Esperanza Part II

Tijuana is a wonderful place. Period. Over my past two trips with Esperanza, it has not taken much for me to learn this. My name is Chelsea Amis and I am a senior at The College of Wooster. I went on this trip last year and did not second guess my decision to come again.With it being my senior year at Wooster, I completed my own Independent Study that is due at the end of Spring Break. I used Tijuana as my motivator to get I.S. done before I embarked on this journey, which I succeeded in doing, #39 in my class!

From last year to this year, I feel that not much has change: the landscape, the people, and my opinions of Mexico. I still think that Tijuana is beautiful in its own way, the people have big hearts, and that the ways in which the media portray this area are false. What I have been able to do this year is look even deeper into the culture of Mexico and think more critically about this place. This week that has mostly been focused on infrastructure. When driving around, I can't help but think about the inner workings of mail, maps, addresses, and how individuals get what they need. My partners on the trip can contest that I have questioned how the mail works in Mexico about three times a day. With the rollings hills, lack of house numbers, and lack of street names, I just cannot understand how people get mail! According to Alex, the long term volunteer, mail is just not really a thing here. But then I ask, how do people get their bills? Or pay them? Most everyone would atleast have an electric and water bill. What I can guess is that possibly there is a central location where people go to pay these kinds of bills. I can imagine that the little bit of social services that Mexico may try to implement is more easily lost in the shuffle because of this lack of infrastructure. Ugh, I just get exhausted thinking about it! We utilize these services on a daily basis at home and it is not something that we easily question. As the week goes by, I hope to continue to ask myself these critical questions and think about how the basic services that exist in the United States are not so easily transferred, or are not actually necessary, to all individuals around the world.