A Taste of Mexico - 27/4/09
By Tess Holgate
It’s Spring at the moment. The Jacaranda trees and bougainvillea plants are blossoming, showering the city in a blaze of purple and pink. The mornings are fresh but the days are lovely and warm. This city is beautiful. In some parts, gorgeous cobble-stone streets are lined with leafy trees and magnificent colonial houses. Sometimes it is easy to forget that I am living in Mexico City – a city full to overflowing with over 20 million people living in the greater metropolitan area in a space roughly the same size as Sydney. People live wherever they can in this bustling metropolis. There is an abundance of illegal housing on the foothills of the mountains that ring the city. In these much poorer areas, people build with whatever materials they can find. Most of the houses are unfinished; there are holes in the walls where windows should be because the people cannot afford to buy the glass. The government has been forced to provide basic services like water and power to these communities because they have refused to leave.
Lots of people work 7 days a week just so they can survive and provide for their families. Wherever you go there are people selling anything and everything you can imagine. On the metro you can buy newspapers, illegal CDs, crossword books, chewing gum, nuts and snacks, tissues, fake IDs, and children’s craft items all while being entertained by some kind of music group performing for money. These people spend all day travelling the metro back and forth selling their wares. And then there are the people who just beg. Every morning there are women with small children begging for any spare change you might have in your pockets.
There is a Catholic church every few blocks. They are often very old, with amazing architecture and impressive murals of the life of Jesus or other biblical scenes. Did you know that the chapel from Baz Luhrman’s Romeo & Juliet is in Mexico City? Today I was in a Catholic Church downtown and we saw Jesus crucified at the front of the church, Mary holding baby Jesus and various altars to Saints that I had never heard of. Are these people using the same Bible as me?
In this city there are over 1 million university students. At the university where I study Spanish there are over 250,000 students. Can you imagine? And there are 3 full time staff-workers working amongst them, along with a handful of volunteers. How do 3 staff-workers co-ordinate the ministry of Compa (the Mexican equivalent of AFES)? The students are just like you. Many have little idea about what they will end up doing when they finish their degree, but most are thankful for the blessing of studying for almost free. There aren’t many Christians. In the Faculty of Accounting and Administration there are about 16,000 students, and we know about a dozen Christians. But they are excited about the gospel and the privilege of sharing Jesus, and they are thankful for the freedom they have to do so.
I live here. In this crazy, enormous, busy, dirty and overpopulated city. Why am I here? Come along to the prayer night on Monday 5th May to find out more about me, more about Mexico, and more about what God is doing through the student ministry in this nation.
Tess Holgate was an ECU staff worker at Wollongong Uni last year before going to Mexico. She wishes that she could spend all her time drinking tea – especially French Earl Grey.