Karen Kotoske's February visit to Mexico's Sierra Huichol

Loading up the plane at the Guadalajara airport for our 50 minute flight to the rugged Sierra Huichol dirt airstrips, our morning passengers were a sixteen year old Huichol Indian mother and her four year old son, and the boy's grandmother. The young mother had been caring for her mother following surgery in a Guadalajara hospital. I asked the young mother if she'd been able to attend middle school. Unfortunately her child's birth had come when she was only twelve so she had to leave school for a new life as a mother.

We landed in San Miguel Huaixtita, and heading next up the mountain road for one of three food programs we sponsor at Huichol schools, for 310 students. Arriving at Tecolote about 11AM, we found cook Leticia and her volunteer mother helpers making hundreds of tortillas for the 75 children who'd soon arrive for lunch. Also cooking on the open fire: a kettle of beans and another of thick soup, and I saw a 10 gallon pot of posole, a warm milk and corn drink that the children love. Just across the kitchen yard was the new chicken house where the cooks gather fresh eggs daily. I couldn't help but think that our Huichol students are receiving better nutrition than American students who live on fast food.

The preschool children, ages 4-5, came first, followed by the grades 1-3. They arrived in an enthusiastic but orderly line, first washing their hands in a big pot outdoors, then filing into the adobe dining room. The children ate with serious concentration: few spoke, for all interest was on the warm delicious food. It was clear this was their first meal of the day - for some, their only meal of the day.

Thank you, Amistad donors, for giving these lovely children food to eat!