Jess: I thought I was really going to miss my car. Anybody who knows me well knows how much I love my car. I love driving it and listening to music in it. And really, I don´t miss it all that much. I do miss driving, and I miss my car, but not as much as I thought I would. When it´s not here to see and use, I forget about it. I do, however, have a picture of it on my wall, thanks to Natalie.

I thought I was going to be really, really bored here but I've actually enjoyed the quiet nights and having to find things to do. It has been really great to relax and not have so much to do. Next week when the group from the school comes down I will be doing all their activities with them and I might go into shock!

One thing I´ve begun to miss is food. This might seem weird, but my apt doesn´t have a stove, just a refrigerator and microwave, and I don´t like using the gas stove in the main kitchen (it scares me), so I don´t eat good food on my own. I miss good cheese and skim milk.

It also never occurred to me how much I would miss being with my friends. I knew I would miss them, but I wasn´t quite sure how that would happen, or how I would be aware of it. My friends down here are wonderful, but language barriers still hold, and I can´t be really myself around them. I am used to being pretty crazy with my roommates, and I feel like my sarcasm and ability to make jokes have deteriorated. Sad, huh?

Friday we took the kids to the river, which was a really fun time, and the first outing with the kids that we had had since I have been here. We took them on the bus and found a calm place in the water for them to play. They were so much fun to watch- they ran down to the water and started stripping off their clothes. Most of them don´t have too many inhabitions, so they were all splashing around in their underwear. Brigida had made a cake, we brought ice cream, and we had received a fresh batch of strawberries so there were strawberries with cream as well.

The kids got worn out, though, and we took them home early. Most of them fell asleep on the bus on the way there. Poor little Irany, who is about two and a half, fell asleep in her plate of ice cream! Poor thing.

Yesterday Erma picked me up to go down to El Rosario. Victor was driving her minivan, and there was a lady and two other girls a little younger than me from Canada who went as well. I got to interview Señora Espinoza. She says she is 98, but they are not really quite sure when she was born because she wasn´t registered for quite a while.

Her father was Italian and came over because he was from the Rothschild family in France (he was half french/half italian). He was promised to a girl back in Italy but met Sra. Espinoza´s mom, a Pima Indian, and fell in love. He married her and was disinherited from the family. They raised ten children in Baja, Sra. Espinoza being one. During the Revolution, because her father was a foreigner, they fled to Calexico in a covered wagon, and they lived in the United States until 1927, which is where Sra. learned her English.

They call her Mama Espinoza, and she´s apparently famous. She has a hotel and restaurant in El Rosario, and I hear it´s the last good pit stop for a long while. She started serving her own food to people who would pass in cars in the early days, and eventually opened a restaurant. The Baja races go through El Rosario and she has fed the stars since the beginning. She remember so many names, including Steve McQueen and James Garner. Now it´s an obligatory tourist stop. After interviewing her, we all went in to eat, and it was all white tourists! I hadn´t seen that many white people in one area since San Diego! We had a special treat because Mama Espinoza then came in, sat at our table, and sang her blessing song over our meal. It was kind of funny watching the rest of the people in the restaurant look and gawk and thinking "what is going on over there??"

She´s a wonderful lady. She raised ten of her own children and then took orphans into her home. Now she tries to help the poor whenever she can. She seems to be a matriarch over her whole community. Erma tries to help when can, and brought down two huge bags of rice and beans for Mama Espinoza to distribute as needed.

In the early 1960s a plan was headed from the Baja tip to the North and had an emergency landed near El Rosario. The Americans on board were stunned to find no doctors in the area to help, and shocked at the poverty they saw in the people there. A while later they returned with supplies and doctors to serve the community. Thus began an organization called the Flying Samaritans . Because Mama Espinoza spoke English she acted as interpreter and is still now seen as one who helped start the Flying Samaritans. Yesterday they were having a clinic in town, and someone came to meet her while I was interviewing her. They try to help her as much as they can, and I can´t blame them. She is an amazing woman.

In her mannerisms and talk she reminded me of my own grandma, and so that made me miss her.

All in all the trip went very well. She has written a book, which I bought. The fish tacos are delicious, and I cannot wait to return to her restaurant someday.