A Picture
The completed greenhouse, a result of a community needs-assessment and consensus process:
Final Post
I have been home for over a week now, and have gone sledding and driven a car and done all the northeastern things that i did not miss while in Mexico. I just woke up to a dream about Huehuecoyotl, so I thought it time to post. I don't really want to post a long final entry, but I do have a few things to say. The first is that I am incredibly appreciate for everything on the trip, despite any minor flaws or hitches the program had. The second is that I think that I actually did see every one the twelve of us grow, including myself, which might be a corny thing to bring up, but is also really remarkable. The last is that I encourage anyone who is thinking about this program to apply.
I'll leave this weblog with two final pictures.
Here is the first, of our phenomenal staff team. L-R: Svante, Giovanni, Bea, Kathy and Tara:
Here is the last, the requisite group photograph on the amate tree:
See you all on Friday in amherst!
Living Routes Mexico 2008 via Youtube
Here are some short videos I took during the program. The internet I used at Huehuecoyotl was not strong enough to post them, but now that I in stranded in layover limbo the Dallas Texas Airport - an airport mecca the size of Manhattan - I have ample internet strength to post the videos.
Tortillas at Chimalataclan:
Hula hoop Game:
Beatboxing consensus warm up:
Giovanni's favorite song, played with Josh:
I WILL MISS THESE THINGS. Everyone in these videos - don't get angry at me for posting them, because secretly you are glad you will be able to watch them every day as I do.
Community Projects - Before and After
Compost before (Margot on the right, Genevieve on the left):
Compost After:
Group photo. Top Row Left to Right: Ginny, Natalie, Hannah, Eliza,Lauren, Shira, Kelly, Martgot, Ashtar. Bottom Row Left to Right: Genevieve, Basha (me), Camila
And the greenhouse before:
And the Greenhouse after (painted bins, new tables, and the sawhorses lauren made inside):
WE ARE DONE!!!
Days 16-17: Final Days
All this time that we've been working on our community service projects, we also had some pretty outstanding nights. One was a slideshow given by Svate. The entire group, plus a few community members, gathered in the theater where we also have our meals and classes. Svante had Giovanni project three seprate slide projectors onto the walls to keep three images going at once, as he performed. Giovanni started the music, and the show began as Svante took us back into images of mainstream society, the culture that the original Huehuecoyotl caravan (the illuminated elephants) left. He showed us slides of their caravan trip around the world, slides of their travels in Mexico, and slides of the earliest years of Huehue when everything was being first built.
Svante then took us into the second phase of the show, in which he projected faces and images from around the world onto our own faces. Here are some of the photographs:
Margot:
Shira:
Kelly:
After, we had a campfire, and Giovanni brought out his guitar.
The next night, we did a women's only sweat-lodge. A community member named Andreas, very experienced in leading sweat lodges, ran it for us, and Kathy co-facilitated. Not everybody stayed the entire time, because we were encouraged to only participate as much as we were comfortable with, but about 9 girls participated for all four rounds, which took three hours in total. There are of course no photographs of the sweat lodge, nor will I write much about it, but it was definitely one of the most strenuous and rewarding experiences of my life. To next semester's living routes group - ask Kathy if a sweat lodge is possible.
Week Three - The Garden Project
This last week has been mostly devoted to project work. The first two days, everyone contributed to the greenhouse and the compost. The next two days, we split off into smaller groups to work on education, the garden door, and the herb garden along with the two larger projects. After working together mostly in a classroom or dormitory setting, and occasionally in the kitchen, or in Tepoztlan and Chimalataclan, we still had no idea how we would work doing manual labor projects. Each time we reconfigure our groups, different forms of leadership and teamwork emerge, bringing us back to the core focus of this trip, consensus and leadership. So - here is a summary of our process thus far:
The purpose of the compost project was to take down the old compost, which was falling down and had difficult doors to use with a wheelbarrow. They wanted remake it to be more sturdy and educational, and redesign the shape of the compost to maximize the internal space. The old structure was a sphere, while the new building is a trapezoid, to allow for three separate compost piles each in different stages of decomposition. The group-leaders decided that the interior foundation should be dirt, and the walls would be bamboo cut from around Huehue lined with chicken wire. To support the bamboo and the frame, the group hired a mason to build a cement and rock foundation under the bamboo wall. The rocks, mostly volcanic, were all taken from Huehue. The wall has a drainage pipe for the wet season. A welder came on the second day to build a metal frame for the bamboo walls, and a door for the compost (and the garden). The group also build a cement ramp with mosaic tiles to allow for a wheelbarrow to easily enter and exit the space.
Here is the group on the first day, taking down the old compost center:
Here is the group digging the trench for the cement wall and leaning up the space - the bamboo from the old compost is in the foreground:
This is the photo of the mason, Armando, starting on the cement wall - the whole thing took about two days. One or two people were always present to mix cement and move rocks while he worked:
Here is a photograph of the team on day 17, working on the frame:
The bamboo was taken from around the houses at Huehue, and carried over to the compost site. We leaves grow from big branches which we had to cut off at the growth point with machetes, and then the tall stalks were cut down to match the size of the metal frame.
Here I am with a Machete hacking off the branches:
Here is Lauren kicking a** with her machete, Ginny cutting branches in the background:
A finished photograph will be in the next entry!
