I’ve been to Mexico City three times now to work with Armonía, and each time is different. And although this is not really a blog, I thought it would be simpler to share once what happened in Mexico for the three people who actually read any of these rants. (smile) If you’re truly curious, you can see some of the photos, but they are not a trip report, just a collection of anecdotes and curious images. This is where the meat is. Of course it’s rather diary-like and not nearly as insightful (or inciting) as my other rants.
Getting There is Half the Fun
We had ten people on our team. All of us had our luggage delayed in Houston, so we arrived in Mexico City with just our carry-ons. On the way to the guest house we stopped at a bodega and bought necessary items (socks, underwear, etc.) but our luggage did arrive the following morning at 5AM. Saturday afternoon we toured the anthropological museum (cool stuff, I’ve been there twice before) and had a nice dinner at Cafe de Tacuba, where most of the ladies danced with the mariachi band.
Sunday was a long day. One worship service in Santa Cruz, a nice big lunch, then a long ride back into the heart of the city to do a second service in Jalalpa. We had dinner at the community center, but Saúl (who runs the community centers) had to do some emergency counseling, so we didn’t get to leave Jalalpa until after 9PM.
Monday we took all the children from the Santa Cruz center to the movies. The tickets for this were donated. For many of these poor children, it was the first time they had ever been to a movie theater. They had popcorn, too. Thankfully many parents came along to help us herd over 120 children onto two buses and keep them from getting into trouble at the theater. My small group ended up watching “The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D.” A 3D movie was new even for some of the children who had been to the theater before; they were very cute reaching out to try to grab things that appeared to be floating over their heads. After they came out, Pilar (Saúl’s wife) asked the children if they wanted to see another movie. They went wild. My group ended up seeing “Madagascar,” which I had already seen in English, so I wasn’t completely lost. Saúl says that when the parents arrived at the community center to pick up their children, and he told them they weren’t back yet because they had stayed to see a second movie, some parents started to cry, because of the generosity of the gifts.
Tuesday morning we started teaching the children. We taught English, Bible, art, music, cooking, and sports; one of our team (’Chelle, my girlfriend) brought balloons and a pump and made balloon animals. Although I started the day teaching English, later we swapped out and a real teacher (who spoke even less Spanish than me) took over. I then went to help ’Chelle, because the children were beginning to overwhelm her. My task was to distract them so she only had to deal with a few at a time.
Tuesday afternoon we began our construction project. The Santa Cruz facility has three floors in the front part, classrooms and such next to an open-air covered stage/basketball court area, but the back part has only a single completed floor where the kitchen is. Two years ago another group put a new high roof over that area, waiting for the rest to be built up; that year our small group built a staircase up to the back area. This year we arrived to find that the walls and tile for the new, larger kitchen area on the second floor had been mostly completed, and our task was to build and install the floor and walls for the third floor. (The high roof could accomodate a fourth floor, if they get to that point.) The third floor area will be used as a chocolate factory, a business that the community center can run to be more self-sufficient and not rely as heavily on donations. Tuesday afternoon we cut the wire and styrofoam forms for the floor and tied the pieces together—easy, but tedious work. Then we lifted 20′x20′ sections into place over the existing second floor area. This took well into the evening.
We’re Just Getting Started
Wednesday brought the next surprise: the community center had managed to get donated tickets for Six Flags Mexico, so we took the children there for the day. Saúl was not able to come with us, so he asked me to take all my camera gear and take photos of the children for him. That was easy enough, except that most of the time I was using my “paparazzi lens,” a large, durable, telephoto lens that also happens to be extraordinarily heavy. Each of the children wore a light blue cap that made them easy to spot, so I spent the day walking around the park looking for groups of blue hats to hang out with. I got some good photos of the children enjoying the rides. At lunchtime we headed back to the entrance and discovered another group of blue hats, this small group from the Jalalpa center, under the direction of Eidi (Saúl’s daughter). We also found many other groups not connected with Armonía, and an impromptu yell-off resulted as each group tried to outdo the others in volume with various cheers and songs. The kids loved it, even though it had started to rain. The rain continued through much of the afternoon, but that doesn’t seem to stop the rides in Mexico, and the kids really didn’t care.
We had originally planned to go to the ballet Wednesday evening, but it was so late when we finished with Six Flags that instead we went directly to dinner at the Frog Pond. Good food, good company, and a very relaxed atmosphere; a great way to wind down a hard day.
Thursday morning was more teaching, but this time there was an added wrinkle: the guest house where we were staying (operated by the community center as another income-producing business) has a pool, so some of the children were shuttled over to the house to have a swimming class. This is also a rare experience for many of them. I was once again teaching English, discovering that my Spanish was already improving quite a bit. I was surprised at how much the children remembered from the previous lesson, having had an intervening day at Six Flags to forget. Although rowdy (as one would expect 6- to 8-year-olds to be) they were very sweet.
