Archives: January 2008
Tue Jan 29, 2008
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!
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Tue Jan 22, 2008
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.
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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!!!
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Mon Jan 21, 2008
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.
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Sat Jan 19, 2008
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.
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Thu Jan 17, 2008
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
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Wed Jan 16, 2008
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.
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Sat Jan 12, 2008
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.
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Fri Jan 11, 2008
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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Tue Jan 08, 2008
First week activities
The weather was a little colder than one would expect on the first two days of the program. It actually got to about 40F at night. The altitude (6000’) and the cold weather was a little bit of a surprise for most of the students, but after a couple of days the temperature went back up to normal, 80F in the day and about 50F at night. Sleep is easy and the sun is energizing.
Arriving at a new site is disorienting and fascinating at the same time, so the first day students spent time getting to know each-other and meeting their staff and people they will be working with. A learning community is explained to all participants as that is part of the objective of the program. They are oriented to housekeeping chores that need to be done every day in order to maintain the site clean and work areas pleasant. Students are assigned a clan (two people teams in this case) that will rotate every day to keep the kitchen orderly, the theatre (workspace) clean and neat, and the showers and bathrooms clean and supplied with all necessities. This is part of building the community of learners which the students will be a part of during their stay. We also managed our first unexpected health crisis, which turned out fine thanks to the diligent intervention of the staff at midnight of the first day.
The next day Dr. Rosa Belendez visited the group, as scheduled, to make herself available for any medical needs and to give the students some tips on health issues and self care.
In the afternoon, after a tour of the village, we took a hike to the mountain behind Huehue where there is a spectacular bird’s-eye view of the community from above and the surrounding mountains. The view stretches for over 25 miles to the east, where the volcano Popocatepetl shows majestically its plume of smoke and snowy cap. Mexico is a land of contrasts and high diversity. It is easy to feel the presence of ancient cultures roaming this land. Their evidence is found on the trails and monuments that abound in these parts. The Aztecs, Mexicas, Nahuas, and Mazahuas created rich and magnificent civilizations here.
In the night the group is treated to a slide show/storytelling session with old coyote Svante, of ecovillages and intentional communities from around the world, a visual way to better understand some examples from the global ecovillage movement, and how each has explored sustainability options in different forms in their regions. Unfortunately the scheduled Power Point of the Ecovillage presentation had to be postponed for technical reasons. Art, ecology and deep democracy are the primary principles guiding Huehuecoyotl, and in the night of the second day the creative forces of the group members started to come out as they joined in an impromptu talent show that had them laughing and showing off their talents, until a group of musicians from the community joined them and offered a string of songs on guitar, mandolin and drums that had every one singing, dancing and enjoying themselves until late in the night. An unplanned spontaneous show of creativity and fun, two important components of our search for sustainability in community.
The next couple of days are dedicated to learning about consensus and facilitation techniques taught by Bea and Tara of the International Institute for Facilitation and Consensus. This is the main theoretical and academic content of the course, which the students will need for their research into a collective decision for an action learning community-service project of the next two weeks. Team building games facilitated in order to get students practicing problem-solving skills together in an experiential way. While the mornings are used for instruction, the afternoons serve to bond together and learn as a group how to make decisions affecting their studies and the location where they find themselves. These activities are complimented with a group discussions. One of those included three young adult members of the community who are now studying in universities in the US and Europe. This dialogue, and the one following the viewing of Wangari Maathai’s video speech on empowerment were rich with comparison between the various world societies, and leads to an flowing exchange among peers of identity issues and cultural/political realities of different countries and cultures. Who are we? and why do we act the way we do? Which are individual characteristics, and which are cultural upbringings that shape our identity?
On Saturday afternoon we visited Tepoztlan and its unending crafts market. Students got a chance to practice their Spanish and find-out ways of communicating other than through language. Most students know some Spanish and few don’t know any, but they all came back with stories of interactions and bargains, their smiles wide and their eyes bright with amazement. Some reported eating grasshoppers at one of the food stands (they thought it tasted like pop corn with cayene), others ate quesadillas with mushrooms, and nopales (cactus). Upon their return we debriefed and went over some of the Spanish phrases that would come handy next time they visit the magic town of Tepoztlan. All students had a chance to use their Spanish in town, and to identify what they needed to know to be able to communicate.
After extensive instructions and practicing of facilitation and consensus theory, and exercises on Appreciative Inquiry techniques the students are ready to start trying their new leadership skills on their own. Until now they have had several opportunities to practice various leadership roles within the group; from facilitating predetermined issues to time keeping, vibes watcher, and scribing, among others. They created their first agenda and agreed on a purpose for a meeting and a decision: How will we create a plan for talking to the community and proposing a service project in one week’s time? This process is not easy, but is critical in group decision making by consensus where all voices are given equal importance. Frustration visits some group members, speaking order and roles have to be defined and a strategy to proceed is explored to some detail. Tensions got a bit high as the group felt uncertain in their new role as decision planners. They then found their way to the next level of organizing, thanks to the wise intervention of the course’s main instructor, Bea Briggs. At this point quite a bit of learning had taken place gathering the information they received to date. Participation, power dynamics, ground rules, listening skills, patience, thoughtful intervention, skillful conversations, and a willingness to find solutions were all part of the lessons of empowerment and active participation for the first exercises in deep democracy.
