Journalism often demands distance, the idea that a reporter should never step into the story. On a recent trip to Baja California, Mexico, that distance felt impossible to maintain.
From Dec. 29 to Jan. 1, my family and four other family friends drove to Baja California to help build a home for a family in need. The trip challenged my understanding of service, privilege and what it truly means to help a community.
We joined the trip through Baja Bound, a nonprofit organization that connects American volunteers with underserved communities across Baja. Its mission goes beyond construction and focuses on offering stability, dignity and hope to families who have long lived without it.
Our group consisted of 25 people, including 15 children, all under the age of 16.
After crossing the border, the drive to the building site quietly unsettled me. The landscape and daily rhythms were nothing like what I am used to in Davis.
I kept noticing moments that would feel alarming at home, such as mothers balancing children and groceries while walking along busy roads. In Baja, those scenes were ordinary, and life moved on regardless of the risk.
What surprised me most was the warmth. As we passed pop-up shops along dusty roads, shopkeepers met our eyes, offering small nods and smiles.
There was no rush, no hesitation, just a brief human connection. The contrast in wealth was striking and inescapable, with homes made of tarps and scrap wood standing just steps away from pristine, white two-story houses.
There was no separation and no hiding.
Standing there, I realized how narrow my understanding of “normal” had been. Baja forced me to sit with discomfort, gratitude and humility all at once.
I did not just help build a house; I witnessed resilience, generosity and community in their rawest form, and it changed the way I see the world I returned to.
Jenny Hamlin, a mom from one of the families we traveled with, believes the experience was especially valuable for her children. “I want my kids to see other countries and be culturally sensitive,” Hamlin said. “And to learn and see how other people live, and to help others.”
We worked on the house every day from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The days were long and physically demanding, but everyone showed up ready to help.
Three crew workers helped lead the families in their tasks, and a project leader, Nancy Alvarado, guided us throughout the trip and made sure everyone had something to do.
The family whose house we were building worked alongside us, which made the experience much more meaningful. They were a family of four with two daughters, ages 10 and 8.
The language barrier was tricky at times, but several adults and children spoke Spanish, and we worked through it together.
Gender roles were noticeable during construction, with men on the roof installing shingles and hammering walls, while women and children mostly worked on painting. Despite that division, everyone contributed in meaningful ways.
The crew and project leader were especially welcoming to the children and encouraged them to try anything they wanted. The children worked just as hard as the adults, often surprising the crew with their determination and focus.
Hamlin said her favorite part of the trip was watching her kids take part. “Watching my kids actually work and experiencing and contributing to something that’s going to really help someone is amazing,” she said.
Because there were more than enough hands, the children also took time to play with local kids. They made friends by playing basketball and visiting the park.
Even without sharing a language, they connected easily through play.
The rain arrived only on the final day of building, but it created new obstacles as we worked to finish the house on time. With the roof completed, about 20 of us crowded inside the small house to work on painting and drywall.
The tight space and constant noise added to the urgency, but we finished the work.
I had the opportunity to accompany Dalia, the mother of the family, and the project leader to a store to help her choose furniture and food for her new home. That trip was especially meaningful and brought us closer.
Feeling welcomed into her town and her family, and having her ask my opinion about choices for the next chapter of her family’s life, was an honor.
On Thursday morning, we gathered to set up the house and then to celebrate the family’s dedication.
The dedication was warm and heartfelt. A local pastor shared verses from the Bible, and several people spoke to the family about their experiences and what the trip meant to them.
Alvarado quoted Second Samuel 7:27. “For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house’; therefore your servant has found it in his heart to pray this prayer to you,’” she read aloud.
Dominic Monley, a father of three, spoke about his gratitude for the experience. “It is such a blessing to us that we are all here, and the opportunity to be here,” Monley said.
After the remarks, I handed the family their keys for the first time. They unlocked the door and stepped inside their new home.
Will Hamlin, the oldest child in the Hamlin family, was given the honor of knocking on the door and becoming the home’s first guest. The family invited us to stay, talk and celebrate together.
