Lives Without Hope

My wife Chris and I discovered Celestun, Yucatan, Mexico about 8 years ago. It is a beautiful, culturally rich, small fishing village, within a protected biosphere reserve.

It was shocking to us to discover that regardless of the fishing and tourism opportunities, many families live hopeless lives in abject poverty, on top of heaps of garbage, in tin shacks without a roof,no bathroom and cooking over open fires. We were embarrased by our comparably wealthy and healthy lifestyle and determined to find a way to help.

In our search, we met Isaura Rojano Gallegos and Addy Marlene Trejo Basulto, the President and Secretary of the non-profit organization Tixkuncheil Presente, A.C.

Together, for the past five years, with hardly any funding, they have been able to gradually make a real difference for a small number of families through counselling, English classes, community activities and self-esteem workshops. And there are dozens of families here that desperately need their help.

Their dream is to create a Lifeskills Training Centre and fund ongoing services to the children, single mothers and families in need in Celestun. My goal is to help them make this dream a reality.



Recently, I visited some local families that Addy and Isa have been helping. Our first visit took us along the narrow, rough track that serves as a road to the dump. It follows along the edge of the waterway that is a marina for the local fishing boats. It is incredibly polluted and derelicts and drunks lay around the area, some seeking shade under tin and cardboard shelters. It is definitely NOT anyplace that I would walk on my own and certainly never visit at night. This is where I met three girls living with their grandmother and her fisherman husband.

Laura (12), Maria (15), Reyna (7) and their grandmother Isabelle

Isabelle preparing supper over a wood fire

Isabelle cooks all of their meals in a small, dented pot over an open fire.  Her husband is a fisherman who often brings home little or no money these days.  Fishing is poor lately, the area heavily over-fished, and the cost of renting the boat and gas keeps going up.

The hopeless situation is one that in many households can lead to abuse and domestic violence.  The girls father left two years ago.  Their mother moved away to live in another city two months ago, leaving the girls in the care of their grandmother, Isabelle.  She tells me she has a heart condition and hasn't got the energy to take care of the girls.  Plus she says they are getting more rebellious and too much to handle.  Seven year-old Reyna ran away last week, looking for her father.  Luckily they found her within a day and brought her home safely. Around here, she could have disappeared forever, almost anything imaginable could have happened to her.

7 year old Reyna misses her parents

12 year-old Laura is bored and rebelious

Isabelle has no energy, with her heart condition

Isabelle tells us that the girls mother is now with a man from out of town who doesn't want children, so she does not contact the girls.  The girls are naturally feeling rejected, angry and rebellious.

Isabelle explains that she has no energy due to an enlarged heart condition.  The doctors tell her that she should have surgery but she is afraid to.  She is not afraid for herself, but she says "If I die in surgery, what will happen to the girls?"

The girls are potentially at great risk from individuals or gangs in the area where they live.  Drugs, prostitution, physical and sexual abuse and even child trafficking are all potential outcomes for adolescents living at risk in this type of environment.

Addy and Isa meet with Isabelle and the girls as often as they can for counselling and moral support.  They have Maria and Laura both attending English classes.  Knowing English opens the door to many more job opportunities, and higher pay.  Either working for expats or various positions in the local tourism industry.  Keeping them in school provides them with a certain amount of support and protection during school hours and education will help keep their dreams alive of a better future.


Our next stop was just a few blocks from our home, on a side street near the marina, within sight of one of the larger fish plants in Celestun.

Margarita, her son Ricardo (18) and her grandson Frank (5)

Like the majority of men in Celestun, Margarita's husband is a fisherman.  There are a handful of men in town who operate fishing companies.  They own a warehouse for fish packing, as well as the boats and fishing gear and rent this equipment and provide the gas for the fishermen.  Margarita's husband works for one of these companies.

He leaves early each day before sunrise and returns after many hours on the ocean in a small boat. They unload their catch and the company keeps everything that can be sold, allowing the fishermen to keep only the undesirable or undersized fish for themselves.  Their rent for the boat and equipment for the day is about 800 pesos.  If the catch is too small to cover that, the fishermen have to pay cash to the boss in addition to giving them all the fish they catch.  Many days Margarita's husband comes home with less money than he had when he left in the morning.  Fishing is increasingly poor and he says it's cheaper to stay home and drink than to fish all day and pay for it instead of getting paid.

Margarita works about 6 hours every day at the fish plant, Cleaning and filleting the catch that her husband and the other fishermen bring in.  She earns about 145 pesos (about $12) a day.

Margarita's daughter Clara is 21 years old and works full time (24/7) at a small hotel.  She lives there alone and has to be available in case a guest arrives.  She is paid 200 pesos a day (about $16) for 24 hours.  She can come home only on Sundays.  Clara's son Frank has to live with Margarita who cannot watch him much as she is at work every day.  He is at risk of abuse, domestic and community violence with gangs and drugs and crime.  He is 5 years old.