Last night was the fourth day of the course and we celebrated with a “rosca de reyes” and “tamales”. This is the traditional food eaten here to celebrate Three Kings day. Then food has been vegetarian, except for the chicken cutletts that Kathy included in the rich and delicious daily menu, lovingly cooked by Doña Maria and Doña Antonia with the assistance of Don Alejandro. They make a happy kitchen staff. Afterwards we had poetry reading, drumming and dancing to the rhythms of the Caribbean islands. Visiting musicians Josh, Taina, and Gaetano joined Giovanni and Odin in the merry music making. Local young poet, Ekiwah Adler read from his new work, alternating his poems with Taina’s Puerto Rican inspired writings and dancing, and Kathy's Caribbean story of Ananzy, the spider. This whole evening was a perfect way to relax together and celebrate being part of a community.
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Day 5/January 6th - Tepotzlan!!!
In the afternoon of Day 5, we went into town for the sunday market!! After ample warning about what food would not leave us with Montezuma's revenge, we made our way in separate groups down to the market. My group went in the pickup truck of Tara's friend, getting to experience the road and the wind as we drove out of Huehue and into the traffic of Tepotzlan.
This is a bunch of us piling into the back of the pickup truck:
And here is a photograph of Camila, Me (I've finally made it into the weblog), Margot, and Jinnie, having the ride of our lives:
Here is the edge of the market at 330pm!
This is an amazing mosaic made of out seeds and beans (photo by Hannah):
Margot and Hannah buying food:
Camilla (left) and Natalie (right) enjoying the market:
Camilla taking a photograph in town:
The market at night!
That night, many students got together for dinner in the market. Four were convinced to try a local treat - grasshoppers. I took a pass. When we went back to Huehue, I got to do the one thing I miss most about home: cook. I made a bunch of members grilled cheese with tomatoes, avocado, and leftover chicken. This was the same chicken, locally raised and killed, that I had broken my vegetarianism with that same afternoon. Regardless of how much I enjoy Huehue, and what I have seen of Mexico, making and eating a grilled cheese sandwich was one of the most grounding things I have done since I have been here - because I love to cook, and because it reminds me of home.
Tomorrow (Monday) morning we leave early for a small village in south Morales, where we will stay for two nights, so it might be a while before the next blog post. But when I do return, I will have photographs of todays amazing hike, and photographs of the fieldtrip. And perhaps more living routes students will post some entries soon. Look for a post thursday or friday!
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Day 5/January 6th - Appreciative Inquiry!
Day five began with a workshop on Consensus with Bea. This was mostly covered in my post about Consensus, with corresponding photographs. After a morning break, we reconvened with Giovanni to learn about Appreciative Inquiry (AI). AI is a process of evaluating group work which appreciates a the positive role of a group member's. Because a core value behind consensus is that each person has an important part of the story, and an important perspective, AI fits well in the consensus model. Furthermore, ecovillages focus on integral systems, and and AI appreciates the particular role of any group member.
Here are the core values of Appreciative Inquiry:
1- AI asks what is best the best in us (a group, person, or system)
2 - AI asks what is life affirming in us (meaningful, life-giving)?
3 - AI uses the art of asking questions
4 - AI uses uncondiontally positive questions
5 - AI focuses on Discovery, reaming and designing
6 - AI looks at past and present capacities
7 - AI takes account of all positives
8 - AI links to a change agenda
we did an exercise in pairs, where we interviewed our partner about a time they were integral in a grou pwork situation. we then moved to groups of four, where we told each other's stories. In these groups, we looked at what commonalities each story had. Here is the list we generated:
-assist group work of others
-bring new idea which changes the group trajectory
-create stronger community
-give to the group without self interest
-helped to get past conflicts to successful end result
-took on leadership role
-took on mall roles
Then we did an amazing exercise called "small teach" in which we broke into pairs and had 10 minutes to teach each other a very simple task. Examples were a french braid, cats cradle, hello & goodbye in cantonese, speaking gibberish, the E-major and E-minor cords on a guitar, and the basic samba step.
Needless to say, we we're in a positive mood when lunch came and went, and it was time to go into town for the saturday market! A photo post on that to come, asap.
And finally, two last things: Thanks to Natalie's mom for being the first person to post a blog comment, and Happy Birthday to my mom who turns 60 on wednesday. Being a group of all women, I sometimes get the sense that our mothers are transitively members of our community here, so that was for them.
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Mon Jan 07, 2008
Day 3/January 4th - Group Games and Classroom Activities
I realize that my last entry deserves a complimentary photo-post! I will accordingly post images below of group bonding exercises and classroom activities!
This is a photograph of us having a Facilitation class with Tara in the theater. Shira on the left, then Ashtar, Natalie, and Genevive.
Here is Genevive and Jinnie contemplating a move in Giovanni's mysterious invisible maze.
This is a photograph of a group exercise outside - we were asked to plan a hypothetical schedule for deciding how to 1)buy a dog 2)go on vacation 3)buy a car. Kelly is being scribe for group two, with group three drawing images of puppies and aardvarks in the background.
This next image is of us doing one of Giovanni's corny - but alarmingly enjoyable - group bonding games (not pictured is the infamous hula hoop). We invented a move called the double-pop and got our group time down to 20 seconds, before it went back up to 36.
An other Hula Hoop game:
Hope these goofball photographs compliment my all-too serious, but very necessary, consensus post. More to come soon!
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CONSENSUS!
