Last year the nine students converted a garbage dump into a public plaza. The dump site "because it was the only open area, was also used as a playground by children," says Jim Palos, an alumnus of last year's program and its Midwest coordinator. "We also built a drainage system under it so excess water from the daily rain could escape," Palos says.

Construction of the playground next to a Catholic church was very important, Palos says, because of the ambiance it creates together with the church: "[A plaza] is a communal area which is very important to Latin American culture."

In the construction, the project members were aided by local engineering graduate students who lived in the the student housing where they stayed, the Residencia Urbana Panamericana.

One-on-one

By helping the poor, the Mexican graduate students were also doing something unusual. Says Wills, "it was neat for them because [college students] don't normally interact with the lower class. We provided a bridge which wasn't really planned, and that was very gratifying to see."

The project also gave some of the American students the opportunity to interact one on one with Mexicans. "I had particular fun with the kids and I realized that there was something wrong with one of them," Miller explained, saying that this child wheezed and the other kids made fun of him. "When I flew back to the States I was really bothered by this kid still being back there, having trouble breathing."

Miller, a Kirkland resident, did more than just worry about the child. He undertook the task of bringing the boy and his mother back to Tucson, Arizona. He spent several weeks fighting bureacracy and immigration red tape, to get the child into America. Once there, Miller's father, an ear, nose and throat specialist diagnosed the child as having tonsilitis complicated by pneumonia and operated on him. Last Miller heard, the child was fine and had returned to Mexico.

Other Harvard students who have gone to Mexico with past projects are John G. Donaghy '90, Jeffrey Hunsinger '89, and William J. Murphy '88.

This summer, the participants will teach English to poor teenagers in Mexico City through an intensive language course. "Our goal is to achieve fluency in seven weeks," Palos says. Once again, the project's goal is very ambitious. Palos explains that seven weeks is currently considered by professionals to be the minimum time in which fluency can be achieved.

"I was asking what to do this summer," Wills explained of his choice for this year's project, "and a teacher in a peasant village told me `Teach kids English and we'll fill the place.'"

While he was investigating the idea of teaching English, Wills says several Mexican private schools asked him to teach their students. "There are no natives teaching English in Mexico," Wills explains, adding that he turned down these offers, because he wants to teach poor children in Mexico to be comfortable around Americans. "With all the tourism, it opens up job opportunities. No one's ever done this, we could be the best language program in the city," he says.

"With our construction projects, we don't pretend to remove poverty, but we try to make it more livable," Palos says. "We think that immediate help is important, but there's also the whole idea of teaching to fish. By teaching them English, we give the kids marketability; knowing English is an advantage in the job market. This is something [the teenager] can hold on to and he can use it to improve his own life."

Palos explains that although the Mexican children learn English in the public schools, in terms of speaking ability they learn nothing. "The kids themselves will tell you: English in the public schools is a joke," Palos says.

Duncan says that to teach English, the project this year is taking down 20 students, to be chosen from an estimated pool of four times as many applicants. But Wills says that, if necessary, "we can go up to 40 people."

Palos says that some of these students will receive financial aid, to allow interested people who cannot pay for their stay the chance to go. To this end, he is currently looking for donations from private individuals. He is also talking to airlines to see if they will donate tickets for the trip. "We hope to reduce the cost for volunteers who are already giving up summer wages," he says.

The program has drawn criticism from some who object to its requirement that participants be men and not women. Wills says that women are not invited to participate in the program mainly because of organizational convenience. Opus Dei is organized into distinct, but equivalent sections for men and women and Elmbrook is a male branch of the organization.

A sister section of Opus Dei also sponsors a project in Mexico, Wills says, "It's simpler for me to make it single sex. There are difficulties with women as far as housing since our dorm [in Mexico] is not co-ed."

However, Palos says the fact the trip is student-funded acts to screen out all but the most serious students who can afford it: "If you're going, you're going for the ideal, so the fact that the student has to make a sacrifice is good because it shows he's interested."