Lenten Build in Santiago de Anaya, Mexico
During the period of March 1-9, 2008, eight members of St. Paul's Church joined twenty people from Episcopal churches in Raleigh, Charlotte, and Wilmington, in the Habitat for Humanity Lenten Build. We worked in the village of Santiago de Anaya, Mexico, about two hours north of Mexico City. Members included Mike Bradshaw, Kathy Aristy, Don Brown, Tim Brown, Anthony Pierce, Steve Carroll, Wayne Foushee and Jack Fleer. We worked besides approximately 40 Habitat volunteers and property owners from the village.
Our tasks were to help pour roofs or prepare the support structures to pour the roofs on four houses that were ready for the topping off. On two days we worked between 3-5 hours mixing cement, carrying buckets of cement up ladders to the roof level using a bucket brigade, and cleaning the buckets for the next loads. We completed roofs on two houses, those of Ana and Felix and Clemente and Nayely. On the other three days, we worked to build support structures for roofs on two additional houses, setting poles, constructing support beams, installing reinforcement bars, and laying a floor on which to pour the concrete. Those roofs have been subsequently completed by missioners that followed our group.
People from Mexico and the United States worked side by side in all these tasks, using limited language facility, numerous gestures and smiles, and patience with our amateur construction skills. Local citizens completed each roof by carrying the final buckets of cement in a ceremony similar to the tree-topping on a skyscraper. We also participated in the dedication of the house for Candy and Isaiah that had been completed by preceding groups. That ceremony helped us to realize and appreciate the final product of our combined labors.
Our Mexicans coworkers are hard-working, dedicated to each other, and grateful for all they have. An expression of thanks to them was responded to by "Thanks be to God!" They were extraordinary generous, despite their meager belongings, especially in the sumptuous home cooked lunches provided each day including baked cactus flowers, roasted cactus leaves, freshly baked tortillas, and roasted chicken prepared in the indigenous manner (in the ground). They displayed ingenuity and resourcefulness in recycling and making do with what they have in novel ways (cement bags, old benches, etc). These may not be efficient in some ways, but they show determination and will on their part.
Travels to Mexico and around the world have convinced me that citizens around the world are all more alike than we are different, despite difference in language, history, cultural traits, skin color, etc. Habitat for Humanity has a marvelous means of bringing people together to build houses, providing shelter for those in needs. Habitat also helps to bridge human relationships across geographical and cultural divides.
St. Paul's missioners to Mexico encourage members of St. Paul's to join in future mission trips to Haiti, Costa Rica, Botswana, etc. that are planned or under consideration or the next Habitat build in Winston-Salem. It is a great way to interact with other people, to travel in another country, and to experience life of others in an intimate and practical setting, not like touring, but real life, lived abundantly and gratefully. Thanks be to God!
~ Jack Fleer
