Barrhead businessman Lambert Veenstra went to Mexico City between Feb. 4 and 18 to help with the building of a short-term ministry centre to serve the community. The president of Lambert’s Concrete was part of an international work team organized by the Alliance Church. The experience introduced him to a mosaic of beauty, wealth and poverty and gave him a new perspective on Canada.
Bienvenidos amigos! Welcome to Mexico City … a mountain bowl famous for Aztec culture, traffic gridlock, pollution, the nearby Popocatepetl volcano, and community-minded people immensely wealthy in spirit even amid grinding poverty.
While most Canadians would not trade lifestyles, they may find inspiring a Mexican’s smile in adversity.
During two weeks in Mexico’s capital helping to expand a church complex, Lambert Veenstra witnessed qualities of resilience, self-sufficiency, stoicism and good humour that left a profound impression.
It made him rethink priorities. Issues that dominate headlines in Canada suddenly seemed to shrink against a more global backdrop.
“Many of the Mexicans I saw live with very little,” he said. “But they manage to make do with what they have got and I never heard them complain. It really does change your perspective. You realize how fortunate you are in Canada.”
The privations in Mexico City are particularly striking for an outsider accustomed to basic amenities. Here is a sampling of Mexican life:
You don’t take water for granted. Sometimes taps are dry as the biggest metropolis in the Western hemisphere confronts problems with its reservoir system.
You are cold as nighttime temperatures fall to zero. But you don’t turn up the heating – because there is none.
You live in a house that seems unfinished by Canadian standards. It could be a cinder block structure with peeling paint and a tarpaulin covering gaps.
You go for a drive along pot-holed roads and soon become snarled in bumper-to-bumper traffic, while street hawkers pass between lines of cars, selling chewing gum. When the lanes start to unclog it is each driver for himself – a game of chicken, says Veenstra.
You take the subway and are swept by a human tide that pays scant regard to courtesy. To get on a train, you employ stealth or push and shove.
So yes, bienvenidos to Mexico City, a place where the challenges are many and the contrasts breathtaking. A place of gleaming high-rises and squalor. A place of toxic winter smog and mountain ranges that ring the city basin and are covered in brilliant green trees. A place of millionaires and those on a minimum wage of 62.33 pesos, about $4.60 a day. Veenstra flew to Mexico from Vancouver with 11 other Canadian volunteers, including three from Edmonton, four from Regina and four from Saskatoon, who offered skills from building contract work, to project management and welding.
As president of Barrhead-based Lambert’s Concrete, Veenstra knew he would play a key role in the project, which involved “Q” decking on the second floor of the Atizapan Short Term Ministry Centre and pouring concrete. It is hoped to build a three-storey facility for teaching youths, adults and pastors, and provide temporary accommodation. An outreach centre for street children is part of the vision.
The trip, inclusive of airfare, cost about $2,500 per person. Although some volunteers slept at the ministry centre, Veenstra stayed with others in a $50-a-night hotel.
“It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was spotlessly clean,” he said. “The floors were shiny and clearly a lot of pride went into keeping it looking good.”
Two cars and a van were used to ferry the volunteers about. Each morning Veenstra was picked up and driven to the nearby mission centre, where he would have breakfast. An interpreter was on hand to help communication.
Work would start at 9 a.m. and last until 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., with a break for lunch. It soon became clear that one of the biggest challenges was the scarcity of water.
“At certain times there would be no water,” said Veenstra. “It was always a worry. On the second day we actually ran out of water.”
It meant the team, which was bolstered by Mexican workers, had to carefully manage water supplies, filling barrels up in advance.
Each volunteer forked out about $300 to buy building materials – cement, sand and gravel and cement blocks – but another problem soon surfaced: lack of tools. Improvisation became necessary and a bull float for levelling concrete was built out of saved wood.
“The Mexicans waste nothing,” said Veenstra. “They keep everything, convinced they will find a use for it.”
A hand concrete mixer was used: the crew working as a relay team carrying enormously heavy pails of concrete up makeshift ramps became a familiar sight. On the third day 22 people were on site. “We managed to move 50 cubic yards of concrete in all during the trip,” said Veenstra.
The team did far more than they intended and worked themselves out of a job. The small nightly thunderstorms during the first week freshened the air, dulling the effects of pollution and keeping energy levels high.
“The project which was started two years ago will be on hold until October when more funds are raised,” said Veenstra, who may return to continue the work. “I would say it is about a third complete.”
The volunteers had time to become tourists, visiting the presidential palace, the cultural arts centre, Aztec ruins and the Pyramid of the Sun, the world’s third largest pyramid.
Before flying home, Veenstra handed out 100 Canadian pins to his extended Mexican family – 50 from Barrhead town council, which contained depictions of the Great Blue Heron, and 50 from Yellowhead MP Rob Merrifield.
“I bring with me a thank you from the Atizapan church to the town of Barrhead and Rob Merrifield for the pins,” said Veenstra. He added the church was also thankful to people in Neerlandia and Whitecourt’s Repeat Boutique who donated clothes.
Veenstra gave much when he went to Mexico City. He gave money, skills and labour. He gave of himself, his compassion and desire to help others.
But he received a lot, returning to Barrhead laden with memories of a people whose generosity of spirit made their financial hardships appear almost inconsequential.
“They were very, very friendly. I have never felt more appreciated,” he said.