The other large project was the greenhouse. There was an old structure in the garden, made of three metal hoops. The group added a forth hoop over one of the garden beds to make the structure more sturdy. They decided to move the greenhouse back against the wall to make room for new beds in the garden itself. To do this, they pulled up the structure and dug trenches to replant the poles. The group bought a transparent green-hued greenhouse plastic to cover the structure, but lined the plastic with shade-cloth to protect the plants from getting too much sun. They put chicken wire around the bottom to protect the greenhouse from stray animals and the community dogs.
Inside the greenhouse were defunct seed trays which the group removed. There were two huge orange tool bins which the team took out of the greenhouse, which were cleaned and pained by the art/education crew, and two makeshift tables made of sawhorses and wood slabs that were remade entire. Lauren made two new sawhorses, and Josh rebuilt the tables. A lot of spoiled seeds got thrown away to clean out room for work.
Here is a before picture of the greenhouse, which hasn't yet been pictured on the blog:
Here is Eliza sewing shade cloth into the renovated structure, Josh working in the background:
A photograph of the group trying on the plastic for size (Margot on the ladder):
Here is Hannah right after she fell into one of our trenches:
A photograph of some spoiled seeds we are cleaning out:
The Garden project was a smaller task designed to bring community members into the garden, and give them a wider variety of herbs, and provide easily accessible information about the herbs at Huehue. It involved weeding out two elevated beds, organizing the herbs there, and painting rocks with the names of the herbs in Spanish, English and Latin.
The art and education crew is contributing to the painting of the orange tool bins in the greenhouse, the stone rocks in the garden, and the educational book we are leaving in the Huehue library about the projects and the herbs we have.
The crew working on the garden door finished on Day 17 (January the 18th), and the hinges are to be put on today. Here is a goofy photograph of their finished project before it as attached:
And finally, some people had extra time while projects were in full-force, so Hannah took initiative to prune one of the lemon trees that needed serious attention. That night, Sadie came over and a few of us helped to make Lemon Curd. Today we ate it for breakfast.
FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS COMING SOON.
Days 10/11/12/13 - The Good Life
I realize that my last few entries have been all business. All you parents and perspective students reading along might be interested to know that this trip is also mad fun. So here is a recap of the interesting and debaucherous adventures we have been having, in and out of class:
On Day 10 (January 11th), Kathy, our Huehuecoyotl mom, finally conducted a class of her very own on Synchronicity. This was an entirely new outlet for creative expression and reflection. Svante brought us fresh-cut flowers from the Tepoztlan market and students made flower mandalas in the grass. She brought out her ancient runes, medicine cards, women's tarot cards, and angel cards, which we all shared and read in turn. While I put little personal faith in many of these methods of understanding, I found myself very engrossed in what they were telling me. Whether or not these cards are read literally, it is fascinating, when doing a leadership program and cultural exchange, to examine multiple systems of understanding such as the Ancient Mayan Calender zodiac, which Svante read for each of us.
Here are photographs of the mandalas the group made (Photos by Hannah)
During the next few days, we were very wrapped up in the consensus process of deciding our group's Garden Project. When we finally finished, we all went out dancing. The club, Telon, was recommended by the program directors, because it would be a safe place for a group of women to go dancing in Mexico, and it had live music from 11pm on. It was the first time we had all gotten even remotely dressed up since we'd been here, and been out in town on our own (although some staff and community members joined us), and many students seemed to relish in the opportunity to see a new side of Mexico, and to enjoy each-others company in a new setting.
That night, at midnight, Ashtar turned 21 - the lead singer of the band onstage gave her a birthday shout out, and we all cheered. After I went home, Shira met the lead singer of one of her favorite bands - Bright Eyes - who just happened to be at the same club in Tepoztlan. It was quite a festive night, all in all.
A Photo of the band at Telon:
The next morning, Svante made us a huge waffle breakfast, and we all pitched in. This was, once again, an opportunity to see different students in their element. Margot made a jam spread out of the plums growing outside of Bea's house, Hannah took over waffles for Svante, and I made a huge serving of eggs with vegetables and cheese. The times we all spend in the kitchen are often the best.
Here is a picture Hannah and Genevive cooking our waffle breakfast extravaganza:
Ginny cutting pineapple:
Many of us went to Tepoztlan that day, and a group of students went to see the pyramids.
A Photo of The Pyramid, by Hannah, before the climb:
Here is a photograph of Shira pretending to hitch hike with me and Camila on the road, when the bus came late (Photo by Eliza):
The Truck we wanted to be the bus to town:
Some shots of the weekend market:
... and to end our fun post, here are some haikus Camila wrote about our field trip to Chimalataclan:
pigs cuddle at night
everything is sea foam green
help im in the dark
tortillas smell nice
beans and rice and limes mmm mmm
cow poop not so much
shira sleeps outside
the next day she is grumpy
cows sing loud all night
we sit down to eat
oh dear tortillas galore
yum my tummy hurts
basha hugs cacti
who knew donkeys were so soft
thumbs to the left please
Day 10/11 - CONSENSUS!
WE HAVE REACHED CONSENSUS. But let me start at the beginning.
The program for Living Routes in Mexico is on Consensus Decision-Making and leadership, which you probably know if you are reading this. It is taught is first through classroom lessons and practice situations, then by designing and implementing our own group community service project for Huehuecoyotl. The first part of our program ended right about the time of our field trip, and the project-planning began as soon as we returned.
1 - look at the big picture - aka define our parameters/project criteria
2 - complete a list of our skills
3 - get community input and generate a first list of project ideas
4 - narrow down parameters/project criteria
5 - complete master list of project ideas by applying community input and evaluating ideas against our parameters
6 - final meeting to narrow down ideas
7 - combine ideas into "the garden project" and create a project proposal for the Huehue community.
