It's Friday and we finished another great week with our Esperanza friends. The foundation of the home for Erica, Jonathan and their daughter Nicole has been poured. A dozen neighbors were there to help. Three little girls (4th grade) helped with returning empty buckets to the mixer.
Tijuana remains a city in transition. New assembly factories are being built every day. Hilltops are being flattened to get raw materials from cement that will be used for roads and houses. The farther you go away from town centers, the more new buildings that you see.
The cities are hard pressed to keep up with the infrastructure. We talked to a man who's daughter works for an auto plant of some sort. She makes 180 pesos for a ten hour day. That's less than a dollar an hour.
We're happy to hear that volunteerism for Esperanza is picking up. They have 13 more groups signed up to come down this work year. They have about 70 families that want into the program.
We hear stories about how dangerous Tijuana is. We've seen no evidence of violence where we work and travel. This is a great place to volunteer and wonderful people to work with. Give it a try!
John Muskopf
