The Beginnings
My origin story of traveling in Mexico; I wrote this as a facebook post ages ago and just found it. In 2000 I was a brand-new teacher and wanted to volunteer somewhere in the summer. I called my college pastor who was well connected and said I wanted to volunteer somewhere, I sort of spoke Spanish, and I didn’t want to do something where you volunteer and never see them again but where I could develop a relationship. Very idealistic, but I was barely 25. He connected me to a friend who found a friend who knew of two orphanages in Mexico that could use a teacher to help in the summer. Did I want to go to the one run by Mexicans or Americans? So I ended up flying to south Texas in July (that is a terrible idea) and meeting someone I didn’t know who drove me across the border to Reynosa, Mexico to go to an orphanage. Reynosa is not a tourist spot, to put it mildly. If you’ve heard of it, it’s because of drug violence. It’s very industrial and the climate is... well, it’s basically South ...