Week 1

We are finally in Isla Mujeres! The past couple of months it has seemed unreal that we would soon be working and living in Mexico, sharing this experience together. There are a lot of things running through my mind right now about the experience. Along with feeling very excited and anxious to start working and to meet all the students and people we will be working with, there are a lot of questions in the back of my mind.....Have we lost our minds? Will we want to kill each other after spending 24/7 together? What if the kids don't like us? Or what if we fail miserably? I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Anna, the directora of PEACE, met us when we got off the ferry and took us to our first "home" on the Island. There are some very wonderful people on this island who have donated housing to us, and many other wonderful people who have donated and supported the program in many different other ways. This has cut down on the cost of the project significantly, and surely would not be possible without them. We are going to be in Isla Mujeres for about 2 months and during that time will be moving every week to a new house or apartment. We have just arrived and haven't heard very much about the other places we will be staying, but we are eternally grateful for a roof over our head. This first place is sooo cute (Que Barbara), so we will be sad to leave it. It was donated by a wonderful couple, Bonnie and Ariel, who also own a dive shop called Sea Hawk Divers. We haven't met them yet but we love this place.


This first week it looks like we will be spending a lot of time meeting with city officials, the health director, and local teachers to work out some more details of our project. It looks like it will be a very busy week.

We had our first day of work on Saturday, the after we arrived. Some how we got our clocks set wrong, so we showed up an hour early. It took us almost the full hour sitting out in the drizzle to realize that this had happened and that we hadn't fallen victim to "mexico time".

Also, it seems as though we have arrived here during the coldest days Isla Mujeres has seen in a very long time. I am wishing I brought more warm clothes and less bathing suits.