I have not been able to get my computer online in the last few days…hence the lack of posts. But here I am, the crew pulled out a few hours ago, we are just done cleaning up and following them up soon. There will be more pics in the next week, stay tuned!
After every house we build we do a dedication…a christening…a blessing? We haven’t figured out the right word to describe it yet, but it is the same idea as breaking a bottle of champagne on a ship…without the champagne and the ship. It is the opportunity for the group to give well wishes, blessings, parting words and to share their own hopes with the family for the families future. Each time we do this it takes has a different flavour to it, depending on the group, the family and the relationship they have with each other. The common thread is that it is touching and seals what we have done. It allows the family to express any words they have for the group, gratitude is always present as well as laughter and frequently tears. At one of our sites there was a feeling of energy and celebration. The students gathered together donations from their spending money and purchased ‘extras’ for the house. We ask what the family needs most and go on a hunt to find it here. As we were unloading the truck full of beds, I was observing the father of the family as he watched what was going on. Mexican men are a proud sort, I could see through his quietness that his eyes were filled with…gratitude? Relief? Hope? It was a mixture of strong emotions as he watched teens from Canada provide for his family things he could not. And through it all, his dignity as our students presented his children with gifts bags. There was no feelings of pity. No one was playing holier-than-thou. Our students were naturally respectful as they interacted with the family they had grown to like, love and appreciate. Hospitality is a big part of the Mexican culture as well. Our students had the opportunity to express themselves, interrupted by bursts of activity as the family made sure the table was set up and the coke was available for everyone’s enjoyment. Culturally, it was most important for them to be able to extend hospitality, which was appreciated on a hot afternoon like yesterday. That was not enough for the family though. We are all invited back today at 2pm for a meal with the family. It was to my relief that the students also bought the families groceries that day, we can rest easier knowing that we can accept their hospitality without worrying that they will not be eating because we are. Our second site that we did was a more emotional experience. Alberta and Amelia are the two sisters who are single mom’s moving into the house out of tarps and plastic. Their children now have beds, Jose Luis, who is around 6 yrs old, will not have to sleep on the dirt floor anymore. Their first wish was for a stove, which our students bought, complete with a propane tank because the family does not have electricity. When we were giving out the gifts for the kids, I made sure that Jose Luis had age appropriate toys in his bag. We also had gift bags with school supplies in it that we were going to give them as well. His mom asked if she could exchange the gift bag. It was more important to her that her son have a pencil for school than to have toys. That cut me to the heart; I throw out pencils before they are used. I assured her that we were giving her son school supplies…as well as toy. During the speeches, Rosa, who is the mother and grandmother of the family, apologized for not being able to provide food for the group. Her desire for generosity and hospitality when she had nothing to give was quite moving for the group. A lesson of selflessness and gratitude. It was very satisfying for the group to leave the project site knowing the impact they made on this family. In the day that we were not there the family built a table out of scraps we left as well using the paint to spruce up a few pieces for furniture they already had. I am confident that this house is going to allow this family to develop, and grow way beyond their previous capabilities, and I am confident they will take the opportunity. I love these days.This is my last blog for this trip, it was a great group, a fantastic way to cap off the summer. Much gracias to all the Mexico participants of Summer 2007. I appreciated the opportunity to get to know each and everyone of you and a looking forward to seeing what you guys can do t change your world and mine! I BELIEVE IN YOU!
Allow me to introduce to you Angel and Rachel Baeza. I have known Angel for three years now, most people who come to do work on this part of the Baja know Angel. Angel lives his life with a disability in a wheelchair. He is unlimited in his ability to use his hands and does so with precision and skill. While his name it Angel, it must be said that the glint of mischief that is always in his eyes lends a bit more to a little devil, his words are always peppered with humour. 
Up until now Angel has worked with adapting wheelchairs for the unique terrain of the Baja. The chair must be sturdy and are usually decked out with tires similar to mountain bike tires. He crafts silver jewellery and other art pieces to be a support his family as he does this work. He will continue with the adaptations as well as with the new challenge he and his wife Rachel have undertaken. 
Yesterday we visited Casa Gabriel II, a home for mentally and physically disabled children. It is the second home from the same organization; the first one is in a city an hour north of it. Casa Gabriel I is overpopulated and Angel and Rachel’s home is welcoming some of the older children from there into it. The children who go to Casa Gabriel II are all over the age of 7years and have the capacity to learn, it is a teaching house as well as a home. They will learn to work with their hand, life skills, computers, and physical skills necessary for a life lived in a wheel chair. 
When Angel was down at the camp site last week, he was telling us about this new adventure. They have been working on renovating and adapting the house for the last six months, putting in wheel chair ramps, widening a few doors and renovating the bathroom. About 10 days ago they received their first group of kids who are going to call this haven home. They will have up to 20 people living in this home and needed tables. Some of our Hero’s made tables for them that were specially designed to meet the specific needs of the wheel chairs. It was our pleasure to deliver them along with some lap blankets for when it gets colder. As well there was a gift bag of toothbrush, toothpaste…and a few candies…for each child that will be coming into the home. 