Living Routes at Huehuecoyotl is nothing like I anticipated, and I am pressed for a means to communicate this... but the longer I am at Huehue, the more I feel an honest responsibility to try. First of all, each day is more full than most I've ever had. We begin breakfast at 8am, and class at 9, and programs fill our days. After putting on long underwear and three layers of clothing to cope with the alarmingly cold weather here, I begin each day in a wonderful way: by laughing at myself, as I attempt to communicate with the fantastic kitchen staff despite my knowing no spanish. I have rarely met people so understanding of my own ineptitude as the local people working at this ecovillage are of my broken spanish, and I receive almost that exact same openness and appreciation throughout the day from our group and staff members. I am not usually one to gush the wonders of acceptance and respect without a more critical context, but I find myself so overwhelmed by the sense of community I have here, that this is what I want to write.
This program is about both ecovillages and Consensus Decision Making. The definition of Consensus, for this class, is as follows: "Consensus is a decision making process which strives for non-violent revolution of conflict and the cooperative development of decisions that everyone can support." The Core Belief: Each person has an important piece of the truth. The goal of consensus: Unity, not unanimity.
When reading these, perhaps they appeal to you. Or conversely, they may sound unrealistic, even hokey. I admit that I was incredibly skeptical to learn what I was worried would be an unrealistic and oversensitive process of Consensus Decision Making - I have rarely been more glad to be wrong. What I can attest to, is that learning the process of implementing this system is teaching me more about myself, and about group work, than I could have imagined gaining from this program. I admit, too, that when it is not exhilarating, it is exhausting. In the five days we have been here learning and using these ideas, it has already changed me, and many of my peers have remarked that they are applying this thought-process of communication and group work to other aspects of their lives already.
Having a foundation of trust, openness, and mutual appreciation, combined with the routine group work in which 12 total strangers must work together to talk out all aspects of the values and our own learning process, creates a group dynamic unlike any other. There are many other elements which make this unique - a group of all women, a community-oriented staff, a beautiful location, and each individual student here. But facilitation and consensus work are extraordinary for a group dynamic. I do not mean to gush - only to communicate that, despite my initial reservations, I am very personally and positively affected by this work, despite the fact that it is often difficult and even emotionally frustrating.
Here is a copy of values and assumptions of facilitation, called the "Mutual Learning Model:"
value: valid information
value:free and informed choice
value: internal commitment
value:compassion
assumption: both myself and others have important information/piece of the truth
assumption: some people may see things that others don't see
assumption: differences are opportunities to learn
assumption: people try to act with integrity according to each situation
this was put in contrast to the "Unilateral Control Model" which privileges the knowledge, authority and power of one group or leader, and justifies partial action.
This entry is getting long, but before I close, I want to mention that we do more than class - including a candle-lit music and drum circle in the theater with local musicians and students, a trip to the local market, and salsa lessons. This gives life here a balance, despite its intensity, and is helping to keep things stable. And were not so far off as it seems back home - yesterday we watched a movie, and don't forget, I'm using wireless to post this.
Buenos Noches!
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Sat Jan 05, 2008
Day 2/January 3rd: Tour of Huehue
Day Two started off with the blowing of the conch shell and the regular crowing of the local rooster - always heard, never seen. We had our regular morning check-in after breakfast, during which we formally introduced ourselves.Each personal additionally had to share an object of significance - a necklace, a stuffed animal, hiking boots covered in adobe residue... my object was my hankerchief, because it represented my constant sniffles and sinus infections. We went over the ground rules from the guidebook and the schedule. We also made a list of our expectations for the trip.
Everyone basking in the sun in front of the theater, where we have class and eat our meals:
Course Expectations (a student-generated list) - copied from our board:
-learn from everyone - have a community of learning
-bring ideas back home
-learn more about consensus - learn it actively
-listen
-practice spanish
-teamwork strategies
-integral systems
-widen perspective
-learn about self-created community
After this, we all met Svante at the Amate tree for an introduction to Huehue itself.
The people who started Huehuecoyotl had spent almost a decade traveling and caravaning around the world - India, Nepal, Iran, Singapore, Tibet, California, Mexico... The tree, Svante said, had been what drew the caravanning members to finally settle in Tepoztlan 27 years ago. The group began to practice art and theater as they traveled, and as Svante sat at the foot of the tree, his story moving through the members of the group, it was evident that he was learned in storytelling. As he concluded, we began our tour of Huehue.
Our tour began with a trip to the water system, where we also got a better view of the mountains.
Then we saw the recycling center, which is also community project from last year's group. The recycling center was so popular, that local town members came to Huehue to learn how to build their own.
This is a photograph of the compost:
In the community garden, Eliza on the left, Camila on the right:
The chicken coop:
One of the original caravan busses:
An other bus!
That day, we met Rosa, a doctor trained in western and homeopathic medicine. That night, we had a presentation from Svante with slides from the caravan. Everything has been going really well, although its taking a lot longer than I thought to adjust to the altitude. We took a 10 minute hike to a spot by the village, and I was alarmed at how winded I was. There was a resident artist at the top of the hike, with two of her visiting friends, one a guitarist and one a singer. As we looked at mountains, the city, the smoking volcano in the distance and huehuecoyotl, we listened to them pay.
More soon!
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Fri Jan 04, 2008
Day 1/January 2nd: Travel
We all arrived at Huehuewcoyotl last night. (Called Huehue, pronounced way-way). My personal trip began at 4:30am, when a cab pulled into my driveway and took me to Logan Airport. A veritable virgin to late-night travel, I was surprised to find the airport packed. The line to check in was 30 minutes long, and as I pushed my suitcase forward with my feet every few minutes, I found myself bonding with the group of 60 adults traveling with their advertising company going on a group bonding trip to Hawaii. I told them I was going on an anti-advertising trip - i was goin on a sustainability trip. But I suppose the sustainability of any travel can be called into question. I marveled in the irony of buying a bagel from Dunkin Donuts on my way to an ecovillage.
