I came into Ruiz Saturday along with Yonathan and Alison from the Tecate intern team. We were replacements for another intern who became ill as well as reinforcements for the sixty or so youth missionaries who arrived the same day.

The bus ride from Puerto Vallarta took over four hours, but there was a lot to learn about the area along the way. Immediately the beauty of the land strikes. The green ground cover grows about knee-high off the roadway and across the fields before it rises along the mountains into lush forest where the rain clouds hang like soggy laundry on the line.

Once you look past the landscape you quickly realize the poverty of the area. The ribs of the roadside livestock are visible, while the homes constructed of second hand materials and thatched roof are more hidden amongst the vegetation.

Sunday morning after breakfast at a local church, we converted the dining area into a sanctuary and Pastor Abel, our main EM contact in the area, led a service with Yonathan translating to English for us gringos.

Later that night a storm blew through Ruiz, dumping warm rain and flashing lightning directly over our three story hotel. This morning, the storm was still going strong, giving us a late start to the work day.

After the rain stopped at about 10 a.m., I had the chance to visit the four worksites for this week. Each group is constructing a single brick room for families in the area.

While at a site in Tijuanita, a town adjacent to Ruiz, I came across some local children playing in a street that the storm had converted to a stream. The kids were playful, splashing me and one another. They were curious about the United States and asked me a few questions that I tried to answer in my broken Spanish. When I took out the camera to take a few shots the kids posed in every which way, absorbing all the attention they could, even joking that their model services would cost me a hundred pesos each.

As we left the kids and the site, we got only a block up the cobblestone street before we were forced to the roadside. I couldn’t have been more surprised by the herd of cattle being driven through the streets directly toward us. The vaqueros even tipped their hats and smiled as they rode by us while I snapped more photos.

The Tijuanita kids and cowboys reinforced what I had learned already here in Ruiz – that the only thing more engulfing than the humidity is the hospitality. I can’t wait to see the work we accomplish this week.

- Matt Grager