Alternative Winter Break 2006 - Tampico and Tuxpan, Mexico The first ever Alternative Winter Break took place in December 2006 with a team of 15 UC students that embarked on a ten-day journey to two cities in Southern Mexico. With a longer span of time in which to travel, SBC had the ability to go farther into an area of the country that sparsely receives help from American teams. Once we flew into McAllen, Texas we purchased supplies and drove another six hours to our first stop in Tampico. We arrived at this small church property to be welcomed by a hanging banner and open arms. The cool part is that we found that the work we were supposed to begin when we arrived had already been started. After sitting stagnant for years, the people in this community began to help themselves when they found out that we were coming. All we had to do was show up for a few days with a willing spirit and our impact would last exponentially longer. At this site we mixed a few batches of concrete and prepared the foundation of what would be a two story, multipurpose building on the church property. After that we spent a day moving dirt, digging trenches, and chipping through existing reinforced concrete with chisels and pickaxes. The labor was intense and facilitated growth and connection between the team members. We moved on a few more hours south to Tuxpan to another small church property. We slept on a tile floor on top of the church building in a part of town that was able to pump water twice a week. Two water storage tanks on top of buildings were filled twice a week and served for all purposes of cooking, showers, and toilets for the pastor's family and us as well as some construction needs. Let's just say this made shower time sparse. At this site we again worked on the foundation of a building that would serve as two classrooms for kindergarten students. We dug in the dirt, assembled reinforcing steel columns and beams, and made and poured concrete around the corner supporting columns. The fiteen of us, with help from a somewhat elderly man named Santo who knew what he was doing, carried out the work. Even our best Spanish speakers had a difficult time understanding the directions of Santo. The language barrier was in full force but we were not slowed down. At some points, the generosity and hospitality shown by this man were unmatched in SBC history. Places like Mexico are full of people desperately trying to survive. This often makes residents weary of theft. We had all of our food and supplies stored in one of the already finished classrooms and Santo felt that it needed to be protected. We awoke on the second workday to find him on sight ready to go. We asked him where he had slept and he told some of us that he laid a cardboard box on the concrete floor and slept all night with nothing but the clothes on his back in order to protect our meager rations of nourishment. The food was different and some people got sick, the work was difficult, and the fire ants attacked us ruthlessly. We were delayed by rain and had to work a night shift and two of us were without a shower for 11 days. The priceless experience is unlike any other and is something that should be experienced by everyone. MAIN > TRIPS > PAST > Tampico and Tuxpan SB '06