The first contingent of the project team – 32 persons – arrived at the Mexico City airport on Saturday, March 8, at about 12:20 PM, right on time.
Rubén, Marco and I were keeping watch from the bar of Wings Restaurant; we had driven from Xicotepec to the Mexico City airport in the morning and had been in phone contact with the bus driver who was to take the group from Mexico City to Xicotepec. There was some confusion about where he could park his bus for loading and also about who would pay for vans to shuttle people back and forth from the airport to the loading location if it were determined that the loading would have to take place off-site.
Yet again, I was grateful for Rotarian partners in Mexico who know how to navigate the waters of a formidable bureaucracy; Marco consulted with a policía federal, who directed him to an office, where he was informed that the loading could be done on-site with a permit that can be secured on the spot.
As the permit was being obtained, the project team made it through customs, losing only an apple to the fine-toothed comb of the aduana mexicana, despite all the red lights, X-rays and probing questions.
After giving the group 45 minutes to eat, buy phone cards and change money, everyone schlepped their luggage up the ramp to the bus, got on and headed to Xicotepec, leaving Rubén and me behind to meet Jenny Schmidt and the Loziers, who were the next to arrive. We all left the airport about two hours behind the rest of the project team.
By seven or so, all the Saturday arrivals had made it to the Cruz Azul in Xicotepec, and everyone was tired. Most of the team had gotten up between 4 and 5 AM to make the 6:30 AM flight, but some, like the three high school students from Corning, had been up all the previous night.
The next morning was sunny and warm. Sunday is one of two market days in Xicotepec (the other is Thursday), making the center of town lively, crowded, with lots of different smells. I escorted a few students to the tianguis and left them to look around.
The five pharmacy students from the BUAP arrived around 12:30; la comida was served at the Cruz Azul, and by 2:30 or so the “organizing” to go to the Casa Hogar Victoria began. This was a process of boarding the bus, discovering that there were not enough seats for everyone, at which point everyone under 20 – plus Tom Narak, who never misses a chance to be in the middle of a crowd of students of any description – got off and piled into the back of pick-ups belonging to Rotarians for the 30-minute ride to the orphanage. The last ones onto the bus were the De-worming team, who had been feverishly organizing their equipment and materials, getting ready to administer the first doses of albendazole to the children at the Casa Hogar Victoria. There were several Xicotepec Rotarians and their children who accompanied the rest of the group.
The first item of business was to distribute shoes to every child at the orphanage. Xicotepec Rotarian Jaime Wurts had compiled all the necessary information and shopped for a new pair of shoes for each child. The funding for the purchase came from the Jefferson Rotary Club and from Nancy and Jeff Stroburg (who are from Jefferson and are the adoptive parents of Araceli, an 11-year girl who used to live at the orphanage; Nancy is a member of the Jefferson Rotary Club). Many members of the Iowa project team helped distribute the shoes and had their pictures taken with the children who received them.
Next, it was time for the De-worming Team’s “dress rehearsal.” The U of Iowa and BUAP Pharmacy students set up their operation in the chapel with help from professors Seaba and Catney. For each child, the team carefully recorded his/her name, birth date, weight and height and checked the condition of his/her teeth. The newly-implemented step of checking teeth was after learning in March 2007 that children with serious dental caries – and there are many like this in Xicotepec – are not able to chew up the de-worming tablets without considerable discomfort. Children who fell into this category were given ground tablets mixed with yogurt or tablets pre-broken into pieces that were easier to chew.
After all the children had been treated for worms, the staff was offered the medicine; most accepted, and their names were recorded.
Other members of the project team had brought along jump ropes, soccer balls, school supplies and other gifts for the children of Casa Hogar Victoria. These were also distributed and there was some time to play together.
After deteriorating for several years, conditions at the orphanage have improved a great deal in the past six months and are now the best they have been since the beginning of the Xicotepec Project in 2002. Steve Beatty and his wife Elizabeth are the new administrators who arrived in September and immediately began to address the many issues that had caused the Xicotepec Rotary Club to move all of its Casa Hogar Victoria projects to the back burner. The building and grounds are now clean and in good repair; the children are happy and well-fed; the staff is engaged and hard at work.
For the ride back from the orphanage, it was around 4:30 or 5:00 when everyone got back in the bus or in the pick-up in which he/she arrived . As we passed through Xicotepec on the federal highway, I had the bus driver stop to let me off at the public bus station, where Anita, Matt, Josh, Michael P, Georgia, Emily, Paula, Melanie and Imani had just arrived from Mexico City. We exchanged greetings and introductions and headed on foot for the Blue Cross, just a few blocks away. The only members of the project team yet to arrive were Priyanka and Amit, who were coming the following day, Monday.
La cena, as usual, was a simple affair.
It had been a delightful, busy and productive Sunday; the week’s work was to begin in earnest the next morning.
