"Rockin" it!

Our first and last work days during Shack Week were rock picking. Sitting on the beach, watching the waves, and picking rock, after rock, after rock. And not just any rock. Only the perfect rocks. They had to be the perfect colour, perfect texture, perfect size, and have absolutely no flaws. If that sounds crazy, try doing it for a whole day!

Now let me give a little bit of background about rock picking. Here in the Baja of Mexico, the tide washes up billions upon billions of rocks on the beaches. These rocks are collected and sold to the United States where they are then used for landscaping. The rock picking industry employs a lot of Mexicans, both men and women. Sometimes you will even see whole families picking rocks together on the beach. The workers are usually self-employed and pick the rocks on their own time and then wait on the shore for the various companies to come around and purchase them. They are paid $1 per bag of rocks, and it takes one and a half 5-gallon buckets to fill one bag.

Every time we have gone to the beach here in Mexico, we have seen people bent over picking rocks, but until this past week, we've always thought that it must be an easy job to do. Our first reaction about rock picking was "Sweet, we get to spend the whole day on the beach!". However, by the end of the day, our minds felt numb from the amount of rocks we had seen. It's amazing how everything started to blend together. After a while it was hard to even remember what colour of rocks we were searching for. All I can say, is that making a living off of this type of work would not be an easy thing to do, never-mind to provide for an entire family! As a family of six, each work day we only got paid three people's wages in order to make it more realistic. By the end of our rock picking days, we made approximately 330 pesos per day (around $30) and after rent, water, and transportation costs, we were usually left with around 200 pesos per day (or about $17). As mind-numbing and boring as this job was, it was something that we were able to set personal goals for. We would set a goal of having 50 buckets picked by lunch, and we would push through until we got it done. Some may have said we "rocked" it.... ;)

Stay tuned for another shack week blog coming soon!

Ubuntu - I Am Because We Are.

"Ubuntu" - This South African concept is described as the recognition that our humanity is caught up and is  inextricably bound up in each other's humanity. I am because we are. A person with ubuntu knows that they belong in a greater whole and that they are diminished when others are humiliated or diminished.

 Life has officially taken on a whole new meaning in my mind. Everything I once thought to be normal, usual, or typical has been erased from my memory, and replaced with a new way of thinking. Two weeks ago, I was complaining about the lumps in my mattress and how uncomfortable it was to sleep on. Two weeks ago couldn't stand waiting at the sink for a couple of minutes while the water heated up and I was annoyed that our kitchen shelves weren't stocked with my favorite condiment: Nutella. The saying "You don't know what you've until it's gone" is absolutely, one hundred percent truthful.

During the month of March, my friends and I worked with approximately 190 Canadian high school students and built 12 houses here in Mexico. We worked alongside families who spent each day of their lives trying to survive until the next, living in shacks made of cardboard and plastic, and working rigorous hours to provide for their families. I had always been sympathetic of them, but had never truly given much thought to the way they lived each and every day. This past week I got to experience first-hand true Mexican life: how they work, how they eat, how they dress, bathe, sleep, and everything in between.

My friends and I spent two days collecting trash from the sides of the roads and putting it together to make our house for the week. We picked up things like cardboard boxes, plastic garbage bags, palm leaves, sticks, cement blocks, scraps of wood, string, and much, much more. We were given some long scraps of wood from a friend and a few tarps with which we used to make a traditional Canadian Indigenous "tepee" shack. Our goal was not for it too look pretty, but to be a shelter from the wind and the rain (and yes, it did rain). A few weeks ago, while building houses with Hero Holiday, we cut all of our with with powered table saws. If a nail bend, we threw it away and grabbed a new one. However, while building our shack, we were given only an old hand saw, a hammer and a few nails. This meant putting much more thought into where and how we put things together!

As we left our house and our belongs behind and set out to our first day of work, we had no idea what was in store for us in the next few days ahead. Sure this week would teach us how to cook over a fire, be frugal with our money, wash laundry by hand an pick the perfect strawberry ... But little did we know, we would be learning more about life in the next seven days than we had between all of our lives put together.

Stay tuned for more info on "Shack Week"!

"Shack Week": Living the real Mexican life!

Hola amigos! I know I haven't updated in a while, but I thought I'd let you all know that for the next week, I will be living in a homemade "shack" along with my 5 other leadership students. Since Monday, we've been collecting plastic, cardboard, and any wood we could find around the streets and we've been constructing our very own "tepee shack"! A Canadian version of a Mexican shack. We'll be sleeping in it, cooking over a fire, and going to work with the Mexicans on various jobs such as clamming, strawberry picking, and rock picking. With the money that we make each day, we have to pay for our land, our water, and all our groceries. It will be a challenge that's for sure! We've spent lots of hours so far running around to all the local stores to see which ones are the cheapest and where we can get the most for our peso! Up until now I've been pretty worried about shack week, but seeing how much 6 girls have accomplished in just a few days, I'm confident that we'll have a blast this week and learn a lot too! As far as we know, we're the first group of students to make a shack tall enough to stand up in! Never under-estimate a girl! Hehehe!
If you would like to follow my progress throughout the week, you can check out Live Different's facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Live-Different/189864944417296, or you can visit their website http://livedifferent.com/ where our leaders will be posting pictures and blog updates from our work days! Thanks for keeping posted and keeping me in your prayers!
Hasta luego! :)
Cynthia