The children are placed there by the Mexican social service, the DIF. They are removed from their homes for various reasons including neglect, abuse and the parents inability to care for them. Children are a vulnerable people group, and children with disabilities especially so. The DIF places them at Casa Gabriel I, but does not provide any financial resources. Angel and Rachel are running this home off of love, faith and donations. It was humbling and encouraging to see what they are doing and to be a part of providing them with practical needed items. We will see much more of these precious kids in the future.
Alright folks, here are some shots of what is going on. The houses are finished, done, compete. And in four days no less! So the pictures of the houses are not up to date, you will have to wait until Monday for that, we are not back on the sites until then.Tomorrow morning we are going to visit a children’s home that is newly opened for children with physical disabilities. The crew here has made two custom tables to suit their mobility needs and we are off for a drive to deliver them. Then it is off to market for the afternoon, seeing what kind of deals we can fid and how much Spanish we can muster. 
For those of you who aren’t sure where I fit into the mix, I am the Director of Operations for Hero Holiday in Mexico. I spend a considerable amount of my time in Mexico. I organize the projects, know the communities, assess and identify needs and direct/co-direct the teams when they are here. I have a lot of details bouncing around in my head, intensified by being in a cross cultural setting. Life is a challenge, an adventure…and every time I speak to a student on these trips, I am so deeply satisfied with what I have chosen for my life.The young people who participate in the Hero Holiday’s are people full of potential. They see life for what they can do, for what they need to do. In their youth, they have chosen to put time, money and effort into spending a couple of weeks changing lives. The lives of the families, communities and people we help…and changing their lives as well. Every night we sit around and talk about the day, about the work, about their lives, their future and their experience here. And every night I feel pride and hope. I am so confident that we have a generation of young people in Canada who want to make a difference with poverty in this world. And while our number of participants grows every year and we are affecting hundreds and hundreds of lives, we are just scraping the surface. I find hope in the potential in our young people, their intelligence, their work ethic, their compassion. I have worked for the last four years with teenagers; I have seen the good, the bad, the ugly and the outright unfair. But I know what teens are made of, and even in the bad and the ugly, there is still hope. They need someone to believe in them. I count it a privilege to believe in the young people who come into my life through Hero Holiday. I am expecting them to change the world.With that in mind, it makes their daily accomplishments something to brag about. Today a house was almost finished for a family with five teenage children. They will soon be going to sleep in a dry bed that is sheltered from the wind. They will have hope too, because of our students. Because a group of young people came from Canada to do something like this for them. Today, another group of students worked diligently, with focus and determination. They also had a chance to see some of the negative side of ‘charity’. A car from North America drove by, throwing candy out the windows. The candy landed in the dust and the children picked in up from there. Our students asked questions and shared their opinions about this. Why didn’t the car stop and place the candy in the child’s hand instead of throwing it in the dust? Did they know that the tinted windows in the car completely hid the faces of the passenger, cutting of any opportunity for contact? Didn’t it seem a bit like a zoo? The students felt it was demeaning…some thought it was rude that they didn’t stop to greet anyone but kept on driving. I am proud of those students. They understand empathy, they get respect, they think critically and can analyse a situation. A few of our students worked on a special project today. They built a table for a home for children with disabilities, all of the children there are in wheel chairs. The table was custom designed to accommodate the mobility challenge. And the girls used those hand drills like pro’s, screwing in every screw with careful attention. They know that their work is going to benefit some children who are not living with their parents because their family can not support their disability, both financially and with appropriate care. That’s the day from my perspective. It makes every minute of work, every detail and every challenge worth it. In fact, it makes them seem like nothing at all. I am so satisfied and content that I can be living my dream. There is nothing like it, it is a pleasure to be working to make a change in these students as together we make a difference in attacking the poverty that exists in our world.
A LiveDifferent Build is an amazing experience, no one comes home the same, but the affects of this adventure were insanely heightened by my contact with Danica. I never knew her. I had seen her once at the resort with Phil and his family, and had heard about her in our morning leaders meetings, but other than that, i had no reason to remember her. Even when the news of her passing came, although hard as it was for me to hear that another statistic had come true, I felt no real connection to her.
