Morning: On a typical morning, my Amigos partner and I would wake up and put our cots and covers against the wall so that we had some room to move around. Our host brother, Angel, whose room we were sharing, would most likely be up already, and he would walk with us to the person's house who had volunteered to feed us today (in our community, we were on a “rotating meal plan” in which we would have meals with a different member from the community every day.)
Although this is set out in the requirements to the community before they accept volunteers, it isn’t always established for you when you arrive – we had to call a town meeting to discuss plans for our time there as well as ask who would be willing to feed us – an experience to say the least!
Usually our walk would be 20-40 minutes. When we arrived, they would welcome us and we would chit chat as they served us up. After we were done, we would thank them, ask what time we should arrive for lunch, and depart, walking another 20-40 minutes back to our house.
Afternoon: After returning from breakfast/brunch (we would either eat two or three meals per day, depending on the family that was feeding us that day, and how far away their house was), we would collect our materials and make our way to the town school building to teach a “campamento”.
During these campamentos, we worked with youth ages 6-13 talking about concepts such as the Mexican “Plato de Bien Comer” (their version of the food pyramid) and basic hygiene (reminding them it was important to brush their teeth and why, etc.) We tried hard to make the campamentos enjoyable by doing many hands-on demonstrations and such. After the campamentos, we would return to our home and plan
> for the next day’s campamento (we would do one for 1-2 hours, 5 days a week).
Evening: Come evening, we would walk back to the house of the person
> feeding us for the day (this time usually without our host brother, Angel, because we’d met them already). After a delicious meal and lots of talking, we would thank them again and return to our home.
Our host family would usually be sitting in the kitchen and we would join them (the kitchen consisted of a mud exterior with a sheet metal roof, inside was a fire pit and a couple of stools.) This was always my favorite > part of the day, sitting around the fire, drinking some extra sweet tea or coffee and perhaps dipping some pan dulce in it (a sweet bread made fresh in our community that was slightly dry, but delicious when dipped into coffee or tea), and talking and laughing. When we got sleepy, we would say goodnight, wash our dishes, brush our teeth, lay out our cots, and go to sleep.
Highlights: The highlight of my trip was twofold. The food was awesome. Even though it was the simplest stuff – beans (lots of beans), tortillas (tons of tortillas) and occasionally a chicken from their own pasture, they were able to make it taste amazing with only about three spices (cumin, salt, and pepper) and of course onions.
The other part of my experience that I really enjoyed were the evenings when I would talk with my host family and other families over dinner or tea and coffee. During these times, I gained a much greater perspective on what life was all about in a rural little village in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Though they didn’t have many material goods, they were some of the happiest people I’d ever met and made me rethink the things I’d come to value while being raised in the US. It was by far one of the most life-changing and unforgettable experiences of my life.