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"!