Hamper Shopping in Mexico

The first weekend that we here in Mexico, “hamper shopping” was introduced to my vocabulary. The Give Different Campaign over the winter holiday had raised enough money to give every family that had received a new house in 2012 an opportunity to receive a generous amount of groceries and other household supplies.

We picked the families up in our mini-bus and brought them to the local supermarkets. Our role as Academy students was to follow a family and help keep track of the amount that they were spending. Even though grocery shopping seemed like a very mundane task, I wanted to learn something from it. My passion in life has always been to connect with others through empathy (the ability to identify with another person’s situations or feelings), so I set a personal goal to be an interested observer of how a Mexican family’s shopping list might differ from my own.  If nothing else, I would get to see what constitutes the ingredients for Mexican food!

Armed with a calculator in one hand and a shopping cart in another, I followed the families as we navigated the narrow aisles of the crowded store. Fifteen families later, there were some noticeable winners of the “most sought after items”. Flour was incredibly popular because tortillas are such an integral part of their daily meals. The majority of the houses were without electricity so few of the families bought meat and milk because there wasn’t anywhere to store them. I never stopped to think about the role that a fridge played in my life but it allows me to keep foods fresh, whereas that day, the shopping carts were being filled with mostly nonperishable items.

Other than the basic necessities of food, the families also got to buy things that might otherwise have been more luxury items. So many loaded up on cleaning supplies and I reveled in each item’s potential to add more comfort and health into their lives. I was told that the price of eggs had recently gone up thus making them less affordable. But, on the bumpy ride home, most families kept safe a tray of eggs in their laps.

At the end, we helped unload bags and bags of groceries into their kitchens and each family expressed the most sincere gratitude. I tried to imagine what must have been going through their minds as we shopped.  How did they feel having more groceries than they could carry? Do they have more pressing things in life that they are now able to pay for like land payments and other bills? My mind worked frantically wanting to get to the bottom of exactly what an impact receiving a hamper made to these families.

In retrospect, I realized that the entire experience was made up of moments of shared gratitude. It was the perfect way to get right into the community. We got to visit the family’s houses and took in the additions that they had built to make them their own. We shook many, many hands, and played with the kids. Our newly learned Spanish phrases were put to the test. Finally, we smiled as the families told us how their lives have changed since living in their new homes.

Throughout it all, I could hardly wrap my head around how lucky I was to be a part of the shopping process. Food is such an essential part of a human being’s daily life. Thanks to the generous donors of the Give Different Campaign, we were able to be with the families as they picked out exactly what fulfilled their greatest needs and desires.  I witnessed money, something that is so commonly associated with greed and consumerism in our society today, being put towards helping people who are now the first friends that we made in the community. I held on to their names and faces because even though I could not absorb quite what this gift means for the families, I felt joy knowing their stomachs will be more satisfied and that their houses will be cleaner. A week into Mexico, I already felt so at home because of the people that I have encountered. These are the people who made an ordinary, everyday process seem extraordinary.

Scooby-Doo: The Adventures of Bell Island

Remember waking up early Saturday morning as a kid and running downstairs to turn on Scooby-Doo cartoons? We always thought the gang’s crazy and creepy experiences were amusing…until recently when our team got to experience a real-life episode of Scooby-Doo.

A little motivation goes a long way

My first contact with LiveDifferent was when they came to my high school and the motivation that they brought with them was just what my small town needed, and just what I needed. The motivational production that they performed in my school spoke to me very loudly. I was able to recognize the value and worth that my life had and the incredible things that I was truly capable of. I am proud to say that I am among one of many students who have been touched by this incredible movement.

Always Be Thankful!

Perfection is hard to describe but I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder. However I think I can speak for everyone when I say that our build week was nothing short of perfection.

 

 

 

Great Moments in LiveDifferent Academy

When I first decided to join the LiveDifferent Academy, the thought about moving into a house with 20 people was a bit shocking but I knew that we were all coming here for a good reason! Once I landed at the airport in Hamilton I was so excited to meet everyone, and I had a feeling that this was going to be a life experience that I will never forget! For the first semester of the LiveDifferent Academy, I went to Mexico. It was the best experience ever! I loved working with the elders at the old age home and teaching fun English lessons to the kids in the communities! Their faces lit up the moment they saw our van pulling up and they would run out screaming and yelling, “Hola, Buenos Dias!” (Hello, good morning). It was these moments that I cherished in my heart while I was in Mexico.

