Today is the last day at Cerecaly and with the kids. It's a bittersweet day. All of us are exhausted yet so amped for the kids to see their hard work. As you know, last "night" ended around 5am. We awoke in the early morning light with no electricity, a noon deadline, and the men missing because they were off in town getting gasoline. We stumbled out of bed and quickly went downstairs to set up our stuff. The generator was hooked up and we went to work. While I worked on the video, Oscar took the musician outside to record the music for our movie. Esme was upstairs vigorously cleaning the area we had spent the last two weeks teaching the kids. It was filled with posters, markers, and our teaching outlines. She set to making the place presentable for the kids and their families. Melissa was helping set things up as well. However, she was also running into our work area asking if we needed anything, bringing us breakfast (hotcakes!), coffee, tea, anything we needed she was willing to get us so we didn't have to get up. It was truly lifesaving.

©Esme Brandon

Sarah was putting the ending touches on her video. At around 9 some of the kids came. They surrounded around our work area and were a huge distraction. They were chatting to me, which I really don't speak Spanish still. They were talking to Oscar who was my main helper at this point with last minute touches and listening to the audio. His job was putting it into the movie. Melissa grabbed the kids and put them to work putting out the red carpet. Meanwhile I went outside in the rain to make some sound effects for the movie. We needed a sharp crack and a scream. I ended up wetting a towel and pistol-whipping the side of Cerecaly until it cracked. The scream wasn't going to happen because I was losing my voice, but we were pretty sure we could find something in a group of default sound effects.

The time flew by really quickly, and the closer it got to noon, more and more people were showing up, coming into our room, chatting with us, and marveling at the fact we weren't done. For once in my life, I wasn't worried. It wasn't like we were slacking off at any point. The power going out was a freak accident, and we started working as soon as we possibly could once we got electricity. I know some of the others were getting frazzled but we all kept telling each other to keep going! I know I mentioned this before but this was such a positive place to be in. There were so many things that went wrong, but in the end, no one freaked out, everyone got everything done, and we were all really mature despite the circumstances. I can't tell people enough how great this group was.

Around noon, people were asking us to give them a time. This is the hardest part, in my opinion. I've had renders take hours, I've had them take minutes. There are a lot of factors that decide the fate of time. As Oscar looked over the other groups and finished checking our movie, I finally hopped in the shower and dressed up in my "formal dress." Oscar showered after me and I worked on credits, which was actually really hard. All the kids had four names, and the spellings were all different from what i'm used to, I was using a mac that has spanish symbols and the keys are slightly different. I didn't even finish half of the cast when Oscar came back and took over this as well. Sarah went to shower and dress up then, which left Oscar and I to export.

We put the Akosia bumpers in the video and did a few final touches. I think I reexported the video at least four times due to little things I had to add into the other teams video. FINALLY we were exporting.

Meanwhile upstairs, Esme and Melissa were entertaining maybe 60 people that had turned up to watch the movies. It was past noon at this time, they had already had people talking, musicians playing, maybe some jokes, etc. Everyone came downstairs to eat as we were working on putting the exported videos through one more program to get them ready for the tv. The two sisters were incredible at keeping everyone entertained and in good spirits. I applaud them because that isn't easy to do.

After everyone finished with their snacks, we all went back upstairs to watch the movies. We handed out papers so the audience could vote on their favorite actors, movies, directors, props, etc. Some people stood up and talked and introduced us all, and then we started watching the other groups film. I filmed the audience reactions while watching. I think everyone was just surprised at everything the kids had accomplished. They did it all. They learned about storytelling, started creating stories and characters, storyboarding, casting everyone, directing, acting, videographers, makeup artists, location scouts, everything. I am still in awe of everything they accomplished and it was incredible seeing the audience's reactions to the first video. There was a roar of cheers and we brought that group up and introduced the characters and everyone's roles.

