Tag Archives: humanity

Huatulco

Walking across the World

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By Jane Bauer

“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
—Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If you have not ventured to the highway around Huatulco lately you may not have noticed the number of migrants on their walk towards a better life. Many months ago on the south side of Copalita an immigration kiosk was erected and manned by immigration and army personnel. They pull over buses and vans and have a tented area where I occasionally see people who have been pulled off buses and vans, for not having the proper documentation, waiting. When I happened to be standing next to a man in an immigration uniform at the bank, I asked him what they did with the people and he told me they sent them back to their country or at least to the border of Mexico.

In the last month the number of migrants has steadily grown and some days I have seen at least a couple of hundred people walking on my fifteen-minute drive home. A path just before the immigration kiosk has been forged through the brush so that they can avoid it altogether.

One day in early November I stopped and asked a group where they were from just before they got on the avoid-immigration kiosk path through the bushes.

“Haiti” one man responded.
“Où allez vous?” I asked
“Les Etats-Unis” he said.

One Sunday morning while driving in to work, moving in the same direction as the walkers, I stopped for two women. They climbed into my car with a small baby and a few meters later we picked up a young man. I asked if they were from Haiti and they said they were from Guinea.

The immigration kiosk was just up ahead but we weren’t stopped, to be fair the two soldiers standing in front of it looked resigned to their inability to do anything.

We stopped just off the highway in Copalita and had breakfast. Guinea is 9345 km from Huatulco. Over breakfast we talked about their journey.

Mari Assi, a robust young woman, with a burn scar covering one hand and forearm, was wearing sandals and carrying her 19 month-old daughter Fati. Her traveling companion was Aminata who had left her 13-year old daughter back in Guinea and the young man was Osmane. While French is the primary language in Guinea, due to its colonization by the French, their speech was also peppered with words of a language I didn’t know. They flew from Guinea to Nicaragua and had been walking/taking buses/ hitchhiking for 12 days. Their final destination goal: New York.

Since then I have met people from Senegal, Ghana, Venezuela, Guatemala and even a family from Afghanistan with three young girls. I keep my car stacked with bottles of water and non-perishable snacks and gently used footwear.

I know there are many differing opinions when it comes to immigration policies and migrants. However, when it comes to being face to face with a person in need, politics cannot be the discussion, humanity needs to be the discussion. Helping people in our path, if we can, is the bare minimum of what we should offer- regardless of religious credo or political affiliations.

If you watch the news it will tell you about the atrocities happening in other parts of the world- military coups, crime, instability, places where women being raped is a regular occurrence. I don’t need look at the news to understand the why of what brought Mari Assi, Aminata, Fati and Osmane to be on the same road as me. I only need to look at their inadequate footwear, their clothes that have leaves sticking to them from sleeping in the bushes, to know they deserve more… more help… more humanity… and more compassion.

If you would like to contribute water/ juice and non-perishable snacks such as granola bars I will hand them out on my daily commute. If you have any new or gently used proper footwear I will distribute that as well. Items can be dropped off at Café Juanita.

Huatulco

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“After my death, the molecules of my being will return to the earth and sky. They came from the stars. I am of the stars.”
Charles Lindbergh

How much time do you have left and what are you going to do with it? We live in a self-important era, where every opinion must be weighed against the cultural mainstream. A time when every kid gets a trophy lest their ego gets bruised. I don’t think there has ever been a moment in humanity when the majority has been so vocal about what they deserve. The “sanctity” of human life has people taking extraordinary measures to continue to survive, as though any of us will get out alive.

I fell in love with camping this year. Not “pile a bunch of stuff into the car” kind of camping. “Packing a bag as lightly as possible, walking through the woods alone for hours, letting the silence of nature envelop me as I decide where to pitch my tent, having a bear canister” kind of camping. Watching the sky come into focus surrounded by trees is a powerful way to be reminded of what we are. We are but a sliver living on the surface of a planet in a huge galaxy. We haven’t even explored the deepest depths of the ocean. We are a species that does a lot of whining compared to the other life we share this planet with and if we are significant at all in the bigger picture, it is with the power and speed with which we destroy things.

Things that remind me how insignificant I am fuel my passion for the world around me. I am always bravest and more creative after earthquakes or a little airplane turbulence. To be reminded of the fleetingness of our time is a gift, we are but dust.

Accepting our mortality is something we will all have to face. Coming to terms with the inevitability of death can help teach us to live more fully in the here and now. Consciousness of our mortality can enable us to cherish every moment of the life we have. What would you do if you only had a year left, a month, a week, a day, an hour? Time is the true currency we are spending.

This month our writers explore Death and the Afterlife through the lens of ancient cultures, politics and medicine. There are so many varied attitudes and ways of celebrating and honoring life/ death. There is no sense in arguing whose world view is correct, we will all find out eventually.

