Chacala from the South end of the Beach

Chacala

In February 2002 we arrived in a small village in Mexico. We had been told about this village by a friend who talked of the involvement of people like ourselves in the school and houses in the village. A program called Techos de Mexico, a building program, started by a Mexican architect in the town, was one of these projects. The idea was to help finance the building of rental accommodations on the roof (techo) of the houses and these would be rented out to tourists. The program is a great success, many of the women in the village took out loans to finish their houses, visitors and locals provide the labour and some extras. When they have paid off their loan another family is given the opportunity to build onto their home.

Another very successful program, Cambianda Vidas, a scholarship program created by a group of hard working women, both from the village and North America, has become an international success. They have had their first university graduates this year with many more students ready to attend university and secondary school.

The town is named Chacala, a town of 300 people, which increases to 1,000 people in tourist season. It is on the west coast of Mexico about an hour and a half north of Puerto Vallarta. We had been looking for a place to build a retirement home and this little town had everything we were looking for. It is a small, beautiful and quiet town, with the most glorious beach. There are very few tourist attractions, no night clubs, video rooms and no westernized entertainment and finding coffee is a big challenge. We met and talked with local people and local residents from the U.S. and Canada and decided to stay.

We bought a lot and built our retirement home. It is a small (to us) two bedroomed house, with a partial view of the ocean. The building process was both challenging and exciting. See our blog at casachacala.blogspot.com. We had the help of a local woman who supervised and managed the contractor when we were not there. This worked out very well. Luckily we had no major problems, sometimes we would arrive to see something different from what we had expected, but usually it was OK and worked well with the surroundings and structure.

So now what? Our house is finished. We have had a number of visitors and friends to warm our house; we had hoped to fit in with the programs already in progress but they seemed to be moving along quite well without us. So I went down to the local primary school and asked if they would like me to give an art class once a week. The enthusiastic answer was YES! The photographs in the photo gallery are the result of that first year.

This school has an after school program that is run by a teacher named Isaak, a young man who is dedicated to these children. After two classes in Chacala he asked me if I would like to go to his other school, the one he teaches at in the morning. So off we went to a much bigger and poorer country school. The children of Las Palmas were so welcoming, performing dances and marches for us. Asking lots of questions and practicing their English. I decided to go back there the next week and teach a painting class for them.

I loaded up all the rest of my school supplies and paint with no idea what I was going to do with 30 children in a class room. I had been able to find large sheets of white cardboard in a town nearby. You can see the results in the Las Palmas photo gallery.

From this first day I was hooked, I have taken several visitors out to the school and they are as impacted as I am. These children have little in the way of supplies. They work in a cement floored school room with little in the way of stimulation. No books, except for one exercise book, which covers all their subjects. No writing materials and obviously no art supplies. But these children are happy, they are a joy to be around.

One of the women in Chacala who runs the Cambiado Vidas program in Chacala (look them up at chacala.org) has helped put together a small library for the Las Palmas school and last time we were there we donated a computer for the library. We are hoping to get an organization, such as Rotary, to help with some sort of project – the Mexican government has a program that supplies internet and on line classes for schools, we would like to be involved in implementing this program.

Isaak says he would like the children to have a lunch room, from what I can tell the local mothers and families provide lunch for the children everyday, but they have nowhere to sit to eat and wash their hands. We hope to raise enough money to tile the floor and build tables, picnic style, for them this year and if possible buy a sink and microwave. We are looking for donations and will keep you posted when we have this set up.