“Bienvenidos a La Campana”
“Welcome to La Campana”
This expression summarizes the feeling that the inhabitants of La Campana want to give to those who come for the first time to visit or, like us, came to work with them.
We learned that life has been hard, but the solidarity among its inhabitants has been fundamental in the development of the many neighborhoods or worlds that coexist in this hill with the shape of a bell.
This page is our little tribute to the place that they love as Celso Piña does in the video below, who sings to La Campana with cumbia and with heart. Then we reproduce a text taken from the book by Celina Fernández, Director of the Barrio Esperanza Organization, Voces de La Campana. Barrio Esperanza: The experience of creating community.
Also, we want to offer a look at the site that served as work for this course. The place that was chosen by the community to change it from a dumpster to a park for children. El Parque de los Niños, is a way to prevent the environment from deteriorating and to give children a safe and close space to play at ease.
El Cerro de La Campana
El Cerro de la Campana – o La Campana – es un barrio ubicado en el centro de la topografía del area metropolitana de Monterrey, México.
Para sus moradores es un lugar privilegiado. “Ningun lugar es como éste,” dirá cualquiera a quien le pregunte en La Campana. “La vista es maravillosa, desde aquí se ve la ciudad y el aire corre casi todo el año.” Este ambiente y lugar que llaman hogar seguramente las hace personas más felices, que aman el cerro La Campana. Pese a lo duro que ha sido establecer ese hogar por las condiciones económicas, pero también por la violencia que se salió de control en el México de las últimas décadas.
“En Monterrey y su area metropolitana se vivió una vioIencia sin precedentes durante algunos años (más o menos del 2006 al 2013).” No hay familia que no haya sido trastocada por la violencia vivida durante ese tiempo. El Cerro de la Campana no estuvo excento de esa violencia, “se vivió de manera muy intensa debido a la entrada de grupos del narcotráfico a la parte alta del cerro donde se apoderaron del territorio amenazando a la comunidad, quitando sus casas para ellos poder asentarse y esconderse.
“Mucha gente cree que fue Ia policia los que sacaron a ‘Ios malitos’ pero no fue así, fue la misma gente de aquí. (…) Tuvimos que armarnos de valor y sacarlos, Io hicimos con nuestras manos porque ya no teníamos nada que perder, porque nadie iba a llegar a defendernos porque los mismos policias golpeaban a nuestros chavos, Ilegaban en camionetas oficiales a saquear nuestras casas, desaparecían a familiares y cuando íbamos a denunciar no pasaba nada. Muchos murieron defendiendo a la colonia … que todo el mundo allá afuera sepa la verdad, sepa que muchos chavos murieron por defender a sus familias.”
Textos extraídos del libro “Voces de La Campana. Barrio Esperanza: La experiencia de crear comunidad”, por Celina Fernández Vizcaíno.
El Parque de Los Niños
Before there was a Parque de Los Niños, there was just a vacant lot rubbled with trash and building debris.
This lot had sat this way for years, in the middle of a heavy foot traffic area in La Campana under a bridge that connected the neighborhood with the rest of Monterrey. The lot borders a small creek, which babbles with water and pieces of garbage that were blown or thrown into its currents. The La Campana neighbors told us they had been wanting to convert the trashed lot into something good for the neighborhood. They were tired of it being a dump. So they decided to transform it into a pocket park.
The site needed a lot of work. Perhaps the biggest problem was that part of the lot pooled with water and sewage after a heavy rain since there is a sewage duct there. Lety, who lives in front of the lot, told us we should build a drainage system to alleviate the flooding. We helped nearby neighbor Avelardo dig a drainage ditch, and later he and another neighbor installed two PVC pipes in the ditch and covered them. This helped a lot.
For days, we helped several nearby neighbors dig up and remove all of the trash and debris muddled in the area. We uncovered layers upon layers of rubbish, determined to make the ground flat and clean enough for the La Campana kids to play on.
Before we left, we installed a new park letrero – or park name sign – designed and painted by the neighborhood kids and had them decorate a large post in the space with colorful handprints. To our delight, the neighbors continued cleaning up the space long after we returned home to Texas. It now is a small park, with play equipment, a retaining wall, a fence, and even a new tree. It is the Parque de Los Niños.