Logan Airport at 4:45am:
Mexico City from the plane (photograph by Camila):
The Airport in Mexico City:
By 3pm the Living routes Group had all convened in the airport. As Giovanni went to buy us bus tickets, we repeated our names, hometowns and college situations to each other in small and constantly reconfiguring conversational groups. Everyone's voyage was different - three students arrived early and spent the night bunking in Mexico City, one arrived at 6am and spent the day in the droll florescent lit airport, some of us came straggling through customs in the last minutes before meeting time. While the stiff and alienating experience of travel had us all pretty grumpy and antsy to get to Huehue, it also immediately gave the members of our group a common ground - the camaraderie of a day of travel was a great bonding point.
We took a 1-hour bus ride from Mexico City to Tepoztlan, where we organized into four cabs and took a meandering trip through Morelos to Huehue. The cabs drove up onto the lawn in front of the theater where program directors, and a slew of the community dogs and puppies, met us to take us two our two living houses. Six girls in a really rad loft with cots above the main building, six in a beautiful little house with both cots and beds. No boys aloud. We were fed a delicious meal, offered extra blankets to compensate for the alarmingly cold weather, and all unpacked for the night.
The Bus ride from Mexico City to Tepoztlan - Genevive on the left, Margot on the right, Giovanni in the center.
A caravanning cab filled with Living Routes Students (Photograph by Genevive)
So much happened the next day, which is today, but I will wait for the next entry to blog about it, because it will come with quite a photo album. I will end this entry now, so that I might start my course reading on consensus for the night. Hope you enjoy my documentary of Huehuecoyotl: Day 1.
I have also uploaded the photographs from traveling to a Flickr account under the name huehuepix. Check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22078468@N05/
If anyone has any blogging suggestions or requests, please don't hesitate to let me know in a comment. And if you are a parent reading this, don't worry, because everyone arrived safely and no one has sustained any major injuries.
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Tue Jan 01, 2008
From Boston to Mexico City
Hello weblog readers,
My name is Basha Smolen, and I will be the resident web-logger for the Living Routes Mexico trip winter 2008. My basic studies in anthropology have taught me nothing, if not the rather obvious fact that all researchers are positioned subjects, and that their observations are not objective realities, but rather a result of both who they are and how they are culturally received. Therefore, my blog entries will personal accounts of our time at Huehuecoytl, but I will try to give both factual accounts and a variety of subjective experiences as I blog away.
And this warrants a personal introduction. I grew up with two moms and one little sister in the suburbs around Boston. I studied studio art and, (not even kidding), jazz-tap dance in my spare time. I have never to Central or South America, and my Spanish, unfortunately, is embarrassingly bad. This will definitely effect my experience in Mexico, and will perhaps be reflected in my blogging. The last three summers I have worked on a vegetable farm on Martha's Vineyard, an island off of Massachusetts. After this winter break, I will be a first semester senior at Bard College, a small liberal arts college located in the farm country of New York state. My major is Cultural Anthropology. I'm interested in the anthropology of medicine and technoscience, and in environmental anthropology. When I return to school, I will be starting my senior thesis, which is quite relevantly an anthropological study of the global ecovillage movement.
So, today is the first day of January. HAPPY NEW YEAR. Wikipedia actually has an entry designated for every day of the year, (kind of like a slingshot organizer), which gives the magnitude of history a great perspective, you should check it out. But anyway: January is named for Janus (Lunuarius), the Roman god of the doorway. The symbolism of this naming is rather obvious - January is the first month of the year, opening up the year and the next twelve months to new and yet un-foretold possibilities. I cant decide if this is contrived, but its an exciting way to think of the new year. What a perfect time for a group of students to begin a study of sustainable living. I am a sucker for anniversaries; linear time has a way of folding in on itself and becoming hard to chart. The steady passage of time is always obscured by the oscillations of regular life. Change and progress and stagnation mark time for me much more than a calender does, so an anniversary, especially that of the new year, gives me a linear perspective of where I have been and where I am. This time next year, I hope to have just graduated from college, and with this, completed my senior thesis, which includes visiting many national (maybe international?) ecovillages and sustainable communities.
I admit that I have my own silly concerns about this trip - i'm not sure how much to pack (the hand book is very hazy about packing light or packing heavy), i'm worried that i'll run out of socks, i don't speak spanish, and i have a dirty secret which is that i don't like rice and beans, and i'm wondering if that will be a problem... and I'm worried that while weblogging, everyone will discover what an awful speller I am. But for the most part I am very excited to go to Huehue, and confident in my decision to spend my winter break there. I plan to stay up all night tonight, take a 4am taxi to logan airport, and arrive in mexico city at 2:45 in the afternoon. I read in an paper once that travel has become much more about time than about less about distance, and as I prepare to make an international flight, I have to say I agree - I feel that I am traveling through time more than through space, and expect my life to be in a liminal state of suspension for the hours in which I am in transit, until I land in Mexico City.
Before we depart for our trip abroad, webloggers are asked to write a primary entry, speculating on the trip, talking about the preparation process, introduction him or herself. I hope that this entry, my complete with personal introduction and ruminations the new year, was satisfactory. If anyone reading has questions (not of a personal nature, but about the trip or our experiences here), please leave comments and I'll try to respond!
