Sticking Together

Today we woke up bright and early, ready to hit the beach in search of clams. Clamming is a common profession here, with every dozen clams earning the worker about thirty pesos (or less that three dollars). As it turned out, the other clammers were running on Mexican time and we ended up waiting on the beach for a few hours. Instead of napping or taking the time to relax, all that was on our minds was where we would find our next paycheck.

Once the team arrived we got geared up to meet the waves. They set us up with pitchforks and clamming nets and we charged into the surf chanting “Ubuntu!” all the way. It’s funny how the cold hits you in the water. At first it was just the water temperature, but then the wind began to pick up and we were shivering as we worked. In any case, the first hour was less than productive. We averaged one or two clams each – not nearly enough to feed our family of six or pay the bills. As much as we wanted to quit, we couldn’t. We needed money to support ourselves. In the right conditions clammers can catch eight to twelve dozen clams but conditions had not been our favour. We realized that people here must have to save their money to cover days like this when the waves and wind make it difficult to find clams. We also identified with the feeling of desperation that many must feel when struggling to make enough money to take care of their families. After a few hours had passed we made our way home, with only forty pesos in our pocket and not enough money for dinner.

We scraped together some lunch before heading to our next job of the day – helping a rich lady with some household cleaning (actually Rosa at the LiveDifferent house). Going back to the big house, even after just a few days, was shocking for us. Transitioning from a dirt floor and tarps to a comparative mansion left us a little homesick, but also reminded us of what we could look forward to at the end of the week. Our jobs included cleaning ceiling fans, washing cars, cleaning paint trays, and sweeping the driveway. But the end of the day we still only had about 140 pesos, after paying the bills and rent for tomorrow.

At the end of the work day we came home to a sweet surprise. Our neighbours had brought us coffee and pastries – one of the highlights of the evening! In the true spirit of ‘ubuntu’ we shared them all. That’s what impacted us most today – that despite the hardships we experience from time to time, we will always stick together and that will make us strong. Bring on the next four days because we’re ready for adventures.

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My highlight of shack week so far was when we were working at the LiveDifferent house. Ryan, one of the staff, had given Jenn one tortilla chip with dip. Instead of eating it all herself, she ran out of the house and shared the chip between the six of us. If that isn’t ‘ubuntu’ I don’t know what is. – Brittany, Academy student

Fresh Stawberries Are Coming To A Store Near You

Well, we survived our first night in our shack….barely. [cue suspenseful music] It turns out that six gringas really do know how to build a shelter. We all woke up at 4:30am, ready to head out to the strawberry fields. Now let’s get something straight about strawberry picking – this is no walk in the park. The workers here are amazing. They spend hours hunched over in the field, meticulously sorting through thousands of berries for nine to thirteen hours a day. You don’t just need to pick the strawberries, you also need to pack the perfect box of strawberries to be shipped north to the United States and Canada.

By the end of our shift, us LiveDifferent Academy students were exhausted, both physically and mentally. We left the field with a renewed respect for the people who work there. After all, while our time at the strawberry ranch was short-lived, the workers continue day-in and day-out to provide the best berries for their picky and ever-consuming North American neighbours.

The big picture hit us at the beginning of the day – the realization that we are all connected. Even by something as simple and sweet as a strawberry. You see the boxes that we spent nine hours packing were printed in both English and French. The fruit from our full day of manual labour that we had experienced and been paid less than eleven dollars apiece was being shipped to Canada. Whenever we used to open a box of fresh strawberries at home, we would only anticipate the instant gratification and convenience of them. Now we will picture the girls our age who cover their faces so as to not breathe in the pesticides. We will see the foreman of our berry ranch who has worked in the fields for his entire life and is an expert at what he does, yet is paid only a few pesos more than a new worker. We will look at the berries and recognize the effort that goes into choosing the perfect berry – not too small, not too red, not too white and not too ugly.

We arrived home after work to wind and rain. Starting a cooking fire is a challenge to begin with when the fuel is just sticks. But cooking in the rain is harder. However we pulled through, set fire in the rain, and managed to do it all with smiles on our faces. As we were washing our dishes (also in the rain), we noticed two field workers walk past our yard – not abnormal in our town. One of them noticed us and waved as she continued on her way home. She had worked alongside us in the field today and while we left at 3:30pm, the rest of the crew had gotten off work at 7pm and were just arriving home.

So far this experience has made us appreciate hard work, learn the true value of money, and learn how to stay positive under harsh conditions. One thing is certain – we will never look at a box of strawberries the same way again.

Millions of Rocks!

