Barra de la Cruz

Before arriving in Oaxaca, I never expected to return to Barra de la Cruz. This project was aimed at helping the communities along the rivers of Southern Oaxaca. Barra doesn't rest along any of the rivers that we paddle. It's a seaside village, tucked into a bay about 15km east of Hualtulco. Other than the fact that it had some amazing surf, I knew little about the town or the people that lived there.

My friend Mark and I had visited the town 4 years ago on a whim. Someone in La Crucecita had recommended it for surfing. When we got there we found the beach deserted and the waves simply awesome. Where are all the gringos?, I thought. This place should be packed with surfers. I was sure that Barra had been discovered, and that maybe it was just the off-season. But where was all the evidence? Where was the second-hand board shop? The crappy burrito stand and taco bar run by the tourists that never went home?

Much like the casual visit of four years ago, I came again to this quiet little village by the sea not expecting much of anything. It was more so that my father could swim in the Pacific for the first time in his life and see a beach with no hotels, no houses, no nothing. And just as it did four years ago, Barra completely surprised us.

I was a little worried, frankly. The gringos (and this is not a negative term - I'm a gringo) certainly had found this place by now. The question was: how much damage had been done?

Driving into town though, I had to blink again at the pastures and palms lining the dirt road. The town looked exactly the same. There were no new houses on the hill, no condos for rent, no crappy burrito stands and tourist bars. There were surfers though, a bunch of them.

We ran into Pepe, the mayor of Barra, more or less by accident. In looking for Barra's school, one of the boys at the toll gate had pointed us over to his house. He was busy rewiring an electric fan and looking generally perplexed, when we arrived. Have a seat, he insisted, I need a break from this thing anyway.

For the next hour, our conversation moved from education to land rights to the political organization of Barra itself. In responding to question after question, Pepe tirelessly delivered to us Barra's concepts of its past, present and future. I am convinced a book could easily be written on the vision of this place. The unity and cooperation of the people are truly amazing.

Nowhere is the value system more apparent than in Barra's schools. 30 years ago, the government built the structures for the primary and secondary students. Since then, not a penny of state or federal aid has come from above to maintain them. Yet the buildings are spotless, freshly painted, and equipped with chalkboards, desks, and tables.

Everything we have in the schools, everything we do to maintain them is payed for by our own money, says Pepe. Everyone in the community contributes, he says, it is the only way that we can provide what our children need. Along with health, education is priority number one for Barra's kids. For that reason the community has one of the highest graduation rates not just in Oaxaca, but in all of Mexico.

The success of education in Barra has everything to do with the parents, says Pepe. There's no skipping school to go surfing. This is a small town, he says with a smile, a place where parents always find out.

Still, with all the support from parents and the community, maintaining the quality of education in Barra is no easy task. Teachers must scrape together money for their own supplies. Extras like crayons, notebooks, art materials must all be bought with community funds. The community also has to provide lunch, as there is no (functioning) school lunch program in the area. The secondary school, which houses around 60 kids, is literally falling down. Pepe has three times now petitioned the state for partial funds to help build a new one, all to no avail. So, he says, we'll just have to do it Barra style - save our money , and do it ourselves.

After talking with Pepe and seeing the schools in action, it was truly a no-brainer to decide to donate much of the Rivers of Tomorrow supplies to this community. With the help of the school principal and a few other leaders, we unloaded over 400 pounds of pencils, pens, paper, notebooks, crayons, calculators, and other items into the municipal storeroom. The teachers and principals would sit down that night, Pepe assured us, and decide upon how to distribute the goods.

I assured them that all the supplies were donated, that there were no strings attached and that they could do what they want. I explained how much of it had been sitting around in teacher's closests for years, that it was never going to be used in the States. They couldn't quite believe it. How could you not have a use for all this stuff?

In the end Pepe and the principal took us on a closer tour of the school. We visited a sixth grade class where kids were working on long division. 'They're so well behaved,' my father said after the visit, 'in 33 years of teaching I've never seen kids so respectful.'

'We are different,' said Pepe.

