Hell’s Half Acre

“I never imagined a foreigner would ever come to our town”

“I didn’t think that a foreigner would care about the damage we received (from Dean)”

“God bless you”

The boys and I moved one of the benches out of the van and filled it with 100 dispensas. (an aside; I think I’ve been spelling dispensa wrong; I think it is supposed to be “despensa”) and headed out about 7am on Saturday. For those watching weather, we drove through 94L all day long and only outran it for the few hours we were in Avila Camacho; just before we finished with the last two despensas the skies opened and it POURED all over Avila Camacho. It was raining so hard we couldn’t even talk inside Noe’s house so we said our goodbye’s and left.

The last time we were in Avila Camacho I’d met with a lady doing artesenia. I asked her to get some small things together for the next time I came down and I was able to purchase some lovely bags from her. She dyes all her fabric by hand and from woods or coconuts. If you’re interested in any of her work, let me know and I’ll take some pictures next time we go down. I did purchase some thank you gifts from her and when we get back to the US I’ll send them out.

When we left, the boys were SO HAPPY when I suggested we take a week off but bittersweet, knowing some people will be hungry. I took Noe’s family some beef this time as a thank you for all the work he is doing with the despensas and hope all you donators don’t mind. Without his help I’m sure we would have been going in circles. I was able to talk to people a bit more this time but I’m pretty sure many of them still don’t understand where the despensas are coming from. The quotes at the beginning are from some of the families I spoke with; they are astounded at all your collective generosity. Word has gotten out and a couple families from pueblos further away have contacted Noe to see if a despensa can be left for them at his house. Of course we obliged.

I’m going to make this short and may add on later; the MOST bittersweet was when we realized we had 15 dozens of eggs and 8 despensas. We were in the absolute most poor area of the village and decided to hand out extra eggs. Noe called over the kids from one family that Jesse had just handed cookies out to. When he gave one small child a extra dozen of eggs, his eyes popped out in more surprise and happiness than the cookies had brought. I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture but won’t forget it soon.

Thanks again to everyone supporting us in bringing food and hope to the Costa Maya; again, if you’re interested in donating, check the donations page which I have updated with receipts and I’ll repeat from a previous post following:

If you’d like to give to the people of Majahual, we pay our own gas, travel expenses, Paypal fees, food, etc. and any and all monies will go directly to purchasing food and dry goods for donating directly to those in need. Please email me at jamnkats at gmail dot com for an address to mail a money order or cheque and PayPal bank (funded) donations by clicking the button following and send your donation to dulce@support.net. If you have a pathological fear of buttons, please click this link RIGHT HERE

If you’d prefer to use your credit card, click the following button (you don’t need to be a PayPal member to donate this way) and send your donation to jamnkats at hughes.net. For those with pathological fear of buttons, this will take you directly to Paypal and the donation account RIGHT HERE

And thank you, thank you, thank you!