This process took MANY, many meetings - including a meeting to simply set up the schedule and plan of action we would use to do this process itself.
Here are some photographs of CONSENSUS IN ACTION:
Lauren explaining our process - as a facilitator, she wrote up sheets with every one of our final project ideas so we could all go around, students and community members alike, and write the PROs and CONs of the project.
Here we are in the theater, filling in our information and opinions about the different potential projects:
Thi
...and Here is a photograph of some of the project idea sheets filled in:
Tara has these seemingly effortless facilitation skills, which she whipped out to help us narrow down our project ideas from 15 to 5.
We decided to more closely evaluate these last potential project ideas. So we broke up into groups and went to look at the sites of our potential projects to create proposals for each one that we could evaluate as a group.
Here is the group who wanted to work on the garden, a project which eventually got split into two distinct ideas:
And finally, we reconvened as a full group to evaluate each project proposal, amend it, and come up with our final proposal. We decided on five separate but connected projects, which were:
THE GARDEN PROJECT:
1) Tare down and build a brand new compost
2) Reconfigure and reorganize the defunct green house
3) Build a new gate for the garden
4) Make a section of the community garden into a perennial medicinal and culinary herb garden
5) Make all of these projects educational so they will have long-lasting sustainability. This includes information on the process and purpose of each project.
These meetings were long, and incredibly draining. The frustration and exhaustion created some tension, but on a while, the experience was cooperative and amicable. Kathy said she had NEVER seen a Living Routes group come to consensus so well, and this reaffirmed for me that we were learning a lot from the process. On Sunday we spent four hours in a morning meeting, then broke up to create our project proposal for the Huehue community.
Here are two photographs of our project proposal meeting, Living Routes students and Huehue members alike:
After our consensus meeting, we took a celebratory group picture:
Now, for the next week, we will be working in flexible groups on our five projects, so stay tuned for updates and photo posts.
Days 7/8 - Chimalacatlan Field Trip
We are back from our home stay field trip to Chimalacatlan, but I don't know how to begin to speak on it. For many students on the trip, it was the most remote village we had ever seen. Some students could make very tangible connections to experiences they've had in Lebanon, the Middle East, other regions of Latin America. But the smells, sounds, and community life we experienced in these two days had an indisputable effect both on us individually and on our group as a whole.
I will start the entry by explaining our schedule: After chores and breakfast on tuesday, we drove to Cuernavaca to pick up Cesar, who organized the trip for us. We drove for about two hours, with a break for bathrooms and ice cream.
Here is the last photograph I took of city life - I wasn't so sorry to leave it at the time:
The paved road turned to dirt, and the landscape changed from a city to country. We passed farmers and mules, passed a cow graveyard, and began to roll up a gravel hill.
Here is the view we received when we got out of the van on the main street in Chimalatacatlan:
When we arrived, we went to the house of the man who governs the town of Chimala, and his wife cooked us an amazing lunch of homemade tortillas and spicy chicken soup. I broke my vegetarianism for the second time on the trip, because I felt very comfortable eating the chicken that I knew was grown by this community.
Here is a photograph of their beautiful kitchen. It was evident that they were the most wealthy family in the town, and that we were being treated to great hospitality:
This is their patio, with their daughter Daisy and their Donkey (Photo by Shira):
After lunch, Cesar broke us up into our respective home stay houses. Here is the house I was to eat with, the home of Donia Maria (notice her snuggling pigs and loyal dog out front):
After settling in, we went to see one of the projects Cesar is working on with the town. It is basically the process of distilling the oil from a Linaloe berry in order to make essential oils and perfumes without cutting down the trees. The oil is supposed to be very good for blood pressure and general health, but dangerous to the nervous system if taken in excess. The perfume is wonderful, people were comparing it to a lavender scent with a bit of apple or pear and a slight bite. If the project is successful, it will be very sustainable. And like the responsible tourists we are, we all bought bottles to take home.
We then went to our respective houses for dinner, and tried to get an early night sleep - but between the pigs, dogs, goats, and mule outside my window, not to mention alarming proximity of the fragrant outhouse to our bedroom, it took some time to fall asleep. One house awoke in the middle of the night to discover a goat was tap dancing on their tin roof - many of us awoke exhausted the next morning.
The more meals I ate with my host, the more I was struck by the hospitality we received. It was truly unprecedented.
Here are Eliza, Ashtar and Camila with Donia Maria:
Here is Shira with her host-mother:
Here I am with my host-sister, Yesica, on the steps of her family's house:
The family mule at sunset, back leg posed for the photograph:
Here is the store of my host-father - often during the day, he would play loud music that filled the street, and on the second night Svante and Jinny both went inside to dance. Here he is giving us a lecture on archeology:
Throughout the trip, I was faced with a reality I have been contemplating a lot in the last year: That I am in a position of privilege which allows me to visit other people's poverty as I please, while the people I visit lack the means to enter my lifestyle with such fluidity. It is remarkable to be a voyeur on someone else's life, to have the option to chose when to enter and exit a culture in poverty. This internal conflict I was engaging made the hospitality I received, as an American who did not speak Spanish, all the more remarkable.
