Check out the News section to see what's happening in NSO
My heart has been scared for life, and I am glad that some how my soul was broken down this past week. I will always remember. GO MEXICO!
- Yehudy F. Lassi
Coming to Tijuana has changed my perspective on people and their communities. In the U.S everyone goes on living for oneself, we go on complaining about the small things, when really we have no clue what a hard life is. We take everything for granted: the water we drink, the roads we drive on, the opportunities we have, and even our own human rights. In Tijuana the people take their fate into their own hands and work together to better their communities. It touches my heart to see the families of Tijuana come to together while living among the rubble, the trash, and the pollution, and still being able to be so generous and open armed to us. I will never be the same and I have Los Ninos and the families of the communities to thank. I hope to share my experiences with others so in return I may do the same to them as they did to me.
- Kristen Levy
Little pretty things surround you. Can you turn away now? Small and smiling as the shadow starts lifting from above them. They softly tug at the tails of your shirt, whispering one word that expresses all their longing. Jugar. Play. We just want to play. To run around until our lungs start aching and our legs start burning and our heads start spinning and, for a moment, we sigh with the greatest honesty we’ve ever known because, for an instant, we’ve forgotten where we are and why we’re here. Play with us. Just play with us. Can you turn away now?
- Bruce Millard
The language barrier made it hard to communicate with most of the people and the children. However they still tried to communicate back to us. Especially the children, even though they couldn't understand us and we couldn't understand them, they still played with us and taught us how to play their games. They still took a liking to us and showed us a happier side of themselves. I loved to interact with them. For instance, on the last day of work the children played on the sand pile. So I taught them how to build castles in the sand. Even though I couldn't understand them or likewise, I still played WITH THEM.
- Michael H. Hamill, Culinary Arts Class of 2010
Nothing could have prepared sixteen college students for the journey they were about to embark in: adventuring to Mexico for not the typical spring break. Attending a Mexican orphanage where the life and energy was nothing but contagious. Where the orphans captured each and every one of our hearts and simply made us want to bring them home to the United States. Where a simple soccer (football) game united two cultures into one. We learned to work together as a team building side walks and a playground for school children where we learned the true meaning of a community.
- Kaitlin S. Leonard
A few weeks ago I was visiting a local artists studio, his name was Thomas Deininger. He has a different view on life, and on what “beauty” is. This man takes trash he finds on streets, and all over the place puts them together and turns them into amazingly beautiful artwork. If you look at it from the wrong angle or too close, you won’t see it, you see all the trash. Tijuana is like a real life version of his artwork. The houses are made of garage doors, sheets, plywood, billboards, signs, milk cartons, stairs made of tires, and tires holding down tarps which are used as roofs. From a distance, and different angles, Tijuana is one of the most beautiful places on earth and it has so much potential to be beautiful from all angles.
- Anonymous
I never knew what I was going to face when I boarded the plane to Mexico. When we arrived, Tijuana did not seem as bad as everyone had told me it would be. What shocked me the most about the trip was the condition of the homes the children of the schools has to live in and also the condition of the village the factory workers lived in. Still thinking about those homes brings tears to my eyes and breaks my heart. I want, with every ounce of my being, to help better the lives of those individuals and all the people of Mexico. Before going on the trip I believed that I have a tough life in the United States with having to work, go to school, and with the other stresses that I have to deal with, but now I look at their lives and see that I have it easy. They do not complain about their lives or the conditions that they live in. Many of them are happy just to have a roof over their heads and a place to raise their children, but the conditions they are raising their children in are unhealthy and heartbreaking. If I have another chance to come back to Tijuana and help those people once more, I will not hesitate to jump on the plane and come back for another week. The people of Tijuana, Mexico need as much help as they can get and will always have my help until the end of time.
