3 world country money!

I just got home from work, and I have been thinking about how blessed I am with the money I make. I'm only 16 so it's obvious I only make 7.50 per hour. I'm always thinking to myself "Why only 7.50 per hour, I can make more?" "It sucks to get paid 7.50" or even "I'm worth much more than 7.50".  I should be thankful for that. I work as a Host at a Restaurant called Hoss's. My job is to take orders and take the people to their table. Is that hard? No! I have a pretty easy job, and I make $7.50! 

I don't have to pay any rent, education, food, electricity, water, etc. Thanks to my parents that support me in all that. The money I get it's basically for wants.  The options I have for my money is to save it or spend it. The other day I heard that the Government wanted to raise minimum wage to 9.00 something like that. That's crazy!!

 Now lets talk about our neighbor and my birth country Mexico. The minimum wage for Mexico is only $70 pesos that's equal to 5 dollars with the current exchange rate. By the way that's per day not per hour! I personally know people that live on 5 dollars a day. Just imagine yourself making 5 dollars a day and feeding your family. Wow it would be hard right?

  I know this guy that works in a big factory where there are big dangerous machines. He wakes up around 5:00 am. and that might be late, he takes public transportation (Public transportation in Mexico City is not fun at all!). He works really hard!  He only make 5 dollars a day. He's risking his health because of working near big machinery. He gets home around 7:00pm barely time to be with his kids. It's the same story every day. It's a routine, I personally hate routines!! He's a father of 3 and has a wife. They all have to eat right? I don't know how I would do that. And then there's me complaining about my 7.50 dollars per hour. Like come on Dan!! Be grateful!

Most people in Mexico city don't have cars, gas is to expensive. Some people have cars but don't use them because of gas. In Mexico we only have one gas company called PEMEX it's a monopoly owned by the government. Theres is no competition allowed. That sucks! It's funny to see a Sheetz and a Rutter's right across from each other. That's competition, the gas prices go lower! The price of gas in Mexico is $13 pesos per liter, it takes about 4 liters to make a gallon. So it's 13x4=52 so it costs $4 dollars per gallon with the current exchange rate. That's for people getting less income than Americans. 

I'm taking an Economics class in school, we talk about money, how to spend it all that. We were encouraged to save 15 percent of what we make every month to save it for retirement. There was some big digits on the whiteboard for saving 15 percent of our income every month. Retirement money? Really? for Mexicans that is just a dream. 

I'm just talking about the minimum wage. There is a lot of wealthy areas in Mexico. I'm just talking about where I used to live the city. There is a lot of poverty in Mexico and it's mostly because of the corrupt government system. There is a lot Americans have to be thankful for!

Shout out to my youth group leader Chad White he's awesome guy and a great example to follow! He likes to call me esse haha poor gringito. Hahaha love ya Chad!!

The picture is a Tianguis a word originated form the Nahuatl indian language that means market.

Thanks for reading!

Stereotypical thoughts we have about different cultures!

It's been a long time... I want to start writing about how it's hard to change culture/home. I'm 16 years old and I moved to the US about 6 months ago. I used to live in Mexico City which is really different then it is here. I've experienced different ways to relate to people, I noticed that here people are more independent. 

It's hard to adjust and change in so little time. When I first came here. I thought of living here in a totally different way, I thought about "Friday Nigh Lights" playing football and having a blonde girlfriend... Well it wasn't like that!! It's an example of how everyone has a stereotypical person in every culture. How Americans view Mexicans is sitting next to a cactus in the desert with a big hat, or with Snake skin boots with jeans and a with a suit jacket with a sombrero (like a Narco). It's pretty funny because today at school I dressed up with a brownish suit jacket and some Khaki pants, I got from at least five different people that I looked like a Narco. I was just like haha ok?? Those little details are things you notice day by day. People have ideas of countries, people, cultures that might not even be true. 

Culture is something you learn since you're a baby, most people take that so lightly.  Something I struggle with is when I share my Mexican side  to the "American Culture". In Mexico we don't have that "Personal space" Americans take seriously. In my birth culture we are used to show appreciation by hugging people being close to them. ( Not in a bad way!) I notice almost everyday how Americans  always are more distant with each other.

Those are just some of all the examples I have. I'll write on my blog more often and try to talk more about culture and how a lot of people don't even notice it. 

Natural Fusion

Hi! I'm going to talk a little about a new project that my friend Alan and I are doing. We created a group called Natural Fusion. We will be doing song covers and creating our own songs. I play anything that has to do with percussion and my friend Alan pays guitar and piano. We don't really have a singer-- that's why I want to learn how to sing. We love music and want to continue to improve in our musical abilities.

