The San Andres Community
How The Thought of Tarahumara Indians Changed My Mind.
Fifteen years ago, I was living in Parral, Chih., Mexico. One day I was in my father’s grocery store when a Tarahumara Indian woman came in. She was carrying a beautiful child that captured my attention. I asked her name and where she lived. She said her name was Elvia and she told me that they lived in the garbage dump. I could not believe it because I thought nobody could live there. During the rest of the day, I kept thinking about Elvia, and the next morning I went to find out where the garbage dump was. It was told it was on the outskirts of Parral and when I got there, I did not understand how someone could live there. I asked for Elvia and when I saw her “house,” I felt a huge sadness come over me.
After I knocked on the door, Elvia appeared with her daughter in her arms. Her house was very poor; there was only one room, but it was very clean. She told me about the work of the twelve families that lived there who collected recycling materials. I also found out that they could neither read nor write. I asked her what she needed most and she told me, “Nothing, we have everything that we need.”
When I left the dump, I understood I had a mission in my life. I talked with my mother and my sister Elizabeth about these people and we began to go there regularly to teach those families to read and write. We went three times a week and formed two groups, one group of adults and another of children. Quickly we began to obtain good results. All the Indians were very happy because they were acquiring knowledge they did not have before. I especially remember that Elvia was very excited when she learned the names of the colors and her favorite, which was red.
One day I received a call from Mr. Aguilera, a wealthy miner. He told me that he knew of the job that we were doing and he offered his help. We received money from him and with this money we built two classrooms and one court for sports. But we were not satisfied with this; we wanted to move these people out of the garbage dump.
We looked for help from the government and they gave us some land for all these families far away from the dump. This was not an easy achievement and I was very proud of this. The Tarahumaras were moved out of the garbage dump and into government housing built with cement block instead or fiberboard. They also built a school, another court for sports, a church, a grocery store, and an events room.
During the time that I was working with those people, understood that even though they did not have a lot of material things, they possessed other important things such as faith, comradeship, and a detachment of material things and for time. One of the most surprising things for me was that they always had a smile on their faces and a blessing for us. The Tarahumaras have been a good lesson for me and they have helped me to see life differently.
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