Kaiizen- Trip to Mexico, El Sauzal Orphanage

I just got back from the Ensenada, Mexico area on a trip with the non-profit organization Kaiizen! The trip's purpose is to go down to an orphanage, El Sauzal, which has a few dozen children that either have been given away because their parents can't afford them or their parents died and many other reasons. Regardless of how they are there, they live off very little and lack some of the love and play that every child needs as well as simple necessities such as food, clothing and decent quality facilities. 

     We went down to spend some time with them, make them feel loved and bring them a few things they need.

    Thursday: We met at the Walmart in Orem at 4:45 am! We met with our assigned cars and hit the road! I was with an awesome group of people of my trip down there! Brian, Dane, Andrea and later Richard. We snoozed a lot of the way down there until we got to the border to go into

Mexico. It took about 3 HOURS just to get into Mexico! Why?? I have no idea! But since we were all so frustrated we started talking among each other a lot more. It was pretty hilarious actually. Long story short, after about 16 hours of being in the car, we got to this taco stand in Ensenada to eat dinner at 11 pm. Josh, Kaiizen's founder, assured us it was a safe place to eat. The tacos were AMAZING! Soo good! Although we didn't notice only 40 feet away, one of the vans in our group was vandalized as the back windshield was broken into. Only a tent was taken luckily. This was our only scary situation the whole trip. That night we slept on the beach in this private area. I thought I wouldn't slept well but it was soo amazing. The temperature was absolutely perfect and listening to the waves in the open air was so peaceful! 

Friday: We woke up around 8am and after a quick cereal breakfast we were off to go to the orphanage. We got there and I looked around with some sadness. There were some random farm animals walking around and the buildings were pretty run down. There was no air conditioning and flies were very apparent. We took a quick tour and they showed us where everything was. The bathrooms was a small building in which only had a curtain to separate between two stalls. Their plumbing isn't very good so instead of throwing the toilet paper into the toilet, there was a bucket next to the toilet to throw it away. So you can imagine the smell when you walked into the bathroom! After walking around, I began to take out the blankets that were previously made for the children to decorate and to later give them away to people in the community. These kids don't ever have much and therefore, don't have anything to give away. They miss out on the experiences and joy of being able to help others. So we decided to give them that experience by completing the blankets and giving them away. 

We colored the blankets and I was able to get to know some of the kids that way. I could understand 90% of what everyone was saying. I was able to talk a bit with them to... a lot of "Como te llamas?" and "Quantos anos te tienes?"  We later did face painting and hula learning for the girls and haka learning for the boys to prepare for the luau that night. Afterwards, we delivered the blankets to homes around town. Some of the homes were just a small shack with really nothing there. It was an amazing feeling to go up to a lady and give her a blanket with some simple hygiene products and she was so thankful. A simple "de nada" was so peaceful to say to her.

That night we put on a Luau for the children. We had them run between two lines of us in order to go sit down as we cheered for them. We cooked them pulled pork, fruit, rice, strawberry soup, and chocolate banana bread. We performed the Hula, the Haka, and a spanish version of Johnny Lingo. We did the limbo and ended in a dance party.  It was so much fun! And the kids LOVED it!!

Saturday: I went to play with my assigned "mentor child", Violeta. She is 

so cute! I bought her a Dora the Explorer backpack and she LOVED it! I called her over and said "Para tu" she gave a HUGE smile and said "Para mi!?" She gave me a big hug and was so excited when I said "Mira!" and showed her the coloring book and crayons inside. It was so neat!

We took the kids to a nearby pool. It was so much fun! It was pretty clean too. There was a water slide that was soo much fun! It was pretty steep and had a bump that if you got going fast enough, it would give you some air! I played with the little ones in the kiddy pool for a while. It was awesome! We said goodbye to them at the pool and we traveled back to the taco stand for dinner and then to the beach again at night. We saw dolphins off the shore and we watched the sunset. We made a bonfire and talked about what experiences we loved. We had a dance party and talked. I got to know SO many people of this trip. I had a really good experience that night. I was talking with this girl Ashley at night by the shore and we were looking at the bazillion stars. We talked a lot about church experiences. It was a great way to end the trip. 

Sunday: Woke up at 3:45 after a very cold sleep (for me) and we all caravaned to Tecate to get back into the US. I was sick after 20 mins of driving and in the middle of nowhere. They had to pull over for me to go to the bathroom, camping style in the bushes. Oh yah, very pleasant and totally not embarrassing at all. Right. We drove back to Utah after about 16 hours due to some stops along the way. It was fun and we had a good time!

I am so glad I went. There were so many experiences I would love to share but I just don't want to overdo this blog with so many experiences. I have never been so thankful to have a clean bathroom, a warm shower, a comfy bed air conditioning and no bugs to worry about.

Here are some videos of the hula and haka!