As soon as I have photos, I'll begin to post them. For now I will abstain, because any photographs I take in New York or Boston will be filled with snow and ice, and that seems like a silly way to start a blog about Mexico. I'm wishing everyone successful travels, and I'll see many of you tomorrow. Right now I'm off to buy more socks.
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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!
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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.
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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!!!
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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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First week activities
The weather was a little colder than one would expect on the first two days of the program. It actually got to about 40F at night. The altitude (6000’) and the cold weather was a little bit of a surprise for most of the students, but after a couple of days the temperature went back up to normal, 80F in the day and about 50F at night. Sleep is easy and the sun is energizing.
Arriving at a new site is disorienting and fascinating at the same time, so the first day students spent time getting to know each-other and meeting their staff and people they will be working with. A learning community is explained to all participants as that is part of the objective of the program. They are oriented to housekeeping chores that need to be done every day in order to maintain the site clean and work areas pleasant. Students are assigned a clan (two people teams in this case) that will rotate every day to keep the kitchen orderly, the theatre (workspace) clean and neat, and the showers and bathrooms clean and supplied with all necessities. This is part of building the community of learners which the students will be a part of during their stay. We also managed our first unexpected health crisis, which turned out fine thanks to the diligent intervention of the staff at midnight of the first day.
The next day Dr. Rosa Belendez visited the group, as scheduled, to make herself available for any medical needs and to give the students some tips on health issues and self care.
In the afternoon, after a tour of the village, we took a hike to the mountain behind Huehue where there is a spectacular bird’s-eye view of the community from above and the surrounding mountains. The view stretches for over 25 miles to the east, where the volcano Popocatepetl shows majestically its plume of smoke and snowy cap. Mexico is a land of contrasts and high diversity. It is easy to feel the presence of ancient cultures roaming this land. Their evidence is found on the trails and monuments that abound in these parts. The Aztecs, Mexicas, Nahuas, and Mazahuas created rich and magnificent civilizations here.
In the night the group is treated to a slide show/storytelling session with old coyote Svante, of ecovillages and intentional communities from around the world, a visual way to better understand some examples from the global ecovillage movement, and how each has explored sustainability options in different forms in their regions. Unfortunately the scheduled Power Point of the Ecovillage presentation had to be postponed for technical reasons. Art, ecology and deep democracy are the primary principles guiding Huehuecoyotl, and in the night of the second day the creative forces of the group members started to come out as they joined in an impromptu talent show that had them laughing and showing off their talents, until a group of musicians from the community joined them and offered a string of songs on guitar, mandolin and drums that had every one singing, dancing and enjoying themselves until late in the night. An unplanned spontaneous show of creativity and fun, two important components of our search for sustainability in community.
The next couple of days are dedicated to learning about consensus and facilitation techniques taught by Bea and Tara of the International Institute for Facilitation and Consensus. This is the main theoretical and academic content of the course, which the students will need for their research into a collective decision for an action learning community-service project of the next two weeks. Team building games facilitated in order to get students practicing problem-solving skills together in an experiential way. While the mornings are used for instruction, the afternoons serve to bond together and learn as a group how to make decisions affecting their studies and the location where they find themselves. These activities are complimented with a group discussions. One of those included three young adult members of the community who are now studying in universities in the US and Europe. This dialogue, and the one following the viewing of Wangari Maathai’s video speech on empowerment were rich with comparison between the various world societies, and leads to an flowing exchange among peers of identity issues and cultural/political realities of different countries and cultures. Who are we? and why do we act the way we do? Which are individual characteristics, and which are cultural upbringings that shape our identity?
On Saturday afternoon we visited Tepoztlan and its unending crafts market. Students got a chance to practice their Spanish and find-out ways of communicating other than through language. Most students know some Spanish and few don’t know any, but they all came back with stories of interactions and bargains, their smiles wide and their eyes bright with amazement. Some reported eating grasshoppers at one of the food stands (they thought it tasted like pop corn with cayene), others ate quesadillas with mushrooms, and nopales (cactus). Upon their return we debriefed and went over some of the Spanish phrases that would come handy next time they visit the magic town of Tepoztlan. All students had a chance to use their Spanish in town, and to identify what they needed to know to be able to communicate.
After extensive instructions and practicing of facilitation and consensus theory, and exercises on Appreciative Inquiry techniques the students are ready to start trying their new leadership skills on their own. Until now they have had several opportunities to practice various leadership roles within the group; from facilitating predetermined issues to time keeping, vibes watcher, and scribing, among others. They created their first agenda and agreed on a purpose for a meeting and a decision: How will we create a plan for talking to the community and proposing a service project in one week’s time? This process is not easy, but is critical in group decision making by consensus where all voices are given equal importance. Frustration visits some group members, speaking order and roles have to be defined and a strategy to proceed is explored to some detail. Tensions got a bit high as the group felt uncertain in their new role as decision planners. They then found their way to the next level of organizing, thanks to the wise intervention of the course’s main instructor, Bea Briggs. At this point quite a bit of learning had taken place gathering the information they received to date. Participation, power dynamics, ground rules, listening skills, patience, thoughtful intervention, skillful conversations, and a willingness to find solutions were all part of the lessons of empowerment and active participation for the first exercises in deep democracy.