Like us on Facebook link below
www.facebook.com/naturalfusion2531

Heres one of our videos!! We will upload more soon


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk22p_rVGRg

Long Journey

Sorry I haven't published anything in a really long time, I'm going to start again. My Dad, Toño Muñoz, Fernando Amezcua, Erik Morga, David Morga and I traveled to Rio Grande Bible Institute, in Edinburgh, Texas. It was a long trip.

On the way up, we saw a really bad accident involving 8 trailers and at least 10 other vehicles. We were stuck in traffic between San Luís Potosí and Matehuala. It's all deserted there; we were in the middle of nowhere. My Dad walked over 2 miles in stopped traffic,when he got to the accident he tried to call us and tell us how bad it was...we didn't know. There was no cell phone reception.  After like an hour of just sitting there with the motor off and throwing the football around in the center divider of the highway, we saw cars crossing the median to the other side trying to get around the wreck. So we tried, but some traffic control guys told us it was closed, they told us another way to skip traffic...a little road you could barely see on the other side of the highway so we crossed in front of some angry trailer guys who didn't like what we where doing.

Finally we made it to the other side to the little road, and we passed right next to the accident. It was terrible. I tried to record it but my camera battery died. It was really bad. Supposedly only two people died but I think there were more. We made it through and we stopped at the next gas station like 6 miles away and my Dad was terrified with what he saw.  He took several pic with his 3 megapixel cheap phone camera. It was a crazy day. It took us 16 hours to get to Texas it was a crazy trip.

Great Family in Oregon

Hey. I'm going to talk about my time in Corban.

We had a great week at the university, but today I'm going to talk about a special family we know, that we saw in Oregon. This is a great family...the Estañol family. Charlie has been a friend of my Dad since a long time ago. He entered the army and we hadn't seen him for like 10 years. When we saw him he had a wife and a family. Three kids. Micah (5) Jeremiah (3) Elisha (1). They where really nice kids. And his wife´s name is Jennifer. They are a really nice family. They took us to the beach there in Oregon. It was a really cold day and it was raining but we had a good time. After that we got hot chocolate and had a good conversation in the way home. They are a really nice family.

Here I have some pics of the beach.

Teaching English

Hey. Today I'm going to talk about teaching English. I went with my friend to his mom´s school. She is a teacher there. And when I was there the English teacher came to teach and my friend asked her if I could teach English. So I didn't really know what to teach them. I didn't know what they have been studying. So I asked the teacher and she gave me a lot of materials I could use.

So first of all I thought I wouldn't be able but after teaching for 10 minutes I started liking it. I taught 3rd and 6th graders. Each class was like 1 hour. I really liked teaching those kids. I was impressed of their pronunciation. They where really good for Mexican school students.

My History Playing Football

My History Playing Football

Football is a really fun sport that I thought that I wouldn’t find in Mexico. One of my favorite parts is when the quarterback says "hut". It is the best part because you are all ready to start the play.

I really like football. I started when one of my neighbors asked me if I wanted to play football.  So I asked him, "Is there a football team near here?"  He said,  "like 10 minutes from here."  I told my dad and bought my equipment. So I started training.  I began to like it more and more. Sometimes I got beat up by the other kids because I still didn’t know a lot about football.

 One day I told the coach I wanted to try QB. So I tried the position. I liked it, and I thought I was pretty good throwing. The coaches liked me being QB. But I didn’t know the plays so the coaches told me I could be wide receiver. I liked that position, but I really preferred QB better.  Nevertheless,  I started training as receiver. I caught pretty well. Then I liked playing the line so I decided to be a lineman  till they told me I was too small. So then I didn’t really know what I was going to play.

Then like a month later and after a lot of training and exercise,  I started playing QB again. I was pretty good but the coaches didn’t know my age. I was playing with the older kids as QB. The coaches thought it was ok that I played with older kids. Then the head coach let me decide if I wanted to play with the older guys as substitute QB or to play with my age as fullback and linebacker. So I decided play with the guys  my age. Then just yesterday, May 27, I went to our inauguration of our league. There was a lot of people in the football field, it was fun. I really like it. We walked with a lot of other really good teams. We appeared on TV, well, a special channel and online. I felt like a star.

Well that’s about it for my football career I have been playing for about half a year. So I will be playing as a fullback and linebacker .I really like those positions and I really want to win the championship. And I will like to play all my life.