Frank walks through the piles of garbage surrounding their home

These stone and tin shacks are common homes

Margarita's son Ricardo is 18 years old.  He has no job but helps to look after Frank.  He has no idea of what his future holds.  He sees his father fishing and bringing home almost no money.  Young men in his situation live with the risk of gangs and peer pressure to be involved with drugs, prostitution and other crimes.  He does not have any hope or dreams for a brighter future.  Life appears hopeless.

The marina shoreline is thick with garbage.  

A typical "kitchen" for many families in Celestun

Tixkuncheil Presente, A.C. is a non-government, non-profit organization, which is basically just two individuals, Isaura Rojano Gallegos and Addy Marlene Trejo Basulto.  Together they work in the community offering counselling, support, advice, and a variety of classes and events to help ensure there is a future for people like Isabelle and Margarita and the families that they find themselves taking care of.

They operate with very little in the way of private donations and no guarantee from day to day of their work continuing, and no possibility of expanding the help that they provide.  They are making a real difference to individuals in Celestun.  Providing counselling, someone safe to come to, access to education, life-skills training and safe social activities, and hope for the future.  

Please read their STORY and learn about my campaign to raise a little money to help Addy and Isa fund just one year of their work.  The people here have so little and no reason to expect anything to change.  Their lives are often hopeless and full of pain and suffering.  Just a little cash can help keep Addy and Isa working to help provide a future for them.  

Please read about our campaign, share this story, and if possible, donate a little cash to help them.

Addy teaching a class

The Cine Club.  Providing entertainment and education

Culture of Equality for Peace event

Healthcare lessons from Canadian volunteer nurse

Learning First Aid for fractures

Canadian nurse volunteer teaching how to save a choking baby

Canadian volunteer nurses teaching First Aid

Papayas in Our Yard

Papaya plants can be male, female, or bisexual, and you want to make sure that you have some females or bisexual plants amongst your seedlings. The male papayas don't bear fruit.

Three years ago, we returned to Mexico and discovered that our friend Wanda Folden had planted a papaya tree in our yard. Not knowing the sex of the tree, we had to wait a year to see if it might bear fruit. As it turned out, we have a bisexual tree and it is bearing an abundant supply of fruit!

Papayas are fast growing, single stem plants. The trunk is soft and does not have a bark, and papayas don't have branches.

The leaves are huge and don't last long. Usually you have a tall trunk with a crown of leaves at the top of it. The overall appearance is a bit like a palm tree.

Last year we picked our first papaya but it was too green and bitter. This photo shows our first, tree-ripened papaya.

And unfortunately, this photo shows what can happen to an unprotected, tree-ripened papaya from birds, fruit bats and possums, all of which we have here.

If you pick the papaya a couple of days early, it will continue to ripen on your kitchen counter but it can be a little bitter. The fruit sweetens as it ripens on the tree and does not sweeten ripening on your counter.

As this hole in the fruit appeared overnight, I suspect fruit bats although we do see possums in the yard pretty frequently too.

Not wanting to grow papayas just to feed the wildlife, I made a cage of chicken wire around the fruit.

You can see the lowest hanging and largest papaya on the tree beginning to ripen.

Once the fruit begins to ripen it can change from green to yellow-orange within a couple of days. You want to wait until at least 80% of the colour has changed. If you pick it too soon, it will be bitter. If you leave it too late, it will become mushy.  Picking is easy; simply grab hold of the papaya and twist it a little to break it off of the stem connecting it to the trunk.

These two papayas ripened on the tree two days apart.  We picked them when the colour was close to 90% changed.

Apparently, the best way to finish off the ripening process is to then leave them on your kitchen counter for two days, then in the fridge for another 4 or 5 days before cutting them open to eat.

A perfectly ripened, sweet papaya!
The seeds can be saved, dried and planted.  Simply dig a hole about half a metre across, fill it half full with soil and compost, sprinkle your seeds across it and cover them with more soil and compost.  They usually take a couple of weeks to germinate.

The trees are short-lived, usually only about 3 years, so if you have the room, it's a good idea to have some new ones always growing to replace the older ones.

Papaya trees can get all sorts of diseases but the most common problem is root rot from over-watering.   They need a lot of water but make sure the soil is well-drained (ours is planted right in the sand) and give it large drinks of water every few days, giving the soil time to drain before watering again. They also require a lot of nutrients so fertilize them regularly.

Our favourite thing to use papayas for is fruit smoothies.  Here you can see the ripe, juicy papaya being cut up into smaller pieces to drop into the blender.

