Alternative Spring Break – students experiencing a different Mexico

by Nana Quainoo

Cuernavaca is a gorgeous city. It has palm trees, eternally blue skies and a magnitude of magnificent colours that make the city bloom.

It isn’t called the city of eternal spring for nothing.

I have many images of the city that remain with me.

But the sight that stays with me the most is not the one that most tourists see.

Most people, even those who live there, never see the scene.

It is the children walking barefoot on broken glass. The poor in Mexico account for nearly 70 per cent of the population yet they remain largely invisible to the country’s wealthy. There is poverty in Canada but the scale of suffering in the south seems that much greater.

Working at La Estacion, the squatter settlement built on the ruins of an old railway station, working along side the people, it’s hard to ignore the poverty and the wealth that lies just beyond its borders. When you step outside of La Estacion you come across a Mega, one of the city’s large grocery stores. The people at La Estacion don’t shop there, they shop at The People’s Market, the outdoor market with local produce that spirals through the centre of the city. It doesn’t have the clean aisles and packaging of the Mega but it makes up for it in colour and vibrancy.

While the children walk barefoot on broken glass it is clear for anyone who bothers to see, that they are well taken care off. They were well fed, happy, playful, and curious like children ought to be.

The families I met at La Estacion inspired me like no other, living their life, facing their struggles with quiet dignity and contentment.

While the volunteer work that we did, helping install a concrete floor is an essential part of alternative spring break. I felt what we achieved with Carleton’s ASB was opening ourselves up to a new way of understanding and a willingness to be taught by other people. We began to make connections between our governments policies here and the effects on people elsewhere.

All too often, I find we are afraid to look past the beautiful exterior and are fearful of learning that does not take place inside the classroom, but when we look deeper, there is more to life than that – and it is beautiful in its own way.

I came away with the understanding that all that separates us is an accident of birth.

Nana Quainoo is a third-year journalism student at Carleton.