Indeed they are.

15 October: Tuxpan to Huatulco

Huge day of travelling. With an early start we made it to Acayucan by early afternoon. From Acayucan, we turned off on the road across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (the narrow ´waist´of Mexico). Heavy rains had turned the already marginal highway into an all-out 4X4 challenge. For four grueling hours we slammed our way through the craters and potholes, until finally reaching the road to Huatulco shortly after dark. From there we passed another two hours along the winding highway, arriving in La Crucecita in time to catch some late night tacos pastor.

Hola...Saludos de Oaxaca,

Good morning everyone. I hope all is well. 4 days, 2500 miles, 2 dozen tacos, 6 searches by the military, and 10,000 speedbumps later - we´ve arrived in La Crucecita - the base point for our project in Oaxaca. Today we will rest, plan out logistics, and talk with some of the people involved in other aid projects in the region.

I know some of you may be curious about the journey, so here´s a brief recap of the last 4 days.

12 October I left Black Mountain, NC (thanks again Walter - next time though, we´re going trail running) around 9:30 a.m. headed west to meet my friends Larry and Leslie Stewart (picture above) in Knoxville, TN. At a McDonalds just off the interstate we said goodbye, as they made the last donation of school supplies for the season. Thanks again guys.

From Knoxville it was smooth sailing all the way to western Louisiana, where at 1:30 a.m. I stopped for a nap at one of those all-inclusive truck stops (you know, the kind where you can buy fuel, groceries, a shower, maybe even some christmas presents?).



13 October 2008
Houston, TX

Rolled into town this morning ahead of a golden sunrise. Living in the mountains, I often forget about that dynamic hour between dawn and day. By the time the sun peeks over the Appalachians, the day has very much begun. Our only glimpse of sunrise comes in the mountains themselves. We watch the sun awaken in the peaks. We see their tops glow with first light, and their flanks transform in descending waves of color.

On the vast, steamy plains of the Gulf Coast there is nothing to block out the sun. There are no mountains to stand in its way, no hills, no ridges. Before it even breaks the horizon, the sun unleashes an anxious display of color, a display that falls over every field and lake. In the mountains only a few fortunate peaks ever witness this daily event. In the plains however, they watch it from every corner.

I picked up my father at the airport and from there turned south, toward Brownsville and the border. The miles ticked by, as like it rose in the morning, the sun sank slowly in the sky.

Picture: waiting for the train outside of Corpus Christi, TX

14 October 2008 Tuxpan, Mexico.

Big Day. We made it through the border with little trouble from the authorities. At the control station 25 km south of Matamoros, the customs official waved us over for the first of several inspections. He asked the usual questions (where are you going, what are you doing, do you have any guns, any bullets?), but released us without a hassle.

We sped through the endless plains of Tamaulipas Province. Driving across Northern Mexico, it´s easy to be misled by the smooth pavement and easy driving. ´This could be anywhere in the U.S.´, I think, until we pass a pair of stick-and-mud shacks leaning against the wind, an old man sitting in the dirt patching holes in a tire.

The fantasy fully vaporized at the border of Veracruz state, when we entered Mexico`s flagship highway repair project. Cars, trucks, and double-length trailers all crowded the crumbling highway headed south to Veracruz.

The topes began.

´Tope´is spanish for speedbump, and they are everywhere in Mexico. Topes guard every town, every village, every bus stop and show no quarter to those who try to deny them. Speedbumps in the States, like the kind you find in a Target parking lot or an elementary school, might jolt your car a bit if you take them too fast. They might even bunny-hop it. Mexican speedbumps will send it airborne without a muffler. They`ll destroy the shocks, gut the undercarriage, and even crack the transfer case if you´re not careful. Topes will drive you mad with their excess, their inconsistency. They´ll make you crave the potholes and craters of the open highway. They´ll force you to utter curses that might never be repented. But there is no escaping the tope. The tope conquers all.

So yeah...we went a little crazy from the speedbumps, but no less reached the day`s goal of Tuxpan, Veracruz. Here is a view of the sunrise in Tuxpan: