A Week Working for Humanity Was a Moving Experience : Housing: Helping Habitat for Humanity build homes in Tijuana brought Americans and their Mexican neighbors together in a common cause.

Two Sundays ago, I sat on a dusty hillside in Tijuana, facing a temporary stage placed at the bottom of the hill. On stage were Los Tenientes, a Mexican singing group made up of police lieutenants; the governor of Baja California; the mayor of Tijuana, and a former President of the United States.

My roommate and I had just pitched our tent in the village (site 44D) where hundreds of volunteers like us would be staying. We had met on the bus ride down from Midway Baptist Church in South San Diego.

We were there because of Habitat for Humanity, an organization that has been working on what they call “poverty housing” for 14 years now. The group has spread to 31 countries, fueled by the power of a profoundly simple idea:

Everyone deserves a decent place to live.

After a few mariachi songs and the official greetings, each work group met at a separate part of the camp to divide into house crews. Then, as night began to fall, my crew walked together up the hill to the home sites to find House 41.

That may have been the only quiet moment we spent at the work site all week.

It was still dark Monday morning when the announcement came over the bullhorn: “It’s 5 a.m., time to get up and get to work.” Then these obnoxiously cheerful people would say something like: “At 5 a.m. in Tijuana, it’s 8 a.m. in Ellijay, Georgia.” As if anyone cared.

The first day, we carried our steel and Styrofoam panels to the house and wired them together. We even put most of the rafters up that day.

The majority of the people in the crews didn’t know much about construction. But the panels, nicknamed “coffee cups and coat hangers,” we were building with were new to everyone.

As the hours and days passed, we watched our house and many new friendships take shape. Lupe, the new homeowner, worked alongside us. Fermin, a friend of the family, was strong and full of energy, showing the novices how to throw stucco on a wall.

By lunchtime each day, the chair in the dining tent was as refreshing as the food. But the conversations at the table gave the week a special atmosphere. Everyone seemed easy to talk to, and they wanted to talk.

Oh, you’re from San Diego? Which house are you working on? Have you cut out the windows yet? Why did you come here? Did you see Jimmy? He was in the food line. He was in the shower. He pitched his tent while the media taped and photographed him.

(Because everyone I know has asked me, the closest I got to him was Monday morning. He was on his way to pick up a wall panel from the stacks of them, and so was I. I smiled and said, “Good morning.” He looked intent on what he was doing. But then he gave me his famous, winning smile and said “Morning” back.)

Jimmy, ex-President of the richest country the world has ever seen but still a servant to his fellow man, is the perfect symbol for Habitat for Humanity. Each individual is what counts in that organization:

My tentmate, a UC Santa Barbara political science student who filled my ear with Christian and philosophical arguments all week.

The 18-year-old from Jacksonville, Fla., who had just graduated from high school and learned how to run a cement mixer.

The chairwoman of a packaging firm in Virginia who kept us all supplied with stucco and smiles.

The Navy computer whiz from Mare Island naval base in the Bay Area who installed the wiring in our house.

I was there, too, an eight-year resident of San Diego who has seen and read about the poverty of Tijuana for a long time. Sure, it would take more than one week of work to solve that city’s problems. But building 100 houses for 100 families is a realistic, one-step-at-a-time way of helping. Compared to the conditions that exist on the other side of our First World-Third World border, the sacrifice of a week of vacation time is small.

And, of course, there were the Habitat families--the people of Tijuana, who would benefit the most from our hard work.

On Thursday night, after the evening’s entertainment in our makeshift amphitheater, they gave us a beautiful thank you. It was announced that the families had something special for us to see. The stage lights were turned off, leaving the audience in darkness. Then, atop the facing hill, a few small lights appeared.

About 100 people carrying candles were slowly walking down the hill.

The beauty of the scene was overwhelming. These poor people, who had no things of value to give us, wanted to show their appreciation.

As they drew closer, the volunteers got more excited. The candles were used to light a bonfire. A song was sung in Spanish. Then, spontaneously, one in English--that old church camp favorite, Kumbaya.

“O, Lord, come by here,” never sounded truer than it did that night on a dusty hillside in Tijuana.