Profiling Tepehua

By Moonyeen King

President of the Board for Tepehua

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tepehua 1

 

2020 was a year of challenge, but it had prepared the front liners in Tepehua Community Center a little for the challenges of 2021 although they were different inasmuch as everything intensified.  We can all name people around us who have contracted Covid.  Especially in the barrios.

Work to alleviate some of the problems the villages face, like shortages of potable water, food and material for home repair was going on before the pandemic and is still a major need in the barrios, except more-so, and related illnesses are still the same, only more dangerous.

Tepehua Community Center is a major source of strength for the people. The Medical Center is open approximately three times a week for family medicine, gynecology, etc. as is the dental unit. Potable water is delivered when required with distribution for the poor every Saturday. Food distribution occurs twice a month.

Education is at the whim of the Government which is opening up the schools and with luck will stay open. Most households are not conducive to home teaching and study, especially for on-line classes when the poor only have cell phones to rely on. Our team is getting as many children into the general school system as possible.

The public have reacted enthusiastically to the appeal for home improvement donations, for which we thank you. You have no idea the joy a simple commode can bring to a family. Your help to stop open defecation, to bring health and dignity to a people who want to change is priceless. People are aware their environment plays a huge role in health. Keeping our waters free of human waste pollution is essential. We are all involved in the environment issue because what affects one affects the other no matter your status in life. Bringing hygiene to the home has a domino effect and it spreads to the world around us. All the above labor is being done by the home-owners, and if they do not use the material within a month, it is taken away and given to the next person on the waiting list. Where the home does not have labour available, it is supplied to them.

Although the communal toilet opening has been put on hold because of the continuing rise of Covid in the area, the program continues. We are opening, but quietly. Progress reports will still be sent as we monitor the scene. Where we can, we are placing toilets in homes, along with home repair such as roofs and floor tiles to finish the cement floors that stay damp in the rainy season and weep with sweat in the hot dry season in an attempt to dry out. There will be a call for all used toilets and related items until as many homes as possible have toilets.

As soon as funding is found there will be another experimental communal toilet built to see if this is the way to solve the problem. One step at a time.

Covid testing is everywhere, and we must take our health in our own hands. If you feel any or all of the symptoms go and get tested, THEN STAY HOME until you are sure it is not Covid.  Prices for the test are all over the map. This author took some foreign visitors for their pre-flight test and it was over 800 pesos each. Soon after, in the same place a local girl was taken for testing and it was over 700 pesos.  The very next day in the same place we sent her Dad to be tested and they charged him 400 pesos.  Above all else, do not live in fear, just adapt and conquer. As the prayer goes...’Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’

 

El Ojo del Lago - Home Page

For more information about Lake Chapala visit: www.chapala.com

Pin It
 Find us on Facebook