While this statement is true and while it reflects the basic philosophy of all our programs, it leaves out so much. It doesn’t tell you about the college students in Tuxtla and San Cristóbal, who live in houses with six or seven students and no running water, who say that pizza is their favorite food and estimate that they can afford to eat it maybe once every two months, who have “House Rules” handwritten on a poster in the living room and follow the rules to the letter, who are the most responsible young people we’ve ever met.

We believe in the power of education, but our students are the ones who live that belief.

Starting this month, we will be introducing you to our college students, one by one. The first blog post of every month will be a biography of one of our Education Scholarship students. Today, we begin with:

Name: Blanca Lilí García Pérez

Year in School: 12th grade

Will graduate: 2017

Major: Nursing

Why? She likes to help people, and she thinks it is interesting.

Favorite FOP Memory of Blanca: When we were sitting around the dinner table at Mago’s graduation party in San Cristóbal, and John Kerr (founder of Friends of Pimpollo) tried to stand up but accidentally tipped his chair over. Blanca was by his side before the rest of us could even react. She helped him up, righted his chair, and stayed at his elbow for the rest of the night. She will clearly make a wonderful nurse!

Extracurricular Activities: English class

Hometown: San Antonio, Siltepec.

Family: Mom and Dad, who still live and work on a farm in Siltepec. Two sisters, Nancy and Iris, who are also in the Education Scholarship Program.

Favorite FOP Memory of Blanca: Going to church in San Cristóbal. The church was very full, so we stood against the wall and watched an old man walk around among the parishioners and beg. Most people ignored him; Blanca and her sisters pulled coins out of their pockets and put them in the old man’s hand. Later, we went to a market so the FOP team members could buy souvenirs. Blanca saw a shirt that she liked, but she decided that she didn’t want to buy it because she had more important things to spend her money on.

Hobbies: Listen to music, read, and chat with friends.

Career goal: To return to Siltepec and work as a nurse, providing medical care to a community that currently has none. To support the ECOSER program [the Education Scholarship program for students in Tuxlta and San Cristóbal] and give other students the same opportunities she has had.

Final words from Blanca: “ECOSER is my second family. I am here because I want to improve myself and do something with my life, so I can support my family and serve others without receiving anything in exchange. For everything you’ve done for me, thank you and may God always bless you.”

Blanca is a wonderful student and person, and we are very proud of her. To see photos, videos, and more information about Blanca and the ECOSER program, please visit our website www.friendsofpimpollo.org or find us on Facebook.

Simbolos Patrios is an elementary school located within smelling distance of the Oaxacan dump in Vicente Guerrero. It has about 120 students, and they are some of the sweetest children we’ve met. In a previous post, we talked about our visit to the school, when they met us at the gate with ear-to-ear grins, when they put on a program for us with native dances and dances about la foca Ramona and poems about the Mexican revolution, when they sat on our laps to watch their classmates and played with our cameras.

Their parents make a living from the dump- sifting through garbage, finding things they need and things they can sell, using those sales to support their families. Sounds like a fun job, right? Despite that, they are committed to helping their children get an education, so they support Simbolos Patrios however they can. Not through monetary contributions or magazine drives or candy bar sales, but through PTA-style committees and volunteering in classrooms. The government is supposed to support the school monetarily, but that doesn’t always happen and the school has been stuck with poorly constructed classrooms and leaky roofs.

Which is why we were so excited at that Thursday night dinner when Boni told us the news: The government had agreed to build six new classrooms at Simbolos Patrios. Real classrooms. With concrete floors and foundations and real windows. The whole project would cost $90,000, and the government was willing to fund 95% of it….

…if the parents paid for the other 5%.

Five percent of $90,000 isn’t really a lot of money, only about $4,500. But to parents who live beside a garbage dump, $4,500 and impossible are synonyms. Even worse, the government gave a one month deadline: if the Simbolos Patrios parents can’t raise $4,500 by mid-December, the project is off.

As we sat at dinner on that Thursday night in late November, Boni told us this story. He told us that we would be going to see the school on Friday, and he knew that we would love the Simbolos Patrios kids and parents as much as he does. He said he hoped that our hearts would be moved and we would want to contribute to this project, but he didn’t want to guilt us or make us do so.

It didn’t take more than thirty seconds of silence for the first member of Team 50 to speak up. “Well, I’ll go ahead and start the ball rolling. I want to give a donation.” No hesitation, no debate, no waiting to see if the school deserved the money or waiting to feel touched by the students and their situation.

