We Can Fix Almost Anything...!

Two women have been touched by an angel—or rather, by Wings of Angels—in the tiny rural community of Fronteras, about 30 miles south of the Arizona border. The help they received already has begun to lift them out of the poverty and limited opportunities they have faced for years. One woman was gifted a new hearing aid and the other, crippled by arthritis, received a motorized wheel chair.

The hearing aid for Myrta Teresa Rico Armenta, age 38, has enabled her to move from a factory assembly line to a new office job more compatible with her education and skills. Myrta has suffered progressive hearing loss since age 8, when she was hit by a car and dragged down the street by the vehicle, lacerating her left ear and the side of her face. At age 12, her hearing deteriorated further when she contracted meningitis.

Because Myrta wasn't born with a hearing impairment, she didn't have a speech impediment. Since she could read lips, too, few suspected her disability, which she worked mightily to hide because of rampant job discrimination in Mexico. Myrta worked for years as a secretary in an Agua Prieta office, struggling to save the $1,800 doctors said she needed for a hearing aid. Myrta's hearing worsened during her employment, however. It was eventually discovered by her supervisor, who then harassed Myrta into quitting her job. When her husband lost his job shortly afterward, the two were forced to jump the border, working illegally in Willcox, Arizona, harvesting tomatoes.

But even this seasonal work evaporated when Myrta's passport and visa were stolen during the couple's return visit to Mexico. Without these documents, Myrta couldn't go back to her job in Willcox. Myrta's husband wouldn't leave without her. He works odd jobs in Agua Prieta when he can find them, hoping something permanent will come along soon.

With no job, no income, and her hearing steadily worsening, Myrta's future would have been bleak if her mother hadn't fortuitously been the president of a women's cooperative in Fronteras which was formed to create jobs in their impoverished community. The group gave Myrta a job in the town's only factory, dismantling obsolete computers and other electronics for recycling and resale (see Myrta at http://tv.azpm.org/kuat/segments/2009/7/7/kuat).

Now that she has a new hearing aid, Myrta also has a new job. She has moved across the street from the factory to the office of the local cattlemen's association, where she does secretarial tasks and runs the town's internet café. Myrta can't stop saying "thank you" for the opportunities that have opened up now that she can hear.
Compared to Myrta, opportunities for Maria del Refugio Zamora Sánchez (called "Cuquis" by her friends) were even more limited. The 59-year-old has been crippled for years with arthritis, worsening to the point where she became wheelchair-bound. Even with her twisted hands and her inability to stand, Cuquis made tamales and tortillas for sale in the local mom-and-pop stores. She also sold phone cards and Avon products to the neighbors.

Cuquis' husband Antonino grew alfalfa in his small farm plot. He delivered his wife's tamales and tortillas to customers when he wasn't in the field. He also wheeled Cuquis around Fronteras from door to door so she could collect money from her Avon customers each month. Soon, however, Cuquis began needing regular trips to medical clinics in Agua Prieta to deal with her progressing arthritis. Antonino had to sell his field so he could buy a minivan for the one-hour trip up the highway with Cuquis and her wheelchair.

When Cuquis learned about the Wings of Angels clinic last month, she was praying for a motorized wheelchair so her husband wouldn't have to push her through the streets of Fronteras. If she could get around on her own, she reasoned, Antonino would be freed up to find work. This was especially critical now that he had no field to generate the income needed to pay gasoline and maintenance bills for the minivan.
The $2,000 wheelchair Cuquis needed was beyond her economic reach. The one available at Wings of Angels was perfect for her, but it had no batteries. If Cuquis could come up with the $200 for the golf-cart-type batteries, she was told, the chair was hers. Cuquis didn't have the money but was undeterred. Within two days, she had so moved her congressman that he paid for the batteries out of his own pocket, on the condition that she pick them up in Douglas, Arizona, where they were purchased.
Cuquis and Antonino went in their minivan and got the batteries, then showed them to the folks at the clinic. They were promptly installed in the wheelchair which the couple gratefully took back to Fronteras. The neighbors say Cuquis is rarely home now. She is always tooling around town, plying her tortillas and tamales, collecting on her Avon sales, and going to church every morning. Antonino has found odd jobs in the local cornfields and on nearby ranches. Now that Cuquis can move around independently, she can't stop smiling. But Cuquis will tell you she doesn't ride a wheelchair. She's carried everywhere, she says, on Wings of Angels.

The Winter Was Cruel

Winter 2008-2009 was cruel but not unusual. We weren’t able to keep up with it, too many drafty shacks, too many propane tanks to buy,and too many more to fill. We didn't call the coroner this time to ask how many died from exposure. We couldn't stand to hear that news.

