In Jungapeo!

We arrived here yesterday after a four hour red eye flight, a two hour bus ride into altitud sickness-inducing heights, and a much better 2 hour car ride into our favorite little pueblo in Michoacan. Jungapeo hasn´t changed one bit, and our "family" is doinggreat! The girls are all grown up now, (12 and 17!) and little Ale is now 5! My favorite moment so far was yesterday when Ale and Ezra went to go wash their hands before dinner, and Ale was explaining to Ez how to do it: "First you get your hands wet, then you put soap on them, then you rinse them," etc. Ezra went along with it as if it was all new to him, and then clever little Ale says, "So, how come in your country people don´t wash their hands?" Ez replied that of course they did, and so Ale, very confused and distraught, looked at him and said, "Then how come you didn´t know how?"

Beyond our immediate relief to finally get here, see the family, and get some sleep, we have also been launched right into the pilot project. In speaking to our host father, Alejandro, about it yesterday, it seems that there are actually some functioning microcredit programs gonig on in Michoacan, and he believes there are even some borrowers here in Jungapeo. Our mission now is to find them! Also, yesterday, we found out that our host mother, Vicky, is running for vice-deputy of Jungapeo, along with two others from her party (PRI) who are running for the deputy and "president" of Jungapeo. We went to a political gathering last night and met the candidates. All of them spoke about creating a better Jungapeo, particularly for the women. It seems that a big problem here is that there aren´t enough jobs for women. Whether that is a resource issue or other, I´m not entirely sure. Also something else to find out, as microcredit could be very important to them. Well, we have our work cut out for us.

I don´t think we will be able to post photos until we go to Costa Rica...sorry. The internet is a bit slow as you might imagine. But I promise, they will come.