Light and darkness --
El Ocotillo shimmers between light and dark. The sun reflects off shiny metal scraps in a blinding mountain of trash.

The darkness of inequity blinds us to fellow humans discarded, like garbage.

Brown eyes, bronzed skin, white teeth.

Bright paint on cement block walls cheers, a colorful reminder of life amid mud streets, homes cobbled together from signboards, aluminum or tin sheets, remnants of other people's lives, a whole town stitched together from human ingenuity and determination to scrape by another day.

For all the abjection of poverty's weighted grasp, laughter comes easily, a hallelujah chorus refusing to be quieted, voices that cannot be confined by scrap metal, barbed wire gates, rejection.

- Holly

This morning Eucinia, Mike, and I were asked to go with Matt to an interview for a local news team. We woke up extra early and caught a taxi to the spot we were told to meet the crew. They asked Matt questions about the international Samaritan program and I believe he told them a little bit about our volunteer project, though since I don't sleek Spanish I really don't know what they said. After our interview our taxi driver had had to leave to take his daughter to school so we were left without a ride. The news crew was nice enough to offer to stuff us all in their van so we didn't have to wait for a taxi. This was a good example of our hospitable everyone has been here since our arrival.

-Aileen Santry