unbelievable energy

Wow. Where to start with the show day? I will just begin with how amazing the audience was. I could feel their energy and presence from over 100 feet away. It was truly amazing. I say this because our show stage was at least 50 feet from the first row. Many people sat further back to get an even better view of the distant stage. The beginning half of the show went really well, but the latter half went even better. Since we entered Mexico, we changed the show a bit: the first half is more or less the same and the second half contains a full version of "De Que Color es la Piel de Dios" and a full Mexican medley.

And of course the Mexicans go wild for those pieces. I was assigned to one of the mariachi charro parts and a Noa Noa dancer. The charro part involves putting on a full traditional suit complete with red bow-tie and giant black sombrero. The Noa Noa dance includes white jeans topped by a shiny gold shirt. Sexy-kinda. Not. These pieces are very simple to dance. Thank you God! I would not want to mess it up. Again, it’s like the show flashes before your eyes and its over. Even though we did not fill the entire 3000 seat venue, the 1300 or so people there proved to be the best and biggest audience to date. I loved it.

On our host family day off, I got to sleep in (again!), ate a nice little breakfast and my family and we jet down the street to church. The church was beautiful – it was built on a very steep hill, it was very clean, and upon entrance I traced the pure white floor tiles that split the many rows of pews to a silhouetted altar. Behind the altar was a large panoramic glass wall with an extensive view of Leon. Before we headed off to our main event, Mario and I went shopping. Leon is famous for shoes; it is considered the show capital of Mexico.

And the main event: the ‘summer’ house. We met up with my host fam’s friends who have a place outside the city. We played volleyball, swam in their little pool, barbqued-mexi-style, and then danced the night away. What made it more enjoyable was that all these friends had host other students too. The uppies included: Leslie (AZ), Emil (Sweden), Nina (Finland), and Nilo (Sweden). I think the highlight of the night was dancing with my host mom, Martha.