Four Months and Not One Bad Day!

Did you know that it’s possible to go four months without having one bad day? Yeah I didn’t either, but due to a series of random events that resulted in my joining the LiveDifferent Academy, i now know that it is in fact very possible!

Something you should know about me is that I have a mother who is very into “finding your purpose in life” and I have spent many hours listening to her talk about “manifestation” and “the law of attraction”. But you know how your parents can tell you something a hundred times but yet it takes someone else telling you the same thing just once to make you take it seriously? Yeah that was one of those times! So in my grade 12 Leadership class I found myself making a vision board. For those of you who don’t know, a vision board is a collage of pictures and images depicting the things you want to have, be, or do in your life. “A vision board is a simple yet powerful visualization tool that activates the universal law of attraction to begin, manifesting your dreams into reality.” I included pictures of the places I wanted to travel to, the University I aspired to attend, and images of people doing the things I wanted to experience in my own life. The last image I added was a close up of a microphone with an audience in the background, representing my desire to be a motivational speaker. In my mind it was so far out there and I didn’t give it much thought.

This was the picture.

 

 

A Little Piece of Heaven

We packed our bags and set off on our journey to San Felipe. We stayed in San Felipe for a week and during our time there we had the opportunity to do various volunteer jobs and work with many inspiring people. There was one day in particular that touched our hearts, all in different ways. We went to an orphanage, Casa De Fe- which means Home of Faith. There are 9 little girls who live in this house, ages 2-11, all with touching stories of how they got there. From the moment we walked through the gate the kids were taking our hands and welcoming us. They played with us, sang to us, and enjoyed wearing our sunglasses and taking pictures of themselves with our cameras. They were like any other little girls in the world, with their hair in little braids and wearing immense amounts of pink. They were in a place where they were happy; it was kind of like their own little piece of heaven, a place where they could be kids and do what kids do. Each little girl living at Casa De Fe had a smile that could brighten anyone’s day and a laugh that sounded like the most magical music in the world. There was nothing else we could have imagined doing on that sunny day, it was the perfect way to spend it. After hanging out some laundry and doing some yard work we spent our day playing soccer, swinging on the swings, and helping the little ones go down the slide. It felt like we were kids again ourselves.

Casa De Fe truly felt like a home, and all these little girls were sisters at heart. It was such a happy place to be and even though it is an orphanage, it’s a home for them and a place of serenity and security, something they never had before. Despite the past violence, abuse and neglect these little girls have gone through all their lives, they were happy and smiling; they soon became the toughest, bravest, little people I knew. It made me sad to think that no one wanted these precious children and their parents didn’t bother to try as hard as they could to be able to be there for them. Parents, the people who should be there for you through the thick and thin and always be the two people who will never let you down, but these little girls were let down by theirs. They will never have the relationship they should have with their biological parents and some may never even get the opportunity to meet them.

One adorable little girl had a story so heartbreaking it was hard not to tear up when I heard it. This little two year old girl came to Casa De Fe when she was just one year old. Her parents did not treat her how a little baby should be treated; she did not receive the nurturing, love, and safety that a child should receive from their parents. Instead of tending to the sound of their daughters cry, they would hit her until the sound disappeared. As a result, this innocent little girl’s body was left bruised and her baby teeth were all chipped from her gums- all because her parents did not want to hear her cry, or pick her up and hug her, to show her love and care for her. They left her in her crib, hurting, on the inside and out. No child so young and frail should have to endure the pain that this little girl did. Casa De Fe saved her, in so many ways, without it who knows where she would be today. Yet, after going through all that she did, this little girl had the most beautiful smile and the most magical laugh because now, she is loved and now, she has a home.

When it came time to leave I really didn’t want to go. All of these little girls taught us so much and showed us what it’s like to really be a family and love each other. Casa De Fe is a place I will never forget and an experience that I will hold dear to my heart. I won’t ever forget the smiles of those little girls, the toughest, bravest, little girls in the world.

