Poco Loco: 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.