im blogging early this week because tomorrow i will be staying at casa hovde to go with the children to their school. it is their last day before summer break and three of them are finishing primaria, and so they will be honored at a big celebration. from school, all but three of the children will leave for summer visitation with their families. these kids, both those that i worked with last summer and those that are new to the house, are very dear to me. the relationship you have with children when you are with them 24/7 versus when you see them for only a few hours a day, like in matlapa, is very strong. here are some pictures from the past week. ive rediscovered how much i love the black and white medium. i am also realizing, more and more, how important photography is to me and how i hope i can use it in some capacity in my career.

on saturday we visited templo mayor, which was the greatest temple of the mexcali people (pre-spanish invasion). the ruins are located right off the zocalo. the museum there didnt do much for me, but i really liked the ruins. they were especially eerie because they sit in the middle of the citys modernized, bustling hub. mexico always impresses on me what it would be like to have a strong sense of cultural history, which is something we really lack in the united states.

the building fronts around the zocalo are quite varied. you can see the multitude of architectural influences, including spanish, modern, traditional mexican, etc. i really like the diversity of the buildings sidebyside and the colors used. they give a sense of the countrys history and also of its artistic and historical evolution.

the view of the street in front of casa hovde. there are about five dogs that always roam around this area. they live in the house with the tienda (small store) at the end of the street. i personally hate this tienda because the guy who works there always overcharges me because of my skin color. but the kids love going there.

last weekend someone decided to tag one of the walls at matlapa. grafitti is everywhere in this city. every wall on the street is covered with it. last summer the director of programas house was tagged. he mentioned that he could hire someone to come "interpret" the grafitti for him and tell him whether the gang in question was planning to harm his home. lately a lot of the grafitti has been centered around the proposed sale of pemex, mexicos nationalized oil company, to private entities. ive found that every ordinary person ive talked to is against the sale, because they realize that the oil belongs to the mexico people and therefore it is better in the hands of the government than in the hands of big business.

ive been here for three weeks, but it feels like minutes. and yet it also feels like i have been here for my entire life, in a good way. lately i have started to realize that change does not happen in two months. changing children takes years, and i am just a blip in this process. i think you just have to hope that somehow you have contributed to the process of change, this long and invisible and undefined idea.