Week 5: Monday, September 25 – Sunday, October 1, 2023

¡Buenas tardes!

I’m back in Querétaro, ready to write another weekly recap. This week’s newsletter is going to focus on my site visit to Neblinas, and as a result, it will be a good bit longer, so hold on tight!

Something you’ve all been waiting for (or maybe not and it’s all in my head lol) is information about my future site, aka where I’m going to be living for the next 2 years. Well, I’m so happy to say that I finally got the chance to visit my site in Neblinas this past week, and I simply could not be happier. Truly an incredible community — the people, the environment, the food, the animals, everything. And I am so so excited to move to my site in just 6 short weeks. There’s so much information to share, so I’m going to try my best to keep it concise, but no promises. Here we go!

Day 1

On Wednesday morning, I left Querétaro with two fellow volunteers — Rayanne and Edward — and started my journey to Neblinas for the very first time. The road to Neblinas is winding and twisting and traverses the mountains. While a bit nauseating, I spent most of the journey looking out the window, admiring the beauty of the landscape as it changed from desertscape to chapparal to coniferous forest and back to desert again.

After about three and a half hours, we reached our first destination: Jalpan, a tourist town in the valley of the Sierra Gorda that has a dry desert-like climate. In Jalpan, Rayanne, Edward, and I met with our counterpart Daniel who works for CONANP (Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas), the Mexican government agency in charge of natural protected areas that we are partnered with. Daniel took us to a small restaurant where we ate enchiladas and spoke about our sites and the work we are going to be doing. After lunch, Daniel took us back to the CONANP offices where we parted ways with Edward who is going to be serving at a different site from Rayanne and me.

Daniel drove Rayanne and me the rest of the way to Neblinas through a slightly less winding road. The views of the Sierra Gorda around us were unreal. Lush green forests and pastureland surrounded us on all sides, and again I watched as the landscapes changed from coniferous forest to temporal forest and then finally to a more tropical forest as we approached Neblinas. You would not believe that there could be a town, let alone many towns, in this part of the Sierra. But in fact, the steep hills were dotted with colorful communities that have existed for almost 100 years.

We reached Neblinas at around 5pm and proceeded to head to the office of the Delegado — the town government office. Daniel introduced Rayanne and me to Delegado Feliciano, and we spoke about our agenda for our visit.

After meeting with the Delegado, we were taken to meet our host families. We started off at Rayanne’s host family where we had a wonderful dinner of chicken, beans, rice, and of course tortillas — so many tortillas. Rayanne’s host mom is named Flora, and she happens to be the daughter of my host, Margarita. Margarita met us at Flora’s home and the four of us (Rayanne, Flora, Margarita, and I) walked up to the house that I will be staying in. Margarita lives in the bottom part of a house with a blue and pink façade. Upstairs live her daughter-in-law Eugenia and her four children, Melanie (10), Santiago (6), Julian and Juliette (twins age 4).

After saying “buenas noches,” I got situated in my new room in my new house. Aside from a few mosquitos buzzing in my ears, I slept very well, with a view of the moon and the mountains outside of my window.

Day 2

Thursday started off nice and early at 7:30am. Our schedule for the day had us going to each of the schools in the town (of which there are 4) to introduce ourselves to the local children and get a sense of potential opportunities for collaboration with the different schools. We began our tour of the schools at el colegio (the town high school), presenting ourselves to the students and teachers and talking about our future work and why we were in the town in the first place. After a short presentation at the high school, we headed back down to the main part of town to introduce ourselves at elementary school and the secondary school. I’d say we likely gave our introduction about ten or twelve times, and by the end I was certainly tired.

Delegado Feliciano accompanied Rayanne and me on this tour of the town, and in between visits to the schools, he was sure to introduce us to the different people we encountered along the way.

Once our visit to the schools was complete, we made our way back to Flora’s home where we were treated to a lunch of sauteed zucchini with chorizo and beans and you guessed it, a mountain of tortillas. After lunch, I went back to my house to relax and spend a few hours decompressing before heading out again.

At night, Rayanne and I, accompanied by Flora and Margarita, made our way down to the community basketball court / fútbol field to meet more members of the community and watch the local children play a game of fútbol. After a little while, we made our way back up to our respective houses and went to sleep.

Day 3

Day three (Friday) started at 8:30am at Flora’s house. Again, we were met by Delegado Feliciano who so graciously led us down the hill to the home of Elodio, another member of the community, whose brother owns and runs a coffee farm. (If I didn’t mention it previously, Neblinas is known for its coffee, and has ideal coffee growing conditions). Elodio and Delegado Feliciano escorted us further down the mountain to the coffee farm, through what can only be described as lush tropical forest.

Once we made it to the coffee farm, Elodio described to us a little bit about the problems the coffee farm has been facing, namely, a fungus (or as they say una plaga) that has been attacking the trees and lessening production. Elodio also told us about a plan that he has in mind to purchase another plot of land in the community from the government in order to grow more coffee plants and create more jobs for members of the community. (Similar to what I described in last week’s newsletter, the community of Neblinas is suffering from a lack of jobs in the community, and as a result, most of the men spend a number of years working in the U.S., sending money back to their families).

After visiting the coffee farm, we spent a bit more time exploring the terrain below the community, taking notice of the rich biodiversity, and visiting one of the freshwater springs in the area. (Side note, I actually drank water from this spring using my water bottle’s nifty filter. As of now I have not been poisoned, so I’m going to wager that my filter worked as intended). Although Neblinas is in a cloud forest and has a decent amount of water, they similarly experienced a year of significantly less rain and are currently considering cleaning out their natural springs in order to have a backup source of water if things continue in the direction that they are currently going in.

Eventually, we made our way back up into the community and visited the home of a high-school aged girl named Dania, who is the current leader of Neblinas’ youth-led environmental group. Dania’s family offered us coffee and pan dulce (pastries), which we gladly accepted, and Rayanne and I proceeded to speak with Dania about the work her environmental group is doing and how to get more youth in the community involved in environmental and climate change- related work.

Later that afternoon, Dania and her friend Marbella led us to the community El Aguacate de Neblinas where we met Don Virginio, a coffee producer from Neblinas. Don Virginio generously showed us his coffee shop and roastery and answered more of our questions about coffee production in Neblinas and how/if climate change is impacting his business. Don Virginio told us that while climate change is changing some coffee growing patterns (for example, the coffee ripened in September this year when it typically ripens in November/December), so far this doesn’t seem to be a huge issue for him.

After meeting with Don Virginio, Rayanne, Dania, Marbella, and I drank strawberry frappes and watched the sun setting behind the mountains.

The day concluded with a delicious dinner of tacos dorados (you might know them as taquitos) with all the toppings: queso, crema, cabbage, avocado, salsa verde, and of course beans on the side. I went to sleep feeling very content.