The first town you drive through heading west from Guadalajara on Highway 15 is La Venta del Astillero, centuries ago a major source of lumber for construction projects in the City of Roses and today apparently no more than a set of speed bumps along the road to Nogales … apparently.
One day my wife was chatting with a woman in La Venta about the plight of the migrants we see daily begging for spare change at a railway crossing on the edge of the pueblito.
“Oh yes, I know them,” she said. “They all sleep at the albergue (shelter) not far from my house.”
Curious to know more about the shelter, we popped in to meet the ladies who run the place, located at Calle Agustín Yañes 122. Our first surprise was to learn that the migrant situation is anything but new.“There have always been migrants riding the rails,” said Guadalupe Ochoa. “This refuge has been receiving them since it was founded 25 years ago. We see people from Honduras and Nicaragua trying to reach the United States, but also Mexicans from Guanajuato, Veracruz and Nayarít who are simply homeless or sick. Here they can get food, medicine, a change of clothes and temporary shelter … and we have separate sleeping facilities for women, families and men.”
Land for the refuge was donated by a priest 26 years ago and the buildings were constructed free of charge by local masons. The place is run by volunteers of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. De Paul was a French priest who was captured by Turkish pirates and sold into slavery in 1605. Famed for his compassion and charity, his work with the marginalized and forgotten poor inspired the founding of the Society in France in the early 1800s when cholera was killing over a thousand people a day in Paris. Offering refuge and help to the poor, this Catholic organization now has nearly a million members in about 130 countries.
The ladies running the shelter have many a tale to tell.
“One man who appeared at our door was actually a U.S. citizen of Mexican origin,” said Pachita. “He had driven down to Puerto Vallarta from the States for a vacation, had been kidnapped and ended up losing his car, his ID, his clothes – everything. Somehow, he managed to hitch hike here and walked in the door. We gave him food and clothes, helped him phone his family in the U.S. and bought him a ticket back to his country.”
Another curious story we heard was about a man who walked in wearing rags and was given decent clothes, underwear and shoes. “When he left,” a woman named Alicia said, “he changed back into his old clothes. He told us the new ones were no good for begging.”
I asked the circle of ladies where they got the money to do all this. They replied that they sometimes hold raffles or sell tamales, gorditas and atole to raise money and that they are always happy to receive gifts such as clothes, bedsheets, underwear, coffee, sugar and all kinds of food.
If you have something to donate to their cause, call Pachita at (33) 3151-0258 or Alicia at 3151-0260. Note that they speak “ni papa de inglés” (not a smidgeon of English).