Curso de Verano

The past 2 weeks have been quite busy around here.  The other volunteer at my site, Shayna, helped to put together a Curso de Verano (a summer course) for kids.   There were two courses of, with each course including 60-70 kids, lasting 5 days, and covering topics such as recycling, pollution, water, forest fires, deforestation/reforestation, ecotecnias, biodiversidad, and even a short lesson on first aid.  Both courses were essentially the same, the only difference being their locations.  The first course was at CEFOFOR so the other 4 volunteers who work nearby were able to come and help out while 2 other volunteers came from other states in Mexico to help as well. Together, we were quite a force to be reckoned with in our official Curso gear:

Here are some photos from the presentations and activities…there were sessions given by Peace Corps volunteers and the general staff at CEFOFOR.

Shayna talking about bidiversity

Activity time!

The group with Savi the squirrel (Mexico's Smoky the Bear equivalent)

Kids Helping fight some fire

 

Planting some trees

The second week of the course took place about an hour and a half away from The Guz, this meant early mornings as we commuted back and forth each day and also meant not as many Peace Corps volunteers could come out and visit as it was quite the logistical challenge just to get me and Shayna out there each day!  This course took place in Tapalpa, a small town in a much more rural than The Guz.  It does have a Pueblo Magico designation though…which I'm not entirely sure what is needed to meet these requirements, but it is kind of equivalent to a historical designation in the States and helps attract tourists.  While a bit tiring to commute every day to this location, I enjoyed interacting with the kids in the rural area where people riding on horseback was not uncommon.  You could really tell a difference in the kids as they were shy at first meeting, but they were also more respectful towards us and very well behaved…at times the kids at the CEFOFOR course were a bit hard to handle :).  

Whitney & Shayna hard at work

 

 Giving a tour of the Medicinal Garden

The kids with their plants they got to take home

Playing Loteria (Bingo)

Activity book time
(book designed by Whitney & Shayna)

So there you have it…a taste of the past two weeks for me.  I learned a lot and had a good time talking with the kiddos…even despite the fact they enjoyed laughing about my accent/pronunciation of words :)

And in case there weren't enough photos in this blog here are a couple more from Tapalpa

   

Cathedral in Tapalpa's downtown

I also got to make my very first tortilla by hand!  These ladies were amazing. They helped out with the course in Tapalpa all week and made us food every day, which they did not have to do.  When I saw them making tortillas I knew I had to try and make one myself…they taught me, but I will need to make 2938789 more to be at their level.

Schooling me in how to make tortillas

My first hand made tortilla!
(cute little guy if I do say so myself)

The 20 hour day

Boring.

If I only had one word to describe this past Saturday I most certainly would NOT use the word 'boring'.  The great days are never boring though, and as far as days go this was a pretty good one.  The day began with a 4:30am wake up call as we were heading up to the Parque Nacional Volcán Nevado de Colima for a summit bid (this is the peak that I keep showing pictures of that overlooks the city). This was a fairly ambitious goal, not because the hike would be super strenuous as there is a road that goes pretty high up so we wouldn't have to be hiking the entire volcán, but because currently we are in the rainy season, making the weather patterns on top of a 4000+ meter peak quite unpredictable with the threat of rain always looming.  We decided to take our chances anyway as there were 3 other Peace Corps volunteers visiting Ciudad Guzman from around the country who had come for the week to help out with a summer course for kids (more on that in a later post) so we decided it would be a good time to visit the park and take a hike.  So 10 of us, the 6 volunteers who live here plus the 3 visitors and our guide, set our alarms and set off for an adventure.

After about an 1.5-2 hour drive we arrived at our drop off point, where we were greeted by a cloudy day (not the clear one we had hoped for).  We began our trek upwards anyway, hoping the skies would clear up on our way and allow us to reach the summit. However, within about 20 minutes the rain began and shortly thereafter hail followed by thunder until eventually these were the conditions we were hiking in:

Beautiful day for a hike! The white is hail, not snow.
 I believe I'm on the far right

