by Paul Reed

I just wanted to share some of my reflections relating to our living conditions in Tijuana. We were in tents and had portaloos. There were shower blocks which could be used and some did use them but it meant showering with cold water. I didn't use the showers. I waited for the hot shower at the local shops which cost $2.25 per person.

At our work site, the family had had to pull down the banos (the Mexican word for toilet) in order for us to build the house so they arranged with a relative who lived in the next street for us to use the banos there. That banos was on the edge of a cliff with several precarious dirt steps down to it and I can assure you, our portaloos at the camp site were luxurious compared to that banos. I only used it once.

We were fortunate with the weather - it only rained on one night. The tents stood their ground quite well but there were 2 tents that leaked, one of them being Niall's and mine. Niall woke in the middle of the night with rain dripping on him. We moved the airbed only to find more leaking. There was a flap over the tent that had been blown off by the wind and we attempted to put it back though we eventually admitted defeat. There were some empty tents that were ready for another group that was coming in a few days and we moved into one of those. I still couldn't get to sleep and ended up going into one of the vans where I got a couple of hours sleep lying on the seat. The next day we moved into another tent and then on the last night we had to move back into our first tent because the other group were arriving.

Despite our warnings to the group before we left that it would be extremely cold at night, there were quite a few people who froze the first night and a few spoke to me about the possibility of buying some additional blankets. I was able to find out that Amor could sell us blankets either $10 blankets or $15 for warmer ones. Fifteen of our group bought $15 blankets. No one even contemplated the $10 ones.

On reflecting on all these things, I couldn't help comparing our situation to that of the locals. The tents provided us with better shelter than a lot of the locals had and when it rained, Niall and I were able to move into another tent and also had the option of the van.

People in our group felt cold and were able to buy a blanket without even thinking about the cost. For a local family earning on average around $100.00 per week, a $15 blanket would not be a spur of the moment option.

We went several days without showers and people were hanging out for a shower at the local shops. Again, for a family of 6 or more with an average income of around $100.00 per week, paying $2.25 per person for a shower would be a luxury.

The journey to our work sites involved the last several kilometres to be travelled on dirt roads. The morning after it rained, those roads were mud and our Amor representative warned us to be extremely careful. Our van got to a certain point and the wheels were just sliding in the mud. We all got off and there was an unsuccessful attempt to push the van. Fortunately, we were close to our building site so we walked the rest of the way but even in that we had to be extremely careful. The mud was very slippery and the roads were not level and we had to warn every one to make sure they did not walk of the loose electricity wires which are on the roads as a lot of people get power by connecting illegally to existing electricity wires.

As we walked on the mud, I thought about how this was just part of life for so many people. I thought of men having to walk to work, children having to walk to school, women with little children going to do their shopping, of the family we were building for having to use the banos on the edge of the cliff and having to negotiate the precarious muddy steps down to it.

 

When being confronted with all these things, you cannot hep but wonder why God has blessed us with so much – why we have all that we have which we take for granted – and why so many others have so much less.

Yet in contrast to this I thought about the children who loved interacting and playing with the younger members of our group. They played soccer, they played in the mound of sand that was at the front of our house for the concrete and stucco. They played with us with a skipping rope, they helped us with the work. Roberto was the oldest child in our family – he was 22 and he helped us with the building too. He seemed to develop a relationship with Anthony and gave him one of his T- shirts and then came out with a big smile wearing a T-shirt that had ‘Big brother’ written on it and had a photo taken with Anthony. One day Roberto styled the hair of 4 of the boys in our group and loved doing that and spending the time with them.

Despite living in conditions which we would not tolerate, there was happiness in this family, there was laughter and so much gratitude for the house we were providing them with.

We are certainly blessed by God in our lives and for me, going to Mexico allows me to experience first hand how much God has blessed me and in a very real way confronts me with the question of why me and not them… but it is also a small way for me to give just a little of what God has given to me to those who don’t have as much as I do. In doing so I pray that God will enable the people we have served over there to experience his love for them and for all of those of us who went to appreciate and be thankful for what he has given to us and maybe think about what we really need, what we have, and what we can do, with what God has given us.

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