After an evening of dancing and singing around the campfire and playing soccer on the beach in the pouring rain, our group woke up to a delicious breakfast of ¨tamales dulces¨ — sweet tamales flavored with cinnamon and filled with custard. Community members from El Venado and friends from Rio Grande had provided the food [...]
Continue Reading →SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 21st EL VENADO: Beach Camping and Turtle Hatchery After-work adventures entailed a trip out to the beach near the Esperanza community of El Venado for a night of camping with the community members. An 11 year-old girl from El Venado talked with us about the salt production process that she and her [...]
Continue Reading →Our day’s work included work in the Los Olivos del Sol community: pouring the floors at Laura and Manuel’s houses, pouring the foundation at Alberto’s house, and re-digging out the foundation trenches after a night of pouring rain at Mauro’s soon-to-be-home. 2nd ESPERANZA HOUSE: Laura´s! Laura. Andrew. Prepping the rebar for the floor. Juana and [...]
Continue Reading →LOS OLIVOS DEL SOL CONSTRUCTION OF THE 1st ESPERANZA HOME! Friday, August 20th A generous, gentle and grateful man; his face says it all. Don Willy is the soon-to-be recipient of the first Esperanza home here in Oaxaca. His community chose him to be the first, knowing how deserving he is. For a man in [...]
Continue Reading →¨The miracle is not to fly through the air or to walk on water, but to walk on the earth.¨ -Thich Nhat Hahn THURSDAY, AUGUST 19th We haven´t even been here three full days and already we have been received with incredible hospitality by the local community. A Catholic parish granted us the use of [...]
Continue Reading →¨If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.¨ -Lila Watson, Australian Aboriginal Activist 2010 Oaxaca Esperanza Volunteer Group with friends from Rio Grande We, the first Esperanza volunteer group to team up with [...]
Continue Reading →ADO-BLOCK PRODUCTION Tuesday Aug 17th and Wednesday Aug 18th, 2010 Introducing Guest Blogger, David Chen. Youngest member of the 1st ever Esperanza volunteer group in Oaxaca, Mexico this past week, August 16-24, 2010! ¨Today we arose bright n’ early for our second day of work en la comunidad de Rio Grande. Choosing to rebel against [...]
Continue Reading →More and more Esperanza volunteer groups that have been using blogs to share their experiences with loved ones and strangers alike. Check out some of the group blogs here: St. Louise Youth Ministry: http://tijuanatrek2010.blogspot.com/ Free Agents of Hope: http://freeagentsofhope.blogspot.com/ C.W. Post Builders of Hope: http://hopebuilding.blogspot.com/ Feel free to contact us for assistance in setting one up!
Continue Reading →Before too much time passes, I wanted to share some thoughts and reflections from our experience working with Esperanza in Tijuana last week. I have been a group leader for about 5 years and have been organizing a group of between 15-20 adults/teens to travel to Tijuana to work with Esperanza. I am not affiliated [...]
Continue Reading →I remember Father Ted asking me to join the Newman Club for a mission trip to Mexico. He asked several times actually, and for many semesters and years in college I turned him down. “College Life” always seemed to get in the way. Whether it was the baseball season or a girlfriend or laziness, they [...]
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