Early in the morning we left our house, a mansion compared to those around it, and dropped our few belongings in our “shack”. Our first job of the week was to pick rocks at the beach. The rocks picked on the beaches of Mexico are often sold and used for landscaping in the United States. So we sat down on the beach surrounded by millions of wet rocks, thinking that this would be an easy job. As we picked out the perfectly smooth, blue-ish gray rocks in specific sizes, we realized how mind-numbing and tedious this job truly is. By the end of the day we had picked about forty 5-gallon buckets of rocks and were more than ready to head home. Being a rather windy day, we had a few minor repairs to make to our casita (little house). We spent the remainder of our paycheck (200 pesos after rent, water and transportation) on drinking water, food for the next 24-hours and a few other necessities. In order to cook dinner we sent a few people out to collect firewood while the rest dug a hole for the fire. We successfully cooked a hearty meal of pasta with tomato sauce and hotdog wieners. We have never been so proud of a dinner! Although we were rather exhausted after the day, we know that tomorrow will be even more challenging. We have quickly come to the realization that our former lives are in fact quite glamorous.

Ubuntu

This week LiveDifferent Academy students will be walking in the shoes of their Mexican neighbours. They have gathered cardboard and plastic from the streets and received some gifts of wood and tarps from a friend. With these they have used the tee-pee design of their Canadian indigenous people to make a home to protect themselves from the wind and rain for a week. During the building process they have already gained a new appreciation for creativity of the small houses of people they have come to know and love. A few weeks ago if a nail bent when they were building Hero Holiday houses, they would toss it aside and grab a new nail. Yesterday they carefully straightened the nail and re-used it.

For a week they will be learning about the daily in’s and out’s of life for many of the migrant families that have moved to Baja California, Mexico looking for work. They will be working common jobs such as picking strawberries, clamming, fencing and picking landscaping rocks from the beach. Meal planning, shopping and cooking will take on a whole new meaning as they learn to live on the same wage of twelve dollars per day as the people they will working alongside.

But this experience is about so much more than learning how to cook on a fire, do laundry by hand or learning how to pick the perfect strawberries to be shipped to Canadian grocery stores. And that’s why they have chosen the word ‘ubuntu’ as their team name. This South African concept is described by Desmond Tutu as recognizing that our humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in each other’s humanity. I am because we are. A person with ubuntu knows that they belong in a greater whole and that they are diminished when others are humiliated or diminished. And so we seek to understand what life is like for people who have not been born into the opportunities we take for granted as Canadians. We want to show solidarity and that we appreciate how and where our landscaping rocks and fresh strawberries come from. And we seek to understand how we can make changes in our world so that our friends around the globe will know that their lives, like ours, hold great value.

Define Tour

Tour life – it really is hard to describe what life is like on the road; but one thing that is certain is that it has been one of the greatest experiences of my life so far! Team Samurai, my team, which is of equal value to the other team (:p), just finished up another week full of shows! But what has been amazing about this week for me is that we are on Vancouver Island and I think it is the most beautiful place on earth!

One of my favourite parts about tour is staying with the billets who host us in each community – I don’t know how we do it but we almost always manage to stay at amazing places with amazing people. This weekend we are staying at the Grozell’s, and they live right along the ocean. Being able to fall asleep to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore was just the icing on the cake to this week. Then, this morning I decided to walk along that shore and besides seeing seal lions, which was so cool, I really got to reflect on my journey so far. The early mornings, the dropping of equipment on my toes, the nervous butterflies I get before every time I go on stage, and the moments when a student reaches out to me.

I have always wanted to take my story and turn it into something positive by helping someone else, and through this tour I have been able to do that countless times. I know that each time I walk off that stage that I’ve gotten to someone, that someone was really listening to me, and that is the greatest feeling! Seeing myself in the students that talk to me afterwards and being able to tell them that the circumstances are not their fault is an indescribable feeling. And having those same students tell me that I helped them realize that their lives do matter, that I had an impact on them, makes all those early mornings and bruises worth it! It is an incredible feeling knowing that my voice, my small voice, has been heard all the way from Hamilton, Ontario, to schools along the west coast of Vancouver Island. My voice, my small voice, doesn’t seem very small at all anymore. I used to wonder what my purpose in life would be, what I would end up doing after I was finished high school, and although I could never have imagined in my wildest day dreams that I would be writing these words about myself, here I am. To define tour is to define myself because what you receive from tour is defined by the amount of awesomeness you put into it! Every day is so different, while being so the same, and it is crazy how well that balances out. I love where I am, I love my team, and I love where I am going! This tour has shown me the power and influence I have on the world and it is a really uplifting feeling; I know I can go anywhere and do anything I want to do in the world and I know this because I have decided to LiveDifferent!