A bowl of fresh cut papaya, ready to blenderize for our morning fruit smoothies.

Rather than using ice cubes to make a cold, thick smoothie, we simply use frozen bananas so that the smoothie isn't diluted with water.

We dropped a bunch of cut up papaya into the bottom of the blender then blenderized it for a few seconds before adding cut up frozen bananas on top.

Adding some pineapple juice for a third fruit flavour.

And now some soy milk (I'm allergic to whey and caseine in regular cow's milk).

Simply blenderize for a couple of minutes until thick and smooth.

And you have a fantastic Papaya, Banana, Pineapple fruit smoothie!

We have also frozen the cut up papaya then blenderized it with fresh mango.  The possibly combinations are endless, and all delicious!

Oliva Enoteca, new Italian restaurant in Merida

We tried a new restaurant in Merida a couple nights ago, Oliva Enoteca.  The restaurant is near Centro, close to the bottom of Paseo de Montejo at the corner of Calle 47 and 54.  Luckily we had a reservation as the place was packed!  Numerous small groups of people arrived throughout the evening without a reservation then waited for an hour or two before leaving disappointed.  Dinner here is definitely NOT a high turnover event.

The owners already had another successful restaurant in Merida, Oliva Kitchen + Bar nearby at the corner of Calle 49 and 56, which we have not checked out but the reviews are great.

Although we arrived a little early, our table was ready and the hostess, Melissa Marcelletti, seated us immediately.  She owns the restaurant with her husband who works in the kitchen.  He came over to greet us briefly then got back to work in the open kitchen near us where we could watch all of the cooking and prep work.



There are three sections to the restaurant; the room you first enter has a bar with a few tables around the room and a small, open loft above with a few more tables.  Then a slightly larger room past the bar with about 6 more tables, all with an open view of the kitchen, which is where we sat.  The decor is modern and inventive with even the light bulbs displaying multiple filaments that look like a bunch of pasta.  Draped ropes and other ornaments continue this theme, complementing the actual fresh pasta on display, hanging from a drying rack between the tables and kitchen.

As I mentioned, the place was packed and it was a vibrant, almost festive atmosphere.  Perhaps about half of the guests were English speaking expats, as you would expect by this location near the bottom of Paseo de Montejo, with the other half dominated by Mexicans, mostly young, looking like successful professionals.  The owners and all of the staff we had contact with all spoke English.

The home-made pasta hung on racks on a work island near us with a stack of Italian cookbooks below, proving the home-made, fresh status and lending more Italian authenticity to the entire place and the aromas from the open kitchen were very appetizing.

Chris chose Arrancine for her antipasti (Appetizer).  This is stuffed rice balls filled with cheese and mushrooms and then fried.  The presentation was very nice and she thoroughly enjoyed the food.

I had the Bresaola -Carne de Res Curada (cured beef sliced thinner than paper) with Arugula.  The meat was fantastic, so mild and it practically melted in my mouth.

Then we ordered our Primi (first course).  Chris ordered a la Diavola, which is pasta with shrimp in a tomato and cheese sauce.  I ordered Il Capretto which is ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and covered in parmesan cheese sauce.  And then we waited.  And waited.

It was EXTREMELY difficult to get continual service.  It took over half an hour just to get our waiter to bring us more water.  Perhaps we should have ordered both courses immediately but we didn't want them coming too close together and they didn't seem to be bothered at all when we chose to order this way.

The kitchen began to look a little troubled and disorganized with someone running full speed through in one direction or the other every few minutes.  The odd dish crashed to the floor.  Eventually, about 90 minutes later, our food arrived.

The presentation was beautiful and Chris' meal was perfect in every way.  Mine however, was not the greatest.  Although we both loved the flavour of the fresh, home-made pasta, the edges of some of my raviolis was hard, and almost crispy as though it wasn't fully cooked or perhaps it was ready too early and dried out under the heat lamps waiting to be served.  It was impossible to tell exactly what the problem was underneath the sauce.  But I was not in the mood to send it back and wait another 90 minutes.  It was VERY edible and still somewhat enjoyable.

The last thing that happened was another surprise.  I asked for the bill and it was brought with little delay in a leather-like folder.  I placed cash with a generous tip into the folder and caught the waiter's eye and gave it to him telling him we did not need any change.  He opened the folder and counted out all of the cash onto the table ... TWICE!  That's certainly the first time that has ever happened to me! Our total bill was very reasonable; including a bottle of nice wine, and the tip, it came to just 1,250 Mexican pesos, about $100 Canadian.

You should definitely try this restaurant, but, make a reservation, and maybe, wait a few weeks for the kitchen organization to improve and for the waiters to have a little more training.

Their phone number is 999-923-3081.