After about an hour of walking in the rain and hail and an occasional thunder clap, we decided maybe we should head back down to the van and shelter.  We were all pretty wet and cold, my decision to wear wool socks and hiking boots paid off as my feet stayed nice and toasty…fun fact about Mary, as long as my feet are not cold I can remain pretty comfortable in cold weather, but once the feet are cold it's no fun for me (just ask my brothers for verification on this as they had to put up with my cold feet often on ski trips).  By the time we made it back down to the van the rain had stopped and the skies appeared to be clearing up a bit, always fun when that happens!  This left us at a crossroads on whether or not to hike back up in the hopes that the skies would clear enough for us to get some nice views or continue down and warm up a bit.  Three of us decided to try our luck and retrace our steps back up the mountain and the Volcán de Colima (or Fuego) was nice enough to reward us for our efforts by emitting some ash plumes or as I like to think of it a volcanic burp…granted this is not entirely surprising given that this particular volcano, which sits right behind Volcán Nevado de Colima and on a clear day can be seen from Cd. Guzman, has these 'burps' several times a day, a side effect of being one of the most active volcanoes (and possibly the most active) in Mexico.

Volcán de Colima in action, we are 5km away as the crow flies 

with Whitney, notice no ash rising from the volcán

Here are some other pictures from the hike:

Walking on this sandy/ashy part of the volcano was quite fun.  It reminded me of what walking on the moon might feel like (admittedly I have no first hand experience with moon walking, but in my imagination this comes close to what it would be like).  You sink down a bit with each step, but you also bounce back up a bit so it kind of feels like you're hopping along.  It is also quite fun to run down; digging in your heels and relying on the sandy mixture to slow you down enough that you won't fall, but not so much that you lose the thrill of running down a mountain.  

John positioning himself for the perfect picture

Looking back at the peak as we make our way down

Later on we rejoined forces with the rest of the group, who had done their own hiking, and made our way back to "The Guz" (which is my name for Ciudad Guzman) where my apartment was to play host to a potluck dinner party which was serving as a final get together for the volunteers who had visited this week.  I had a couple of hours to get things ready and then when people started coming over this 'little' spider shows up to the party entering through the front door…I guess he heard the food was going to be good and didn't want to miss out.

Our tarantula friend, we are pretty sure he was someone's escaped pet

Happy after successfully capturing the spider (who is in the bag)

After the spider interruption with continued on with our night.  By the end of the night I had next to no energy after the early wake up call and the day's adventure.  At 12:30 I my bed had never looked so good and I quickly fell asleep, having successfully completed and enjoyed my 20 hour day.  Can't wait to see what next weekend brings!

*Tarantula update:
Eventually he was put in a box and ended up being a surprise for my landlord to find the next day (this was not my intention, but it was outside my door and their curious boys opened the box to find the spider).  They were quite surprised, but the boys were fascinated and I was happy to provide them with some entertainment.  They then assumed responsibility for the spider, much to the dismay of the mother, so I did not have to decide what to do with it.  Who knows what it is up to at this point!

Leche caliente

Have you ever woken up one morning and craved milk straight from a cow's udder, mixed with some sugar, cocoa, and a splash of alcohol?  Well, neither have I…

The drink I described above is leche caliente (or hot milk), a Mexican specialty.  

So how did I come to know about this intriguing mixture?  One night, my host family here was asking if I had tried this drink before…once they mentioned milk straight from the cow mixed with alcohol I was like nope, never had that one.  When my shocking secret had been revealed to the family they set out to correct this and the next morning they insisted that we go to the farm and try it.  Unfortunately, because cows are milked in the morning this means an early wake up call, but I was willing to wake up for this drink as it seemed like it was going to change my life based on how excited everyone was to get their leche caliente.  

At 7:30 we set out, I was assured I could go in my pajamas so I did…why not be comfortable???  And we made our way the 3 blocks or so to the farm with our mugs in hand (the fact that it was only 3 blocks away should tip you off to how far away I am from the city center).  Once we arrive I was surprised to see how many people were outside, drinking their milk.  At this point I'm feeling a little self conscious to be in my plaid pajama bottoms, but oh well, my family was in their comfy clothes as well so I wasn't the only one not wearing jeans or a cowboy hat.  Anyways, we go to the stable area where they have a table with sugar and a container of alcohol, we brought our own chocolate with us to mix in.  My host brother prepared my concoction of sugar, chocolate, and alcohol (which when my host mom saw how much he put in she chuckled as it was a little more than is normal I think…more on that to come) and then he handed my mug to the keeper of the cows (I can't think of a better name for him) and he squeezed the milk from the cow right into my mug.  

Now the taste was not all bad.  It essentially was hot chocolate, or really lukewarm hot chocolate.  The drink was very rich and sweet.  The milk had a feint taste of cow attached to it which I suppose is unsurprising given it came directly from the cow.  The flavor that I didn't care for the most though was the alcohol...which that is literally all they call it is alcohol, so I've no idea how strong that stuff is.  I think my host brother put a little more than usual in (hence the chuckles from my host mom when she saw the amount) as there was definitely a very strong flavor of alcohol…and mixing my morning milk with alcohol is maybe not the most desirable thing to drink 10 minutes after waking up, I guess the Mexicans like it, but I'll have to work on acquiring that particularly craving.  However, I did enjoy the entire experience and getting to taste my very first leche caliente!  

I am glad my host family took me with them to participate in the Mexican tradition.  We all had a great time and when we came back we washed down our milk with some good ole' pancakes (or hotcakes as they call them here)  I would definitely go back to drink some more of this stuff, but maybe I'll add a little less alcohol next time :)

The pictures aren't great, but they give you a little bit of an idea of where I was...

The cow who so generously shared her milk with me 

Mexicans enjoying their early morning milk

Outside view of the stable area where the cows
 are, with the sunrise

Learning on the job

The past month that I have been working at CEFOFOR has been a learning experience, just like the first month of any other new job.  I have been meeting the people in the office, learning about what they do, and while doing this I've been trying to figure what piece I am going to be in the puzzle that is CEFOFOR.  All of this is made much more interesting and challenging considering the fact I am doing all of this in a different language.  My Spanish is improving day by day which is aided by the fact that no one in my office speaks English…it's funny how when you are forced to speak and listen to another language all day things start coming together.  I still have a LONG ways to go, but it is nice to be able to recognize improvement.  

Anyways, one of the activities I have been up to this month to learn a little bit about the organization was participating in one of the workshops that CEOFOR organizes for people from all over the country. This is the main purpose of my site, they are a training center for those working in jobs regarding environmental education, community development, natural resource management etc.  The specialty of this place is their work with ecotecnias and this particular workshop that I attended was focused on teaching about the benefits and how to make a variety of ecotecnias.  Remember- ecotecnias are easy, environmentally beneficial 'technologies' people can implement in their daily lives (usually in more rural areas).  

Here are some photos of some of the ecotecnias we constructed:

Learning about the Casa de Paja (or straw house).  You combine bales of straw with a mud mixture to make the walls, they are surprisingly durable, if made correctly they can last 100 years (or so they tell me).  You can see the completed example wall in this picture

Making the mud mixture, or the "cement" of the house that you use to cover the bales of straw. It's a simple mixture that contains three ingredients: dirt, straw, and water…all of which are pretty available wherever you go!

Water has been added to the mixture here...

Constructing the wall (you put the mud mixture over the straw,
which I sadly don't have a picture of…just imagine straw covered in mud)

Lombri=worm, Composta= compost.  Put those together
and you have the lombricomposta, or worm compost

Horno Ravo Quente…you put wood in here and let it burn
 for 36 hours and then you have charcoal (carbón) you can use.
I made sure to get the guy in the cowboy hat in this picture...

Display of the products of the farmacia viviente (living pharmacy),
this was used to show the benefits of various plants...
think medicinal remedies and all that.

As you can see in this picture there were quite a few people attending this workshop, I think the total number was around 70 people.  Everyone comes from around the country, from as close as right here in Ciudad Guzman to as far away as the Yucatan…which is really far, trust me.  They stay for a few days at the dorms that are here and do a whole lot of learning, the days are very busy.  It was neat to be able to meet so many people from around the country, everyone was very nice to me as I clearly stuck out in a crowd of Mexicans and many went out of their way to talk to me.  I now have a few couches to crash at whenever I start traveling more throughout Mexico!

Deshidratador solar…solar dehydrator (you use this to dehydrate fruit
or meats so you can preserve them for longer)

We also made learned about many other ecotecnias that I don't have pictures of such as wood saving stoves, mushroom cultivation, and rainwater harvesting techniques.  Overall it was a great, if not exhausting, few days.  I am glad to have learned even more about these quite impressive, and easy to use technologies.  It was good to get an idea of what the bread and butter of CEFOFOR is (conducting these workshops) as I learn more and more about this place.

I just like this picture with the cloud layer hovering on top of the city

Watching the World Cup in Mexico

Fortunately, my time in Mexico has happened to overlap with the World Cup.  It is even more fortunate that the World Cup happens to be occurring during my first month in site.  This gives me an easy topic of conversation to fall back on if I'm ever running out of ideas…plus everyone in Mexico is really excited about the World Cup.  If Mexico plays during office hours, my office sets up a projector, takes a break from work, and watches the games something I happily join in on.  If I'm not at the office during games I have watched them with my host family and everyone gets really excited during the games so it is a fun atmosphere at home as well. 

Today, Mexico had its final game in the Group stage and won against Croatia meaning that they advance to the knockout stages which is very exciting.  I was watching the game with my host family and after they won they asked if I wanted to join them in celebrating the win by driving around with the Mexican flag, and shouting "México" and other cheers. I said of course I would like to do that (all part of that whole integration, do as the locals do process) and off we went.

Mexican flag ready to go

Trying my best to look like a local

Others joining in on the celebration

As we started driving we soon came across other cars with excited Mexicans shouting, honking horns, and waving flags.  I would say 1 out of every 5 cars were participating in this ritual in Guzman.  People on the streets were also cheering and waving their own flags if they were available.  Overall, it was a really fun experience to see the whole city excited about this win and Mexico's success in the World Cup…here's to hoping it continues, next game is on Sunday!  ¡Viva México!

Random Photo of the day- Saw my first rainbow in Cd. Guzman after my run yesterday

First days in my new city

Now that I am officially a resident of Ciudad Guzman I thought I would share a few tidbits about the place and also a little bit about what I've been up to since I arrived…

So this is the view from where I work…not bad, right?  What you are looking at is Nevado de Colima, a volcano which overlooks the city.  The peak is not always visible as clouds tend to block the view on occasion, but they do move quickly so even if you wake up and the peak is not visible in the morning it will likely be visible by the time afternoon rolls around…something I am grateful for as I LOVE this view.  Also fun fact…just behind this volcano there is another one, Volcán de Colima, which is one of the most active volcanoes in Mexico.  Soooo the likelihood I'll experience an earthquake while I live here is probably somewhere around the 100 percent mark.

Nevado de Colima

 There is also a lake (or laguna) a few kilometers away from the city center.  This past weekend I was able to walk out to the laguna, a perfect Saturday activity, and snap this shot. Ciudad Guzman is not the largest city (~100,000 people, but you wouldn't even think it was that large) so it doesn't take long before you get to the surrounding rural areas…this picture is probably only 5 kilometers away from the city and you can see it is a rural landscape.  Also, here is an example of the clouds blocking the view of Nevado de Colima which should be easy to see in this photo as it is located pretty much in the center of this photo…darn clouds.

A view of Ciudad Guzman with the laguna in the foreground…here I am just a few kilometers outside the city center

So here's a view of the buzzing metropolis of Ciudad Guzman (Although I keep kidding about the size of the city, I actually do like the size, it is just big enough!).  This is the large plaza marking the city center where there are always a lot of people gathering, particularly on the weekends when there are events and store vendors that set up their tents looking to cash in on the crowds enjoying their weekend free time.  This is also the area where I have spent most of time when I'm done with work for the day.  There are many cafes and ice cream shops surrounding the square…I'm slowly (or maybe not so slowly) trying out every one of them so I can see who's the best!

City Center of Ciudad Guzman

You may have been wondering where exactly I am living in Cd. Guzman…or if you weren't before I bet at this moment you are.  The Peace Corps really likes having us live with host families and after living 3 months with a host family in Queretaro they have us live (at minimum) one more month with a host family in our new cities.  This gives us time to get acquainted with the city and figure out where we would like to live, as it is our responsibility to find our future housing.  While we have to live a minimum of one month with a host family sometimes volunteers choose to live longer as it may take more time to find housing and occasionally, some volunteers live the duration of their service with a host family.  Adapting to life with a new host family is always full of adventure as you get to know their routines and personalities.  My family here is much larger and louder than my Queretaro host family.  I am living with the two parents, their son and daughter (who I estimate are in their early 30s), the daughter's daughter who is 12, and me. Lots of different ages in the house!  They are a very fun family and the mom is a super woman.  She's always doing household chores, cooking, or attending church events, the longest I've seen her sit down and relax is probably 5 minutes.  She is an AMAZING cook…I'm having her teach me a few things about Mexican cooking as I'll be doing my own cooking soon once I move.  One ingredient I don't think I'll be purchasing anytime soon is this:

