Work Update

You may have been wondering what I actually do here in México, or if you haven't I bet you are now...
The first few months of any volunteer's service are spent figuring out what you can do to help your community.  For me, I quickly found myself venturing out to the schools in Ciudad Guzmán inquiring if they had any interest in a gringa coming around to teach the kids about environmental topics. Fortunately for me, the schools said they did and off I went!
So far I have taught at 2 schools, primarily teaching students in the 5th and 6th grades. I started in September and this week will mark my last week at these specific schools as I will find new ones to work at in the new year.  This has been a learning experience for me for a couple of reasons:

1) I had no formal classroom teaching experience prior to this
AND
2) I had to teach in Spanish, a language I am still getting the hang of and probably will be for the rest of my service and beyond...so many things to learn!

Here are some photos from my classes:

Students digging for trash pieces in the mini landfills we
made to observe decomposition rates

Happy kids!

I will be eternally grateful to these schools for letting me come every week.  They were very patient with me as I learned how to teach.  Some classes went better than others as I tried out activities and figured out what works and what doesn't.  I'm happy to say that in my opinion I have progressed greatly in 3 months (most of that due to my Spanish improving) and I look forward to continuing that trend in the coming year.

Lately I have also been out visiting rural communities in the area.  This past month my other mission at work right now is to find a rural community to work in (I think after much searching I have finally found one, yay!).  In my efforts to find a suitable community I have been traveling to various communities and here are some photos from those trips.

Inauguration ceremonies in the community of Ferrería in honor of
 the opening of their Casa de Paja
(aka a straw house, a cheap and durable way to build a building)

Respiratory section of the medicinal garden located
behind the Casa de Paja

Lombricomposta (worm compost)

View of the completed Casa de Paja

View of the medicinal garden in the community Epenche

My office works in various rural communities by providing them with the training and funding to build medicinal gardens, worm composts, and casas de paja (among other things).  Usually it is a group of between 15-25 women, or Señoras, in the community that provide the manpower for these projects. Once the women learn the ins and out of growing the medicinal plants they are able to sell products such as soaps and oils.  It seems to take a few years for the women to learn the tricks of the trade and organize themselves to do this, but once they do it is an added income source for their families...every bit of money helps in these small communities far away from cities.  I love the warm and welcoming people you find in the more rural areas which is why I'm looking to work in one, plus I feel I could be useful. My plan would be to go and visit the community every week or so and provide assistance as needed whether that is teaching kids or picking up trash, I am open to whatever!

For the inauguration ceremonies in these communities we were served A LOT of food.  Here is a view of one of the meals I was served...although this one was a little oily and greasy for my taste and I am 99.9% sure was the source of a recent stomach bug I had, I still appreciate the gesture!

Meat, beans, rice, tortillas, and coke to wash it down: typical Méxican meal

While touring a community I  found corn about 10 feet tall! 

Here ends your little update on my work happenings in México.  I also want to say Happy Thanksgiving! to everyone back home.  Be sure to eat a little extra pumpkin pie for me as that will be missing from my Thanksgiving meal this year...turns out there is not enough demand for pumpkin pie mix in México for it to be found in the supermarkets.  I will have to 'settle' for apple pie this year :)