And so it began. Within ten minutes, four others had also donated to the fund, also without hesitation or deliberation. They gave their hearts to these children, investing in their futures without a second thought. Over the course of the next two days, almost everyone on Team 50 decided to contribute in some way. Not everyone had the ability to give the same amount, but they offered as their situation allowed. The final tally puts us above $4500, but the excess will be put to good use supporting Boni and the FOP programs.
Throughout all of this, Boni sat quietly at the table, playing with his water glass and trying to follow the conversation with his limited English. When the final team member had spoken, we looked at Boni.

“Did you understand?” we asked Boni in Spanish. Boni shook his head.

“It is finished,” we said. “We have the money for the project.”

Boni’s eyes widened. He buried his head in his hands, but not before we saw the tears forming in the corner of his eye. “I didn’t think it would happen so quickly,” he said. “I never imagined there would be people with big enough hearts to just give the money, just like that, without even seeing the project. Thank you.”

Thanks to the members of the Team 50, Friends of Pimpollo wired $4500 to Boni last Tuesday, just in time to meet the government’s deadline. Construction has already begun, and the classrooms should be finished by January or February. Six new classrooms, real classrooms, ready for use by the spring.

This week, FOP is paying tribute to those who have helped support our programs in 2011. To the Team 50 members, who made these classrooms happen. To the 120-ish donors who attended our Christmas party two weeks ago and who have been supporting us with monthly, annual, or one-time gifts all year. To the many, many other donors who weren’t able to attend the party but who deserve our thanks just as much. To the 980 recipients of end-of-the-letters and to the anonymous donors who are matching the first $18,000 in year-end donations that come in. And to all of you, who support us via comments on the blog or posts on Facebook or simply spreading the word. You make our work possible, and we are so thankful!

Merry Christmas!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/maps-credit-union

to hear more about the experience in Oaxaca!

For now, I want to share some of our favorite Team 50 Oaxaca moments. As we sat at dinner on Saturday night and celebrated a wonderful trip, we each told a story of a favorite Team 50 memory:

- When two women gave valedictorian-ish speeches at the Vicente Guerrero community center’s adult education graduation ceremony on Friday night. One had just received her certificate for elementary school, and she gave her speech from her wheelchair. The other became a middle school graduate that night, and there were tears in her eyes as she talked about what it means to her to have that certificate. It’s not just a piece of paper; it’s an accomplishment. It is proof that she can do something for herself, that she has the ability to improve her own life, that she and all of her classmates can follow through and finish what they started. At the close of her speech, as she thanked her kids for believing in her, even I had tears in my eyes. She said that she was proud to know that her kids would never be ashamed of her again, and that made it all worth it.

-When we pulled up in front of Simbolos Patrios Elementary School and climbed out of the car on Saturday morning. From where we stood, we could smell the dump and see the piles of garbage, but when we turned around and saw the kids, we forgot about everything else. They streamed through the gate, calling their friends to come see the “gringos.” They had planned a program for us, and as we walked onto the playground, cute costumes and even cuter smiles greeted us. They took us by the hands and led us to child-sized seats set up in rows, handed us bottled water while we waited. We thought it was fun to watch the little girls with pleated skirts and beribboned hair dance with their tiny moustached partners; it was even more fun when they dragged us up and taught us to dance!

-When we toured Rosaura Zapata Cano Preschool and the teachers, parents, and kids showed off their new school garden. It wasn’t very big, its fence was made of well-worn metal, and its vegetable beds were made of borrowed wood. As we stood under the hot Oaxacan sun and admired the tiny shoots, the pride in their voices turned the garden into a veritable Eden.

-When we walked back to the playground at the preschool and Wayne, Tom, and Oscar announced that they were going to cover the cost of buying wood to make the lumps of dirt into real, raised beds. When Boni shared this story at the team dinner, telling us that he was preparing to tell the school that he didn’t have enough money to buy the materials they wanted, and when his voice started to wobble a bit as he told us how much it would have pained him to say no.

-When we returned to New Creation Kindergarten on Friday and we saw the transformation we had helped effect. On Monday, we arrived as the kids were doing their morning assembly under the hot sun, because they had no roof. Their marching feet stirred up dust on their carefully cleaned uniforms, because they had no floor. The school had a fence on one side, but the other side boasted a four-year-old’s version of a cliff, complete with rocks and scorpions at the bottom. On Friday, we climbed out of the van and saw flags hanging from the roof we helped raise, chairs lining the edges of the concrete we helped pour, the cliff blocked by an enclosed sand pit and fence we helped build. We walked into their classroom and saw a room once filled with clutter transformed by the shelving that Stephanie, Bobbie, and Wayne built. At our team dinner, Stephanie shared the good feeling she got when she saw her hard work being put to good use.

We’ve had a lot of good moments this week, and as we fly home and re-join the real world, we can tell that this trip has changed us. Team 50- John, Jill, Oscar, Tom, Barbara, Paige, Bobbie, Wayne, Stephanie, Susan, Joe- you’ve been great! We spent a week in Mexico; we broke down some barriers, changed some minds, did some construction, took a billion pictures, and made a difference in a lot of lives. Team 50, thanks for a fabulous trip!

This quote is painted on the wall of community center. I can't find an exact copy, but it basically means: Education is not a matter of teaching a person something he didn't already know, but creating a person who didn't previously exist." If you know the actual quote, please post it!

We went to Liberty Elementary School to see their new classroom, and the kids welcomed us in so many fun ways: writing "Bienvenidos" on the board, memorizing our names, and greeting us in English, Spanish, French, and Zapotec, the indigenous language.

Jill Nowacki, vice president of development at Maps Credit Union, playing telephone with the kids at Luis Torres Valdes Elementary School.

Our dinner with Fuentes Libres was really interesting and really fun!

Barbara and Stephanie taking a break for a picture.

Joe Phillipay, the Chair of the Board of Directors and a really nice guy, cutting the tape at the christening of the new garden at elementary school Adolfo López Mareos.

Tom Marks, one of the members of the Maps Credit Union Board of Directors, and the other Team 50-ers did a great job collecting donations, and they brought enough to give a new pencil and a sharpener or eraser to each kid. Pretty big deal for these cuties, getting a brand new pencil.

We went to the preschool Rosaura Zapata Cano to have a party with them and see their school garden, which Team 50 helped finance. The garden will provide vegetables for the kids, teach them to eat healthy, and help them develop gardening skills. The kids and parents and teachers have done amazing work, and we are really proud of them!

The kids take such good care of their tomato plants!

The adorable girls of New Creation Kindergarten!

We’ve been having a good time this week, but meeting the kids is the best part. Their photos and memories will stay with us forever. They are the reason we are here. They are the reason we keep chugging along. They are the reason we are so thankful for your support. Help us change the world, for their sakes.

“I’ve never seen women who work so hard.”

These words apply to the mothers at New Creation kindergarten, who:
-shoveled dirt
-carried buckets
-hauled water
-made snacks (for us!)
-pounded nails
-sawed wood
-mixed concrete
-hauled concrete
-poured concrete
even as they carried babies on their backs and kept thirty-five children off said concrete. These ladies worked all day with few breaks, and they spent their free moments making sure we weren’t doing too much. Talk about hard-working ladies.

These words apply to the ladies of Fuentes Libres, the microloan organization we’ve been learning about. Women in Fuentes Libres programs receive loans of about $100 to invest in a business. Business loans because the business will then provide a return that can help with personal financial matters, women because they usually have a better handle on family finances. Fuentes Libres has had incredible success; for the first nine years, their default rate was around 1%. It’s gone up in the last year due to some transactions last March, so they were interested to get some feedback from Maps about loss prevention.

The women in their programs work hard. They are required to take classes on financial security for two years, to save a certain amount of money each week, to take Bible classes, and, oh right, run a business. Most of the ladies we met today were single mothers who work out of their homes selling flowers or cosmetics or jewelry.

Yet their hard work is paying off. We went to their monthly meeting today and they told us about how these microloans have changed their lives. One woman said that she is now able to make enough jewelry to support her mother and her children. Another is still making a living at age 54, which she says would be almost impossible if she had to work outside the home.

Seeing them work hard motivates us to work hard, and that brings us to the last group that the quote applies to: Team 50. Everyone on the team, women and men, has done amazing work at New Creation Kindergarten, and it was fun at the end of the day to look at the giant concrete slab and the new roof and think that our labor helped to make those possible. Who knew these Maps people were so skilled with a wheelbarrow?

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John often reminds us that educating women and changing their lives is a proven way to break the cycle of poverty. Today, these amazing and hard-working women showed us that the change comes also from within. They want better lives for their children, and they don’t care how many sore muscles it takes to get there.

We worked today at New Creation Kindergarten in Vicente Guerrero, the transient community near the Oaxaca city dump. Susan told us that she was down here about two years ago, and New Creation was nothing more than a plot of land and a giant boulder. Now, it is a full-fledged kindergarten with two classrooms, thirty-two students, and…a giant boulder. It has made a lot of progress, and by the end of the today, it looked even better.

Joe, Wayne, and Paige did amazing work enclosing a play structure that now has a roof, newly built and painted walls, and a sandy floor to play on. Bobbie and Stephanie worked with a local man named Pablo to build some bookshelves.

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Barbara and Jill were masters with the paintbrush.

The rest of us floated around and helped level the floor for tomorrow’s concrete, haul dirt when the floor still wasn’t level, pound nails, and play with the kids. We worked hard out in the sun, but we certainly had fun!

One of our favorite memories from the day was five-year-old Rebecca, one of the kindergarteners, who changed her name every time she introduced herself. To Paige (who shall forevermore be referred to as Página, the Spanish word for page), she was Esmerelda. To Wayne, Esperanza. No matter her name, though, we all had fun playing with her and the other kids- London Bridge; Wolf, Are You Here?; Party-Cake, and more.

Tonight, we are meeting with a group called Fuentes Libres, which does microloans and other financing. Tomorrow, we’ll meet with some women who received loans from this group, and I’ll tell you all about it. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s report!

From Oaxaca, adios!

Geraldo

The young man in this photo is Geraldo, and he is one of the most attentive and responsible boys I’ve ever known. He attached himself to my side when we arrived at Pimpollo tonight, and then he hardly let me out of his sight. The electricity was out, and when we arrived, Geraldo ran up and asked if he could use my cell phone. I explained that it doesn’t work and asked why; he explained that someone needed to call the city electricians to tell them about the lights. He is eleven, hardly the oldest kid at Pimpollo, but he had noticed that no one else was calling, so he stepped up and did it. We played a few games of cards after the lights came back on, and he was so patient and careful as he taught me the rather confusing rules. When I won, he cheered for me. When he won, he apologized! How many eleven-year-olds do that?

This young lady is Daehena. She’s been at Pimpollo for a year, and she says that she and her brother Bryan are settling in. While the lights were out, Daehena sat next to me on the concrete front walkway and made shadow puppets with the light from my cell phone. When more kids gathered around, Daehena got pushed aside, but instead of whining, she just sat next to me again and leaned against me and started to chat about her life and my life and the future. She told me about her mom, working in Oaxaca, and how hard it is to be ten-years-old and only talk to your mom once a week, at best. She told me how much she wants to learn English, and proceeded to list the words she had picked up: dog, where, thank you, you’re welcome, table. Two days ago, I sat in the dining room and taught some of those words to a few older kids, but I had no idea Daehena was listening. It appears that she was not only listening, but she memorized them all! She really is a smart girl, and I certainly think she could make it all the way. I can’t wait to see what she becomes.

Susana has spent a lot of time in the last few days with an incredible kid named Isaac. Isaac is seven years old, we think, and is severely brain damaged. He still lives at Pimpollo, however, because the socialization helps him. He is currently attending school and going to physical therapy in Oaxaca. The PT seems to have helped a lot; last year, he couldn’t stand himself up, so he spent a lot of time on the ground. This year, he can stand up, walk alone, and balance himself so much better. He is also a really sweet kid, and I enjoyed the few minutes I spent sitting in the sunshine with him today.

There are so many more at Pimpollo who are growing and changing, but these three have touched my heart. If you’ve been down here and have special memories of a kid who touched yours, post a comment and share! If you’d like an update on someone, post a comment, and we’ll respond and let you know how they are. These are all great kids, and we’re proud of them!

Having fun doesn’t require money.

We’ve all learned this a thousand times. We receive an expensive gift for Christmas but have more fun with a worn deck of cards. We buy fancy easels and special paper for the kids to paint on, but they are so much happier with a bucket of sidewalk chalk and a stretch of concrete. (Or a living room wall and a box of crayons…) The amusement park makes for a fun vacation, but everyone laughs just as much on a family bike ride.

Having fun doesn’t require money.

The Pimpollos understand this better than anyone I’ve met. Julie commented today that they manage to have a great time doing nothing, using nothing. There are no expensive easels at Pimpollo, but a group of kids spent two hours making chalk paintings and loving it. The swing is made of metal and isn’t very comfortable, but that doesn’t stop them from giggling as they try to touch the leaves of the nearby trees. They don’t have a lot of material belongings, but their ingenuity and attitudes turn the tiniest piece of rotten fruit into a soccer ball.