One of the ways Chimala is so juxtaposed to the American suburban culture I grew up in struck me once I returned to Huehue: Their community, which is has so little monetary wealth, has such a rich culture. Conversely, my suburban and urban neighborhoods, which have great monetary affluence, seem very devoid of community. As a young adult evaluating how I want to live my life, it is important to realize that financial struggle and rich culture may often be coupled. However, it is also important not to romanticize this fact - my ability to chose whether I embrace a more simple or more luxurious life is a fantastic privilege, and is nothing like being born into poverty.
On this note, many students were left re-evaluating their idea of leadership, and what it means to work with developing or degraded communities. This was a crucial spin to put on our coursework from Huehuecoyotl, which focuses on leadership and community skills in a much different environment.
I do not mean, however, to essentialize the community of Chimalacatlan. While their phone system was quite basic - they had one telephone for the town, and when someone got a call, an announcement would sound through a loudspeaker system - their schools had incredibly advanced technology. On our second day in town, after breakfast with our host families, we all met as a group and visited the local elementary and middle school of Chimalacatlan.
Here is a photograph of students greeting our group of curious American visitors (Photo by Shira):
This is the classroom we visited of 5th and 6th graders. The students are in the front, with the Living Routes group in the back. On the right, Cesar stands tall his red shirt.
They showed us their digital computer projector with an interactive touch screen instead of a blackboard. This is technology that I have never seen in the United States. The teacher explained that one of the advantages to the technology is that it allows all the students to learn about the use of tools- such as microscopes - which they do not have access to. It also attaches the to the internet, and lets them see how other cultures live. The students then asked if we could teach them something, so Eliza reivewed the proper pronunciation of English numbers, and Shira taught the class (including Living Routes students and staff) how to sing Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.
For me, interacting with young children was one of the most valuable aspects of this trip. The children were more openly curious about me, and more willing to be patient with my comical attempts at Spanish. From them, I learned about both the Spanish language and non-verbal communication more than I have in Mexico thus far.
After this, we went to a meeting with a woman's group Cesar works with. He is teaching them how to plant their own gardens by using a gray water system to allow them to garden during dry seasons, and companion planting instead of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Here are photographs from the meeting:
(Photo by Shira)
(Photo by Shira)
(photo by Greg)
That night, we took a hike up to an archaeological site of two pyramids, and ate dinner at the top. Cesar hired two mules to carry our food, and any student who wanted to ride. About half of us took a turn - it was amazing to me to feel an animal carry my weight up a hill, but I was assured not to feel conflicted about it, and that I should enjoy the ride. When we reached the top of the hike, we had a long impromptu moment of silence. We were told that the place commanded a lot of energy and silence, and whether or not you chose to believe in such things, the atmosphere at the top of the mountain was very powerful.
There is more to write, mostly idea to reflect on, especially about globalism and American immigration laws, but I think its time to end this entry. I will try to get a wider range of student's reactions to the trip up on the blog in the next few days. Until then, stay tuned for updates about our consensus process for the community project we will be doing here at Huehue.
Day 6/January 7th - Bioregionalism, Biodiversity and a Hike
On Day Six we met Cesar, a man from Cuernavaca, who came to Huehue to give us a lecture/computer presentation on Bioregionalism and Biodiversity in Sustainable Jungles and Forests. Biogregionalism, he explained, is a movement to revitalize what is local and essential to a community or region. Revitilization has three components - they are the psychological, physical and emotional ways of restoring a region. Revitilization must also be sustainable, and sustainability also has three tiers: cultural, social and environmental. Cesar explained that because of the social political and ecological state of the world, these three aspects cannot be separated anymore. He also explained to us the theory of Biodiversity. Biodiversity refers to Ecosystems, genes, and species. Cesar explained that 88% of the all biodiversity in the word occurs within only 12 countries, and these countries are called "megadiverse" - and Mexico is one of these countries.
Cesar then told us about our home-stay field trip, a town about 2/12 ours south of Huehue at the bottom of the state of Morelos called Chimalacatlan, and what the biodiversity would be there. He does volunteer within that community to build a system of sustainable agriculture for the families who have little access to economic sustenance, and because of their dry climate and lack of water, also have very little success with farming. He explained that when we go on our field trip, we will be participating in a women's group from the area who are learning how to grow gardens using a gray water system (recycled water) and companion planting instead of fertilizers and pesticides.
We also went on a hike, to see the local biodiversity on the mountains by Huehue. Some members of our group were very experienced hikers - Lauren had even taken a class learning outdoor skills - but for many of us it was a newer experience. Because of the higher altitude, and my asthma, I had an incredibly difficult time on the way up the mountain, but a wonderful trip down. Luckily, most group members looked out for each other, and Svante took on sweep, and we all made it up together.
Here are photographs of the hike:
Here is the entire group of hikers, almost at the peak:
Here is Greg taking a photograph, the mountains behind him (Daniel- proof that Gregg is indeed here with us at Huehue, and loving it):
In this photograph, Svante is explaining to us that the local people of Tepoztlan often come up the mountain to cut into these trees to get sap and bark. Svante sometimes puts nails in the bark to stop them from cutting more, but explained the difficulty of the situation: is it better to let people destroy the trees which have been growing for over 100 years because they need the money, or to protect the biodiversity but inhibit people's use of their own natural resources? Of course, we had no immediate answer to this question.
This is a photograph taken of Camila and myself at the mountain peak:
An other mountaintop shot of Shira:
This is Genavive enjoying the breeze:
A picture of the view - (photo by Camila):
Finally, a shot of some Living Routes students on a bold lookout point:
Next time I post, it will be with photographs of and reflections on our home stay field trip!
