concrete

So far so good on my West Coast tour. I am missing my buddies Pim and Jesus terribly, after hanging out with them for a few days in La Condesa. I am staying with Nanou, but I miss Clara a lot. I think out of all the CPI chaps I have gotten closest with her.

Today was the group's first day of tough service work in La Carpio. We went to the Montessori center to meet with Gail and learn a little bit about La Carpio's history and how it came to be. The work itself was very physically difficult. We worked to put a concrete floor in the home of a family that lives down by the river, the poorest area of La Carpio and probably the poorest neighborhood in the whole country. The materials to make the concrete floor were not in an ideal location. To get down to the river you have to walk down a hill on a narrow, semi-paved footpath where a car cannot enter. The materials were left at the top of the hill, and the work today was filling buckets with rock and sand and transporting it down the hill and to the work-site: someone's home. It was very hot this morning and the hill is at quite an angle, so the kids got pretty tired after a few runs. In the end I stayed at the top and did shoveling as people came back with empty buckets, and the kids went down in pairs with the full buckets. There are a few who really stood out as being motivated and excited to be here, serious about the service part of the program. And there were some others who did not miss an opportunity to flake on doing hard work. I shared with the West Coast chaperones about this and they agree...there is a difference in some of the kids' attitudes. We are going to try and improve on it! Tomorrow is another day of service work.
On the whole I was very impressed, and listening tonight to some of the kids responses and reactions to what they saw in La Carpio today was very heartening. One girl was so impacted that she began to cry, and had to leave the work-site.
"How come I have so much?? They have so little! It is just so sad!"
But it is reality. Do what yo can to make a change!


I am tired...good night!

Pura Vida