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Report on the actual situation at the Casa Hogar, Toluca - Mexico
April 2005

by Maria Teresa de Martinez

       With these brief comments I want to catch you up with daily life at the Casa Hogar. The most important part of it all, as you know, is for the environment in the Casa to be that of a family home rather than an institution. The boys (most of them teenagers) make the Casa a place full of an amazing amount of energy. Life is in general very comfortable. Adrián, Manuelito and Iván are still the youngest in the house, spoiled rotten by their older brothers. They know very well how to make use of their position as babies of the house, too. They have perfected using their considerable charm with the customers of the car wash, to the extent that the three of them get more money in tips than the rest of the boys combined. The Car Wash, by the way, is doing great. It still runs on the weekends, and is doing quite well. We are washing approximately 90 cars per day. As you know, the kids are required to save a percentage of their money, which they may not withdraw from their bank account, since this will be the basis of their future independence.

School is still number one priority at the house. Next June, Alfonso and Juan Adán will be graduating from high school, and starting university. They both want to go into Engineering- Computer Engineering, to be more exact. However, at the other end of the spectrum, we have three boys who were sadly no longer intellectually able to continue in school. These boys are training at the hotel to become skilled at something that will make them prosperous, independent adults. Javier is a trainee at the Housekeeping department; Rogelio is working at the Purchasing Department and Arturo is training to become a Special Events waiter. The idea is to help the find their vocation, and to have a decent and good way of supporting themselves in the future. So far they are doing well, although they still have a fair amount of learning to do. Being workers in the real world, with real bosses is definitely not as easy as being just boys form the Casa.

            On a sad note, I very much regret to inform you that Ricardo has left the Casa. One day he failed to show up for classes after he was dropped off at school. At first we were extremely worried, since we didn’t know whether he had left voluntarily, or something bad had happened to him, since the whole thing had been so sudden. Eventually, we found out he had run away, and is now living in very deplorable conditions. It was quite a shock for all of us, because he had been apparently quite willing to accept the discipline required in the Casa. To all appearances, he was willing to fight to become someone in life. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way. This whole situation was very upsetting for the kids, the tios and Ramón and myself. We especially tend to wonder what we did wrong. It was Charly and Alejo, however, who gave us the answer. They said, “Tía, Ricardo has chosen his own way of life”. They are right. We can’t hold on to the kids who don’t want to be held on to.

During their Spring Break, we asked the kids to get jobs helping out in Ixtapan de la Sal. I can proudly say that they have been our most enthusiastic workers to the date. Everyone agreed that they were polite, hard-working young men, and an asset in every way to every department in which they contributed. They also discovered the financial benefits of being polite and helpful to costumers, and came home with almost double their salary in tips from grateful guests. Charly, in particular, who worked as a Spa valet, had the distinction of being the one who made the most tip money of them. He also apparently learned quite a bit of the trade, since he told us he planed to use that money to get himself a Reflexology massage. Alejo, Juan Adán, David, José Luis and Charly proved themselves to be very worthy ambassadors of the Casa: the staff at Ixtapan is ready to welcome them back with open arms whenever they wish to return.
But the staff at Ixtapan is apparently not the only one the boys have impressed. The phone at the Casa now rings off the hook with many calls form the boys´ female admirers. Some of them are sought because they are very handsome. Others, like Victor, who are not so physically attractive, earn many admirers through their big charm. He is in fact one of the most popular ones. The Tios have had to organize a system to take the phone messages, and to limit call times, since otherwise it would be absolutely impossible for the rest of us to ever be able to reach the Casa by phone.

We also know that the world our boys are growing up in is a lot of times a dangerous place. Because of this, we have arranged for them to have talks on subjects ranging from alcohol, drugs, sex, and other common dangers their generation faces nowadays. As our boys grow up, we know they will be exposed to bad things, and we want to give them all the information they need to make sure they make the best decisions possible. Fortunately, we haven’t had any of these issues with our boys, but it is always better to be prepared.
We have as always, plenty of high hopes for the boys´ future. We, as always, are forever grateful to our sponsors for helping to make so many of this high hopes possible. We always try to make sure these funds are geared towards giving our most unprivileged youth a shot at a bright and prosperous future.  

The boys in the casa