But get this tale....Ron Becker is an uncanny inventor and when he is not gathering wheelchairs and pt equipment for WofA in Denver, he is putzing around in his garage, making things from other things. (Once for a town parade, Ron made a mobile coffin from two wheel chairs and a joy stick. He lay prone in the coffin, his toes just sticking up,drove the parade route, and won the prize). Last year, Ron made his first solar water heater. With the help of our equally creative constructor, Marcelino, they put the collector on the roof of Uvaldo's, whom you know. (At Christmas 2008, Utah Rotarians,the Cannell family, built Uvaldo's new room. It was freezing outside, so cold the bond beam pour had ice crystals and couldn't cure. The family's water supply in winter is ice water andunbearable.

It was a terrific thrill last month, standing by the faucet in the new room,waiting for the warm water to flow, and it does. And it's free! No propane tank to buy. No propane heater to buy. No tanks to fill.

Last week Ron and Marcelino built prototype No. 2. Materials were $175, a one time cost! This collector goes to the roof of the RotarySpring Project recipient Maria Alarcon and her family.
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Another Spring Break in Agua Prieta

Editor: Nora Zambreno

A group of Logan Rotarians and USU Rotaract Club members completed a service marathon from Logan to Agua Prieta, Mexico, and then home again in just three days. Fred Berthrong called it "an extreme makeover of a hovel" while Dottee Watkins exclaimed it was a "valiant" effort. Read on for both Fred and Dottee's synopses of the visit.

Fred: Add one Jeff (Larsen) and a Ralph (Bair) plus seven Rotaractors (five chicas and two chicos), and what do you get? You get an extreme makeover of a hovel into a livable home with an inside bathroom and shower, toilet, sink, plus a new room for a kitchen, a thorough cleanup job, a closet for all the clothes that were in piles on the floor, a newly painted bedroom and bunk beds for two lovely daughters (ages 8 and 6), plus another bed for someone else. The parents have a new bed to replace the sway-backed mattress on the floor. The beds were made possible by a generous donation from Brian Smith.

The real impact was made in building a eight-foot-high brick wall around the front yard with a security gate to both protect the children and to keep them contained. It was a mess and now it is a livable front yard complete with a brick patio and garden space. It was amazing what we accomplished in three days. We were also able to finish the plumbing in the bathroom of the house that the Interact Club built last year, and it is only two houses away from the one we tackled this year. So there you have it.

Dottee: The team of ten from Utah confronted a terrible task in transforming this awful place into something livable in three days! The group was absolutely valiant in their non-complaining, vigorous, focused enthusiasm although sunburned, muscles cramping, hands cracked, and painful.

Fred installed pipes and fixtures for Clothilde's bathroom, which had not been finished since we were there a year ago.

Then Fred piped and installed fixtures in Maria's home. The crew re-roofed the shack, built a stunning ladrillo security wall around the property to enhance the space for the little girl artists and their autistic brother, which will contain him. There is a sunny space with a brick floor on the patio where everyone can assemble to eat and to study. The donated beds were set up as the last act.Congratulations, Rotaractors and Rotarians! We are grateful, and we are proud of you. More information will follow about Logan Rotary's collaborative efforts and accomplishments in Agua Prieta in future editions of the Rotator. Stay tuned!


NOTE: Dottee Watkins is a Rotarian and our contact with the Wings of Angels Foundation Crisis Intervention Center in Agua Prieta, Sonora, which shares the border with Douglas, Arizona.

YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD A STORY LIKE THIS….

You may remember our friend Maria who had a terrible problem with alcohol. But for the last 18 months she has been “dry” and very happy. Several years ago we built a nice house for Maria and her husband Marcel. It includes two rooms built of ladrillo (fired adobe) which is a great insulator. Also, we built a tiny little chiminea which keeps the house warm in winter. You will remember that Marcel lost his legs when he was 18. For ten years we have known Marcel and Maria as they “worked” the line which leads to the Port of Entry back to the US. The line has many “workers” and they are all our friends. We have helped all of them over the years with things like legs, medicines, free dentistry, and emotional support.

Maria died this week, a painful, awful death from cirrohsis of the liver. The funeral was yesterday. It began at the funeral home, then a procession followed the limousine to the border where Maria spent so much time in her wheel chair hoping for a little money, and finally to the cemetery. All the “workers” (more than 25) were there to send her off in style.

Introducing Our Gardener, Bernardino Enriquez

Sun, soil, and water! We provide the seeds and the talent,Bernardino Enriquez. Educated in the gardens of his mother andgrandmother in the Mexican interior, Bernadino farms a huge Wings ofAngels vegetable garden in the heart of the Ladrillero barrio. Atevery seasonal harvest he distribute's to the very poor and to thevery old.
Bernardino is a teacher. From him, little Hector Bravo learns howto farm his little raised table outside his family's kitchen door.With this educqtion, Hector will always be able to feed his family.
Seed donations come from celebrated seed growers who support our work, Renee Shepherd Seeds and Seeds of Change. Teaching the poor to growtheir own food is fundamental to a basic quality of life.