Day 7 - Our Last Work Day

From Christian Smith -

Our last day! I cannot believe that our week in Oaxaca is already at an end after working, eating, worshipping, and laughing with the Oaxacan students at Casa Margarita. At 8:00, we awoke once again to a muy delicioso breakfast, cooked and served entirely by the students, which would fuel us for one more day of hard work. After all of the dishes were cleaned, we jumped straight into work – literally, we jumped into the ditches and continued to dig the foundations for a basketball court and a traditional Mexican dancing area. Throughout the day, many more deep holes were dug into the modeling clay-like dirt and more HEAVY cement posts were formed in order to surround the property with a fence. A man from Michigan named Bob, along with the help of his close friends Stan and Yolanda, designed and constructed a chicken coop in order to eventually provide the students at Casa Margarita with eggs. It came along quite well, as did everything else. For about an hour, I worked alone with a few of the Mexican students who were working the ditch-digging shift; it was quite enjoyable working alongside them, trying to overcome the language barrier in order to have conversations with them while getting copious amounts of work done at the same time! All of them were very eager to learn a little English and to hear about the place where I come from. In the late afternoon, we finally completed our week’s task and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Our team walked a mile or so with Lupe (LOO-pay) to get a couple treats including a much-desired Coke (Ahhhhhh!). In the evening, we had our final meeting with Señor Cruz and spent several final hours laughing and playing (some even crying) with the students. Every student gave a big hug to every member of the team, and we headed up stairs to pack and get some sleep for our big day of travel.

It was such a blessing to go on this trip. Yes, it was exhausting – in the words of John Seligson, “I wish I could work as fast as my heart is beating!” – But it was fulfilling and so very productive, and I would have loved to stay longer. We worked with some wonderful people from St. Paul’s, serving and hopefully changing the lives of some outstanding high schoolers from Oaxaca, Mexico. When the opportunity arises, I will return to this place in a heartbeat.