The first time I ever built a house was my junior year of high school. I went on a trip with some other students to a rural area in West Virginia, and we built a culdasack of houses. Each was at a different stage of construction when we arrived, and they were nearly complete when we left for the next group to finish er up. The site we stayed at was a Habitat for Humanity lodge, and we met students from Chicago and Connecticut who worked with us. The experience I had with Habitat shook my faith a lot and I struggled afterwards for a short time, so for a while I saw the experience as a negative one. I've since come to terms with how much of a positive and growth experience it was for me also. That was my first mission trip. My second had nothing to do with building houses, and I'll write about it at another point.
My third and last mission trip, as of right now, was after I graduated high school. I went to San Diego to meet up with a group of 15 people I met and grew close with the year before at a religious summer program, as well as the person who organized the mission (Nick) and his dad, Fr. Luke. The first three days of the trip were spent in San Diego in a condo donated for the time we were there by one of the parishoners at the local church. The time in San Diego was mostly meant for all of us to see each other, since we come from all over the United States. We had people from Cali, Arizona, Illinois, Mass, Florida, and a couple other places.
My story doesn't really begin in San Diego. I don't even remember what we did in San Diego after the meaningful experience that followed. We borrowed a lot of stuff. We borrowed someone's condo, Fr. Luke and his son Nick borrowed their relative's truck and sleeping bags, and we took whatever free food handout we could get. Who would not take whatever free food handout they could get? Nick used the money each of us gave him for the trip to rent a white van and pay Proyecto Mexico to get the supplies for the house they set us up to build. We packed our 15 sleeping bags, 15 backpacks and 8 tents into a small red truck that Nick drove, and I road shotty with Fr. Luke and the gang in the white van. The drive from San Diego to Rosarita Mexico, just outside of Tijuana, takes about 45 mins to an hour. The border is somewhere in the middle there. We were stopped at the border, with good reason. I would be suspicious if they didn't stop a red truck with a trunk covered in tarp being followed by a white van with dark tinted windows. The inspection took around an hour I think. The U.S./Mexico border is extremely distinct. Within 5 minutes the drive turns from the city, and paved roads, into dirt roads aligned by billboard signs. The drive through Mexico was entirely beach, and pueblos. We drove out into the middle of nowhere and down a dirt hill where we found ourselves entering a gate with a sign next to it that says "Hogar Innocencia la casa de Proyecto Mexico." We immediately hopped out and went into the chapel to do a short service welcoming us to the orphanage.
After the service it was the afternoon and we had to set up our tents. The week that we went was one of two Orthodox Basic Training (OBT) weeks that the orphanage hosts every summer. The difference between coming any week, and coming during OBT week, is that OBT provides 1 session every day after dinner to help us better understand the experience we're going to have in Mexico, to better understand the culture, and to be able to utilize our faith throughout our journey. Throughout the week we learned about the "Poverty Wheel" and specific struggles people go through in the Tijuana area, we also played some get-to-know-you games and had reflection sessions. OBT also set aside time for quiet reflection in the morning, and organized services every morning and night. Basically, without OBT there is far less of a schedule and it is more just - build the house, and come hang out with the boys at the orphanage after. There were about 100 volunteers. The girls and boys tents were divided by an aisle outlined by yellow string, and we set up shop on the sand field where the horses hangout. Outhouses were set up because there were so many of us, but we also had a building with toilets and showers that had a boy and girl side. Near the outhouse was the church service and meeting tent, and not to far from there was the food tent where we ate every breakfast and dinner. The tents were all a part of OBT week.
During my trip I met quite a bit of the boys at the orphanage, who I will not name for privacy purposes. The boys were all very happy and loving. Some of the older 15-16 year olds spoke English, and everyone got along. Some of the boys who have graduated from the orphanage and its settlement plans at the age of 21 still work there selling shirts and blankets, or helping with Proyecto Mexico building houses. A lot of the boys I met collected torantulas from the fields, and they played with them. I stayed away from that. I was more interested in checking out the animals at the stables where they grow plants and have a good variety of animals. There was one day when I woke up against the inside wall of my tent and it turned out I was snuggling with a horse and a dog right outside my tent sitting against my face. It was really funny.
We played sports a lot with the boys. Soccer was a must, everyday, basketball and volleyball were also pretty popular. I played volleyball for a while on tournament day. Our last day of the trip we had no projects, it was devoted to us relaxing together, playing sports, and getting to know the boys at the orphanage. It also involved eating lots of jalapenos and nachos, and is called Tournament Day (to me).
Our first day of house building we set out in our vans around some hills to a small village where the only way people connect to electricity is by stealing someone else's using long extension chords. Our group, and another group of 5, worked together alongside 4 experienced team-leaders. Some of the team leaders had never worked with Proyecto Mexico but were contractors elsewhere, like Steve. Steve is a great man. He is a father, a husband, and runs his own contracting company in Florida. It was thanks to Steve that we made one of the most perfect houses Proyecto Mexico has ever seen, something that many people told us. The project requires that we use no electric tools. Out of respect for the Mexican culture where we were, we were required to wear long shorts, short sleeves, and the electric tools were nixed as well. The point was to show little amount of skin (without dying from the desert temperatures we working in) and to gain an overall respect and understanding for the culture by becoming a part of it.