NEXT page
A Picture
The completed greenhouse, a result of a community needs-assessment and consensus process:
Final Post
I have been home for over a week now, and have gone sledding and driven a car and done all the northeastern things that i did not miss while in Mexico. I just woke up to a dream about Huehuecoyotl, so I thought it time to post. I don't really want to post a long final entry, but I do have a few things to say. The first is that I am incredibly appreciate for everything on the trip, despite any minor flaws or hitches the program had. The second is that I think that I actually did see every one the twelve of us grow, including myself, which might be a corny thing to bring up, but is also really remarkable. The last is that I encourage anyone who is thinking about this program to apply.
I'll leave this weblog with two final pictures.
Here is the first, of our phenomenal staff team. L-R: Svante, Giovanni, Bea, Kathy and Tara:
Here is the last, the requisite group photograph on the amate tree:
See you all on Friday in amherst!
Living Routes Mexico 2008 via Youtube
Here are some short videos I took during the program. The internet I used at Huehuecoyotl was not strong enough to post them, but now that I in stranded in layover limbo the Dallas Texas Airport - an airport mecca the size of Manhattan - I have ample internet strength to post the videos.
Tortillas at Chimalataclan:
Hula hoop Game:
Beatboxing consensus warm up:
Giovanni's favorite song, played with Josh:
I WILL MISS THESE THINGS. Everyone in these videos - don't get angry at me for posting them, because secretly you are glad you will be able to watch them every day as I do.
Community Projects - Before and After
Compost before (Margot on the right, Genevieve on the left):
Compost After:
Group photo. Top Row Left to Right: Ginny, Natalie, Hannah, Eliza,Lauren, Shira, Kelly, Martgot, Ashtar. Bottom Row Left to Right: Genevieve, Basha (me), Camila
And the greenhouse before:
And the Greenhouse after (painted bins, new tables, and the sawhorses lauren made inside):
WE ARE DONE!!!
Days 16-17: Final Days
All this time that we've been working on our community service projects, we also had some pretty outstanding nights. One was a slideshow given by Svate. The entire group, plus a few community members, gathered in the theater where we also have our meals and classes. Svante had Giovanni project three seprate slide projectors onto the walls to keep three images going at once, as he performed. Giovanni started the music, and the show began as Svante took us back into images of mainstream society, the culture that the original Huehuecoyotl caravan (the illuminated elephants) left. He showed us slides of their caravan trip around the world, slides of their travels in Mexico, and slides of the earliest years of Huehue when everything was being first built.
Svante then took us into the second phase of the show, in which he projected faces and images from around the world onto our own faces. Here are some of the photographs:
Margot:
Shira:
Kelly:
After, we had a campfire, and Giovanni brought out his guitar.
The next night, we did a women's only sweat-lodge. A community member named Andreas, very experienced in leading sweat lodges, ran it for us, and Kathy co-facilitated. Not everybody stayed the entire time, because we were encouraged to only participate as much as we were comfortable with, but about 9 girls participated for all four rounds, which took three hours in total. There are of course no photographs of the sweat lodge, nor will I write much about it, but it was definitely one of the most strenuous and rewarding experiences of my life. To next semester's living routes group - ask Kathy if a sweat lodge is possible.
Week Three - The Garden Project
This last week has been mostly devoted to project work. The first two days, everyone contributed to the greenhouse and the compost. The next two days, we split off into smaller groups to work on education, the garden door, and the herb garden along with the two larger projects. After working together mostly in a classroom or dormitory setting, and occasionally in the kitchen, or in Tepoztlan and Chimalataclan, we still had no idea how we would work doing manual labor projects. Each time we reconfigure our groups, different forms of leadership and teamwork emerge, bringing us back to the core focus of this trip, consensus and leadership. So - here is a summary of our process thus far:
The purpose of the compost project was to take down the old compost, which was falling down and had difficult doors to use with a wheelbarrow. They wanted remake it to be more sturdy and educational, and redesign the shape of the compost to maximize the internal space. The old structure was a sphere, while the new building is a trapezoid, to allow for three separate compost piles each in different stages of decomposition. The group-leaders decided that the interior foundation should be dirt, and the walls would be bamboo cut from around Huehue lined with chicken wire. To support the bamboo and the frame, the group hired a mason to build a cement and rock foundation under the bamboo wall. The rocks, mostly volcanic, were all taken from Huehue. The wall has a drainage pipe for the wet season. A welder came on the second day to build a metal frame for the bamboo walls, and a door for the compost (and the garden). The group also build a cement ramp with mosaic tiles to allow for a wheelbarrow to easily enter and exit the space.
Here is the group on the first day, taking down the old compost center:
Here is the group digging the trench for the cement wall and leaning up the space - the bamboo from the old compost is in the foreground:
This is the photo of the mason, Armando, starting on the cement wall - the whole thing took about two days. One or two people were always present to mix cement and move rocks while he worked:
Here is a photograph of the team on day 17, working on the frame:
The bamboo was taken from around the houses at Huehue, and carried over to the compost site. We leaves grow from big branches which we had to cut off at the growth point with machetes, and then the tall stalks were cut down to match the size of the metal frame.
Here I am with a Machete hacking off the branches:
Here is Lauren kicking a** with her machete, Ginny cutting branches in the background:
A finished photograph will be in the next entry!
