Casa YMCA – Tijuana

(Originally posted July 2008)

Dear Friends and Family,

It’s been a year but now that I’ve been back in Mexico with new adventures, I think it’s time for an encore of the weekly update. I’ve been in Mexico for about a week at the Casa YMCA de Menores Migrantes. From the staircase of the Casa in Tijuana, Mexico, I can see the hills of San Diego, California. Although sunny California seems so close, it is very out of reach for most people here in Tijuana.

At the Casa, I’ve been helping out with cooking, cleaning and spending time with the migrant youth. I’ve been assisting the social worker with documenting all the kids that pass through the YMCA, answering the phone and picking the kids up at the border.

The Casa has been busy busy busy, receiving five to ten kids a day. They’re coming from Puebla, Edo de. Mexico, Michoacan, Jalisco and elsewhere in Mexico. Many are attempting to cross the border to reunite with family in the United States; other are looking for work and a few are hoping to study in the school system. They’ve attempted to cross through the Port of Entry with false documents and in cars. Others have spent hours, even days crossing the border through the desert and mountains. The Casa provides a safe place for the youth until they can be reunited with family.

This week I’ve been helping Uriel with a special group of youth from the YMCA in Mexico City. Seven young adults (ages 15-20) have come to the Casas YMCA to do volunteer service and learn about the border. Four are here with me in Tijuana and three traveled with their leader to the Casa YMCA in Agua Prieta, Sonora (across the border from Douglas, Arizona). It has been an interesting process to teach these kids from the Mexican upper class about the inequality in their own country through interacting with kids their own age. After a few days of orientation and (and the standard tour of the border and other migrant houses in Tijuana), they are now participating in a week of service. It’s been challenging getting them to turn off their cell phones and open themselves to the reality that their peers face. Their service project includes painting the whole outside and inside of the Casa YMCA…we started by teaching them to wash their own dishes.