Day Eight

On Friday, January 12th we visited the Community Center and Families of the La Estación neighborhood of Cuernavaca. First we visited with a young family of 6 who live in a house that the wife constructed out of cinder blocks while the husband was working in the United States for a year. He crossed the border with a visa and was able to work at a country club in Houston and make enough money to send home. In Mexico, minimum wage is 48 pesos per day, which is about $5.00 per day . . . per day. In the US, minimum wage was just raised to $7.25 per hour. So, a minimum wage worker in the US makes in about 45 minutes what a minimum wage worker in Mexico takes all day to make. The thing is, prices are not lower here. In other words, milk, bread, and utilities cost the same (if not more) than they do in the US. So, a person would have to work for 5 days to buy a $25 pair of shoes. The second family we visited was a single mother and her children. The mom works from home preparing corn for sale to provide food for the family, the boy takes out people’s trash in the neighborhood for tips, and the girl makes beaded jewelry so that she can have money to go to school. In the afternoon, we watched “Zapatismo,” a video on the indigenous struggle in Chiapas and the Zappatistas there, who named themselves after Ermilio Zapata who, with Sancho Panza, led a revolution in 1917, which resulted in a New Constitution. Later, we met a woman from an organization called SERPAJ (Servicio/Paz/Justicia or Service/Peace/Justice) to talk about People’s Movements in Mexico. After dinner, we had a free evening to enjoy all that Cuernavaca has to offer.