Make it count!

See you next month,

Jane

Uncategorized

The Huatulco Foodbank

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By Lenore Harder and Tamara Plugers

Community is an amazing gathering of people who make time for each other to help as needed, accept when needy, and be humbled without recognition. In the tropical paradise of Huatulco, we have just that thing, community!

Thanks to several ambitious kind souls and their commitment to help others during difficult times, countless hours have been spent to purchase, assemble, and deliver hundreds of essential food hampers to some of Huatulco’s less fortunate population. As Covid-19 has approached and affected the world, we want to thank these “warriors” for the additional time and energy they have put into this since, almost overnight, the Huatulco tourism economy shut down, leaving thousands without work and the means to support their families.

In 2014 Randy Clearwater partnered with his friend Wilfrido Justiniano and a local church to start the Huatulco Foodbank. The goal was to, in love, meet the physical needs of those in the community who could not support themselves and their families for various reasons. Initially funds came in by means of donations through the local church and the business community, as well as from expats who were made aware of the need.

In time, various fundraisers for the Foodbank started up; now, thankfully, the Foodbank is continuing to receive additional funding to help support some immediate and desperate needs via Facebook. In the past few weeks, hardworking teams have hit the ground running to make sure that as many people as possible could be served with food and basic necessities.

We are blessed to have Wilfri’s wife, Nada who because of her past work experience in the community, is well acquainted with many of the women and families in the area. Both Wilfri and Nada have huge hearts and a gift for comforting and supporting struggling people. One experience stands out in Wilfri’s mind:

One day we organized a trip to El Manantial [a small town on the on the road between Santa María Huatulco and Pluma Hidalgo]. Our friend Pedro, a Cuban volunteer and former Barcelo dancer, and I took around 25 food hampers to deliver to a group of people. When we got there, we realized that about 12 of the people had come from the mountain area called Loma Limón, walking two hours to get food for their families. They explained to us that there was no grocery store available, and because of the blockade [at the airport], there was no way to bring food from Huatulco by car to the community. So we felt so blessed to be able to put some food in their hands.

A hearty thanks to the hands-on team working on purchasing, assembling, and delivering the food hampers. Randy Clearwater, Wilfri Justiniano, Rock Berube, and Manny Novoa have organized and distributed in excess of 640 hampers in Huatulco and the surrounding rural communities. They have been on the front line, recognizing the risks involved in this epidemic. To assist even greater numbers of people, food is also being donated to local community kitchens in the outlying areas.

Let this be an exchange for years to come, no matter the circumstances. People Helping People.

We invite you to contribute however you can. More donations always gratefully accepted. To donate, go to Facebook and search for Huatulco Foodbank:
(www.facebook.com/groups/1574782399424249/).

If you are donating from Canada, you can send an e-transfer; from the United States, use PayPal.
In either case, send your donation to rlclearwater@gmail.com.

2020

Editorial April 2020

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“We found that trees could communicate, over the air and through their roots. Common sense hooted us down. We found that trees take care of each other. Collective science dismissed the idea. Outsiders discovered how seeds remember the seasons of their childhood and set buds accordingly. Outsiders discovered that trees sense the presence of other nearby life. That a tree learns to save water. That trees feed their young and synchronize their masts and bank resources and warn kin and send out signals to wasps to come and save them from attacks.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

We are facing harrowing times. Looking at the news each morning we wonder what devastation today will bring. The number of cases and deaths is mounting as coronavirus sweeps across the globe – affecting each country in turn, in a domino effect.

In Huatulco, tourists rushed to head home as governments issued travel warnings and encouraged people to stay inside. Businesses are heeding the call and temporarily closing their doors to protect employees and customers. The streets around the world are quiet. Each of us is glued to various screens for updates and connection.

We don’t know how long this will last or what the long-term effects will be as we realize just how fragile our normalcy is. There have been glimmers of hope, however, and testaments to the strength of the human spirit. The day Italians sang from their balconies filling the streets with joyful song, the number of videos being uploaded offering free classes, concerts and museum tours, shows just how important creativity is to the human experience.

There has also been a shift in our thinking, a need to think of the collective rather than the individual. The idea of working on preventing the spread by staying indoors – not to protect yourself but those around you. If there are repercussions to this world crisis, let this way of thinking remain. Let us carry it over into times of peace. Let us understand the limits of the boundaries we have created: race, class, status. The borders and boundaries we have erected in our desire to claim our identity. These are human-made divisions and if there is something we are learning from this crisis, it is that nature doesn’t care.

Nature will not be stopped by a wall or by how much money you have. As individuals, we are small and made smaller by thinking we stand alone – we are all in this together.

Until next month, stay safe.

Jane