As we packed up and prepared to return home, I realized the trip had given me more than a story. It reshaped how I think about community, generosity and my role as both a journalist and a human being.
Some stories require distance. This one required presence.
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Good story, I enjoyed reading it.
One question, in the last pic what is the hole in the ground for? A well, drainage?
I’ll ask Harlow
From Harlow: “The hole is going to be their bathroom. Inside their house they do not have water or plumbing, so they have their restroom and wash-room outside. Their bathroom will just be like a big porta-potty, and every week a truck will come by and pump the waste out of their toilet. That is was most of the houses have in their area.”
Thank you and thank Harlow.
What a great experience for her and her family.
I remember as a kid driving through Tijuana and seeing all of the cardboard shanties on the sides of hills.
KO say, “I remember as a kid driving through Tijuana and seeing all of the cardboard shanties on the sides of hills.”
I took a rail excursion from Tijuana to Tecate maybe 20 years ago. The train goes through all sorts of areas, and I have burned in my mind when we got into the shanty areas on the south side of Tijuana. Miles and miles of cardboard homes all built right next to each other in any crevice they could find, probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. And countless tons of litter blown out into the desert by the wind for many miles to the south.
What struck me more than anything was how happy they looked. Bright smiles on the children and the adults as our train passed by. I see that so stark in contrast to the empty hopelessness we saw on the faces of the Navajo and Hopi people we saw in Tuba City (see my comment below). Maybe it’s just a misperception or a sample bias on what I happened to see in both places, but honestly I don’t think it is. And I don’t really have an guess of an answer.
“Gender roles were noticeable during construction, with men on the roof installing shingles and hammering walls, while women and children mostly worked on painting. Despite that division, everyone contributed in meaningful ways.”
Gender roles are noticeable throughout most industries (and societies), including those in the United States. Not to mention “age” roles. Perhaps one of the reasons being that you generally need physical strength/stamina to do some of these jobs.
Don’t remember the last time I saw a female construction worker or car mechanic. Or some 70 year-old roofer of either sex.
I doubt that any of this is due to a desire to keep women out of the trades. For the most part, they self-select. They do exist (e.g., electricians), but they’re generally not on construction crews.
I would also probably be “painting”, especially at this point. And in about 30 years from now, the only thing I’d be is “in the way”, if I’m still around.
Great story.
Reminds me of how fulfilling this kind of service is. I remember when a few of us went to Big Mountain and stayed deep in the ‘disputed square’ where there are no utilities the coal mining industry and government had essentially evicted Diné people from their own homes and they were resisting — over decades.
I asked to help out and they gave me an auger and a shovel and a long, solid, wooden pole several inches across, and put me in a large pen and told me a dig a deep, narrow hole such that the pole was exactly vertical and wouldn’t budge even a millimeter, so they could tie their horses to it. I was like ” whaaaa . . . ? “. But I was determined to make it work. And after a couple of hours and a lot of sweat later I asked them to come back and they tugged at it and eyeballed it and slowly said, “good job”. That sticks in my mind as one of the most satisfying experiences of my life.
This article has actually made me rethink my vacation and post-retirement plans — that trips of service and service volunteerism should be included. No matter one’s politics as to how things get how they are, there are always people out there who need help and can benefit from that help. In fact, billions. It’s a matter of research and deciding where good can be done in a way that fits one’s abilities.
As a side note, after installing the pole for hitching, some of their friends came by in the evening and got real drunk and started trashing white people including us. It was pretty brutal. I understand the anger of course. It’s rather humbling to come by to try to understand, witness, and help just a little — and quite something to be there in that capacity and get piled on for the atrocities of millions, because we were there to punch upon. It was hard to take it all in — the anger they held, the feeling of having a life so much more materially full in the ‘same’ country, the emptiness so clear in the eyes of people who had settled in towns, a lingering feeling of ‘how can we really help, once we return to our lives?’.
I do hope this article inspires a few other people to put in some sort of time of service. The possibilities are wide.
As an aside, I must say I was surprised to see two-sex gender roles, bible verses and the ‘God of Israel’ mentioned in a Vanguard article, but no complaints.