Chacala Kids Collecting for Chiapas

Yesterday afternoon I heard the voices of a whole bunch of kids coming up the stairs beside this house, from the direction of Casa Pacifica. By the time I got the door open there were about twenty local kids (3-11 years mas or menos) and a couple of moms on the patio. I invited them in, not knowing what was happening. But they didn't want to come in. They had a big baby strowler half-full of food and diapers and TP etc. They were collecting for families in Chiapas who have recently suffered from terrible rainstorms, mudslides, floods etc after the laswt hurricane. The kids were so excited and proud of themselves. Later I saw them down on the beach road and it didn't look like they had gotten much more stuff. One of the women said people had been giving them money, especially at the restaurants.

It sort of shook-up my view of Chacala to realize that people here (who I think of as poor) feel like they have enough to share. I have noticed other times that the charity in Mexico is basically between family members and what is offered by the government. There doesn't seem to be many organized charitable organizations except for those run by people from the US and Canada. Maybe I am missing something. The charitable organizations in Mexico that I am aware of seem to get their primary funding from the US branches of those organziations (Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross, Rotary) or from groups made up of US/Canadians who live in or visit PV and support various groups working with children). But maybe I am missing alot here.

I think the pictures of Chiapas on TV helped the cause. They were very sad. People who already had nothing but a hut now have nothing at all, or are dead. Alot of the newspeople on the TV are blondes, which is a little disconcerting. On the soaps the evil-plotting women usually are dark haired/dark skinned and the lovely sweet young things are blondes. Creepy.