Thanks to the no-electricity-rule cement and stucko had to be made in buckets. It was extremely difficult, but we turned it into a game. We challenged each other and raced at mixing the cement, while others stood around us cheering. It sounds silly, but we had to do this all day from sun-up until about 6pm. We were the last group to return that day. It was sort of a race because, in order to be fair, the orphanage turned off the hot water at the beginning of the week and set up tarp walls with buckets full of water for people to go in their bathing suits and shower outside within the tarp walls. There were also 4 showers for girls, and 4 for boys at the bathroom. The race was on! Whoever got back first that day got to have warm showers because the water sits outside all day in the hot desert sun.
I took showers everyday in the freezing water, and I loved it. When I came home I couldn't take hot showers. For months I would put my shower on freezing cold just so I could be comfortable.
Upon entering our build site the next day, we pulled up and parked in front of Magdalena's house. Magdalena was the woman who's home we were building. She, her two daughters, husband, and her mother, Fidelia, all had been living in a shack next to the road in front of a hill. [NOTE: For privacy purposes, these are not their real names.]
Their home was built out of tires, tarp, ductape, and anything else they could find. Their electricity was "borrowed" and they had no floors, and in the rainy season, they had floors made of mud. Behind their house was the land we were building. It was all up a steep hill, which was too bad for the grandmother who struggles with a walker, is blind in one eye, and has had many hardships in her life. Magdalena used years of pay to afford the land next to her house, and that's all she needed to do. The rest was up to us. We showed up and built her a home about the size of a Hummer. Two rooms. Cement floors. Cement walls with wooden frame. Two windows. One door. It was nothing special compared to what I grew up knowing, but it meant the world to them. On several occasions the family sought to thank us. On two occasions, Magdalena made all of us meat and cheese tomales. As if that is not a wonderful gesture already to make food for 40 people when you are struggling so much, Magdalena fed us twice. In order to make food for 40 people twice, she had to pay for fresh water, and the food, costing her around 6 months of pay for each meal. The other sweet gesture was how involved the matriarch of the family, Fidelia was with the construction. Every day at the end of the workday we would say a prayer at the site. And everyday Fidelia would walk up the steep hill very slowly with her walker, and say the prayer with us in Spanish.
None of the family members spoke English, and so at the time it was very difficult to communicate. I played with Magdalena's daughters a lot because games and sports are easy communication tools. A couple of days I made time to speak with Fidelia, who usually sat in her folding chair outside her house watching us and silently motivating us. One of my conversations with Fidelia was one of the most meaningful things I did on my trip, aside from building houses and learning a lot. I asked her if she was happy, and she began to cry to me in a proclamation of faith. She was a Catholic God-fearing woman who loved God so much. She told me over and over again, "es la fe." I asked her how she got through everything she said, its faith, its God. It's always a blessing to be in the presence of such resilient faith.
After reading this, one might think that my connections with the boys at the orphanage, the people I met during OBT week, or Magdalena and Fidelia's family were what created meaning in this experience. It would be right to think that, but I also got a lot out of building this house. I had never worked so hard on anything in my life. A lot of people would take long breaks, and try to stand around a little longer, but I couldn't. Every time I sat more then a couple of minutes I felt guilty. Magdalena and Fidelia deserved 100% of my effort, even if I had pain or was tired. It was okay with me that the water tasted like milk, my back was in pain and that I got heat rash on my arms, as long as I was doing what I went there to do. I had a hand in every part of building that house, and knowing that makes me feel like I accomplished something by having the patience and endurance to finish.
I learned patience during Proyecto Mexico. Our team motto was "patience, patience, patience." A little redundant but so true. On more then one occasion I had to slow down and ask for patience of myself, even other people would tell me to slow down and not be in a hurry. That was almost 4 years ago now, and I am still working hard at that motto.
On our last day at the site, our group was the first to finish. It was the one and only time that we finished first, and it felt like a beautiful victory for everyone. The warm showers were our reward.
We built the house in 4 long days, and had two days in Mexico to spare. Everyone in OBT spent the second to last day providing an intense upkeep project for the orphanage. The project was done in one day and took over 100 people to accomplish, but we successfully painted and added a fence along the acres of Hogar Innocencia, and we also did a couple of other projects too... I just don't remember specifically what they were. We were all running around like crazy filling trucks, sifting through sand, rebuilding old stuff. By the end of the 5 days of building we were all experts in stucko and homemade cement.
I could write about so much more concerning this one trip to Mexico. I had many little interesting cultural experiences here and there, and all of us learned so much. I really felt like I was finding my calling, and that is an amazing feeling.
Proyecto Mexico is an awesome place to volunteer and learn about Mexican culture. I highly suggest looking into it or asking me more about it if you're interested. I have always thought about going back for a couple of months, but we'll see where that takes me.
