Amber and Daniel

Carrera Panamericana racers help rural craft community

Getting the donated wool to Mexico is always a challenge. I mentioned this issue at a Mujeres en Cambio board meeting and Diane Ruszczk offered a possible solution. Her husband Gerie organizes a caravan of race cars coming from the US into Mexcio for the Carrera Panamericana. http://www.lacarrerapanamericana.com/. This amazing race, that began in the 1950's, has over 100 cars racing from Veracruz through central Mexico and ending up in Zacatecas. Gerie's, Coyote Caravan, assists drivers from the US to navagate the roads from the boarder to Veracruz passing through San Miguel on the way. I spoke with him about the possibility of the race cars bringing wool to Las Rancheritas. He agreed to contact some of the racers about the proposition. Three of them agreed. I made the arrangements to meet them near Austin to load their trucks with the wool and I was invited to go along. I thought the story of race cars bringing wool to Mexican rug hookers was too good a story to miss so I road  with the cars. Here are the photos of the trip. 

The trip from Laredo to San Miguel. 

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18 Bags of wool arrive at the village.

Boni with the cars that brought the wool. Rugs on the hoods of the race cars.

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Racers with rug hookers at the car exibition in SMA.

Our heros Diane and Gerie who made this all happen.

Charlotte and drivers. The end of her adventure, the beginning of theirs.