Britney Favreau
LiveDifferent Academy Student

Monsters and Demons

There is never a single moment that makes your life or your story better. We are all warriors and we all have our own demons. You can never compare another person’s story to your own because none of us will ever face the monsters that hide under each others beds. We can only find strength in each other and in how we’ve beaten our demons. Every monster combined cannot beat us if we stand together and help each other through. Our team has opened our lives to share how we battled our demons so that people know that they can beat theirs too.

It isn’t that we just share strategic ways to overcome life’s battles – it’s that we let people into our story. What the students that we share with don’t realize is that their own stories of triumph impact us greatly. When they tell us about the monsters that have wreaked havoc in their lives, their strength inspires. In my opinion, it takes much more courage for a student to come up to one of us and expose their lives one-on-one than it takes for us to get on stage and tell our stories. We don’t have to look anyone in the eyes if we don’t want to, we have practiced our stories so they are spoken easily, and we don’t have to be personal with one person directly. 

After a month of being in Ontario, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, we have met students with stories of all shapes and sizes. Some students have a drug addiction or have overcome one, some have been hurt and abused by people that are suppose to love them, some have been hurt by strangers, and some are trying valiantly battle a loved one’s monster. The point is that everyone has something in their closet or under their bed that is begging for them to fall but the beauty is that they are still standing. Our goal is to help them understand that they don’t have stand alone and they won’t have to fight forever; eventually monsters discover that they were never any match for that person and they grow weak and perish.

We can find light in all our darkest situations if we open our eyes. Light, like monsters, comes in all shapes and sizes. I’d like to think of our team as a form of light. We take our days to shed light on people’s darkness and share how we fought against our own demons. We are no better or braver, just common warriors with big hearts and open ears willing to be the ones who listen to people when it feels like monsters are the only ones listening to their fears.

– Written by Hailee, LiveDifferent Academy

Paloma Michelle

Reality sinks as I sit in the land office going through applications of families who are all worthy of a Hero Holiday house and I begin to understand that not all families will be getting good news from us. We are only so many hands and we cannot build for all of them this year. As we sat in the office looking through applications a 17-year-old girl walks in with her 8-month-old boy. She starts filling out an application for a house and chatting with Santiago (our translator) and the landlady. Her name is Katheryne and she’s always smiling; despite the fact that two weeks ago her stepfather drowned trying to save his son, and despite the fact that she is living in poverty and struggles to pay for food and diapers because her 19-year-old husband Jesus was recently laid off from work. Half way through the application she says something and everyone laughs – she asks, “How many children do I say I have? One and a half?” That’s when we learned she’s six month pregnant with her second child.

That night this family was all I could think about. I wanted them to get a house from Hero Holiday so badly. The landlady has donated land to them but they are currently living with Katheryne’s mother and older brother in a small concrete house using a trailer as their kitchen.

The next morning my heart sank when I found out she had lost her baby. She went into labor at only 6 months and the baby didn’t make it. Her baby girl, Paloma Michelle, was too beautiful, too perfect for this world and was taken back before she even spent a day on earth.

When we got to the church for the funeral we were there before Katheryne and Jesus, and before the casket had been delivered. We walked in and laid flowers on the floor, and then took our seats taking up the whole fourth row in the church. I then watched as people took our flowers and placed them in 2 liter pop bottles for vases. I watched people slowly fill the front of the church, and then I watch a man carry in a tiny white casket and place it on a table surrounded by flowers. I didn’t understand much during the service as it was all in Spanish but I understood enough. I understood that the people in the room felt a deep loss; I understood the pain felt when tears swelled in Katheryne’s eyes and she looked up to the ceiling and I understood that when her baby boy began babbling and crawling around the church floor it was a reminder of the beauty of life.

The next day we told Katheryne and Jesus that they would be getting a house built for them in March, and that “it has nothing to do with the fact that you lost your baby, we knew when we first met you that you deserved a house.” They smiled from ear to ear, and I can’t even imagine all the thoughts that were running through their heads. A house won’t take away the hurt from the incredible loss they’ve experienced, but it will bring hope for the future. This is what LiveDifferent is all about; it’s about “Shining in the dark places, and lending the world your light.”

Written by LiveDifferent Academy student – Brittany Apolzer-Danis

The House that Changed Me

Coming to Mexico, I always knew that I would be building houses for Mexican families who can’t afford them. I knew that they would be living in makeshift houses that leak when it rains and wearing tattered clothes over and over again, but for some reason I just wasn’t expecting what I experienced these past few days.

