After landing in San Diego, we took a bus and a tram to get to Tijuana… where we walk over a bridge into Mexico. No passport check, no ID, nothing.

This wasn’t going to be the traditional spring break, this was more of a service trip to build houses through Habitat for Humanity.

Every morning we would line up waiting for the trucks to come pick us up and take us to the houses we’d be helping with. We’d all pile into the bed of the pickup trick and off we’d go.

We worked our butts off all day and the families would feed us. That was all they were asked to do in exchange for the homes being built, feed the workers.

The second home we went to finish up with a woman with five children. The house we were building was maybe 10’ wide and 20’ long. That was her entire house.

We went to an orphanage to play with the kids there. Pushing them on bikes, chasing them around, drawing with chalk. Some of the little ones jumped on our backs and we ran around the playground. Little giggles yelling ‘RAPIDO, RAPIDO!”

We had a day off to do some sightseeing. We had one stop off on a cliff overlooking the ocean. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the ocean where it was just rocks to the edge like this, no sand below, it was really cool!

We were able to take a boat ride and we saw seals and dolphins. It was beautiful.

Thursday night they took us to the boarder and Edwardo talked to us about what it’s like living here, and how his people and his culture survive day to day. He talked about the family he has in the United States who want him to come visit but he isn’t allowed. He talked about how he wished Mexico could fix their internal problems to make it so that people wouldn’t want to leave. It’s a third world country and it is losing it’s strongest and hardest working people every day and it only continues to hurt Mexico. The average worker makes $6 a day. There’s a wall there that extends eerily far into the ocean to separate US from Mexico. “If you could see, physically, the city that could offer you a better life, wouldn’t you try to go too?”