Now What??

Em and I managed to go on a tour of ¨The Children of the Dump¨(El Niños de la Basura). Us and about 8 other Canadians all vacationing in Vallarta piled into a van with the organizations main guy Arthur. We toured a daycare, the dump/transfer station, drove by the homes of some of the 30 families who work in the dump, as well as the School of Champions. It was pretty amazing to see all of this and I would love to have worked/volunteered in the school however for me to only be there for a week or two would cause more of a disruption than a help. I did at least get to help one little boy with his english pronouns lesson while we stopped into one of the classroooms. I love teaching and the kids here are just so gosh darn cute! Anyway, sadly unable to volunteer for the amount of time that I/we have, we donated some pesos instead.

I am noticing also a trend...it seems that more than my physical help, what most people need here is money! I talked with an Indigenous man who lives near Mexico City who would love for me to help out his village. He asked me what I wanted to do and really I couldn´t say, but just that I would do whatever the village needed! I tried to explain with the help of a translator that I have no place in waltzing into his village and telling them what THEY need! I think that he understood. The Federal Government of Mexico gives his village (not sure if this applies to all Indigenous villages) one lump sum of money for one project per year. He has many ideas, as do the other villagers who come together several times to discuss what to do with the money before finally deciding on the best project. It is not aligned with custom for women to help with building so Em and I are out for that idea. That is fine with me, as I would be just as happy in a classroom or some other traditional ¨women´s¨work. This is not to say that the women do not to manual labour as they surely do!! Lorenzo has ideas of reforestation....and here I thought I was done with planting trees!!! haha. The best time for projects it seems is in May y June (I think). I think that the best thing I could really do for Lorenzo and his village is to raise some money for them so that they can buy the resources they need to build and improve the living conditions for the villagers. For me to go there would be cool, but again this would cost more money and the little bit of Spanish that I have learned would mostly be out the window as the villagers speak there Native language of ¨Now what¨ (this is just the phanetical spelling, not the actual spelling).

Anyway, this Sunday is an Auction Fundraiser for Ayuda de los Niños in Melaque...maybe I can go over and ask a few questions there if there is a way for me to get involved other than just by donating or raising funds.

Now the other issue I have been having is with my intestines!!! Dios mio! I have been drinking food grade hydrogen peroxide, strawberry extract y this stuff called Yakurti or something like that full of the good bacteria that one´s digestive system requires!!! wheu! I sure hope things pass soon....oooh! Poor choice of words! GOT TO GO!!