Orphanage - July 19th

This last week we arranged with Edith to meet in the morning. After an unsuccessful attempt to wire the money, Shoreline agreed to send the money to get La Tribu moved in down with me. The plan was to meet Edith early at El Rancho. A small contingent has been squatting there watching their things since they were evicted.

We arrived there at about 9:30AM and Edith wasn’t there. Alejandra, one of the workers, was there and said she was out getting gas for their van and would be back shortly. We waited until 11:00 and decided that it would be a good time to get lunch. We came back from lunch at noon and found her at El Rancho. She had to make a stop at the Union (the church where the rest of the kids were staying), stopping every 5 minutes to refill the very leaky radiator. She asked if we could drop off the broken car at the mechanic before going to sign the papers. We agreed, and were back at El Rancho by about 1:00PM. Another friend from Montebello had a pickup truck, so we loaded the Expedition (that I was driving) and the pickup with furniture and headed towards the property.

The drive to the new property was about 20 or 30 minutes across dirt and paved roads. We made it there and found the land owner. We began discussing the contract and after a while, Edith and the owner came to an agreement and both signed the contract.

With that, Edith asked us to pay the money, so we did. We paid $1600 for the property and $80 for the tax, which is apparently paid by an “Associacion Civil”. Fortunately for us, there was a miscommunication with the amount of money that was needed. Shoreline gave $1800 when the cost (we thought) was $1600. The actual cost of $1680 could be covered. We talked with the owner a bit more, and the owner invited us to bring all the kids over to the pools next Saturday for a move-in party.

We unloaded the things, and then drove back to El Rancho. There we began to take the next load, putting a refrigerator and a few shelves in my Expedition. Edith asked to be taken back to pick up the car, so we thought we’d wait for everyone to be together before we headed over. We waited another hour for her to get back. When she did come, she came as a passenger, not driving her van. Apparently the head gasket had blown, and she’d need to wait until Monday before she could get it replaced. Then we took the trip to the property. We got there and unloaded my car. We showed those who hadn’t seen it the property and then we headed home. I decided to be adventurous and found almost a straight shot to Via Rapida (the freeway that runs through Tijuana, and a relatively quick way to get there. We, of course, stopped for the best tacos in the universe at Otay before crossing the relatively short hour border wait.