Mexico Monday redux, Week 29

Team members’ cars, including our VW camper, parked along the street in front of a church

This week I have a few more miscellaneous shots from around 1972-1973. Although I can’t recall details about these specific images, I definitely remember visiting a number of prisons during our Mexico trips. When I think back on it now, it seems incredible that Frank Gonzales was allowed to bring a large group of young people (and at least one young child!) inside the penitentiary walls — not just to sing and testify about God but to have close one-on-one contact with inmates in the prison yard, including games of basketball.

Frank speaks with an inmate

Prison basketball game; I’m standing under the blue/white arrow, my mom is under the green arrow, and my Mexican friend, Guillermina, is between us, sitting down

I always found it quite funny that in Mexico the General Tire company was known “General Popo”

Sometimes traveling in Mexico meant “roughing it” a bit — for example, unlike at home, it was not unusual to lack access to in-house washers and driers, or even a laundromat. Then it was necessary to hand wash your clothing in a bucket of water using a washboard and some Fels Naptha soap. That was some serious culture shock for some of these young people; but I’m sure it helped to widen our world view. Note the clothes hanging on a line up above, on the roof.

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