|
A Corazon Reflection by the Slye Family On September 27th, our family joined the amazing group of volunteers from St. A's who went to build a house with Familia Corazon outside of Tijuana. It was our first trip to Mexico and our first "build"! We were invited to share some reflections on the day, specifically from our sons McCabe, 11 and his brother Sam, 7. So here, faithfully transcribed from a conversation with their Mom and Dad, as well as their cousin Gordon who did not go on the trip, are some of their thoughts. Q: What did you expect Mexico to be like? Sam: I expected it to be like California: this little village with painted housed like Santa Monica, not dirt roads and crashed-down houses and clotheslines. McCabe: I pictured it like Tanzania - I don't know how to say it exactly. I didn't expect there to be very much grass. Q: What was the same as home? Sam: There were some houses like our houses and it was hot like here. McCabe: There were markets and houses and happy people. Q: What was different? McCabe: They didn't have as many luxuries as we do. There were a lot of stray dogs and cats. Everything was in Spanish. Sam: There weren't any bathrooms. There were not a lot of books and people didn't have a lot of money and I was sad for that. A lot of people didn't even have TV's or fancy stuff and I don't even know if they even had stoves. And a lot of people were dark skinned. Q: What happened on the build? What did you do? McCabe: The build was noisy - everyone was talking and the builders were shouting. Everyone had a job. Sam: We painted the walls of the house. Also, I helped stir the paint to mix it. I brought the things (q: the materials? a: yeah, the materials.) to the guys working behind the house. McCabe: I painted pieces of the roof, the walls, the interior. The house we built was the size of a one-car garage. It had a loft with a wall to make two small rooms underneath it. And it had a tile counter. No plumbing, no electricity. Sam: The family made us lunch and I loved the chicken. Before lunch, we met the kids in the family and I made really good friends with Carlos, the 6 year old. Carlos spoke Spanish. McCabe: The bigger boy, Jose, was playing soccer with me. When I first saw Perla, she was shy and she held onto her sister. I pointed to her and sort of said "hello" in a funny voice and she was less shy. Then it was a game. I got to play with Carlos. He was funny. He did the coolest thing ever. He had a little green car and he gave it to me as a present because I was his friend. I was sort of shocked and I told my mom and we said thank you and we said he should keep his car so he could play with it. I think he only had one car. Sam: At the end, when we were leaving, I would turn back and make a smiley silly noise to one of the girls and she would laugh and it made me feel good. McCabe: At the end, when we were christening the house, Perla and also Guadalupe's children all played a game of tugging on my fingers and I pulled them up. We were all laughing. At the christening, I had the honor of getting to hold baby Joshua. Joshua is the coolest baby, even though she slept a lot. McCabe: And after we left we went to el Indio (for dinner) with a lot of people (from church) and it was awesome! Sam: Yeah, that was fun. Q: In all the things you did and saw, where was God? Not like a person standing there, but like a feeling or an idea? Sam: Making friends with Carlos and Perla. Eating the food that the family made. McCabe: The whole thing. God's always there. Copyright © 2008 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
|