The other large project was the greenhouse. There was an old structure in the garden, made of three metal hoops. The group added a forth hoop over one of the garden beds to make the structure more sturdy. They decided to move the greenhouse back against the wall to make room for new beds in the garden itself. To do this, they pulled up the structure and dug trenches to replant the poles. The group bought a transparent green-hued greenhouse plastic to cover the structure, but lined the plastic with shade-cloth to protect the plants from getting too much sun. They put chicken wire around the bottom to protect the greenhouse from stray animals and the community dogs.
Inside the greenhouse were defunct seed trays which the group removed. There were two huge orange tool bins which the team took out of the greenhouse, which were cleaned and pained by the art/education crew, and two makeshift tables made of sawhorses and wood slabs that were remade entire. Lauren made two new sawhorses, and Josh rebuilt the tables. A lot of spoiled seeds got thrown away to clean out room for work.
Here is a before picture of the greenhouse, which hasn't yet been pictured on the blog:
Here is Eliza sewing shade cloth into the renovated structure, Josh working in the background:
A photograph of the group trying on the plastic for size (Margot on the ladder):
Here is Hannah right after she fell into one of our trenches:
A photograph of some spoiled seeds we are cleaning out:
The Garden project was a smaller task designed to bring community members into the garden, and give them a wider variety of herbs, and provide easily accessible information about the herbs at Huehue. It involved weeding out two elevated beds, organizing the herbs there, and painting rocks with the names of the herbs in Spanish, English and Latin.
The art and education crew is contributing to the painting of the orange tool bins in the greenhouse, the stone rocks in the garden, and the educational book we are leaving in the Huehue library about the projects and the herbs we have.
The crew working on the garden door finished on Day 17 (January the 18th), and the hinges are to be put on today. Here is a goofy photograph of their finished project before it as attached:
And finally, some people had extra time while projects were in full-force, so Hannah took initiative to prune one of the lemon trees that needed serious attention. That night, Sadie came over and a few of us helped to make Lemon Curd. Today we ate it for breakfast.
FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS COMING SOON.
Days 10/11/12/13 - The Good Life
I realize that my last few entries have been all business. All you parents and perspective students reading along might be interested to know that this trip is also mad fun. So here is a recap of the interesting and debaucherous adventures we have been having, in and out of class:
On Day 10 (January 11th), Kathy, our Huehuecoyotl mom, finally conducted a class of her very own on Synchronicity. This was an entirely new outlet for creative expression and reflection. Svante brought us fresh-cut flowers from the Tepoztlan market and students made flower mandalas in the grass. She brought out her ancient runes, medicine cards, women's tarot cards, and angel cards, which we all shared and read in turn. While I put little personal faith in many of these methods of understanding, I found myself very engrossed in what they were telling me. Whether or not these cards are read literally, it is fascinating, when doing a leadership program and cultural exchange, to examine multiple systems of understanding such as the Ancient Mayan Calender zodiac, which Svante read for each of us.
Here are photographs of the mandalas the group made (Photos by Hannah)
During the next few days, we were very wrapped up in the consensus process of deciding our group's Garden Project. When we finally finished, we all went out dancing. The club, Telon, was recommended by the program directors, because it would be a safe place for a group of women to go dancing in Mexico, and it had live music from 11pm on. It was the first time we had all gotten even remotely dressed up since we'd been here, and been out in town on our own (although some staff and community members joined us), and many students seemed to relish in the opportunity to see a new side of Mexico, and to enjoy each-others company in a new setting.
That night, at midnight, Ashtar turned 21 - the lead singer of the band onstage gave her a birthday shout out, and we all cheered. After I went home, Shira met the lead singer of one of her favorite bands - Bright Eyes - who just happened to be at the same club in Tepoztlan. It was quite a festive night, all in all.
A Photo of the band at Telon:
The next morning, Svante made us a huge waffle breakfast, and we all pitched in. This was, once again, an opportunity to see different students in their element. Margot made a jam spread out of the plums growing outside of Bea's house, Hannah took over waffles for Svante, and I made a huge serving of eggs with vegetables and cheese. The times we all spend in the kitchen are often the best.
Here is a picture Hannah and Genevive cooking our waffle breakfast extravaganza:
Ginny cutting pineapple:
Many of us went to Tepoztlan that day, and a group of students went to see the pyramids.
A Photo of The Pyramid, by Hannah, before the climb:
Here is a photograph of Shira pretending to hitch hike with me and Camila on the road, when the bus came late (Photo by Eliza):
The Truck we wanted to be the bus to town:
Some shots of the weekend market:
... and to end our fun post, here are some haikus Camila wrote about our field trip to Chimalataclan:
pigs cuddle at night
everything is sea foam green
help im in the dark
tortillas smell nice
beans and rice and limes mmm mmm
cow poop not so much
shira sleeps outside
the next day she is grumpy
cows sing loud all night
we sit down to eat
oh dear tortillas galore
yum my tummy hurts
basha hugs cacti
who knew donkeys were so soft
thumbs to the left please
Day 10/11 - CONSENSUS!
WE HAVE REACHED CONSENSUS. But let me start at the beginning.
The program for Living Routes in Mexico is on Consensus Decision-Making and leadership, which you probably know if you are reading this. It is taught is first through classroom lessons and practice situations, then by designing and implementing our own group community service project for Huehuecoyotl. The first part of our program ended right about the time of our field trip, and the project-planning began as soon as we returned.
1 - look at the big picture - aka define our parameters/project criteria
2 - complete a list of our skills
3 - get community input and generate a first list of project ideas
4 - narrow down parameters/project criteria
5 - complete master list of project ideas by applying community input and evaluating ideas against our parameters
6 - final meeting to narrow down ideas
7 - combine ideas into "the garden project" and create a project proposal for the Huehue community.
