simple cold shower and a few hours without flushing toilets when I think about other people’s situations.

This morning we went to Las Cañadas campamento (a campground outside of Ensenada) where we did a short canopy tour with zip lines and hanging bridges, paddled around in paddle boats and cooled off at a little outdoor water park/pool. The campground had little cabins and teepees you could rent. It wasn’t flashy but it was well maintained and very clean. A perfect little family day trip. We loved it!

Afterwards we stopped by the Costco in Ensenada to buy some food and cleaning supplies for the orphanage and pick up 800 pictures to bring to the kids. We had taken tons of pictures of the kids on the first two days so we could do a little photo album project with the kids today. I was so happy to see that all of the kids LOVED doing the photo albums. I had designed several “All About Me” pages in Spanish and bought little $1 photo albums that held 24 pictures. We printed doubles of nearly 400 different pictures of the kids and handed them out for them to put in their own individual photo album/all about me books. Even the teenagers loved it. I had less pictures of them but I could tell they really liked having the pictures of themselves. Some of the kids spent nearly an hour and a half, even two hours working on their photo albums. I only wished I had taken MORE pictures. I wished I hadn’t been so shy and just had each child pose for a few pictures so they could fill their album. The kids even wanted the pictures of us. Edgar filled an entire album of he and Calvin. He said, “el es mi amigo favorito!” about Calvin. It was so sweet.

The little boys played tag with Rosa and Brinda and jump-roped with a group of kids their age. Kira helped Vanessa and Eduardo on the playground. Calvin and Garrett played basketball with Glen and Mario and a group of boys. Jeff, Kate and I helped a few of the kids and the special-needs adults with their photo albums. No one wanted to go when it was time to leave. We hated saying good-bye to these kids that we have gotten to know. There were so many special experiences over the last few days that were precious to each of us. We stayed until nearly dark and drove home in the beautiful baja sunset. Each of the kids said that spending time at the orphanage was even more fun than the zip-lines and swimming. They really had their hearts opened during this experience. I am so grateful that we were able to come and do this as a family. I am anxious to find out more ways we can help and to plan a time soon to come back with a few other families so we can help out with some projects too!

Kate with Estrella

Mikey and Isaac with their "novias," Rosa y Brinda.