Not entirely sure what animal this is…my best guess is pig's head

I came across this plate of deliciousness one Sunday morning, I may have lost my appetite for a little while after seeing these.  I believe these (unknown) animal heads had been used to create the broth for a soup called Pozole which all Mexicans seem to love. Ingredients include a variety of meats, pork/chicken/turkey and then the main ingredient maize.  I don't have the same passion for Pozole as the Mexicans do, but I'll eat it and still be perfectly satisfied with my meal.

 So my host family lives a little bit on the outskirts of town (it's about a 45 minute walk to the downtown from my house) so I thought I'd give you an idea of the scenery of the street I live on.  If I'm being honest, this picture is for my Dad who is always asking about the streets. Maybe I can devote an entire blog later to the street varieties in Guzman to satisfy his inquisitive brain…opinions???  :)

Current street I live on, Serafín Vazquez

 Also since I have been here I celebrated my 23rd birthday.  My birthday fell on the second week I was here, always interesting to have a birthday when you have just moved somewhere. (this seems to happen to me a lot as I have an early summer birthday so often I am just starting a new job or internship somewhere when my birthday comes along, either that, or I'm traveling somewhere so I have a wealth of entertaining birthday stories).  I'm not the one to shout out that it's my birthday to these people I hardly know at the office.  However, by around noon that day I subtly mentioned it was my birthday to one person in the office and then watched as slowly the information was dispersed amongst everyone at the office until most people had dropped by and wished me a Happy Birthday.  Funny how fast news travels sometimes.  Later that day I was able to meet up with the other volunteers in the city who were in town and they took me out to eat at a nice Italian place in town and gifted me this gem of a cookie!

Birthday Cookie!

Between people in the office wishing me happy birthday, going out to dinner, my host family making the meal of me choice (they actually did this for me the day before), and receiving countless messages from family and friends I definitely felt loved on my birthday in this new place I call home.  Thanks to everyone who took their time to send me messages…it made for a special day indeed!

Ok I'm about to wrap it up I promise, one more thing…

The first weekend I was here the volunteers in Cd. Guzman (their site is the Parque Nacional Volcán de Colima) were part of a city wide event promoting the environment.  The event was in the city center and many organizations in the area set up tents/booths with activities for those passing by.  I was able to help out with their booth, which was having kids color coloring books the park had made with items and facts about the park (think animals/scenery/plants) and also playing a lotería game (think Bingo with a twist) one of the volunteers had made with facts and pictures about the plants and animals of the park. This was fun to be a part of as it was my first weekend in the city and gave me an opportunity to get a feel for the city and meet some people along the way.  I'm glad I was able to help out with this great event!

Just seeing if I can still color between the lines...

Concentrating hard to understand the Spanish

With the Peace Corps Volunteers who work at the Park
From left: John, Me, Whitney, a local leader of the scout program, and Mary (yes, another Mary, that's not a typo!)

So there's a taste of Ciudad Guzman and what I've been up to.  I am enjoying myself here and getting to know the city and people better each day and can't wait for what's ahead!

Last Weeks in Queretaro

I'm not even sure where to start this blog as much has happened since I last posted.  The biggest thing would have to be that I am no longer living in Queretaro.  Last week I finished training, officially swore in as a volunteer May 31st, and the next day I packed up all my stuff and headed to my new home for the next two years…Ciudad Guzman.  More on this later, for this post I'm going to try and catch you up on my very busy last month in Queretaro leading up to my big move.  I tried to include some of the highlights and more important parts which were hard to select as much happened (I know, my fault for not updating my blog more…that will change I promise), but here's my attempt:

So all the Environment Education volunteers (there were 11 of the 26 of us are EE volunteers…the other are either natural resource management or technology transfer volunteers) got to go on a weeklong field trip to Huizquilucan, a small town outside of Mexico City the first week of May.  The purpose of this trip was to learn about building ecotecnias (i.e. biointensive gardens, efficient wood burning ovens, compost piles, solar dehydrators…) I could go on and on, but the general idea of ecotecnias is that they are inexpensive, environmentally friendly technologies that families can use to make their lives a little easier while also being eco-friendly.  During our time here we were able to go into people's homes in the community and install these to get an idea of how it's done and how they work as some of us may be able to implement some of these technologies at our sites.