This process took MANY, many meetings - including a meeting to simply set up the schedule and plan of action we would use to do this process itself.
Here are some photographs of CONSENSUS IN ACTION:
Lauren explaining our process - as a facilitator, she wrote up sheets with every one of our final project ideas so we could all go around, students and community members alike, and write the PROs and CONs of the project.
Here we are in the theater, filling in our information and opinions about the different potential projects:
Thi
...and Here is a photograph of some of the project idea sheets filled in:
Tara has these seemingly effortless facilitation skills, which she whipped out to help us narrow down our project ideas from 15 to 5.
We decided to more closely evaluate these last potential project ideas. So we broke up into groups and went to look at the sites of our potential projects to create proposals for each one that we could evaluate as a group.
Here is the group who wanted to work on the garden, a project which eventually got split into two distinct ideas:
And finally, we reconvened as a full group to evaluate each project proposal, amend it, and come up with our final proposal. We decided on five separate but connected projects, which were:
THE GARDEN PROJECT:
1) Tare down and build a brand new compost
2) Reconfigure and reorganize the defunct green house
3) Build a new gate for the garden
4) Make a section of the community garden into a perennial medicinal and culinary herb garden
5) Make all of these projects educational so they will have long-lasting sustainability. This includes information on the process and purpose of each project.
These meetings were long, and incredibly draining. The frustration and exhaustion created some tension, but on a while, the experience was cooperative and amicable. Kathy said she had NEVER seen a Living Routes group come to consensus so well, and this reaffirmed for me that we were learning a lot from the process. On Sunday we spent four hours in a morning meeting, then broke up to create our project proposal for the Huehue community.
Here are two photographs of our project proposal meeting, Living Routes students and Huehue members alike:
After our consensus meeting, we took a celebratory group picture:
Now, for the next week, we will be working in flexible groups on our five projects, so stay tuned for updates and photo posts.
Days 7/8 - Chimalacatlan Field Trip
We are back from our home stay field trip to Chimalacatlan, but I don't know how to begin to speak on it. For many students on the trip, it was the most remote village we had ever seen. Some students could make very tangible connections to experiences they've had in Lebanon, the Middle East, other regions of Latin America. But the smells, sounds, and community life we experienced in these two days had an indisputable effect both on us individually and on our group as a whole.
I will start the entry by explaining our schedule: After chores and breakfast on tuesday, we drove to Cuernavaca to pick up Cesar, who organized the trip for us. We drove for about two hours, with a break for bathrooms and ice cream.
Here is the last photograph I took of city life - I wasn't so sorry to leave it at the time:
The paved road turned to dirt, and the landscape changed from a city to country. We passed farmers and mules, passed a cow graveyard, and began to roll up a gravel hill.
Here is the view we received when we got out of the van on the main street in Chimalatacatlan:
When we arrived, we went to the house of the man who governs the town of Chimala, and his wife cooked us an amazing lunch of homemade tortillas and spicy chicken soup. I broke my vegetarianism for the second time on the trip, because I felt very comfortable eating the chicken that I knew was grown by this community.
Here is a photograph of their beautiful kitchen. It was evident that they were the most wealthy family in the town, and that we were being treated to great hospitality:
This is their patio, with their daughter Daisy and their Donkey (Photo by Shira):
After lunch, Cesar broke us up into our respective home stay houses. Here is the house I was to eat with, the home of Donia Maria (notice her snuggling pigs and loyal dog out front):
After settling in, we went to see one of the projects Cesar is working on with the town. It is basically the process of distilling the oil from a Linaloe berry in order to make essential oils and perfumes without cutting down the trees. The oil is supposed to be very good for blood pressure and general health, but dangerous to the nervous system if taken in excess. The perfume is wonderful, people were comparing it to a lavender scent with a bit of apple or pear and a slight bite. If the project is successful, it will be very sustainable. And like the responsible tourists we are, we all bought bottles to take home.
We then went to our respective houses for dinner, and tried to get an early night sleep - but between the pigs, dogs, goats, and mule outside my window, not to mention alarming proximity of the fragrant outhouse to our bedroom, it took some time to fall asleep. One house awoke in the middle of the night to discover a goat was tap dancing on their tin roof - many of us awoke exhausted the next morning.
The more meals I ate with my host, the more I was struck by the hospitality we received. It was truly unprecedented.
Here are Eliza, Ashtar and Camila with Donia Maria:
Here is Shira with her host-mother:
Here I am with my host-sister, Yesica, on the steps of her family's house:
The family mule at sunset, back leg posed for the photograph:
Here is the store of my host-father - often during the day, he would play loud music that filled the street, and on the second night Svante and Jinny both went inside to dance. Here he is giving us a lecture on archeology:
Throughout the trip, I was faced with a reality I have been contemplating a lot in the last year: That I am in a position of privilege which allows me to visit other people's poverty as I please, while the people I visit lack the means to enter my lifestyle with such fluidity. It is remarkable to be a voyeur on someone else's life, to have the option to chose when to enter and exit a culture in poverty. This internal conflict I was engaging made the hospitality I received, as an American who did not speak Spanish, all the more remarkable.
