Giving Me

I'm waiting for Mexico. I haven't heard back from my team leader. I'm anxious to get my plans in place to go.

A personal story.....when I was a pre-teen, I was babysitting a neighbor's child one night. The mother, a very close friend of mine, was a role model for me. The father was a deputy sheriff. They went motorcycle riding outside of town. They came upon some illegal immigrants who were drinking and driving. My friend's husband advised them to stop drinking or stop driving. My friends continued their ride and ended up being chased by the other men. Truck > motorcycle. My friend was killed and her husband, somehow, managed to restrain the men and NOT to shoot them while badly injured himself and watching my friend, his wife, nearly decapitated, die.

The accused got a slap on the wrist and were sent home. I loathed illegals for many years. I was hurting and angry and felt I had a personal right to stay that way.

Fast forward again to 10 years ago. I joined up with a group from church and went to Tijuana, Mexico to help build houses. I dug foundations, I hauled rocks, made cement. I greased roof tile molds with USED motor oil, I jumped up and down on tools to cut and bend rebar. I rode in the back of a pickup through the sewage laden streams.

We saved our cardboard so the locals could resell the pieces to patch homes, I saw the cisterns, I saw the homes (with happy families) with no bathrooms. We left our used boots at the end of the week so someone would have shoes. Often the homes we were assembling butted up against the shanties. This meant a larger home. The group that we were assisting also took us to the ocean to see the fence that goes out further than the tide. We saw the men and sometimes families waiting on fences, waiting for the sun to set just right so they could try to get into the States to work at jobs we, in general, feel are beneath us: picking fruits and vegetables, cleaning rooms, serving food, etc.

We saw people waiting along the red dusty roads for the public buses to take them to the Sony plant where they earned 25 cents an hour. People often just walked. There were very few cars where we were.

We ate the best simple, homemade food imaginable. We laughed with with children who caught big emerald green bugs and would tie a string to their legs so they would fly in circles. We had a neighborhood fiesta at the end of the week, repleat with a four foot tall pinata.

We shook cockroaches out of our sleeping bags each night before going to bed.

And I played with the children. Loving, laughing, wonderful beings who didn't yet what the word poverty meant. I drank coffee in the morning with the former police chief. He used the same paper cup day after day (we dropped the cups after every drink of water). We visited the orphanage and taught the children how to thumb wrestle.

And then we drove to San Diego, flew home and returned to our bathrooms, our televisions, our clothes, our jobs, our computers, our cars, our windows and our walls. Shame on me for not going back sooner.

I was changed during this trip. My hatred had been turned into understanding. The chase and death of my friend has no right in it whatsover. But by walking in the shoes of those who come here, I saw for myself why they take the risks they do, why their desperation is so intense and why here is so much more appealing than there.

I long to be part of making someone else's life a little better.

Past Posts:
My Good Fortune...
Esperanza