Last night was the fourth day of the course and we celebrated with a “rosca de reyes” and “tamales”. This is the traditional food eaten here to celebrate Three Kings day. Then food has been vegetarian, except for the chicken cutletts that Kathy included in the rich and delicious daily menu, lovingly cooked by Doña Maria and Doña Antonia with the assistance of Don Alejandro. They make a happy kitchen staff. Afterwards we had poetry reading, drumming and dancing to the rhythms of the Caribbean islands. Visiting musicians Josh, Taina, and Gaetano joined Giovanni and Odin in the merry music making. Local young poet, Ekiwah Adler read from his new work, alternating his poems with Taina’s Puerto Rican inspired writings and dancing, and Kathy's Caribbean story of Ananzy, the spider. This whole evening was a perfect way to relax together and celebrate being part of a community.
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Day 5/January 6th - Tepotzlan!!!
In the afternoon of Day 5, we went into town for the sunday market!! After ample warning about what food would not leave us with Montezuma's revenge, we made our way in separate groups down to the market. My group went in the pickup truck of Tara's friend, getting to experience the road and the wind as we drove out of Huehue and into the traffic of Tepotzlan.
This is a bunch of us piling into the back of the pickup truck:
And here is a photograph of Camila, Me (I've finally made it into the weblog), Margot, and Jinnie, having the ride of our lives:
Here is the edge of the market at 330pm!
This is an amazing mosaic made of out seeds and beans (photo by Hannah):
Margot and Hannah buying food:
Camilla (left) and Natalie (right) enjoying the market:
Camilla taking a photograph in town:
The market at night!
That night, many students got together for dinner in the market. Four were convinced to try a local treat - grasshoppers. I took a pass. When we went back to Huehue, I got to do the one thing I miss most about home: cook. I made a bunch of members grilled cheese with tomatoes, avocado, and leftover chicken. This was the same chicken, locally raised and killed, that I had broken my vegetarianism with that same afternoon. Regardless of how much I enjoy Huehue, and what I have seen of Mexico, making and eating a grilled cheese sandwich was one of the most grounding things I have done since I have been here - because I love to cook, and because it reminds me of home.
Tomorrow (Monday) morning we leave early for a small village in south Morales, where we will stay for two nights, so it might be a while before the next blog post. But when I do return, I will have photographs of todays amazing hike, and photographs of the fieldtrip. And perhaps more living routes students will post some entries soon. Look for a post thursday or friday!
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Day 5/January 6th - Appreciative Inquiry!
Day five began with a workshop on Consensus with Bea. This was mostly covered in my post about Consensus, with corresponding photographs. After a morning break, we reconvened with Giovanni to learn about Appreciative Inquiry (AI). AI is a process of evaluating group work which appreciates a the positive role of a group member's. Because a core value behind consensus is that each person has an important part of the story, and an important perspective, AI fits well in the consensus model. Furthermore, ecovillages focus on integral systems, and and AI appreciates the particular role of any group member.
Here are the core values of Appreciative Inquiry:
1- AI asks what is best the best in us (a group, person, or system)
2 - AI asks what is life affirming in us (meaningful, life-giving)?
3 - AI uses the art of asking questions
4 - AI uses uncondiontally positive questions
5 - AI focuses on Discovery, reaming and designing
6 - AI looks at past and present capacities
7 - AI takes account of all positives
8 - AI links to a change agenda
we did an exercise in pairs, where we interviewed our partner about a time they were integral in a grou pwork situation. we then moved to groups of four, where we told each other's stories. In these groups, we looked at what commonalities each story had. Here is the list we generated:
-assist group work of others
-bring new idea which changes the group trajectory
-create stronger community
-give to the group without self interest
-helped to get past conflicts to successful end result
-took on leadership role
-took on mall roles
Then we did an amazing exercise called "small teach" in which we broke into pairs and had 10 minutes to teach each other a very simple task. Examples were a french braid, cats cradle, hello & goodbye in cantonese, speaking gibberish, the E-major and E-minor cords on a guitar, and the basic samba step.
Needless to say, we we're in a positive mood when lunch came and went, and it was time to go into town for the saturday market! A photo post on that to come, asap.
And finally, two last things: Thanks to Natalie's mom for being the first person to post a blog comment, and Happy Birthday to my mom who turns 60 on wednesday. Being a group of all women, I sometimes get the sense that our mothers are transitively members of our community here, so that was for them.
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Day 3/January 4th - Group Games and Classroom Activities
I realize that my last entry deserves a complimentary photo-post! I will accordingly post images below of group bonding exercises and classroom activities!
This is a photograph of us having a Facilitation class with Tara in the theater. Shira on the left, then Ashtar, Natalie, and Genevive.
Here is Genevive and Jinnie contemplating a move in Giovanni's mysterious invisible maze.
This is a photograph of a group exercise outside - we were asked to plan a hypothetical schedule for deciding how to 1)buy a dog 2)go on vacation 3)buy a car. Kelly is being scribe for group two, with group three drawing images of puppies and aardvarks in the background.
This next image is of us doing one of Giovanni's corny - but alarmingly enjoyable - group bonding games (not pictured is the infamous hula hoop). We invented a move called the double-pop and got our group time down to 20 seconds, before it went back up to 36.
An other Hula Hoop game:
Hope these goofball photographs compliment my all-too serious, but very necessary, consensus post. More to come soon!
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CONSENSUS!
Living Routes at Huehuecoyotl is nothing like I anticipated, and I am pressed for a means to communicate this... but the longer I am at Huehue, the more I feel an honest responsibility to try. First of all, each day is more full than most I've ever had. We begin breakfast at 8am, and class at 9, and programs fill our days. After putting on long underwear and three layers of clothing to cope with the alarmingly cold weather here, I begin each day in a wonderful way: by laughing at myself, as I attempt to communicate with the fantastic kitchen staff despite my knowing no spanish. I have rarely met people so understanding of my own ineptitude as the local people working at this ecovillage are of my broken spanish, and I receive almost that exact same openness and appreciation throughout the day from our group and staff members. I am not usually one to gush the wonders of acceptance and respect without a more critical context, but I find myself so overwhelmed by the sense of community I have here, that this is what I want to write.
