The bus and van pulled up in front of the small, adobe church, and we were immediately surrounded by a horde of Spanish- speaking children anxious to see who and what the two vehicles contained. The 25 Explorer Scouts, two 18-year-old women and nine leaders gingerly stepped out onto the dusty Mexican soil and nervously glanced around at the town that was going to be their home for the next six days. As one of the group commented some days later, "It was like stepping back in time 150 years."
The trip to Canada de la Muerte (which means "The Gulch of Death"), a poor, unassuming town that reminded me of a movie set out of an old Clint Eastwood western, really had begun eight months earlier in North Salt Lake. Billy Jackson and John Berven, Explorer leaders of Post 9770, were tired of the same old summer camps. Lake Powell, fishing, camping, etc., were all fun and the young men enjoyed them, but they wanted to do something that would not only help the Explorers but help someone else as well.The inspiration for the trip came from an Explorer post in American Fork that had gone several years earlier to a small island high in the Andes Mountains and built a schoolhouse for the people there. The group had gone under the auspices of an organization called CHOICE (Center for Humanitarian Outreach and Inter-Cultural Exchange) founded by a Salt Lake City dentist, Dr. Tim Evans, who, coincidentally, used to live in the same neighborhood as Jackson and Berven.
CHOICE sends expeditions to villages in Third World countries that need the basics of life to survive. Their mission is to improve people's lives through active, enduring humanitarian service. The participants discover that as they work alongside the village people to help them make their lives better, they end up enriching their own lives even more. "It was the perfect idea," said Berven. "We had a chance to let these boys do something they had never done in their lives and in the process do some real good for some real people that badly needed some help."
Evans had the ideal spot, a town located in almost the exact middle of Mexico that needed a granary to grind corn and a well to provide potable water for the people to drink. So, like Eastwood in one of his movies, the two Explorer leaders jumped headlong into the task of getting Post 9770 to Mexico where, unlike a typical Eastwood movie, they could build up a town instead of destroying one.
The biggest obstacle was money. Each boy could only pay the cost of a traditional summer camp, but an extensive corporate donor plan eventually proved successful, although the final donations were still coming in the night before we were to get on the plane.
"The trip wouldn't have been possible without the generous contributions from many corporations and individuals," said Jackson. "I have a deep feeling that this was money well spent as we witnessed the great growth of both the villagers and the Explorer Scouts."
The fund-raising, shots and travel arrangements became almost a full-time job for the people involved. But that was all behind us now, and ahead was what we had sought for the last eight months. The dream had finally become a reality.
The reality of the situation came early the next morning when we were awakened by a chorus of roosters and a quartet of braying burros. This was to be our natural wakeup call for the next six mornings. The only problem was the animal alarm clock went off when the first hint of dawn appeared in the eastern Mexican sky, usually about 5:30 a.m.
The initial fears when we first glimpsed Canada de la Muerte from the bus vanished quickly; the village children had seen to that. It is amazing how easily children can bridge the gap between two cultures.
"I think the children were the best part," said 18-year-old Jeff Frazier. "They were loving and caring and fun to be around, and despite the fact they were poor and some were not very healthy, they were fun to be around because they were so playful."
The people of Canada de la Muerte spoke almost no English, and only three of our party were conversant enough in Spanish to communicate with them. For the boys and the children, it was a problem that seemed to be easily overcome. For some of us adults, the language barrier proved much tougher. Jared Jackson, 18, summed up the feelings of most of the boys about the communication problem. "It was great to work with the people and try and talk to them," said Jared. "It was hard at first, but it got easier as the week went along."
Each day was spent working on the projects. A very progressive man named Arturo was the local villager in charge of the work assignments, and under his direction we worked toward the goal of finishing the granary and digging out the well.
The boys soon learned that something that would have been fairly easy in Utah became a much bigger project without modern conveniences. Cement is a major building substance for these people. It is used in almost every part of a building from the roof to the walls, to the floor. Mixing concrete is much more complicated than calling your local cement truck to deliver the required number of yards.
In Canada de la Muerte, cement is mixed on the ground. Sand, a vital part of concrete, is brought from the riverbed on the backs of burros and then sifted through a screen to strain out the rocks. Water must be transported to the mixing site by bucket or burro. The "burro brigade" was one of the favorite assignments as the boys would haul gunnysacks full of sand from the riverbed to the building site and then ride the burros back for more.
The sight of a 6-foot-4 18-year-old sitting on a donkey, his feet dragging on the ground, is not the usual picture you get of these tough, little animals that are a vital part of the village culture.
It was a great learning experience for the boys to learn the personalities of these temperamental creatures. "They are the most stubborn animals I have ever seen in my life," said an exasperated 18-year-old Matt Evans. "They have two speeds: stop and slow."
While burros were available to do much of the heavy work on the building, such was not the case for the well. Manpower and ropes were used to haul buckets of well muck up 40 feet from the bottom of the 500-year-old well.
The goal of the well crew was to dig down to an aquifer fed from a nearby river that would fill the well with fresh water during the rainy season Hauling a bucket full of 60 pounds of muck and rocks straight up is not easy, but five days and 3,000 buckets later the aquifer was reached and the well was ready to fill as soon as the rains came. "It was one of the hardest jobs I've ever done in my life," commented Jon Woodbury, 18.
"After hauling up 15 feet of water and 15 feet of dirt, we were exhausted, but it was definitely worth it."
One of the biggest questions the boys had before we went was, "What will we eat?" Everyone knew you couldn't drink the water, but they were concerned about the food. Their concerns proved to be unfounded, as the food in the village turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. CHOICE representatives brought in fresh food and bottled water every day, and the village women cooked it.
Fresh meat and vegetables, along with the village staples of hand-made corn tortillas (ground with a rock), beans and rice made every meal an adventure in down-home Mexican eating. Fresh guacamole and salsa along with various kinds of tacos and enchiladas whetted our appetites and made us look forward to every meal.
Unknown foods such as cooked cactus (they scrape off the spines before they cook it), various kinds of stew-like dishes and a breakfast sandwich made up of avocado, tomato, onion, ham and japapeno on a hard roll were different but very tasty.
About 10 village women spent 12 hours every day cooking our three meals. A small two-burner butane stove and a lid from a 50-gallon drum used over an open fire were all they had to cook on, but it's doubtful that food prepared in any ultra-modern kitchen in the States would have tasted any better.
"Every meal was great, and it gave you a feel for real Mexican food," said 17-year-old Scot Woodbury. "I could have done without the goat cheese, though."
The average family in Canada de la Muerte has eight to 10 children, so the time commitment for the village women to fix our food was a big sacrifice away from much-needed duties for their families. The women were so happy that we were there to build the granary and dig out the well that spending all day fixing food was inconsequential. For the 35 people who spent that time in Canada de la Muerte, however, the experience was anything but inconsequential.
The degree to which this experience affected us was summed up when we left. Tears flowed freely between both groups, and we left behind a good deal of the items we brought such as clothes, sleeping bags, tools, cots and anything else the people could use.
As one of the Explorers said when he left his Nintendo Gameboy to one small, dark-haired boy, "He needs it a lot more than I do."