Hell’s Half Acre

Oh, I did NOT want to go down today. I was still not absolutely well, Jesse was still sick and Pike was on the sickboy fence. We are leaving in three (NO!!! NOT THREE!!!) days and have at least a week’s worth of work to do. I just wasn’t up for it. But I could not have NOT gone either. And knowing that the torrential rains we got up here were even worse down there (and it was raining so hard today on the way home I couldn’t even get pictures of the flooding) made it impossible NOT to go. So we bought massive quantities, arranged for a second vehicle (THANK YOU DEB AND IAN) so we could carry a super dispensa this time and headed out. We handed out water, eggs, a bag with 4 potatoes, 2 onions, 1 chayote, 2 jalapeños, 1 bola garlic and another bag with kilo rice, beans and Maseca, litro milk, oil and pure de tomate, and a can of tuna. It was a hefty dispensa. I also wanted to spend as much money as we could and bought cans of powdered milk and an oat/milk concoction for the particularly poor families with many children. One Dad joked he had a “Kinder” with five kids (probably all under 7). Continue reading Finishing up in Mexico

We travel down, again, to the destruction tomorrow. We have bribed the girls with a DVD and the boys with guilt. Though I hope not. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it were not true. All four are finally healthy at the same time, though Jamie is still fighting something tummy. We’re almost always fighting something tummy this year. I continue to be awed and humbled by everyone’s generosity and now have enough money for two more trips. When Noe was giving us suggestions of what to purchase (and more specifically, what NOT to purchase) he asked for garlic and chayote. Later on he decided that it would be too much to ask for all that so I crossed them off the list. But I bought them anyway. His last request was for galletas for the kids. Cookies. He never asked for anything for his family or for himself; he thought only of the old, the poor, those with too many children and always the kids. Continue reading Tomorrow

I’m really very dumbfounded. I can’t believe how generous and trusting you all are and it humbles me. Thank you so much for all the donations; we’re at $2625 USD right now!!! Again, Thank You, so very very much.

We’ve seen a lot of poverty here in Mexico and I know it exists everywhere. Driving down the carretera in Quintana Roo you really don’t see it, and shopping at the supers in Playa del Carmen you certainly don’t see it; this is a very middle class society. The poverty is elsewhere; beyond the tourquoise seas, beyond the blazing white sands, beyond the line of jungle marking the carretera, beyond the plethora of middle class Mexicans, all with cars, new shoes, Europeans filling the community, beyond all of that which has become the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo. Continue reading Shock and Awe