Next was Oscar and my video. I stood in the back so I could stand next to him and soak up the moment. I swelled with pride at everything we had accomplished. I couldn't help but feel so blessed to have met Oscar and for him to be a part of this project. I learned so much from him, we all did. We stood as we watched our video play and the audience was horrified when the murders happened and laughed at some other parts. It was SO successful and so emotional to have it finally finished. We gave everyone a chance to fill out their votes and collected the papers to tally up.

The five of us went into the bedroom to get the "oscars" we made to hand out to the award winners and tally up the votes. About 15 minutes later we emerged. We told everyone we were so incredibly proud to work with these talented kids. Then we gave everyone a certificate for participating in everything. This came with a handshake of all the kids and a photo with each one. Some of the older guys came up and kissed us on the cheek, which got a lot of the kids in the audience hollering for their moxy. A few of us got emotional, not saying any names but it rhymes with jezme...and me of course.

We finally got really for the other awards. We called out a lot of the specific roles from Esme and Sarah's group. They showed the most knowledge of the techniques and equipment. It was incredible watching the growth from those who really were interested in their roles. Although their team had most of those specific roles from their groups, our horror movie won most of the movie awards. Our main actor was the best actor, niño padré, and we also won best picture. It was so amazing seeing the kids' faces light up once they won their awards. At the very end we were thanked by FAI and we were presented with these wonderful presents. They were baskets with fans, some homemade remedies from Chuy, some amazing soap that has lavender in it, and a pen. It was so sweet of them to put something together like this to help us remember (though I don't think we'll forget their kindness soon).

And suddenly, it's over. We're filing downstairs outside and waving goodbye. We stopped to take some photos. Most of the little girls wanted a photo with me. I switched from being photographed to photographing and filming as much as I could. I wanted to stop time and have a second to talk to each of them, encourage them to keep creating, hug them, photograph everyone. Unfortunately, time doesn't work that way. I had a tough time saying goodbye. We promised them we'd stay in touch, and then they were gone.

The people of Cerecaly called us in for lunch and we met people from FAI and friends of Mauricios. But mostly, us five stayed together talking and laughing. We knew there wasn't much time left and there was finally no pressure of lesson plans, spanish lessons, or video editing. (I'd like to add that the power came on around this time, of course). We ate Chuy's delicious food and I was sure to give a lot of love to my love, Orpheus.

After "lunch" we all went up to our rooms to pack. People kept coming in and saying goodbye to us. Mauricio came by before he left and we said a really hard goodbye to him.

About an hour later, Oscar came in to say goodbye. We all said how grateful we were to have met him and got to know him. I think it's safe to say I was the closest to him during this trip. I couldn't stop the tears because I knew it would be a long time until I got to see him again. He just cocked his head to one side, smiled, and said "Don't cry, we'll see each other soon." One last hug and he left.

The rest of this post I want to just say I was depressed. Esme hugged me and slipped me some tissues and I didn't even want to think about saying goodbye to these incredible woman, although I'm more confident my future holds more adventures with them.

We finally had everything packed and we packed up the car. I chased Andrea around and hugged her. We found Aender, napping, and said a sad goodbye to him. We went to Chuy to tell her how much she meant to us and how important she was to us. I wish I could have communicated it better.

It was probably 5 when we left to go back to Maria Jose's apartment in Mexico City. For some reason, I wasn't that tired so I offered to start driving. We grabbed snacks and started our way trading everyones ipods to listen to their top 25 songs. The view was just as gorgeous as the ride down here. As always you can look around and see at least one massive rainstorm in the distant mountains. I am still in awe of Mexico's beauty. Probably 2-3 hours into me driving, I started getting REALLY tired. We waited in a toll line and Melissa and I quickly jumped out of the car to switch and she drove. It wasn't long after the switch that I hardcore passed out. I fell asleep for the rest of the car ride in the best sleep possible. Melissa safely (and impressively) got us back to the apartment and this time it didn't take 8 hours!