One of the ways Chimala is so juxtaposed to the American suburban culture I grew up in struck me once I returned to Huehue: Their community, which is has so little monetary wealth, has such a rich culture. Conversely, my suburban and urban neighborhoods, which have great monetary affluence, seem very devoid of community. As a young adult evaluating how I want to live my life, it is important to realize that financial struggle and rich culture may often be coupled. However, it is also important not to romanticize this fact - my ability to chose whether I embrace a more simple or more luxurious life is a fantastic privilege, and is nothing like being born into poverty.
On this note, many students were left re-evaluating their idea of leadership, and what it means to work with developing or degraded communities. This was a crucial spin to put on our coursework from Huehuecoyotl, which focuses on leadership and community skills in a much different environment.
I do not mean, however, to essentialize the community of Chimalacatlan. While their phone system was quite basic - they had one telephone for the town, and when someone got a call, an announcement would sound through a loudspeaker system - their schools had incredibly advanced technology. On our second day in town, after breakfast with our host families, we all met as a group and visited the local elementary and middle school of Chimalacatlan.
Here is a photograph of students greeting our group of curious American visitors (Photo by Shira):
This is the classroom we visited of 5th and 6th graders. The students are in the front, with the Living Routes group in the back. On the right, Cesar stands tall his red shirt.
They showed us their digital computer projector with an interactive touch screen instead of a blackboard. This is technology that I have never seen in the United States. The teacher explained that one of the advantages to the technology is that it allows all the students to learn about the use of tools- such as microscopes - which they do not have access to. It also attaches the to the internet, and lets them see how other cultures live. The students then asked if we could teach them something, so Eliza reivewed the proper pronunciation of English numbers, and Shira taught the class (including Living Routes students and staff) how to sing Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.
For me, interacting with young children was one of the most valuable aspects of this trip. The children were more openly curious about me, and more willing to be patient with my comical attempts at Spanish. From them, I learned about both the Spanish language and non-verbal communication more than I have in Mexico thus far.
After this, we went to a meeting with a woman's group Cesar works with. He is teaching them how to plant their own gardens by using a gray water system to allow them to garden during dry seasons, and companion planting instead of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Here are photographs from the meeting:
(Photo by Shira)
(Photo by Shira)
(photo by Greg)
That night, we took a hike up to an archaeological site of two pyramids, and ate dinner at the top. Cesar hired two mules to carry our food, and any student who wanted to ride. About half of us took a turn - it was amazing to me to feel an animal carry my weight up a hill, but I was assured not to feel conflicted about it, and that I should enjoy the ride. When we reached the top of the hike, we had a long impromptu moment of silence. We were told that the place commanded a lot of energy and silence, and whether or not you chose to believe in such things, the atmosphere at the top of the mountain was very powerful.
There is more to write, mostly idea to reflect on, especially about globalism and American immigration laws, but I think its time to end this entry. I will try to get a wider range of student's reactions to the trip up on the blog in the next few days. Until then, stay tuned for updates about our consensus process for the community project we will be doing here at Huehue.
Day 6/January 7th - Bioregionalism, Biodiversity and a Hike
On Day Six we met Cesar, a man from Cuernavaca, who came to Huehue to give us a lecture/computer presentation on Bioregionalism and Biodiversity in Sustainable Jungles and Forests. Biogregionalism, he explained, is a movement to revitalize what is local and essential to a community or region. Revitilization has three components - they are the psychological, physical and emotional ways of restoring a region. Revitilization must also be sustainable, and sustainability also has three tiers: cultural, social and environmental. Cesar explained that because of the social political and ecological state of the world, these three aspects cannot be separated anymore. He also explained to us the theory of Biodiversity. Biodiversity refers to Ecosystems, genes, and species. Cesar explained that 88% of the all biodiversity in the word occurs within only 12 countries, and these countries are called "megadiverse" - and Mexico is one of these countries.
Cesar then told us about our home-stay field trip, a town about 2/12 ours south of Huehue at the bottom of the state of Morelos called Chimalacatlan, and what the biodiversity would be there. He does volunteer within that community to build a system of sustainable agriculture for the families who have little access to economic sustenance, and because of their dry climate and lack of water, also have very little success with farming. He explained that when we go on our field trip, we will be participating in a women's group from the area who are learning how to grow gardens using a gray water system (recycled water) and companion planting instead of fertilizers and pesticides.
We also went on a hike, to see the local biodiversity on the mountains by Huehue. Some members of our group were very experienced hikers - Lauren had even taken a class learning outdoor skills - but for many of us it was a newer experience. Because of the higher altitude, and my asthma, I had an incredibly difficult time on the way up the mountain, but a wonderful trip down. Luckily, most group members looked out for each other, and Svante took on sweep, and we all made it up together.
Here are photographs of the hike:
Here is the entire group of hikers, almost at the peak:
Here is Greg taking a photograph, the mountains behind him (Daniel- proof that Gregg is indeed here with us at Huehue, and loving it):
In this photograph, Svante is explaining to us that the local people of Tepoztlan often come up the mountain to cut into these trees to get sap and bark. Svante sometimes puts nails in the bark to stop them from cutting more, but explained the difficulty of the situation: is it better to let people destroy the trees which have been growing for over 100 years because they need the money, or to protect the biodiversity but inhibit people's use of their own natural resources? Of course, we had no immediate answer to this question.
This is a photograph taken of Camila and myself at the mountain peak:
An other mountaintop shot of Shira:
This is Genavive enjoying the breeze:
A picture of the view - (photo by Camila):
Finally, a shot of some Living Routes students on a bold lookout point:
Next time I post, it will be with photographs of and reflections on our home stay field trip!
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