On Saturday, January 21st, our first Hero Holiday team came down to Mexico to start their house build. They were building for a family with 7 children who live just over the hill from our house, about a 5 minute drive down a bumpy dirt road. The mom and dad both work in the strawberry and tomato fields full time, leaving the four older children to go to school during the day, and the three younger ones to stay home and take care of themselves.

On Saturday afternoon, my friends and I arrived at the work site. As soon as we stepped off the bus, we were surrounded by little Spanish-speaking kids asking us for “capucci’s (piggy back rides). There were so many of them! We definitely had our work cut out for us: paint and play with kids at the same time! But the kids were quite willing to help as much as they could. They weren’t afraid to get their clothes covered in paint, that’s for sure! After I had gotten a bit used to the amount of excitement around me, I had a chance to look around. What I saw was a dozen sticks used as support, tarp and garbage bags used as walls and roofing, and a sheet for a door on a “house” that was the size of my bedroom. The children ran around playing in the dirt, wearing the same clothes each day we were there. The family’s bathroom was a hole in the ground enclosed by tarps and garbage bags. And the children would have all slept on a dirt floor. The mom explained to us that she wakes up every morning at 3am to prepare food for the family before work, and spends her evenings doing housework after a full day on the fields. The mother showed my friend and I how she does the laundry for her family every day and let us try it out. Let’s just say it’s no piece of cake!  For the next three days, we worked on building the family a brand new house with the help of the mom, dad, and their children. I worked so hard on getting the paint job done perfectly that I think I almost forgot what we were actually doing there. I forgot how big this was for the family. They had never been able to afford a house before in their whole entire lives, and now they were getting one for free.

On Wednesday we finished the house and had our “dedication ceremony” where we each said a few words to the family and then handed over the keys and got to watch as they explored their new home. Of course they had seen the house all along, but now with their few belongings in it, some brand new outfits, 5 beds and a fully stocked kitchen, this was their home, and I had been apart of making it possible for them! It was honestly an overwhelming experience to be apart of. Last night they slept in a leaky hut made of tarps in the pouring rain, and tonight they will be sleeping in their own brand new beds, with blankets, and with food ready to be put on the table in the morning. I can imagine they probably feel like they’ve just been given a mansion. I will never forget the smiles on their faces and the gratitude they had for us. This family truly had an impact on my life, and I will always remember my first house build.

Written by LiveDifferent Academy student, Cynthia Burmaster

Teary Goodbyes

Today was an intense day.  So, this is our last week in Mexico, and although I am very happy to see my friends and family back home in Canada, I am also so sad.  I woke up feeling pretty good about everything.  We had class just like usual, then we headed off to teach English at the Pasao San Quintin school one last time.  I was completely fine.  We taught our lesson and then Rosa started talking to the class… she started telling the kids how much we loved coming to see teach them and getting to know them.  My tears then started flowing.  I didn’t even mean to, I just started crying so much.  Yolanda, a 12 year old who is extremely smart and a great kid, came up to me and gave me a huge hug.  Whoa!  That just made me cry even more!  I love those kids so much and am going to miss them a lot.  Today we taught them how to say “Goodbye” and “See you later”.  I could barely help teach the lesson because I was so shaken up about having to say goodbye and not knowing when I will get to see these kids again.  We also asked the kids a few questions about school.  We asked them what they liked about school.  Most of them said things like reading, studying and learning.  They told us that they had great ambitions for their futures.  Some wanted to be vets, teachers, lawyers, fire fighters, soldiers, police officers, and even the President.  I hope the best for these kids.  I will pray for them all the time in hopes that these kids can accomplish their dreams.  We all got together after class and said our goodbyes, even though we are going to see them tomorrow for a movie night.  Then when we said goodbye to Pedro, the teacher, I cried some more!  I had a bit of an emotional break down, but I am so happy and so proud of these kids.  They are great kids and I am thankful that I got to know them. 

After that we went to a different Pedro’s house.  The Pedro that we built a house for in September.  We had previously ordered special bracelets and poncho’s from him because he is a vendor.  He made us all some very beautiful bracelets and we are all now equipped with all of our Christmas gifts! 🙂  Getting to see what he has done to his house since we built for him was neat.  It was great to see the family and try out my Trikee words.  They have added a concrete pad in front of their house and they have secured their bano very well.  I am so happy for this family as well! 

Well sleepy time for me.  I have had a long emotional day and am trying to pack my first suitcase.  Hmm.. I wonder how I am going to fit all of this stuff into these two little bags. Well that’s a challenge for a different day! 

