Fall Focus Conference, El Paso, Texas

PWOC is our chapel ministry for women. Protestant Women of the Chapel. Once a year all the groups from all the Air Force and Army bases meet. This year, the meeting was held in El Paso , Texas. EARLY Wednesday morning, I left with Tabitha, Kathleen and Jen and off we flew to the WARM south. :-)

Here is our hotel, the El Camino Real. We were on the 5th floor, but from the 10th floor (where the pool was) you could see the border crossing. I liked the sun and the clouds and the lighting in this picture.

We left Boise and flew to Denver. We had a 4 hour layover there. Then flew on to El Paso. By the time we got checked in we were hungry! So off we went to find a place to eat dinner. Nobody told us that EVERYTHING closed at 5:00. There was no place to eat. So we ended up in the expensive hotel restaurant. Below is a silly picture we took while searching for food!

The next day, we took the "border jumper" trolley into Juarez, Mexico for sight seeing and shopping.
Riding the trolley was fun, and getting INTO Mexico was a breeze.
Here is the center of the bridge, the boundary lines between the countries is in between the flags.

We did a lot of walking and shopping for about 5 hours. Here is one of the trolley stops that I liked.

We found a NICE restaurant. So nice, that when we ordered guacamole, they made it fresh right in front of you! We finally found a waiter who spoke a BIT of English and we did need some help, as all of the menu was in Spanish. My Spanish teacher would be so disappointed in me, I have forgotten 98% of it.
No Diet Coke here. It is all Coca Cola Light.
We ended up at the large 2 story market at our last stop. The poverty and the begging and the "accosting" of obvious visitors took awhile to get used to. This is a PERSISTENT culture! Everywhere you go, men and women are shouting at you to COME SHOP HERE! "Aqui, senorita!" Here, they were begging each of us for a dollar to play their musical instruments.

I bought a large jar of vanilla (yes, the cooking kind, so many people said how much stronger and tastier it was to cook with), and a lot of Christmas presents!

The ride back over the bridge took 2 hours. And that was on a weekday. Our guide said it would be twice as long on a weekend. They swarmed the cars and buses. Begging to wash windows and selling everything that could be carried. Meanwhile, the foot traffic was unbelievable. Hundreds of people pulling rolling suitcases just walking over the bridge towards the USA. Once we reached the boundary line, the selling and swarming ended. But we did have to exit the trolley and go inside, present ID's and go through customs while the dogs searched the trolley.
Kathleen asked security if all these other people were working in the states, the guard said they had a BC card (bridge crossing) to go and shop. She asked what kept them from staying? He just shook his head. For one thing, EVERYTHING was cheaper in Mexico, so it didn't make sense that they would want to shop and spend more money. All this political talk and debates about illegal immigration and building walls and fences, and they are just allowed to walk over pulling suitcases? Did not make a lot of sense to us.
Everything in El Paso was in Spanish as well. Need gum? The labels are in Spanish. Need help? Everyone speaks Spanish. It felt like we were in a foreign country in our OWN country!

When we ere leaving the Boise airport, we had some extra time so we wandered the gift shops. We came across these t-shirts and decided to wear them opening night for ROLL CALL. Each group from every base and post had to stand up and sing, or chant, or do whatever creative thing they could do to introduce themselves. Balking at the "tea-party" mentality, we decided to be a bit rebellious, and showed up with our

"WHEN POTATOES GO BAD"

black t-shirts. We sure did stand out from all the other sweater vests and nicely dressed ladies. :-)

(but that was the point).

We had a lot of meals we were responsible for, here is lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. NOWHERE, we tried 5 places was I ever able to find my queso cheese dip. Guess I will have to wait until the next time we get to visit Alabama and Mississippi.

Well, if you really gotta go.......... you really must need to go!

The last night was the formal gathering. We were requested to wear semi-formal all white.

And a LOT of ladies did. But from the beginning I was like ABSOLUTELY not. I refuse to go out and spend a lot of money on something I will never wear again, and WHITE! Klutzy people do NOT wear all white! So we all settled on white and BLACK. black PANTS!!!!!!!
We received our princess crowns at the end of the evening. We are royalty!! We belong to the family of Christ!
The flower arrangements were so different and SO beautiful!
I am glad we went. There were a lot of things I didn't agree with and things they need to change. I felt like I wrote a book on my evaluation form! But leaving home for 5 days, seeing new places, bonding more with my friends, and getting spiritually encouraged was so worth it.