Thursday afternoon was lighter construction than before. Still working with a variant of the wire and styrofoam material, we created the forms for the walls of the third floor. The design called for stylish curved low walls for a balcony, so we had to cut one side of the material and bend it to the right shape. Saúl even let us determine the exact shape, having given us just a general idea of the kind of thing he was looking for. These wall sections were easier to lift into place, but each was a bit more complicated than the floor sections we’d done previously. We finished late in the evening again.
Friday morning was our last teaching day. This time I had some of the same students again in my English class, which was nice. We left behind our canned phrases (other than a review) and started doing some new things. These children may be from poor families, but they’re not stupid, and some of them really do want to learn. But Armonía had an extra surprise for me, when they gave me a class of twenty pre-school children, and asked me to do an English class with them for one period. I started out with two helpers, an adult and a ten-year-old, but the adult soon left to attend to other duties, and the ten-year-old wasn’t much help. I spent most of that class telling the students to sit down, be quiet, pay attention, etc. We did do a few things like review colors and numbers (which they know well) and I drew pictures of things on the chalkboard and had them do English and Spanish words for them. Then they had a big lunch for us to thank us for coming, and we gave them brownies (made from scratch that morning) which were a real treat for them.
Friday afternoon was our biggest construction day, as it was time to pour the concrete for the floor we’d installed the forms for. We mixed the concrete in the street outside the building, by hand. For this, we mixed cement powder and dirt, then added gravel and water and shoveled like mad. Thankfully we had several Mexicans helping us and they did most of the shoveling. (I’ve done this twice before, on other trips, without the help; I especially appreciated the help this time.) Once the concrete was mixed, it was hoisted in small buckets straight up to the third floor via pulleys, and poured into place. This was amazingly hard physical labor. At one point I developed a cramp in my arm and was no longer able to pull the rope or hold the rope away from the wall while others pulled, so I resorted to carrying the buckets with the same hand that was already sore from a day of holding a heavy camera. Oh well, that’s what service is all about. In an attempt to finish the entire floor we stayed very late Friday night, but we did finish.
And Now, for Something Completely Different
Saturday was our “fun” day. First we left our handprints on the wall—a tradition at Armonía, to help reinforce that it’s a ministry built with many hands, by community for community. Then off to the local clay market, where pots, mugs, bakeware, etc. can be bought dirt-cheap. Then a long bus ride to the Mexican pyramids in Teotihuacan. I’ve been there before, and this time Saúl wasn’t with us, so instead of a long (and detailed) anthropology lesson, we were mostly on our own to wander around. I again climbed the Pyramid of the Sun, this time with ’Chelle, and noticed that I did it about twice as fast as the last time, even though I was carrying a lot of camera gear. There were a lot more people at the top, and the day was shockingly cloudless, so the photos weren’t all that great, but that’s OK. I realized on the way down that I was getting sunburned, but there was no shade to be found anywhere. I walked over to the Pyramid of the Moon, that I didn’t get to see last time I was there, and then we left, for a long drive back to Mexico City to go to the craft market. ’Chelle said she wasn’t going to buy anything, but I knew better, and spent about two hours with her as she kept finding new ways to spend money. (’Chelle, if you’re reading this, this was not a problem—it was a lot of fun!) I purchased only one item, a chess set. Afterwards we headed back to the Frog Pond, not part of the original plan, but our helpers at the guest house (from the UK) had family arrive the previous night, and this was a chance for all of us to have dinner together and just hang out. It was lots of fun, and did I mention the food was really good? Everyone basically ate too much.
Sunday morning we packed up and headed to the airport, and was mostly an uneventful trip, except for two notable things. First, one member of our team, Christen, didn’t have a passport; instead, she had a notarized copy of her birth certificate. Except it had been notarized incorrectly, so she was concerned about getting through immigration in Houston. As we were standing in line she decided she didn’t like the look of the official handling her line, so she swapped with me to get a “nicer” person. Her original selection was indeed a surly individual; he looked at the 18-year-old photo of me on my green card and was disinclined to allow it, until I reminded him that when the card was issued they didn’t have expiration dates, and my card was still valid. At that point he let me through with a grumpy “welcome home,” for which I thanked him politely. In the next line, Christen somehow managed to win her way through with little difficulty. I am sure next time she will make sure she has a passport.
The second notable thing was that, because of the short time between flights in Houston, and that we had to clear immigration and customs, most of us had our bags delayed in Houston, so we once again arrived at our destination sans luggage. At least this time it’s at home, where we’re not stuck without clothing or other necessities. My bag arrived the next day, and thankfully my chess set was not damaged.
