The Berkeley Rotary Club has been working for several years with the Mexican Rotary clubs within a 15 mile radius of the the beach resort town of Chacala, Nayarit, Mexico. The projects include building schools, community centers, libraries, funding scholarships, business incubators, and more. This year the projects included building classrooms, a commercial kitchen in which to teach culinary arts, and a computer lab room at a high school in Las Varas. A second project was building a apartment at an elementary school for use by teachers in training. I volunteered for one week at the end of April.
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| Chacala |
I landed in Puerto Vallarta with about six other Rotarians on April 21st and we were transported by van to Chacala, a beautiful little beach town about a two hour drive north of Puerto Vallarta and eight miles from Las Varas.
There were about 20 Rotarians in our group this week, mostly from the five clubs in the San Francisco East Bay area.
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| Early morning moon |
I stayed in an apartment on the second story of a house, which was built several years ago with funds from the Rotary incubator loan program. I had a nice view of the town and beach from my apartment. One early morning I got up and saw a full moon over the ocean.
Many of the Rotarians stayed in a hotel on the beach and we joined them there 5 p.m. for margaritas and dinner. The next morning at 7:30 we boarded vans which took us to the schools.
Everyone completed a questionnaire before the trip stating their construction experience and what they are willing to do. Having had experience in most aspects of construction, I asked to be assigned to plumbing and electrical.
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| "Make it wider" |
The first day two other Rotarians and I ran wires for power, dug a trench from the apartment to the septic tank, and installed the drain pipe for the bathroom and kitchen. We worked until 1 p.m. and then ate lunch under the mango trees at the high school. Lunch was prepared by mothers of some of the students.
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| Surfs up |
In the afternoons we went the beach. I went boogie boarding, body surfing, swimming, and socialized with the other Rotarians. We met at 5 p.m. every day for cocktails and Rotary fellowship. One evening three of our group played music and I sang a song, then gave a salsa dance lesson.
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| Nice ride |
On Saturday four other Rotarians and I went on a tour to San Blas and a boat ride through the mangroves and jungle of La Tovara. We saw lots of birds up close.
Sunday we hiked to the top of a small dormant volcano and then down to a secluded beach. We were picked up by a boat that carefully ran up the beach through the high surf.
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| Jungle walk to volcano and beach |
The last two work days I cut tile for the back wall of the commercial kitchen and supervised the grouting.
We finished the grouting just before lunch and I was very glad we accomplished the task.
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| Constructing computer desk |
There is still a lot of work to be done and only one more week of Rotary volunteers. I should have signed up for two weeks, but I can’t stay another week because I have some work to do at Casa Martillo next week, and I am diving with friends on Cozumel. There are a group of local volunteers who work every Sunday at the schools and will complete the project, just not on the schedule that the project manager, Grier Graff had planned.
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| Tiling kitchen wall |
We met many local Rotarians and I ate lunch with the high school students.
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| Lunch with the students |
There are many Rotarians who have been performing service projects in this area for the past 20 years. The need is huge, partly because the government does not provide support for the maintenance of schools, and the level of education in the past has been limited to 8th grade for the rural fishing villages. Rotary is making a positive impact and changing the lives of the many people. Rotary has an incubator loan program by which Mexicans have built ten homes with a second story to rent to tourist and Rotarians.
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| Cutting tile |
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| Finished wall |
One day a Rotary volunteer was working with a local Rotarian on the construction of a house and apartment and asked: “Are we building a house?” The local Rotarian responded: “No, we are empowering a family.”
