The MCC Mexico team had a wonderful weekend together; relaxing in
Today we leave the confetti strewn office for
The MCC Mexico team had a wonderful weekend together; relaxing in
Today we leave the confetti strewn office for
I should have realized something out of the ordinary was going on at the Zócalo when at the exit of the metro I saw several bare chest men sparkling with glitter. There was a more than usual push of people at the metro exits due to several exits blocked off to accommodate the
We went to the Zócalo on the eve of the
We were again denied as closing time was 6pm. However, the visit was not in vain. The rainbow flags were waving and people of all shapes, sizes and orientation were parading the closed streets and sidewalks. The clothing and makeup brought a lively lift to the Zócalo with the FIFA setup as a backdrop. Rounding the last corner of the Zócalo, we stumbled over the usual protesters camping out in the Zócalo, not to be denied attention for their cause.
Never a dull moment in the City’s center.
Last night we sat outside at one of the many eateries surrounding Puebla’s zocalo (main plaza). Three doors down a singer crooned out of tune, accompanied by a guitarist. The wait staff at our restaurant sang along to the seemly well known songs, oblivious to the discord. To serenade the patrons of our restaurant, two roaming musicians briefly competed with the amped, off key singer. Welcome to Puebla.
Stuffed from one of Puebla’s culinary specialties, mole poblano, I sat in the city’s theater, located off the zocalo that was hosting a weekend of music, free to the public. The rock fusion group that took the stage was composed of a group of young Puebla musicians who used strings, like the cello, viola and violin in conjunction with the accordion or saxophone to create some rock music. I really appreciated their style and their approach until they got a little too experimental for my taste.
Before we returned to the bus station for our two hour ride to Mexico City, it was one more moment of music at the churrería. We opted for the table not immediately in front of the singer and his guitar. He sang and strummed, with more interest in his cigarette break than his music.
I was disappointed to miss the 2010 US Census. I wanted to be counted. Thankfully Mexico is willing to count me in their census. This afternoon when I opened the MCC office door, I feared it was one more person trying to sell me something. The census worker quickly showed me his official badge and asked if I lived here. Here was my chance. I decided that I had spent enough nights at the MCC office to qualify with a “yes” answer. The questionnaire was brief, asking for information related education, religion and the living quarters. In less than five minutes, our interview was over. I was counted.
In August, a family will be joining the MCC Mexico team and will be the first MCC workers to live in Tapachula. With the help of Luis Flores, a Guatemalan who works for the International Organization for Migration, I toured the city for all of the necessities of setting up a life such as housing, food markets, transportation and banking.
After one short day, I decided that I would not choose to live in Tapachula, but given the work of Arturo and Adrienne, the new MCC workers, it is important for MCC to have a presence on the southern border. Adrienne will be the regional policy analyst for Latin America, and the proximity to
It is impossible to escape the reality of the border. Early this morning at Tapachula’s two gate airport, the police and security officials suffocated the area. Before I was allowed to check in, an official in army green meticulously reviewed my documents. Next, they screened all of my baggage. Only then was I able to proceed to the check in counter. Boarding pass in hand, I had to show my passport and all my documents to the immigration officials even though I had never left the country. Finally, I proceeded through one last security screening to reach the waiting area.
It’s good to be back home in
As a teenager, Malena remembers playing at the river and seeing the Honduran and Nicaraguan mothers clutching the hands of their children, a look of sheer terror on their faces. They did not know how to swim, but crossing the river was the only option to continue their journey. Growing up in Chamic, a border town with
Malena operates a quesadilla restaurant a few hundred feet from the
After years of working at the restaurant, she can easily tell who the scared migrants are and where they are from. She engages them in conversation, very slowly shedding the layers of distrust in which they wrap themselves. She listens to their story. She offers advice. She helps.
The Guatemalans cross easily with a day pass. Their features are so similar to the Chapanecos (those from
I asked her how she began and why she does this type of work. “It’s the reality that I live. I’m surrounded by it and can’t avoid it.” Immigration is a fact of life in Chamic. Everyone knows who the polleros (people who migrants pay up to $5000 USD to help them cross) are as well as the narcotraficantes (drug traffickers). They bribe the border officials with sums of up to $20,000USD. But, nobody says anything.