We got into the apartment, grabbed water, and pretty much went to bed. It had been such a long day and a long week, all we could really do was sleep.

I'm happy to say I survived the night. We all did. We woke up to the bright morning light, stepped out of our room to see birds flying around the corridors, dogs barking, and good smells coming from the kitchen. Melissa had already tried out the shower this morning and gushed at how amazing it was despite the fact that it was outdoors and there really wasn't any privacy for changing after the shower. We decided to walk back to our rooms for changing then and there (I only had a few awkward moments of walking past strangers in my towel while living there). However, a shower this morning was going to have to wait until after breakfast for me. We came downstairs where Chuy was there (the woman from last night). She was cooking tortillas with ham and cheese in them, there was a massive bowl of cantaloup and papaya, there were hot sauces, and a hot water with lime juice and honey. Melissa was downing those like there was no tomorrow because her voice had gone missing from the night before. We had breakfast with the other guy who greeted us yesterday, Aender, a man named Manuel, and Gerry, who helps out around Ceracaly and brings his wife and adorable one year old daughter.

Everything was delicious and we stayed and "chatted" with everyone for a little while. I say "chatted" because I basically sat there and smiled while everyone around me spoke Spanish.

Just at the moment I was going to shower, it was insisted that we take a tour of the place, so we saw the library, computer rooms, bathrooms, and the gardens where they grow all these different vegetables. Right after we got back inside, we met Mauricio. He basically was in charge of everything or anything we needed at Ceracaly. He's 28 years old and plays the guitar and smiles like a little kid on Christmas. We all instantly loved him. Not to mention he had the coolest dog ever named Orpheus. I'll keep coming back to Orpheus and I only have about a hundred photos of him.

During the meeting, we were brought a snack called Tuna. Tuna is the fruit of a cactus, it's magenta in color, and it's got a bunch of little pits that you just swallow. It didn't taste like much but we still liked it.

Anyways we went over our schedule for the first week with Mauricio and he told us a little bit about Ceracaly. After our talk with Mauricio, after so many photos and meetings with all kinds of people, I was able to shower. We all got ready and packed up our things to go into Dolores Hidalgo to use the internet and get some supplies for the two week stay in Ceracaly. At this point we met the famous Oscar, who was the only person to work on the project last year and came back this year. We loaded into the car and Aender, Mauricio, and Oscar got into another car and we drove about 20 minutes to get to Dolores Hidalgo.

It's actually a beautiful little city filled with bright colors and we took some time to walk around and explore the little shops. People were selling all different kinds of food and there was also famous ice cream in this city that we were on the hunt for.

When we finally found a stand that sold ice cream we approached it and were instantly given all different kinds of free samples of the ice cream. I tried beer, avocado, chocolate, and some fruity ones. They were so weird, but the avocado one was surprisingly good. After some sightseeing we decided to get a drink and get some internet to contact home. We found a place that had two for one drinks and thought it was as good as any place.

Me and my beautiful friends.

At this point I had my first taste of mexican tequila. I had declined a beer because I'm not a fan of the taste. I like girly fruity drinks. So the waitress suggested a margarita. Now, I've had margaritas before; you can barely taste the alcohol in them because they are filled with different fruit flavors. I ordered one and it came without a fruit flavor. It was basically tequila. It was really difficult sipping it because it was really strong. We chatted around the table and then the waitress brought everyone their second drink. Remember, I mentioned it was buy one get one. Well I had forced the first one and I really didn't want the second. I offered it to Melissa who claimed she had to drive. No one else wanted it. I decided if I could just get rid of it fast it would be better. I took larger gulps of it, and voila, it disappeared…as did I a little.

We did some shopping and headed back to Ceracaly. It was about 10 when we got back and we played some cards and hung out with the guys a little longer before we sunk back into bed.

Day Dieciséis

Day Cuatro

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