DEEP IN DOWNTOWN TJ

Good morning from Tijuana. We woke up to some devastating news, the showers were still not working from the power outage last night. besides that rough start to the day everyone seemed to cheer up when the smell of pancakes for breakfast had entered the room. After an amazing breakfast we all got on the buses to our first stop in a packed day. The park, Parque Teniente Guerrero was a blast! Everyone got such good footage and good interviews, and it was all capped off by a special dance party with a local musician. I (Sean) was invited to dance with an older lady, Bela was invited to dance by a young man, and it slowly turned into this big dance area across the whole group. Group moral was at an all-time high at this point. 

 

After the park we all made our way down to the old city hall building, now turned into a museum and the record market where all sorts of Vinyls, Cd’s, and DVD’s of music were on sale. After a good look at everything the old city hall had to offer, we got back in the bus and headed down to Esthers for a class on how to make tamales. Esther was an amazing host and taught all of us how to make a tamale and how she has been helping the migrant community of Tijuana for 10 years now. She told us her story of how she herself a migrant has been trying to serve the migrant community with her tamales and putting warm food on these peoples plates. And lucky for us we got a taste of that warm food, the tamales were amazing, and for someone who has never had one it lived up to the hype. Plus for the 3rd time this week I (Sean G) was offered a supposedly really spicy salsa and was almost immediately rejected by the rest of the group. Towards the end of our visit with Esther we were greeted with her two cute dogs. Francesco all of a sudden had both of them in his arms later saying “that was probably the happiest moment of my life.” Everything about the tamales was amazing and we can really see why Easther has made such a name for herself. 

 

The back half of the day started with a good look at the Tijuana cultural center and museum. All of us learned so much about the history of the area and the backstory of the whole Baja California region. From when the Jesuits came and established Catholic missions in Mexico.  From there we all made our way to the market for some gift shopping and great food. From Sam buying a giant sombrero, to me (Sean) getting a poncho last minute, to experiencing the great dollars to pesos conversion, we all had completely shown our full selves, some might say very touristy selves, to the great town of Tijuana.

B-Roll Challenge 3
1) Audrey Michels & David Lindelsee
2) Tate Girardino, Winta Tesfazgi, Katya Plotkin & Emerson Morton
3) Charlotte Hommertzhein, Sam Bufmack, Bella Fitzmartin & Sadie Vanek