No Good Deed...

B-Daddy here. Yesterday, I traveled with my youngest (on line handle, "mew2ds") with folks from our church to Tijuana to build a house for the indigent. The work was organized by Spectrum Ministries, an organization dedicated to helping the neediest citizens of Tijuana.

The proximate cause of the need was that the family casa of the Belenvillanova family had been destroyed by a mud slide, which had pulled a portion of the house down the hill. The remnants are pictured at left. (Note the neo-Stalinist architecture of government housing in the background.) The family had moved into a makeshift shack on the lower portion of their property pictured at right. The government had told them they could not build on this land because it is unstable, so our efforts yesterday were technically illegal.

The goal of our efforts was to add a 15' by 16' room to the existing structure. By the way, this family was much better off than other families in Tijuana that Spectrum works with. Often, the families are living in a cardboard box and the shelter that is built is their first protection against the elements.

Theses projects are designed to be completed in one day by volunteers with little experience. We certainly met our goal. I thought we could have completed a couple of hours faster if we had pushed it, but that was probably my Type A personality getting in the way of enjoying the experience.

The family was very involved in the work as well, and provided us delicious lunch of stewed chicken, spanish rice and tortillas. Here are some pictures of the project progress. (You can click on any picture in this post and see a lot more detail.)

We did not pour a concrete floor, that was a job left for another day.

A few observations. Even though it was dangerous just to walk up and down the hill side to bring materials to the job, that was not the most miserable part of the day. That would be crossing the border into the United States. Our wait wasn't that bad, one and a half hours, but considering that there were 24 lanes opened, it seemed ridiculous.

One highlight not pictured was getting dinner at "Taqueria Tres Salsas" on the way back. The tortillas were cooked moments before freshly grilled carne asada was dropped into them. Topped with ciantro, guacomole and fresh salsa, they were indeed a treat.

Tijuana is very hilly, with steep canyons everywhere, but that hasn't stopped both the government and the people from just cutting into the hillsides and leaving bare earth behind for whatever project finds that desirable. It was pretty scary to look at.

The people couldn't have been nicer. The Belenvillanova family, the vendors and everyone else made an effort to communicate and be nice, even though only a few of us spoke Spanish. The Belenvillanova family teenage sons worked the hardest of anyone in putting up the addition, I definitely had to respect them for that.

Finally, here is our group shot at the end of the day.