This program is about both ecovillages and Consensus Decision Making. The definition of Consensus, for this class, is as follows: "Consensus is a decision making process which strives for non-violent revolution of conflict and the cooperative development of decisions that everyone can support." The Core Belief: Each person has an important piece of the truth. The goal of consensus: Unity, not unanimity.
When reading these, perhaps they appeal to you. Or conversely, they may sound unrealistic, even hokey. I admit that I was incredibly skeptical to learn what I was worried would be an unrealistic and oversensitive process of Consensus Decision Making - I have rarely been more glad to be wrong. What I can attest to, is that learning the process of implementing this system is teaching me more about myself, and about group work, than I could have imagined gaining from this program. I admit, too, that when it is not exhilarating, it is exhausting. In the five days we have been here learning and using these ideas, it has already changed me, and many of my peers have remarked that they are applying this thought-process of communication and group work to other aspects of their lives already.
Having a foundation of trust, openness, and mutual appreciation, combined with the routine group work in which 12 total strangers must work together to talk out all aspects of the values and our own learning process, creates a group dynamic unlike any other. There are many other elements which make this unique - a group of all women, a community-oriented staff, a beautiful location, and each individual student here. But facilitation and consensus work are extraordinary for a group dynamic. I do not mean to gush - only to communicate that, despite my initial reservations, I am very personally and positively affected by this work, despite the fact that it is often difficult and even emotionally frustrating.
Here is a copy of values and assumptions of facilitation, called the "Mutual Learning Model:"
value: valid information
value:free and informed choice
value: internal commitment
value:compassion
assumption: both myself and others have important information/piece of the truth
assumption: some people may see things that others don't see
assumption: differences are opportunities to learn
assumption: people try to act with integrity according to each situation
this was put in contrast to the "Unilateral Control Model" which privileges the knowledge, authority and power of one group or leader, and justifies partial action.
This entry is getting long, but before I close, I want to mention that we do more than class - including a candle-lit music and drum circle in the theater with local musicians and students, a trip to the local market, and salsa lessons. This gives life here a balance, despite its intensity, and is helping to keep things stable. And were not so far off as it seems back home - yesterday we watched a movie, and don't forget, I'm using wireless to post this.
Buenos Noches!
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Day 2/January 3rd: Tour of Huehue
Day Two started off with the blowing of the conch shell and the regular crowing of the local rooster - always heard, never seen. We had our regular morning check-in after breakfast, during which we formally introduced ourselves.Each personal additionally had to share an object of significance - a necklace, a stuffed animal, hiking boots covered in adobe residue... my object was my hankerchief, because it represented my constant sniffles and sinus infections. We went over the ground rules from the guidebook and the schedule. We also made a list of our expectations for the trip.
Everyone basking in the sun in front of the theater, where we have class and eat our meals:
Course Expectations (a student-generated list) - copied from our board:
-learn from everyone - have a community of learning
-bring ideas back home
-learn more about consensus - learn it actively
-listen
-practice spanish
-teamwork strategies
-integral systems
-widen perspective
-learn about self-created community
After this, we all met Svante at the Amate tree for an introduction to Huehue itself.
The people who started Huehuecoyotl had spent almost a decade traveling and caravaning around the world - India, Nepal, Iran, Singapore, Tibet, California, Mexico... The tree, Svante said, had been what drew the caravanning members to finally settle in Tepoztlan 27 years ago. The group began to practice art and theater as they traveled, and as Svante sat at the foot of the tree, his story moving through the members of the group, it was evident that he was learned in storytelling. As he concluded, we began our tour of Huehue.
Our tour began with a trip to the water system, where we also got a better view of the mountains.
Then we saw the recycling center, which is also community project from last year's group. The recycling center was so popular, that local town members came to Huehue to learn how to build their own.
This is a photograph of the compost:
In the community garden, Eliza on the left, Camila on the right:
The chicken coop:
One of the original caravan busses:
An other bus!
That day, we met Rosa, a doctor trained in western and homeopathic medicine. That night, we had a presentation from Svante with slides from the caravan. Everything has been going really well, although its taking a lot longer than I thought to adjust to the altitude. We took a 10 minute hike to a spot by the village, and I was alarmed at how winded I was. There was a resident artist at the top of the hike, with two of her visiting friends, one a guitarist and one a singer. As we looked at mountains, the city, the smoking volcano in the distance and huehuecoyotl, we listened to them pay.
More soon!
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Day 1/January 2nd: Travel
We all arrived at Huehuewcoyotl last night. (Called Huehue, pronounced way-way). My personal trip began at 4:30am, when a cab pulled into my driveway and took me to Logan Airport. A veritable virgin to late-night travel, I was surprised to find the airport packed. The line to check in was 30 minutes long, and as I pushed my suitcase forward with my feet every few minutes, I found myself bonding with the group of 60 adults traveling with their advertising company going on a group bonding trip to Hawaii. I told them I was going on an anti-advertising trip - i was goin on a sustainability trip. But I suppose the sustainability of any travel can be called into question. I marveled in the irony of buying a bagel from Dunkin Donuts on my way to an ecovillage.