Chey – LiveDifferent Academy Student 2012

Life is painting a picture

On an ideal Saturday in Mexico, like today was, most people would probably want to be spending time on the beach getting tan, or even just lounging around. While these things sound pretty great, it’s not how we chose to spend our day. Instead, we spent three and a half hours in a dusty cemetery painting rocks white…doesn’t sound like a great time eh? But we couldn’t have been happier to spend that time making someone’s loved one’s grave as beautiful as we could manage with the small team of 8 ½ people (the half being little two year old Edwin) that we had assembled.

As part of our academy curriculum we are given the task to find a project. This project must be to help the community around us in some way. The guidelines weren’t very strict and we could do almost anything we thought would be a great for the community. My group, consisting of myself and Chey, chose to paint the rocks in the cemetery in an effort to make the dusty old place seem new again, and I think we did a great job!

If you go to your local cemetery at home you’re likely to see well maintained grass and many fancy head stones marking the spots where loved ones lay. In Mexico this is not the case. Not everyone can afford to pay for a head stone, or more commonly a miniature house to mark the grave of their loved ones, and as you walk through the rows of the cemetery you’ll quickly notice that some graves only have a large rock or two sticks tied together to mark a grave. Graves like this made me feel so sad, and were a sharp contrast to the full sized houses some people could afford that stood right next to them. It had never really occurred to me before how blessed I am to grow up in a place that has such fancy cemeteries, were everyone is taken care of equally and someone is paid to make sure all the graves look nice. Yes, not everyone’s stones are as fancy and maybe not everyone had a fancy funeral, but someone would never be placed in a cemetery like ours without something to mark their spot, something with their name and their birth date written so everyone who passed by would know who they were. Down here in Mexico however you see many crosses without a name and I can’t help but hurt inside for this person, who is now nameless to the world. I believe it’s the little things that make the biggest difference, and that is why we chose to do this as our Community Project.

And as I sat painting the rocks it gave me a sense of joy to be able to give this family, who couldn’t afford anything to mark the grave, something beautiful, something that they would look at a think ‘someone must care’. I wish I could tell each of them that it’s true, that I do care, even if I didn’t actually know any of these people personally, most of which were children. I do care about the state in which they lay because I don’t think that the amount of money you make should determine how much beauty you’re allowed to surround yourself with. Everyone deserves to have nice things, even if all I can give them is a nicely painted rock. It’s the thought that counts, and I think most would appreciate being thought about on this beautiful Saturday afternoon.

So the tans could wait, and we could nap another day because today we would rather lend a hand to someone less fortunate. Even if our backs hurt and we are now all covered in paint, I don’t think any one of us regrets the time we spent painting those rocks today. Even if losing someone close to you is the hardest thing anyone will have to go through I hope those people will smile when they see the work we did today by the grave of the person they love. I hope it makes them see the beauty in the world around them, and I hope they know that the person they loved so dearly changed my life, and made me thankful for the loved ones I still have, thankful for the life I live, and most of all thankful to have had the opportunity to help them in this small way. Though this project started out simply as an idea we had to help the community, it turned into something incredibly life-changing for me. I would have never guessed all this change would come from painting rocks but I couldn’t be happier it did!

Brigitte ~ LiveDifferent Academy Student 2012

One of those days…

I’m fairly certain everyone has had one of those days. You know those days that nothing goes right, that everything seems to be working in such a way to purposely make your life harder and more stressful. I had one of those days a little while ago, and trust me; it was really on of those days. Our team left a school at about 2:30 and after about a four-hour drive, through a snowstorm, we stopped for dinner. We only had a 25-minute drive after that but we soon found out that it wouldn’t be that easy. The road was closed. We ended up driving an extra 3 hours, through a blizzard to the high school we were suppose to be staying in that night….suppose to be staying at. We soon found out after knocking on the door for a good while in the freezing cold, that there was no one there to actually let us in. Eleven-thirty at night in the freezing wind and snow with no place to stay. Not exactly the happy ending we were hoping for. In desperation we found ourselves at the elementary school down the road, and just out of luck we found that a few teachers had actually been snowed in for the night. They graciously took us in and shared their coffee and chips and dip with us! As we were all sitting around a teacher explained to us that in all her 25 years at the school she had never had to stay over night. She then continued on with a humorous tone about how the first time she’s had to they end up taking in desperate strangers!

