The group, generally 10 to 15 volunteers who chip in for trip expenses, arrives by car on Saturday mornings. The group spends all day and part of the next working. With interpreters close at hand, dentists pull teeth, doctors examine patients and nurses counsel pregnant women. Other volunteers cook, organize supplies and keep children occupied. When the workday is over, volunteers get a chance to enjoy Baja, hiking to quartz fields, abandoned mines and ancient pictographs.
Dinner is usually a barbecue, followed by good conversation and stargazing.
In the summer, volunteers at El Alamo sleep under the night sky, while those from the Jesus Maria clinic camp on beaches lapped by the Pacific Ocean. Flying south on a small plane is still one of the fringe benefits for Orange County chapter volunteers at Jesus Maria. By car the trip would take a day, but by plane it takes little more than an hour. The Baja is so close, and yet so remote. The contrast between life in Southern California and rural Mexico is, for her, compelling.