On June 7, a group of UBRPers, including me, traveled to Nogales, Mexico with a group of BARA (Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology) interns from the UA. Even before we drove across the border, we could see the outline of the "fabricas" (factories) appearing on the horizon. Over the past several years, the population of Nogales has exploded with people coming to work in the factories. As a result, many small communities called "colonias" have popped up. Most of the houses in these "colonias" do not have electricity or indoor plumbing and their walls are made of scavenged materials discarded by the factories. One of the projects that the BARA interns are working on with the Nogales community is the development of fibrous concrete bricks for the construction of real houses. Unlike traditional concrete bricks, these bricks are made mostly of recycled paper from the factories with some concrete, saw dust and sand mixed in. The benefit to this is that these bricks are cheaper, lighter, more space efficient than traditional concrete and they are virtually fire proof-which is huge asset to the community considering that fire is the only way to keep warm and/or cook and the houses are made of cardboard.

Don Lupe is a Nogales local who makes, and teaches others to make these bricks to help his community. He showed us the entire process. One method is to mix the fibrous concrete or "paper crete" by hand in a large trash bin. Each one of us grabbed what looked like a giant potato masher and started mixing the paper, water, concrete, sand, and saw dust into mush -- a job that is much harder than it looks. After about a half an hour, our "paper crete" mix was ready to pour into wooden molds. After all that work, we had made four bricks. An accomplishment we were proud of, yet to build a house, four bricks in more than an hour is not exactly time efficient. Luckily, Don Lupe has developed, with the help of the Nogales Instituto de Tecnología, a mixer/trailer that can produce large amounts of paper create for bricks. It was a large metal drum with a blade in the bottom to cut and mix the paper crete. I'm sure an engineer could explain the exact mechanics of the contraption much better, but by moving the trailer forward the blade spun thus pulping the paper. Unfortunately, the only way to operate the mixer was to pull it behind a truck (which requires gasoline, and we all know how expensive that can be). Don Lupe hopes someday to have some sort of electric generator to power the mixer. Using the mixer/trailer we made nearly five times as many bricks in half the time as mixing by hand.

After a delicious lunch of pollo asado, rice, beans and horchata, we set off to help at the local community center, which was a ramada and a soccer field. Flooding is eroding the land around the community center. We helped build dams around the trees to keep them from being swept away the next time it rains. After a quick soccer game with some local kids, we all piled back into the van to head back to Tucson. Though we were dirty, sweaty, and slightly sunburned, we were happy with the day's accomplishments and thankful for the opportunity to help the Nogales community. Even though we all live in the same desert not more than an hour apart, it was truly eye opening to see the difference between my life here in the US and life in Mexico.

Krista Kinnard, URBPer in Dr. Julie Lang's lab, Surgery