Col. Miramar, Tijuana, Mexico

Il y a plusieurs moyens pour passer la frontiere mexicaine, mais on opte pour le plus rapide, le tram. A l’heure d’acheter notre ticket, il nous manque $5 cent, on demande donc a l’unique autre personne qui attend le tram rouge s’il peut nous preter le montant manquant. On achete donc nos tickets et pendant tout le trajet, on discute avec cet homme. Il nous dit qu’il travaille pour une œuvre caritative et qu’il construit des maisons, ecoles, hopitaux,… pour les plus demunis. Nous voyant avec nos gros sacs, il nous demande si nous avons un endroit ou passer la nuit. On lui explique que non, comme d’habitude on ne compte chercher qu’une fois a destination. Il nous invite donc a rester avec lui dans l’hopital qu’il a construit il y a deux ans. On y sera loges et nourris gratuitement et on peut y rester autant qu’on veut et faire ce qui nous plait. Une offre comme ca, ca ne se refuse pas. Le tram nous depose a la frontiere et de la on passe a pieds. C’est super facile, il suffit de suivre la foule et passer la barriere qui nous emmene au Mexique, aucune formalite, aucune verification de quelle sorte qu’elle soit, pas de cachet,… RIEN. On trouve ca un peu bizarre mais notre nouvel ami, Gordon, nous dit que c’est normal, apres tout il vient ici tous les 3 mois, il sait de quoi il parle. On le suit jusqu’au Mac Donald’s ou 2 femmes viennent le chercher. On embarque a l’arriere du pick-up direction l’hopital. Il nous donne une chambre et on s’y installe puis on va manger nos premiers tacos.

The first afternoon, Gordon needed to go and visit all the charitative projects in order to see what needs to be done and define priorities. He told us we could go with him if we like, otherwise we could just do whatever suited us. We of course decided to follow him. Once we’d seen all these interesting projects, we decided to stay for the week and help them. All the young people that were going to help arrived during the night so we only met them the next morning. We started by putting some order in the hospital and take all the materials that we needed for the different projects.
There were 5 main projects :
- The orphanage : painting the house, the barrier, cleaning the chapel and the garden, help with the children, put a new and bigger water tank, work on the sewage system,…
- Family 1 : they have a house on the very edge of the cliff, that is about to fall. They have 2 children, 1 with cerebral paralysis and the older one is autistic → we need to tumb the house and construct a new one and find help and schooling for the children.
- Family 2 : An abused women with 3 children living illegaly in a cement block. They lived in the street for 3 years and the mother was blind due to diabetes → construct toilets, windows,… teach the children how to clean themselves and not waste the water, follow up of the diabetes progression,…
- Family 3 : A woman and her son living in a cement block → help them extend the house, put concrete,…
- Ely’s house : She is our cooker (and such a great one !), she is taking care of us and making the first selection of the projects →Put some order in her house that is also used as a warehouse, do the ceiling, construct some stairs,…
Adeline was involved in the orphanage and the concrete projects and Charles was working at Ely’s house. We spent a tiring but enriching week helping with the projects. We had to get up every morning at 7AM, work until 6PM and then have meetings until midnight. We had to stand the freezing cold water for the shower which turned into burning hot once we lighted the boiler. But we met amazing poeple, learned how to work and had a lot of fun !
On Thursday night, we cleaned the hospital, and went all together to the beach house of one of the charity worker’s family. We spent the whole night taking pictures with our new friends and then came the farewell time…