In recent years, there is increased violence due to the rise of the Zetas, groups of organized crime. They are the unknown and the most dangerous. It is said that the originator of this group, a former army official trained at The School of the
Everyday Melena goes to work and is a face of hope to these many faces of fear. By listening, she exults the humanity of the migrants who all to often will be abused and caught in violence for not having the face of a Mexican.
It rains in
Four years ago when I lived in
Gilberto, the lone server this afternoon, brought me my café con leche (coffee with milk), and stayed for conversation despite my open novel. It could have been my look of desperation for warmth or that I was the only person in the coffee shop or that Gilberto was bored and saw me as a captive audience. He showed off his English when he found out I was from the
Like many who I meet, he found it difficult to understand what a single woman was doing in
It is not the first time that I have heard this sentiment in
Gilberto told me that unlike the Catholics, he reads the Bible and believes in God. He was not at all convinced that the Catholic religion is also based on the Bible and the belief in God. He shared a common conversion story. Life before being Christian included drinking, being unfaithful to his wife and ignoring the responsibilities of family, and now he spends time with family and provides financially for their needs, through God’s blessing. I appreciated his fervor and faith, yet I struggled to convey to Gilberto the potential for shared passion with Catholics, fellow Christians on this journey of life.
With this recent conversation in mind, I discussed with Ernesto Martin, director of INESIN, an organization that works for interreligious dialogue, this constant conflict and tension between the evangelicos and catolicos, especially in
Similar to
Marooned in
It is hard to imagine that in a country consumed by soccer that I would have a meeting at 10am on the initial morning of the sport’s world showcase, with
With the score at zeros and one more half to play, I made my way to my meeting, the first of two. I realized that Ernesto, the chatty and cheerful director of INESIN, was doing a favor to Nataneal, the other organization’s administrator, by discussing with me all of the needed MCC business first. Nataneal did not make it to work today until noon, as probably much of
In her early 50s, Guillermina Tinoco has been with MCC Mexico for almost fifteen years. Having the longest tenure in the organization, she is a living history of MCC Mexico’s work. She has interacted with her fair share of interesting and unique MCC workers and country representatives, but her generous spirit fails to ever convey a word of judgment or criticism, only kindness and compassion. She remembers working for MCC when the offices were in
When she is not in the MCC office, she volunteers in Naucalpan, an at risk neighborhood in the northeast of
Aulas de Esperanza began after a discussion with Maria, one of the women who attended literacy classes with Guillermina. Unique to many in her situation, Maria is a devoted advocate for her son who is mostly deaf. She recounted to Guillermina the continual struggle that she has encountered to obtain a decent education for her son who is more than falling through the cracks of the public education system.
In cooperation with the local school, Aulas de Esperanza welcomes six to seven students in the small but adequate classroom twice a week in the morning. There is a brief group instruction time, and then individual work stations. The women volunteers receive daily petitions to participate in the program; however, due to limited resources, space and volunteers, Aulas de Esperanza can only attend to the fifteen students that currently attend.
Today as I shared lunch with Guillermina, I sat in complete disbelief as she shared with me the experiences of some of the students who attend Aulas de Esperanza. With my experience in the
Maria’s son Luis understands school as a place where he is relegated to the back corner of the classroom. With no hearing in his left ear, and only partial in his right, Luis obviously needs special accommodations in order to learn. At best he is ignored. At worst, he is taunted by the other students, who have as their role model the teacher who is also insulting Luis, adding how stupid he is. He is not stupid, he simply can not hear like the other students. He is in third grade and can not read. He is passed along to the next grade because the teachers seemingly do not want to deal with him.
The 13-year-old Alejandro, one of the oldest children at Aulas de Esperanza, was expelled from school. He and his younger brother live on the streets doing odd jobs and getting food where they can as their mother has left to be with another man who does not want them. Carmen, labeled as dumb by those at school, has had excrement smeared on her by other students. And the stories continue. Since Aulas de Esperanza opened its doors in the fall, more students and concerned parents have emerged, each with their unique story.