- Elizabeth Cockrell
G.O. Mexico was an all-around learning experience, in a combination of hands-on fun and significant reflection. We witnessed a world many choose to ignore. Here we joined hands with young girls at an orphanage, “futbol” and jump romping local students, parents in the community and were touched by many more. Some of the sites were beautiful such as the beaches, museums, and colorful artwork around the town. Others were extremely profound and even disturbing. We saw peoples’ homes that went on for miles, made of what many of us would consider garbage. These houses were constructed from sections of wood, tires, tarps, even a full-sized billboard used as a roof. We visited a community even worse off in which residents lived with no utilities (running water, electricity, or sewage) and a contaminated creek/river carrying waste from factories runs past their houses. Lastly the border that extends over mountains, miles of land and into the ocean and represents so much negative tension and emotion and is scarred by the thousands that try escape past the wall ever year. However, despite their struggles and many life obstacles these people are some of the most welcoming, polite and generous individuals you will ever meet. These people are happy for what they have and grateful for and to the ones they love. They are as equally happy to bring you into their community family despite no real biological relationship. A “buenas tardes”, “hola”, “gracias” is never forced, it is wished upon you naturally by nearly every passerby. What we have learned in Mexico is that it is a culture that admires the United States but it is the United States that should be in admiration of Mexico. The United States needs to reflect on the currency of deep relationships with family, friends, and community rather than just cash and material wealth. Tijuana is nothing like the one you see on TV or in the movies. The G.O. Mexico trip has opened our eyes to what it really is and although the trip lasted only a week it is hoped that our memories and message will extend and have an impact for years to come.
- Anonymous
“Siempre Recordare.” There is something to say about a place that when you look at it, all you see is beauty. Even underneath all the trouble, trash, and poverty. No, where in the United States could be so pretty. It makes you feel welcome and want to stay. While going to the different places on the trip it made you see things so differently. Everyday that went by my heart grew bigger and not just with sites of sadness and wanting to help, but of laughter, smiles, gratitude, and the sound of fun all the people showed. No matter what there were smiles. One thing I will never forget is how much I learned. No one will take that away from me. I have no poem or one certain thing that will help me remember, but I have pictures and I will remember the people forever and not just the people of Mexico, but also the people that also came for this experience will always be in my heart. “Siempre Recordare.”
- Anonymous
This trip in general opened my eyes to a world where mud, disease, and poor body care exist every day. Not being able to make enough money to survive and eat, always living on the streets. I thought the homeless back home had it bad but the people here live in these conditions 24/7. The day that we spent at the orphanage opened my eye's that the whole world does not have it as good as we (Americans) have. When the kids at the orphanage started to grab some of us and took them outside to play showed that even though they are living a hard life people like us make their day. Then when we played soccer with the first school that we worked at was fun and enjoyable. To see their faces seeing that they were having fun and everyone was getting along was amazing. Times like these I wish the whole world could see how bad the living conditions are and how easy their lives are. I believe that if there were more organizations like Los Ninos, third world countries would start to fade away. Going to Mexico was one of my good choices and in the future if given another chance I would go again.
- Anonymous
When I saw how happy the children at the orphanage were to see us, I knew they must have hard lives. Having no one to play with means we are a breath of fresh air to them. I wish it were possible to adopt one, later in my life, as do most of the students on our trip. As happy as they are to see us, shows how sad they are when we were not there.
-Jason Popp
Assorted Poems from Mexico
By Johannette Koller
Tijuana
Tijuana is a city of dreams,
A city full of masks.
Dreams of hope and escape,
Masks hiding our pains and fate.
Dreams of which are still to come,
But most of which are lost.
Look at the sky in TJ and be mesmerized by its beauty.
Look at the ground in TJ and realize the filth and scrum in which we all stand.
But standing in the scum together with dreams of hope in our eyes we work to find a better TJ
One to match the ground and sky.
Dreams in the Wires
Desert, Desert you call my name
You tell me I’ll be okay.
I know I’ll make it through if you say it’s okay.
But the fence, that fence,
It holds me back.
Keeping me at bay.
Holding back my dreams of new life
Or of a better day
It’s not fair, not fair at all.
That they control my fate.
The twisted wires of the fence
They give me little chance to make something for myself
Yet one day I know it will come down.
That fence, the one who holds my dreams in its wires.
And I’ll make it to a better place
One for you and me.
Dreams in the Wires: Answer
Be careful my new friend
If you try to cross
There are perils in that desert of yours.
Think of your family and your loved ones.
What would they all say?
Look hard once more at the crosses on the fence.
Read each name and think about their lost dreams.
Remember, always…
The desert is the keeper of bodies and dreams still unknown.
Don’t become another statistic
Just another failed dream.