Moving along in Mexico

Jon Ross
Oct 20, 2021
2 min read

Here in Juchitan, Oaxaca, Mexico, the house we are building for our beneficiary family is coming along. We have already cleared the site, poured the foundation, and built some of the walls.

Our site ends at that low brick wall. The unfinished house, behind, and the concrete-block wall, adjacent, are the neighbors’.

We are doing everything we can to preserve a giant mango tree, which shades the site. We were worried about the branches and the roots, but we worked around them. Besides using a culturally appropriate layout, ours is a site-specific design—so we will keep the tree!

The local crew we hired is doing an amazing job. They are all from this Zapotec community, so they speak Zapoteco to each other, not Spanish. Thank goodness our architect is from here and also speaks that language, because my Zapoteco is a bit rusty. ;)

Juchitan is a smallish town with a central market area surrounded by gritty mixed-use neighborhoods with old and newer single- and two-story structures. It’s about six hours from Oaxaca City and about an hour from the Pacific coast. It was particularly devastated by the earthquake in 2017 because of all the traditional adobe houses.

It is very hot here. A typical day has a heat index of 104. One night, there was a "cold snap"—it got down to 80. All the locals were freezing. When I got to the site, the grandmother and grandson were huddling together for warmth. 80 degrees!

We work from sun-up at 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., so we all arrive at the worksite in the dark. It takes me about a half hour to walk there from where I am staying. Along the way, I see quite a few beautiful murals. Here’s one that pops out of the shadows.

And a couple from the walk home.

Our beneficiary family is thrilled about the prospect of living in a safe, comfortable, permanent home. Without us, they had no chance of rebuilding. And they know that MicroAid is a group of donors making this happen for them.