Getting and giving back

Heidi Englade lives in Rio Rancho, N.M., a suburb of Albuquerque, where she retired after 40 years of teaching. She can be contacted at henglade@yahoo.com, Heidi (Molsbee) Englade, 3228 Renaissance, Rio Rancho, NM 87124 [Click to enlarge]

Through a very long string of events dating back to 1972 when I adopted a baby in Mexico City , I have always had an interest in orphanages in Mexico. Newly retired and visiting Mazatlan, Mexico, last summer, I spotted a short story in the local newspaper about a woman and her husband from Oregon who head up an organization called Tres Isles Orphanage Fund. The organization sponsors a work week of volunteers at orphanages in Mazatlan in the spring. All year long they pay for food, clothes, school supplies, uniforms and repairs for the five orphanages of Mazatlan.

Reality: Their budget for food for one home for 35 children per week is $137. My interest flourished when I learned that not one penny of the donations received goes to salaries for anyone--not now-not ever.

I immediately tossed my name in for the work week and began to talk it up at home. My husband's response, when asked if he wanted to participate with me, was "think I'll pass." Painting, scrubbing, repairing and landscaping with kids underfoot --how could he not see this as a vacation? When coupled with the idea of making it a "girls" week, two close friends from Albuquerque and one from Chicago jumped on board. I worried for months that they too would decide to "pass." Just as our plans were taking form, the Mexico drug violence/cartel news hit the newspapers. My step daughter, an assistant federal attorney, called to say"you really aren't going are you?" My friends had similar calls from concerned friends and family but they hung in there. Then there was that flu thing--but that hit after we were already there and no one was going to coax us home.

Tom and Donelle Manton, the helm of the organization, made a mad dash around Mazatlan every morning to pick up the group of some 40 volunteers. True to form -- cardinal directions have always been a mystery to me -- I had the 4 of us in the wrong appointed place at the wrong time. My Chicago friend took this to heart as not a good start, but I assured her that in Mexico things just seem to work out. They did. A short time later were picked up in a vintage VW bus by Donelle. Tom was close behind driving a small bus packed with the folks who were in the right place at the right time.

The routine was to arrive at an orphanage around 9 a.m. where we were met by the caretakers of that particular home. One day per year this bus pulls up to stage a rather poor version of the popular TV show Extreme Makeover! The excitement of the caretakers and the children brought tears to most of us. Tom would read off a list of 4 or 5 projects for the day and everyone would simply migrate to what interested them. Talent and skill were not important -- attitude and effort were. If you became tired or bored with your task, it was easy to wander over to another group and begin again.

Most projects involved painting (great Mexican colors), assembling miles of shelving to hold supply donations from locals, planting flowers or scrubs in barren hardpan. Luckily we had a 13 year old boy in the group who traveled with his parents who could swing a pickaxe for hours on end. After lunch there was always a fun interaction with the kids: kite flying with new kites we brought to replace the black trash bag kites they had used; ice cream treats; baseball games ; and assembling new mattresses with new sheets with your hand held by a child.

At the end of the day, around 3 or 4 o'clock, we would schlep through the lobby of the upscale hotel where we were staying -- 4 tired, dirty, sunburned seniors. Not the usual crowd. Each evening discussions would surface as to whether one or more of us could make it the next day. By morning we were all out the door! None of us felt we could miss the next orphanage and the next set of projects and the next kids.

The last day the four of us trekked to a large community kitchen and helped assemble 250 small lunches and board a bus to travel to the local dump. Mazatlan is a large city (700K metro area) and the dump is the highest mountain of trash that I have ever seen upclose and personal. It is one of those things you have to see to believe: families do indeed eek out an existence living in the trash. As you can guess, the bus was swarmed by people because it was Thursday and lunch comes on Thursday. Drop in the proverbial bucket indeed.

Too much reality.

-- Heidi Englade is a McCook High School graduate with the class of 1965. Her family, the Molsbees, lived in McCook for more than 35 years.