We went to visit Juana’s family tonight, and I met another family that doesn’t need material items to have fun. We’ve written about Juana before, but just in case you’ve forgotten, she lives with her three kids, her sister, and one of our college scholarship girls in a one bedroom house here in Juchitan. There was space for us to sit, but most had to use the beds because they have no couch and few chairs. The walls are full of extention cords to carry electricity, and the “eaves” are insulated with cardboard. None of that mattered. We spent two hours having a grand time, telling jokes and stories and taking photos. Juana and her kids had laughter on the tip of their tongues, and it didn’t take much to get Manuelito rolling on the floor. The tiny house was quickly forgotten as the good times began to roll.

I went to the dollar store before I left and bought some gifts- bouncy balls, card decks, crayons, hair ties. Mostly games, and nothing special. I figured I could use them when we got bored, when we needed something to animate us. Tomorrow is our last day at Pimpollo, and I haven’t even touched them. We’ve spent our time swinging, dancing, teaching English words, taking pictures, drawing, having conversations, walking, holding babies, talking, talking, talking. Most of them want to play or talk with us, not get stuff from us. The most useful item in my suitcase is a small album of family photos that I threw in at the last minute.

No matter how many times I’ve learned about having fun with nothing, I always get home and return to materialism once again. This time, I’ve had amazing teachers I’ll never be able to forget. The next time I fret about money or buy expensive gifts, I think I’ll just have to remember Pimpollo, where fun is free.

The Pimpollo Home for Children is where Friends of Pimpollo began twelve years ago, and it was great to go back and see some friendly faces. We didn’t see all of them because some of the kids were at school, but we are looking forward to getting a full update and passing that information and some new photos on to our child sponsors. Thanks to you, these kids are doing great!

We did see the little babies, though, and a few former Pimpollas who currently work part-time at Pimpollo or live their with their children. John was especially pleased to see Sara and Ellie, who were both raised at Pimpollo and have been very close to John for many years. We also got to meet their children- Diego, Alejandro, and two new babies. Despite the number of kids at school, there were an awful lot of little ones running around, and we had a great time on the swings and walking with them and dancing to the radio. Saludos from Luis Carlos, Guadalupe, Dulce, Issac, Juan de Dios, and all the rest!

Guadalupe recently arrived at Pimpollo, but she is a sweetheart and seems to be fitting right in!

Little Luis Carlos is one of the cutest guys I've ever seen, and his friend Jorge is one of the most patient!

After lunch, we went to the Home for the Disabled Children, where Betty takes care of 8 former Pimpollos. This is a relatively new project for us, and seeing it running smoothly and with so much evident love was fantastic. As we drove up, Julie was hiding in the car. We tried to tell the kids that she hadn’t come, but when they peered through the window and saw her, their faces lit up with joy. “Julia, Julia! Mi amiga, Julia!” they called. For the rest of the afternoon, we ate ice cream with them, walked up and down the porch with them, sang songs with them, and drew pictures with them. It was a lovely afternoon of not worrying about Doing anything in particular. We spent our time just Being with them, and it felt great.

Jenny loves to walk up and down the porch at the Home for Disabled Children, and patient Susan walked with her all afternoon!

We had dinner at Casa Isabel, with Kristin Lietz, who has been involved with us for many years. Kristin now runs a home for girls in Juchitan, which has grown over the last six years and currently helps 15 girls to go to school, do service, and grow spiritually and emotionally. We saw the three students that Friends of Pimpollo is sponsoring, who are pictured below. We also had dinner with the rest of the girls and heard about what they are doing. Kristin requires each of her girls to participate in a service project, so in addition to studying Human Rights or Nursing or Information Technology, these girls have created and are running a project using day-old bread from the local store. They take the bread to the railroad tracks and throw it up to the immigrants who are riding the train. They also take it to a Center for Migrant Workers and to the hospital to feed people in the waiting room. The girls were very animated about their project, and it’s clear that Casa Isabel is fostering intelligent young people who are willing to give back to their community. We are proud to support them!

These intelligent young ladies, from middle school or college, are overcoming all kinds of obstacles and living far from home to go to school, and we are so proud of them.

As you can see, we had a very busy Tuesday but a very good one. We’ll have more Pimpollo images for you tomorrow after we spend more time there and have dinner with another recent grad, Araceli. Adios for now!