Each of the students at Aulas de Esperanza has learning disabilities that hinder their learning in the standard school environment. I know from experience, that it is time consuming to plan and to teach to the diversity in the classroom, yet the treatment of these children is unacceptable. I do not doubt that there are dedicated teachers and administrators in the Mexican public education system. Unfortunately for the handful of students at Aulas de Esperanza, their few hours a week outside of the regular school system is their chance to learn.
What is the hope for these students? Guillermina hopes that they can attend a technical school or learn a trade so that they can eventually provide for themselves in dignity, and not resort to life on the streets that means violence, drugs and poverty. It is my hope that Aulas de Esperanza endures and grows so that more children have the encouragement and opportunity to learn.
As I walked into the Plaza Hidalgo, one of the main plazas in the Coyoacán neighborhood this afternoon, I discovered several guys in the green Mexican soccer jerseys kicking around a soccer ball. There was a camera or two around, so my first thought was that they were going to film a commercial for the Mundial (World Cup) that is quickly approaching.
With
Today I decided to sit only a few feet from the action. As a spectator, there did not appear to be any direction to the action, and the guys continued to mess around with the soccer ball, showing off their ball handling skills. All of sudden a heavy beat boomed from the gazebo, and a young man and woman began a choreographed dance not five feet from where I was sitting. They were clearly invested in these dance moves. Several more apparent bystanders join them, and within 30 seconds the plaza was filled with dancers, swinging their arms and swaying their hips to the beat. It quickly dawned on me that I was in the center of a flash mob.
The photographer in red definitely has several pictures of me. He is standing where I was sitting before this all began.
I moved to a bench further back. A girl quickly jumped on my previous seat and continued the dance without missing a beat. A photographer that I had seen earlier was moving around the crowd taking pictures. He snapped several of me laughing at this experience. I laughed even more when an older woman who was walking through plaza decided to get in on the dancing action. She blended in pretty well until the end.
The last move of the dancers was to take off their shirt and swing it around their heads while doing some rebel yells of excitement. Before you get scandalized, all involved had a shirt that said “Haz Sandwich” underneath their top shirts. And as quickly as they appeared, they all scattered their separate ways.
“Haz Sandwich.” It did not click for me until on my walk from Coyoacán to San Angel, a neighboring area, I saw an advertisement at a bus stop for a popular bread brand, Bimbo.
Administration is an office job. It means that I answer a lot of emails and the periodic phone call at the office. It means that I handle the financial responsibilities like transferring money to workers, paying bills and completing reports. It means that I work with the MCC hired lawyer (check previous posts) on the frustrating process of obtaining Visas for all the workers. It means that I participate in worker evaluations. It means that some days I do what all office workers do with some of their desk time.
I knew that my new role would be in an office job. There are administrative responsibilities that are a necessity for an organization like MCC to function and to work smoothly so that there is clear articulation between the headquarters in
The teenage girl sitting almost directly in front of me was in a deep sleep, head lolling to the side. The two or three giggling preteens were huddled on the couch, clearly more interested in their secrets. The middle aged mom with her laptop wanted to be interested, but seemed more preoccupied by the lack of interest of her giggling daughter. The seven or eight adults displayed varying degrees of interest with good questions, but with their imminent departure to Cuernavaca for their remaining few days in Mexico, there was clear anxiousness that they finish their volunteer, work projects that they had started at La Casa de los Amigos (Friends’ House) two or three days ago. In rapt attention, were the coordinators of this volunteer group from
The McKays had lived in
Since there is no current Connecting Peoples position in MCC Mexico, one of the responsibilities of being the Country Representative, interim I might add, is speaking to groups who want to know about MCC Mexico programs. No doubt, I will be glad to pass off the responsibility to Luke and Sarah Roth-Mullet who arrive in August of this year to assume the role of Connecting Peoples.
For my first time on the speaking tour, I did a great job of providing a brief history of MCC in