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"It's a fixer-upper," we might say with a grin. Ordinary description doesn't really do the property justice- this little house made into a duplex. It sits at the end of a road in a less than desirable Reynosa neighborhood. Pass the house on a dusty little street heading west and gun up a short steep hill and you'll find yourself at the top of a levy, looking at a complex of dirt playing fields. If you were to travel as the crow flies, in less than a half a mile, you'd find yourself at the city dump. Inevitably, piles of trash litter the side of the road, along with the evidence of charred garbage and the discarded soda bottles and chip wrappers that serve as staples of the local diet.

The house itself, it's not much to speak of, really. The front door opens to the entryway living room. A few steps more and you pass a bathroom that's being restored and continue to a corner bedroom. The kitchen is, um, unique. The walls display no less than four styles of tile. The counter tops are granite, yes, but they came together through pieces and parts leftover from other jobs. The original wiring allowed one plug in each room, but our make-it-happen electrician friend is installing more boxes. (Can I mention how grateful I am to have an electrician friend? And friends who tile bathrooms? And who paint walls? And who paint fences? And who clean up yards? And who donate furniture? And who pray?)

Then there's the little structure at the back of the property. We know that the owner has used the brick ovens to roast pig. There's an abandoned band saw in the corner. All manner of trash has been removed. Surely bugs and rodents must hide in the crevices, yet undetected.As grubby and dark as the picture shows, cobwebs knit into dusty cobwebs. Yet, the window set into the top of the wall allows streams of sunlight to expose this place. It is a work in progress, but slowly the glow of light filters out the darkness.