Day 1

(6/7/2024) - (Allen and Ethan)

Hey everyone, this is Allen and Ethan.

Allen: 

Today we woke up and everyone met up at the church to drive to the San Jose Airport. Personally, I was feeling a little bit nervous because it was my first time flying without my family, but we made it through without any problems. When we got to San Diego, we waited a long time because the girls left on the first van and we were deserted, waiting for another van (which took around 20 minutes) . After around half an hour, we stopped for lunch at Chick-Fil-A, then went to the Mexican border to get our visas. We then crossed the border after a long process of filling out forms and waiting for traffic. 

My first impression of Mexico was that it was very different from lifestyle in Tri-Valley. There was a lot of rubbish, graffiti, and homeless people, which I wasn't used to. As we were stuck in traffic, I couldn't help my self but stare at the looming border wall outside the van. Some of the most horrible things I saw were half a dead body of a dog, multiple ruins of houses, and many more. As we approached Ensenada, things seemed to get better. The atmosphere was a lot more festive, and there were less homelessness and poverty. Additionally, we also beat the girls van to the base, and we overall, won the race.

Ethan:

Once we got to the base, we were greeted generously by the staff who gave us a tour of the base. We ate dinner which was a DIY burrito. After finishing eating, the boys and I played nine square, which is four square, but with nine box. We congregated later and got presentations on rules, what we were going to do, and got to watch some fun skits and videos about rules in the base. Once the meeting was over, we all went to Oxxo, a convenient store and got snacks to garble on. We got back to the rooms after that, ate snacks, and then took showers. There was no provided shampoo and the boys were complaining. So Uncle David and Samuel went to the store again and bought shampoo and soap for us to share. There're two showers but only one toilet in our 8 person room, so Uncle David timed the showers and bathroom time, Ollie was "panicking"  because Uncle David joked to decrease his shower time.  We all learned to take a quick shower in 10 min. 

HERE ARE PICTURES BELOW.