                 

                                Teamwork…assembly line passing bricks for the wood efficient stove up the stairs

The EE group and the family we installed the stove for…the completed stove is in the background

Hard at work watering the bio-intensive garden we made

Besides learning about ecotecnias, the other important thing we were able to do on this trip was to plan an Ecoferia at a local school in Huizquilucan.  Because we are Environmental Education volunteers, they thought it would be good for us to get some experience learning how to teach kids about the environment…Peace Corps is thinking ahead here!  So you may be thinking what is an Ecoferia? The best way I can explain it is think of a field day at a school where kids rotate through a variety of activities, but the difference here is the activities the kids participate in are environment related. 

The Logistics

Numbers: Grades 1-6 with around 15-20 students per grade.

Activities:  Our group split into pairs (with one group of 3) and we each planned an activity related to an environmental topic. The topics were water, outdoor recreation, biodiversity/traditional knowledge, deforestation, and animal adaptations.  My partner, Jesi, and I were tasked with teaching the kids about animal adaptations/what they are/why they're important etc.  We had to prepare a 20 minute activity for the kids as that's how long each of the stations were, but really we ended up planning 3 different activities.  We had to account for the fact that 6th graders may not get the same thrill from singing a song we wrote as much as 1st graders would so we adjusted our lesson plans accordingly.  We had a great time planning these activities for the kids and even more fun putting them into action and seeing the kids have a good time while either singing our song, (while Jesi played her ukulele and I showed them the dance we made up to go with it) putting on costumes, coloring masks, or building clay animals depending what grade they were. 

My Ecoferia partner, Jesi, and I in front of the poster we made with the lyrics to the song we wrote…we're quite proud of this song if you haven't noticed…occasionally the song will still get stuck in my head!

Costume activity…where we highlighted the various adaptations animals have by dressing up the kids in different animal costumes

All of us at the school assembly after our successful ecoferia

That about wraps up our week in Huizquilucan…it was an amazing week and we all had a great time getting away from the office a bit, getting our hands dirty, playing with the kids, and just overall getting to hang out with each other. Oh, and I also learned how to play Euchre and am now obsessed (who knew I'd be getting in touch with my midwestern roots in Mexico!).  Overall, this was one of my favorite weeks in Mexico by far!

At the top of a hike we went on while in Huizquilucan…Mexico City is right behind me

After we got back from this weeklong trip we had less than a month left of training.  This led to a crazy few weeks (hence no blog posts!) where we had final assignments and presentations to complete, meetings with the staff, continued Spanish classes, final events with our host families. My host family took me to a BBQ ribs place as I had mentioned many times during my time in Queretaro that I love BBQ so it was a very nice surprise for them to remember this and take me there for my final family event.  There was even country music playing and deer heads on the wall and the ribs were not so bad either…it felt like I was in the south again!  Oh, and I can't forget that they also had root beer, which was quite exciting!!! 

During our last month, we also spent a lot of time just hanging out together as a group as we knew our time together was coming to a close.  I immensely enjoyed my time in Queretaro and meeting all of the amazing people that make up PCM group 16, it certainly made for a bittersweet goodbye when I left as I was excited to get to my new home and begin my work, but sad to say goodbye (for now) to everyone I had gotten to know over the past 11 weeks…I can't wait until we are all back together again!

To close I will include a few photos from our swearing in ceremony where I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer.  The ceremony itself was simple, yet nice.  Our host families, counterparts, and Peace Corps Mexico staff were all there to see us swear in.  We listened to a few short speeches…including one given by a member of our group…which happened to be Jesi...who was selected by us to say some words about our group.  All the speeches were really well done and made you feel warm and fuzzy inside and ready to go tackle the challenges and take on the adventures that we are about to face at our sites.  

My host family all dressed up for the ceremony, Cecilia & Ricardo

Some of us after the swearing in ceremony…our final day in Queretaro