On the way to the work site that day, I couldn’t help but cry. I don’t know why I cried, I’m not a crier, I only cried 3 times that whole trip, 2 were that day. I think my team thought I was crazy. Just sitting at the back of the truck, silently sobbing, hidden behind my hat. It wasn’t until Bill told them what had happened did they understand the reasons for my grief. They understood somehow, but I didn’t, I still don’t really. Later that day I had the opportunity to go to Danica’s funeral. I thought to myself, “Now Lea, you have no reason to go, you have hardly any connection with this child.” but for some reason I felt like I had to go. So I went..as a “support” for those who knew and loved her. I wasn’t very supportive. I was sobbing the whole time. I cried about a lot of things. About how a group of strangers had fallen in love so quickly, about how Danica had been cheated by poverty, about how the statistics just keep growing bigger, even though we are trying so hard to prevent them. I was overcome with a horrible sense of hopelessness.After the ceremony, I went up to the grave. I made a vow, to myself, Danica, and to anyone else who cares to hear it. For children like Danica, for those who can’t fight, I will fight for them. That sense of hopelessness changed. It converted itself into a burning desire to stop this injustice. Danica was 18 months old, how is it fair for her to die? How is that right? How can these things be happening all over the world so silently? When someone famous dies, people write books about them? Was anyone going to write a book for Danica? What about the other 29,999 kids that die a day due to poverty? Where is their book?This is what fuels me. Danica gave me a reason to continue my fight against poverty. She is my reason. For her, and all those like her, I will never stop fighting.~ Lea Silver *All participants are given the opportunity to blog so many views are represented. These views do not necessarily reflect the views of LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) Leadership Development. If you are a Builds participant that would like to share your experience please email your story (and picture, if possible) to builds@livedifferent.com
But apparently, a team of Hero Holiday girls can build a house in Mexico in two days. Crazy nuts! Here is a before shot of what the pad looked like yesterday morning, tomorrow I will post a picutre of what it looks like now…you may wait with baited breath.
The team was lead by Girrard, our local Newfie here in the Baja, and they displayed incredible work ethic, matched with skill and some good luck. What a cool opportunity to do more than we expected.Site two is moving along wonderfully. Today they had a chance to custom-make an out door shower for the family, complete with a run-off pipe to catch the gray water. This water can be used to water their existing plants and fruit trees. Water is scarce here in the desert, the chance to use this water means that their trees will produce more fruit…lots of trees this year are not producing well because of a dryer-than-usual winter. Which, in turn, means fruit full of nutrients and vitimins when food may as well be scarce.
The very beginning of the work on the shower yesterday… a few more students had the expereince of making cement in a wheelbarrow today!
Playing with the local kids on site two. Today was our first soccer camp. It is the fourth one we, as Hero Holiday, have done this summer with the largest turnout. More than sixty kids came to play, hang out with the Canadians and have a great time. The soccer camps gives the students a chance to learn a bit more about futbol, which indeed we experienced today. There was some of the best live soccer playing I have seen. It is also the opportunity to equalize any power dynamic that may exist. We are here to be with the people we are helping, as well as get to know them; to have them enrich our lives with what we can learn from them. And the soccer camps accomplish this well, it was a great…somewhat windy…morning.
A gust of wind going across the soccer field.
Time for a water break!This afternoon the students who went to the soccer camp sorted through the donations that were brought down and they made up gift bags. We were able to bring down items like the quilts from the ladies in Penticton who I still miss seeing on Tuesday afternoons quilting up a storm! These quilts are regularly made, and sent, down here to Mexico and are sought after for the chilly, winter desert nights. We will be giving them to the families we are building for this week, as well as going back to the last few builds and giving them something to snuggle into when the days get shorter and the nights longer. 
The girls with the gift bags made up.We also recieved medical supplies, hygeine items, clothes, toys and school supplies. We were chatting with a girl at the soccer camp about school starting on Monday. She was telling us she didn’t have pencils or notebooks. Special bags were made up for her and her siblings. We will be giving the medical supplies to a family who has been trained by a nurse to do immediate first aid as well as general health care. This couple has access to the people living in remote areas and the migrant workers camps who we would not have regular access to, and who, in turn, would not have access to health care. Some school supplies will be given to a man who is running a school in the evenings after work for children who do not have birth registration or who have to stay home during the day to take care of their younger siblings while their mothers go work in the fields. 
Crazy, nutty girls after they finished with the gift bags.It has been a long, fun, purposeful, successful day. There are a bunch of rowdies, who I am proud to call Hero’s, walking by my trailer about to play a wicked game of “Mexican Capture The Flag.” I feel oddly proud of them. Let’s see what tomorrow holds.
Work day one is succesfully over and done with and students are heading to bed. Site one is racing through the build, they have the walls up, all the outside and inside ones, as well as having the roof panels on. Fastest day one ever! Site two has the walls framed and ready to go up first thing tomorrow morning…fantastic day one work. Tomorrow is work day two and our first soccer camp, more pictures to come!
The morning started bright and early today with the help of the neighbourhood roosters. What else to do but get up and on our way? It was another hot day, we toured the sites, met the families we will be building for and getting to know this week and hit a couple of previous Hero Holiday builds. 
A before shot of one of the structures that a family was living in. They tore it down when the floor was poured and in six short days will be moving into a new place with walls, windows, and a roof that will keep out rain. 
An awesome group of good-lookin’ young Canadians standing on the pad for Site 2.
They are here safe and sound, been to the beach and crashing around the campfire getting to know each other better. Tomorrow, Awareness Tour Day, complete with a trip to a street market and a stop off at a sunken ship. But first, some sleep.
