Smells of a Village Ministry Center (3 of 3)

Sights, Sounds and Smells of a Village Ministry Center

Part 3: Smells

San Vicente, the sprawling village of 3000... we’ve been working here for over a decade... quite interesting being here, your senses... uniquely filled...

 

Smells: to be fair, there is nothing as wonderful as Carne Asada meat over mesquite coals... definitely the yuck of pit toilets and doggie-stuff everywhere (3/4 of the homes only have a pit latrine)... smoke from the trash/garbage fires (municipal trash pickup isn’t dependable), everyone has a ‘burning can’, which smolders for hours (we regularly have to close all the windows in the middle of the night, regardless of the heat)... a rural village, walking by pig wallows and sheep stalls... with all the people draining water into the street, stagnant, yucky water filled with old soap and who-knows-what... walking by the houses, the ‘madre de la casa’ cooking dinner (usually something to smile about)... walking by the numerous food ‘puestos’ along the Highway, all cooking something (but we don’t eat there, famous for giving people severe ‘ED’, requires 3 days of Oral Rehydration and Pepto, possibly antibiotics... yeah, even the locals... how do these places stay open???)... oh, did you know that blowing dust has a smell?...

Hey, many of you have gone on mission outreaches to other places in the world... what say you? Email us!

Sounds of a Village Ministry Center (2 of 3)

Sights, Sounds and Smells of a Village Ministry Center

Part 2: Sounds

San Vicente, the sprawling village of 3000... we’ve been working here for over a decade... quite interesting being here, your senses... uniquely filled...

Sounds, oh the sounds: there IS the delightful sound of the old Catholic church-bell, ringing promptly at 0830 (not sure why)... but, that’s after the 0730 blasting Zumba music at the make-shift workout room, which can be heard all over the Village...dogs, dogs, dogs barking everywhere (half from their fenced yards, half the packs of street-roving free dogs), roosters crowing most of the night (thankfully, our neighbor gave her roosters away, quite the racket outside the bedroom window)... during the day, the blaring vehicle-mounted PA announcements, advertising vegetables, brooms, bottled water for drinking (a must!)... then the LP Gas trucks and their blaring sirens... there’s the tempting, soft bell-ringing of the roving ice-cream coolers and candy salesmen (my favorite: the hot churros, all cinnamon and sugar and melt-in-your-mouth, with champurrado, a hot corn-meal and chocolate drink)... Click! Grrr! Click! Grrr! The neighbors water-tank pumps going on-and-off (we opt to just fill our buckets when the water comes on, no water-tank)... Bbbrrrrrr go the semi’s on the Highway, down-shifting... goes along with the vehicles that have NO muffler, back-firing down the road...weekends, the Norteño Mexican music so loud from dusk to 3am, you can’t hold a conversation in the house... oh, yes, the sound of water trickling into our buckets as we fill them up at 2am, the stars keeping us company (they only turn on water to our part of town in the middle of the night, 2-3x/week)

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Sights of a Village Ministry Center (1 of 3)

Sights, Sounds and Smells of a Village Ministry Center

Part 1: Sights

San Vicente, the sprawling village of 3000... we’ve been working here for over a decade... quite interesting being here, your senses... uniquely filled...

Sights...totally normal sights: horses trotting down the main cow-path dirt roads... pickup trucks filled with people in the back, flying down the road... roads in the center of the village clogged with make-shift booths (PVC pipe, blue tarps, plywood tables) on ‘Market Days’ (called Tianges)... dozens and dozens of dust-covered field workers walking home, 5-gallon buckets slung over their shoulders... nothing like a Baja Mexico sunset over the mountains, cactus in view... the vehicles klunking down the road, 30-40 yr old rusty hunks held together with duct tape, ‘chica-nada’ metal repairs, bondo-and-bailing wire... like last night, darkness (the city transformer blew, no power for about 10 hours)... clouds of dust, blowing right at you... every 3-4 months, there is a roving ‘kid’s carnival’ that comes to town, and we both cringe at the rickety-barely held-together rides they put up... driving north, you can see the ruins of the original San Vicente Mission, established in 1780... at night, when filling water buckets at 2am, the Screech Owl flying overhead (he buzzed me once, took me a few minutes to breathe again)... with a small, rural village, one beautiful sight: on a clear night, before the garbage fires, you can see the Milky Way overhead, and the orbital satellites criss-crossing the sky...