Logan Airport at 4:45am:
Mexico City from the plane (photograph by Camila):
The Airport in Mexico City:
By 3pm the Living routes Group had all convened in the airport. As Giovanni went to buy us bus tickets, we repeated our names, hometowns and college situations to each other in small and constantly reconfiguring conversational groups. Everyone's voyage was different - three students arrived early and spent the night bunking in Mexico City, one arrived at 6am and spent the day in the droll florescent lit airport, some of us came straggling through customs in the last minutes before meeting time. While the stiff and alienating experience of travel had us all pretty grumpy and antsy to get to Huehue, it also immediately gave the members of our group a common ground - the camaraderie of a day of travel was a great bonding point.
We took a 1-hour bus ride from Mexico City to Tepoztlan, where we organized into four cabs and took a meandering trip through Morelos to Huehue. The cabs drove up onto the lawn in front of the theater where program directors, and a slew of the community dogs and puppies, met us to take us two our two living houses. Six girls in a really rad loft with cots above the main building, six in a beautiful little house with both cots and beds. No boys aloud. We were fed a delicious meal, offered extra blankets to compensate for the alarmingly cold weather, and all unpacked for the night.
The Bus ride from Mexico City to Tepoztlan - Genevive on the left, Margot on the right, Giovanni in the center.
A caravanning cab filled with Living Routes Students (Photograph by Genevive)
So much happened the next day, which is today, but I will wait for the next entry to blog about it, because it will come with quite a photo album. I will end this entry now, so that I might start my course reading on consensus for the night. Hope you enjoy my documentary of Huehuecoyotl: Day 1.
I have also uploaded the photographs from traveling to a Flickr account under the name huehuepix. Check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22078468@N05/
If anyone has any blogging suggestions or requests, please don't hesitate to let me know in a comment. And if you are a parent reading this, don't worry, because everyone arrived safely and no one has sustained any major injuries.
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From Boston to Mexico City
Hello weblog readers,
My name is Basha Smolen, and I will be the resident web-logger for the Living Routes Mexico trip winter 2008. My basic studies in anthropology have taught me nothing, if not the rather obvious fact that all researchers are positioned subjects, and that their observations are not objective realities, but rather a result of both who they are and how they are culturally received. Therefore, my blog entries will personal accounts of our time at Huehuecoytl, but I will try to give both factual accounts and a variety of subjective experiences as I blog away.
And this warrants a personal introduction. I grew up with two moms and one little sister in the suburbs around Boston. I studied studio art and, (not even kidding), jazz-tap dance in my spare time. I have never to Central or South America, and my Spanish, unfortunately, is embarrassingly bad. This will definitely effect my experience in Mexico, and will perhaps be reflected in my blogging. The last three summers I have worked on a vegetable farm on Martha's Vineyard, an island off of Massachusetts. After this winter break, I will be a first semester senior at Bard College, a small liberal arts college located in the farm country of New York state. My major is Cultural Anthropology. I'm interested in the anthropology of medicine and technoscience, and in environmental anthropology. When I return to school, I will be starting my senior thesis, which is quite relevantly an anthropological study of the global ecovillage movement.
So, today is the first day of January. HAPPY NEW YEAR. Wikipedia actually has an entry designated for every day of the year, (kind of like a slingshot organizer), which gives the magnitude of history a great perspective, you should check it out. But anyway: January is named for Janus (Lunuarius), the Roman god of the doorway. The symbolism of this naming is rather obvious - January is the first month of the year, opening up the year and the next twelve months to new and yet un-foretold possibilities. I cant decide if this is contrived, but its an exciting way to think of the new year. What a perfect time for a group of students to begin a study of sustainable living. I am a sucker for anniversaries; linear time has a way of folding in on itself and becoming hard to chart. The steady passage of time is always obscured by the oscillations of regular life. Change and progress and stagnation mark time for me much more than a calender does, so an anniversary, especially that of the new year, gives me a linear perspective of where I have been and where I am. This time next year, I hope to have just graduated from college, and with this, completed my senior thesis, which includes visiting many national (maybe international?) ecovillages and sustainable communities.
I admit that I have my own silly concerns about this trip - i'm not sure how much to pack (the hand book is very hazy about packing light or packing heavy), i'm worried that i'll run out of socks, i don't speak spanish, and i have a dirty secret which is that i don't like rice and beans, and i'm wondering if that will be a problem... and I'm worried that while weblogging, everyone will discover what an awful speller I am. But for the most part I am very excited to go to Huehue, and confident in my decision to spend my winter break there. I plan to stay up all night tonight, take a 4am taxi to logan airport, and arrive in mexico city at 2:45 in the afternoon. I read in an paper once that travel has become much more about time than about less about distance, and as I prepare to make an international flight, I have to say I agree - I feel that I am traveling through time more than through space, and expect my life to be in a liminal state of suspension for the hours in which I am in transit, until I land in Mexico City.
Before we depart for our trip abroad, webloggers are asked to write a primary entry, speculating on the trip, talking about the preparation process, introduction him or herself. I hope that this entry, my complete with personal introduction and ruminations the new year, was satisfactory. If anyone reading has questions (not of a personal nature, but about the trip or our experiences here), please leave comments and I'll try to respond!
As soon as I have photos, I'll begin to post them. For now I will abstain, because any photographs I take in New York or Boston will be filled with snow and ice, and that seems like a silly way to start a blog about Mexico. I'm wishing everyone successful travels, and I'll see many of you tomorrow. Right now I'm off to buy more socks.
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