Los Angeles de Tijuana

Under the bright Tijuana sun, Greg Seiler clears the cement mixer while Rafael Villavicencio awaits the next dump.

They don't have wings, but they fly. They don't perform miracles, but they do wonderful things. And they sweat. And dance. And party. And play in the dirt. Some  have been doing the wonderful for 20 years. They are the volunteers from St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Kirkland. I think of them as The Angels of Tijuana.

They are older now, and time has made its mark. One intrepid volunteer and his wife had to back out this year so that surgeons could address his brain cancer. Another was on site, and took his daily shots to control his MS.

They embody the Spirit of Wilson -- helping others as a form of entertainment. Using their vacation time and energy to make a lasting difference in the lives of individuals living in another culture under less favorable circumstances than ours. Today this post is about them.

 Every year the angels board a jet to San Diego, take a van into Tijuana, and then they help build "dignified housing" for people who dream of having a clean, comfortable home. The program that sponsors this activity is called Esperanza (Hope), and St. Vianney has been sending teams to a compound operated by Esperanza for 20 years. I've been on two of these trips in the past, and this year I went again, flying into San Diego on May 18.

("Building Decent Homes" says the slogan)

I would have written about this sooner, but there were photos to process, a mountain to climb, a road trip to make and some other incidentals that got in the way. And right now is a good time to write this because it's probably 90 degrees outside the condo in Southeast Puerto Rico and I'm still getting adjusted to the humidity.

Good time to stay indoors and celebrate the Angles of Tijuana. There's not a lot of new stuff to say, because I've written about them twice before over the years. So I'm just going to include photos from our spring visit, with as little commentary as possible.

One of these was my bed.

During our breaks we found a cushy place to catnap.

When it rained, we took cover on the job site, enjoying the local home cookin'.

This was one of our job sites. We were extending work on a home already started.

This appeared to be the home of the next-door neighbor. There is much work to do in Tijuana.

The houses were built from cement blocks and poured concrete. A lot of the work involved creating forms to contain the concrete.

These Esperanza employees were building a plywood form for a roof pour.

On top of the roof workers laid reinforcing forms of rebar . . .

. .. and then fastened the rebar forms into place.

Everybody pitched in.

You have to pick your wardrobe carefully; clothing can take a real beating.

You might find yourself hefting a cement bucket up hill, for instance. . .

. . . or using a scrap of wood to deflect cement as it pours from the mixer into the "canoe."

The cement mixer filled the canoe, and the volunteers scooped up the cement with  paint buckets.

Bricks without mortar

Some time ago, Pharaoh forced the Childlren of Israel to make bricks without straw. The volunteers at Esperanza had it a lot easier: They lay bricks without mortar. They are called Haener blocks.

This is what they look like from the top.

You stack them on top of each other without mortar, fold in rebar, and tie it down.

You cut off the excess rebar . . .

. . . and someone like Stanley Edmond , a Hatian volunteering at Esperanza, pours in the concrete.

A wall of Haener blocks rises fast and level.

Snow White they Ain't

When you're working hard, sometimes a little music helps to make the day go more smoothly Snow White believed in whistling while you work. But the folks from St. John Vianney -- especially the women -- would rather boogie to a different tune:

Click here and you can watch her moves to "Another One Bites the Dust."

They also took time to remember two long-time volunteers who couldn't make it this year -- Jan and Mike Kline. Mike was recovering from cancer surgery. So there was a special pour just for them. Before making its way down the delivery line, the bucket was appropriately decorated:

Deana Barrow displays the bucket honoring Mike and Jan.

Stanley Edmond did the honors, after which the bucket was immoralized enroute to the refill.

The message at the border

Toward the end of the week we took an excursion -- to the border. And the wall. There's an engraved stone there that explains it is the "Initial limit point between Mexico and the United States set by the United Commission October 10 A.D. 1849 according to the Treaty concluded in the City of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2 A.D. 1848 Pedro Garcia Condea Mexican Commissioner Jose Salazar Ylarregui Mexican Surveyor."

The president has promised a big beautiful wall. As it is, the Tijuana wall has a beauty about it. A people's beauty.

There is a park on one side of the border wall.

Some flowers grow there, and someone declared the spot to be a "Binational Garden."

You can peek between the slats to get a glimpse of the sea; but what you see are the messages.

They are messages of love and defiance.

"No obstacle can prevent us from achieving our dreams. We are Mexicans; we are unstoppable."

Volunteer Tim Mitchell skipped a stone onto the surf.

There was one more thing to accomplish before we headed home -- get a glimpse of a finished home.

This is how a small starter home can look like after finishing touches such as stucco are applied.

The bathroom is small, but sufficient, and colorful.

This mother can see her son growing up with dignified housing.

So that's the story, once again, about a cross-cultural exchange that takes place every year. Our team was a small part of the Esperanza program. The graphic below displays what the program accomplished in 2018.

Love,
Robert

Some things take time . . .

The