Community "Likes"

Yesterday night, I was trying to get information from one guy that demolished, along people from Monterrey and Querétaro States, the houses in Xoxocotla. At first he was really helpful, sending me what he had dutifully made for consequent building. Something we weren't able to foresee yet although everyone wanted to come back and make it happen.

At one point I asked him about the necessities of the people for those spaces, because I want to take an architect there to asses those needs but he quickly told me it was going to be really hard to asses them for every house. "What do you mean? There are three houses, not the whole region. He then said, "well, now that we're talking I must confess we are already making the architectural plant as well, but if you also make an additional proposal, then that's even better and 'your final user' can decide."

I felt a gush of blood coming out of my heart, flowing through my voice, then to the phone. "What? What do you mean? Why duplicate efforts? I do not want to be part of a project that refuses to understand the needs of the people that will live in them!" Did he actually said final user? Yes he did.

What I can't understand at this point now, is that what can really kill the helping buzz we had built these past few days, a week really, is the protagonism masked as altruism. The "I made this happen effect" that has permeated this nation these past few days. We made it happen, true, there is much to be celebrated about these actions, but the fact that some people don't understand that a Facebook post used as a personal medal, can become a medal that will be worn for their selfish reasons and not necessarily for the right ones is something I can't understand.

This is not a race for who can aid first these people, this is a race only against time but can be done organically, funding and offering jobs to people on the region. A resident engineer, building crews, all supported by private people or large funding companies, but carefully, not aiming for the social media "likes" but for the community "likes".