Thanks for reading!
xoxo
~ Lisa G! A LiveDifferent Academy student in Mexico

Hasta Luego!

During our last weeks in Mexico, we decided to take a trip down south of the Baja coast. Our first night was spent in a cute little cabin in Catavina, where we shared the house with a lovely little kangaroo rat and a friendly bat. The bat and I didn’t personally hit it off, and while Shane reassured me he was “just like a mouse but with wings”, I somehow still did not feel inclined to befriend him. The cabin was really awesome however, completely solar powered and even had hot showers and a balcony for stargazing complete with telescopes! We went on a hike through the desert and discovered literally every plant in the desert is prickly. We saw some 200 year old cave paintings and even learned that what the desert now used to be the bottom of the ocean, as our guide showed us remnants of shells and coral reefs!Our next stop was in a little village off the highway where we soon discovered they had horses – and we could ride them! I think this may have been more exciting for me than anyone else…but they waited patiently for me as I galloped alongside the Mexican highway over and over again. And then just one more time. Zoe and Allie also took a turn on the horses, and then we set off on our way to La Mision.La Mision is an enormous old church that has been looked after by the same family for 7 generations. While the original building has obviously disintegrated considerably, a replica of the building has been restored and it is gorgeous – all white stone with incredibly high ceilings. Our tour guide took us around the property and showed us the many fruit trees as well as the hot springs nearby!When we drove into El Baril the next afternoon, we all could not believe our eyes. We all thought with amazement: “No. One. Lives. Here.” It literally looked like a ghost town, and we could not imagine what on earth we would be doing here for two days. We pulled up to a little church where the teachers of the elementary and secondary schools lived together, and they let us stay in a spare room for the night. We didn’t know it yet, but this stop would turn out to be our highlight of the trip.We learned it looked like there was no one in the town because the sea had been too rough to go fishing for five days, and many people had left town to make a bit of money elsewhere. We hung out with the teachers for the evening, who took us on a little tour of the schools they taught in. Who would have thought that in the middle of nowhere Mexico, in a little fishing village on the Sea of Cortez, we would find a little school room stocked with hundreds of books and a Smartboard?! We were enthralled and spent the whole evening playing with our new toy under the guise of “looking through the English program we were going to teach”.The next day we all rose early to head off to school to teach the kids some English. Three of us headed to the secondary school, while the other three went to the elementary (where the Smartboard was). This would prove to be our favourite part of the trip. I personally went and taught the secondary school kids, all ranging from age 12-13. I might also note that when I refer to all, I mean all six of them. Their schoolroom was also very stocked, with shelves and shelves of books and even three computers! We went through the English textbooks that they already had and went over the pronunciations and taught them some basic conversational English. It was the first time we had taught without a translator and it proved to be easier than expected! We had a lot of fun and tons of laughs even with the language barrier. Even after just an hour with these kids, we really bonded and I was sad to leave them! Our time in El Baril was perfectly completed after a meal of lobster and scallops, prepared for us by the kindergarten teacher! Once again we were overwhelmed by the hospitality and generosity of people we had just met, but who welcomed us like long-lost friends.After El Baril, our last stop on our trip was in Guerrero Negro. We got there in time to grab a hotel for the night and sleep, and in the morning we headed off to see the world’s largest salt mine! It was really cool to see all the different steps that go into salt production, especially the fields full of pure salt – perfect for salt men and salt ball wars!After Guerrero Negro, we started our long drive back to Zapata. Overall, the trip was full of lots of sing-alongs (who knew Shane could belt out “I’m Every Woman” with the best of us?) good food, good company and laughter, and was definitely an awesome way to spend one of our last weeks in Mexico.Next came the task of saying goodbye to the places and people that we had fallen in love with. We could no longer say ‘Hasta luego – see you later’ but some chose to anyways because it was somehow easier than saying “Adios – Goodbye”. As we said farewell to Maria at the nursing home and Cesar at the school, we promised that our friends would come to visit them in the new year. School of Leadership students are taking a break over the Christmas holidays now to see friends and family at home in Canada but will soon be reconvening to start the next part of their experience. The group that was in Mexico is anxious to see what tour life on the road is like and the groups that toured Canada in the fall will be journeying to Mexico to meet Maria and Cesar. This new year is an amazing opportunity for these School of Leadership students as they give hope to teenagers in Canada, share love with families in Mexico and bring change in their lives and those around them. To find out how you could be part of LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute)’s School of Leadership, check out www.LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute).org.Alex, a School of Leadership student living in Mexico