It's been awhile, I'm a puppeteer now

It’s been awhile.....I’m a puppeteer now
I haven’t written in a while and that’s certainly not because there’s nothing happening here, there is just never a dull moment here. I’ve been a little busy; there was 3 weeks that I had visitors from home, which was awesome. I got to be tour guide and so I didn’t have a chance to do any writing. It sure was great to share what feels like a total new lifestyle for me. Since I now know more people here on the Island I have actually had people stopping by house in the evening to chat, so I am not quite as alone in the evenings anymore. A lot of the regular North American volunteers with the La Vina Church have headed home and that has left the church a little short handed, which does happen every year at this time. Soooo....... I have inherited yet another job, puppeteer assistant. My good friend Jorge is a puppet master (among a lot of other things) he has an old (remember, old in Mexico and old in Canada are very very different) bread truck that he has modified to be a mobile Sunday school and a mobile puppet show, complete with a stage, a sound system (the Mexican kind) a tickle trunk and anything else you might need to have a puppet show in the middle of a dry dusty open field somewhere. ......and I mean dusty, oh I forgot to mention that this truck does not have functioning doors, they stay open all the time, so you must be careful to not fall off your green plastic lawn chair (there are no seats either) and roll out the door when Jorge hits a speed bump or slams on the brakes for some reason or other. The colonia that we go to on Fridays is a new colonia, which means that most people there are still living in their starter home, a tar paper shack. It’s a shack community just on the outskirts of Mazatlan, there is no indoor plumbing, no paved streets, no sidewalks, but they do have electricity. Every power line has a few handmade kites hanging from it, kite making and kite flying is the main entertainment here....that and us. It amazes me how these kids can make a kite out of plastic grocery bags, a few sticks and some old rags and they sour like birds and I can’t get a $20.00 kite to fly ( I own about 6 non-flying kites ) It looks like a little forgotten community in the middle of a dusty desert. When you see a dust cloud rolling in the distance you stop what you are doing and ponder for a bit as to who may be coming up the road, because a stranger does not drive by very often. Getting there through the back roads with the rickety, shagganappy and rattling bread truck is half the adventure. There used to be a bunch of us laughing and hanging on to each other in the truck and now there is usually just Jorge and I.....we still have fun, he laughs in Spanish and I laugh in English....actually his English is pretty good. I must say I have had a lot of fun and have many fine Mexican memories that I will just never forget being on this touring puppet show circuit. I should be thinking of how blessed I have been to be able to be a part of this for this long instead of being so sad to leave soon.