Through all the struggles there was some positive, we went to bed that night, warm and with some amazing new friends. Needless to say an early morning, little sleep, and a recovering twisted ankle didn’t exactly set me up for a fantastic positive day. Despite all this however I found myself almost bouncing off the walls with energy and excitement, thinking; today is going to be a good show, someone’s life is going to change today. As we loaded onto the freezing bus in the snow it wasn’t too hard to miss that some of the other team members weren’t really feeling the positivity today… this shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering the night before. The load in and set-up was rather rushed, and as the students started loading in I began to get goose bumps. I could have blamed them on the cold but the butterflies in my stomach could not be. I searched the faces and paid special attention to each individual I could spot, wondering to myself whose life would be changed by this presentation. Would they listen?

The feeling that today was going to be a good show wouldn’t leave me. The show ran as usual and afterwards I got to talk to some amazing kids. Time passed, and most of the kids had left for lunch, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that no one had come up and talked to me about how the show directly influenced them. But then I remembered when LiveDifferent came to my school and how they encouraged me so much and even though I couldn’t find the words to tell them, they still made such an incredible impact on my life. So even though a student hadn’t come up to me I still found myself hopeful in the belief that there was someone out there and that we did change their life. Just as this thought went through my head a girl came up to me. We started talking about the show and I asked if anything impacted her personally. We then ended up having an amazing conversation about her life and her struggles and just how much she appreciated what we shared. She had been struggling with family issues, fitting in and overall accepting herself. I could have given her advise about everything and broken it down for her, but I believe she simply needed someone to listen. She is an amazing girl and I told her that. I also explained that she should stay true to who she is because the person that she is is going to accomplish incredible things. I believe now more than ever that I need to fight for that passion and excitement every day, because you never know how much of a difference it is going to make.

Homemade happiness

As we marched from our food filled, warm bed holding, hot water pumping, electricity surging home to our new barren yard and wooden structure, I was thinking that Shack Week was going to be fun. I have been camping many times before: you set up your tent, stoke up a fire and await nature’s great amazements. This experience was more like surviving than camping, and by the end of it all, although I hate to admit it, I would come to miss those luxuries that our past dwelling possessed. Many Mexican families endure the long laborious days of the fields and come home to a great lack of those luxuries. Last week my fellow classmates and I were one of those families.

The physical and mental fatigue after the first few work days was coming down hard on all of us. This week was a lot harder than we first thought. I recall in the midst of vigorously ridding the tomato fields of weeds, speaking to a number of Mexican workers who toiled next to me. Although they slave day after day for minimal wages under the hot sun, they found rest and joy in sharing their stories and thoughts with us. I too found joy in enlightening them in response to their questions about why a bunch of ‘Gringos’ from up north would put themselves through an experience like Shack Week. As we were looking to go home at the end of a day, they were hoping to stay longer and earn a few more pesos. In the opinion of a labourer from North America, they do not earn a just amount for their labours. The field workers earn up to $14 US a day.

As the week progressed, the array of menial tasks and lack of nutrition drained me. Some jobs were harder on the back, and others harder on the brain, but throughout the week our team stayed strong and united, maintaining high spirits. At the end of the long days we would each take part in the necessary tasks that kept the shack running smoothly. We were very frugal with our spending for food and supplies and very thankful for the little food we did get. The week was a success because of the group’s bond and the rules we set to maintain peace. My biggest concern during Shack Week was the insufficient amount of food that I knew there was bound to be. Long work days are made more dreadful with a meager lunch. Most of the daily jobs like Rock Picking (rounding up a desired type of rock to sell for landscaping) and Clamming (collecting clams from the ocean floor) indicated that our daily pay would be dictated by the amount of product we brought in, which meant supper was directly affected by our collective work ethic. This taught me patience and acceptance in a big way. Any chance of sleeping soundly after work was removed by either a flash rain storm (enduring 5-10 minutes inflicted on us by our landlord) or the pounding of loud mariachi music played on our neighbours loudspeaker well into the night.

To sum it up, Shack Week is a magnified version of the daily struggle that surrounds us while living in Mexico. We get a more vivid glimpse into the world of the people among us who are just trying to make a living to support a family. In essence, the experience made me reflect on what it would be like to live like that for an entire lifetime. It has made me more thankful for the life I was given, and more passionate about using it to make struggles like this stop.

Kevin ~ LiveDifferent Academy student 2012