A week at The Funky Monkey, and a day at the dump

Wednesday 24th April - Thursday 2nd May

True to form, I ended up spending a week at the Funky Monkey Hostel, rather than the few days I intended. It was just so good to get a little space, get some time to do some writing, and catch up on Angel Mule and Open Volunteer stuff. I couldn't resist. Plus the crowd at the Funky Monkey were super fun to hang out with, and I even got to check out Mazatlan a little, and see some of its beautiful sunsets.

The Funky Monkey is a new hostel, started by the chilled out Salem, when he saw how few good hostels there were in Northern Mexico. This is the only one in Mazatlan - a tourist town of almost half a million people! I had a great time heading to the beach, sharing dinners, and just hanging out with the other backpackers.

Team Funky

My favourite spot on the roof

Not a bad view from my favourite spot

My most enriching experience, however, was on my last day in town. I had heard there was a good charity nearby, and that they went out to the city dump to feed the poor there on Thursdays. So I ended up meeting up with the organisers, and staying an extra two days to go out and help them with their work. La Vina, or The Vineyard, is a Christian church run by Americans and Canadians, and provides feeding programs to poorer colonias in Mazatlan. They go out several times a week, handing out water, fruit, and tortas (sandwich-ish things).

Bottling the water

The sandwich production line

What concentration

On Thursday, I helped fill and cap 200 bottles of water, and helped prepare 300 tortas in the morning, before heading out to hand them out. We visited a couple of colonias, handing out food, mainly to children who knew about the van. The most striking visit was the city dump. There, around 200 people scour the trash every day, looking for things they might be able to sell to recyclers - plastic, aluminium, etc - or things they can use to build rudimentary dwellings in the nearby slums - usually cardboard, pieces of wood, rope, and rags. They even scavenge some food from there. The people who lined up for tortas and water were in varying states of health and cleanliness, and many had fingers missing, or other physical impairments and disabilities, and ranged in age from teenage to elderly. It was pretty grounding to see the conditions the live in everyday just to get by.

Me and my sweet hat, handing out goodies

The dump