U Magazine, Summer 1987

Virginia Miranda de Lopez (far right) and part of herfamily.

On Saturday morning, March 21, a group of students assembled at Founders Hall. Joining them for the trip to Tijuana were Mary Ellen Pitard, program coordinator of the Campus Ministry Office, Fr. McKay, and Al McAllister, an independent contractor who volunteers his services to Esperanza. After crossing the border and winding its way through Tijuana, the small convoy arrived at the site, a community known as Loma Bonita. The name means "pretty hill" in Spanish, but the community is a far cry from anything Americans generally are familiar with. Most of the resi– dents living in the ramshackle hillside dwellings eke out a living by sifting through mountains of trash deposited there by garbage trucks. Rusted vehicles and tires domi– nate the landscape. Getting out of the cars was like stepping into another world. "All ofyour senses are immediately affected ," remembers Kevin Frietas, one of the students who worked on the house. "I couldn't believe this was so close to San Diego." Indeed, coming from a life of affluence taken for granted north of the border, the plight of the Tijuana residents is sobering. But as soon as the initial shock wore off, the USD contingent noted some remarkable things. "People there are much less fortunate than we are , and yet they find joy in the simplest things ," says Suzanne LaMonthe, another USD student. "It was hard to believe that people could live in such close quarters without elec– tricity or running water and still be happy. " But the hard life of the people is a testament to the resili– ence of the human spirit and the will to find happiness in adversity. Virginia Miranda de Lopez, the recipient of the new home , expressed awe and amazement as she watched the enthusiastic group raise the walls of her house. The new shelter would provide sleeping quarters for herself, her husband , 12 children, a granddaughter and a niece. They would no longer have to worry about a leaking roof and a damp floor , and they would be able to move from the

Candida Echeverria , Kim Domingue and Jennifer Jacobs

Fr. Michael McKay '72

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