Week 10: Monday, October 30 – Sunday, November 5, 2023

Buenas noches, amigos y miembros de mi familia,

I’m writing to you at the end of my final weekend in the city of Querétaro. Crazy, right? By Thursday of this coming week, I’ll have packed up all my things and moved to my new home in Neblinas. I still can’t believe it’s all happening, but whether I’m ready or not, it’s happening, and I’m about to start my new life.

This week was another good week. A bit disjointed because we had the day off on Thursday to observe Día de Muertos, but a good week, nonetheless.

A good amount of the week was dedicated to fitting in our final policy sessions and last good things to know before leaving for our sites, so I won’t bore you with those details, but I will recount the fun festivities that took place this week.

On Wednesday our office celebrated Día de Muertos, complete with two altars filled with traditional items: velas (candles), pan de muerto (a traditional sweet bread baked at this time), cempasuchiles (marigolds), calaveritas (candy skulls), and pictures of our loved ones who have passed. In the afternoon, each of the volunteers took turns reading passages explaining the significance behind the different symbols and traditions of the holiday. It was a wonderful gathering of the staff and trainees, and an excellent intercultural exchange. We ended the day with hot chocolate and pan de muerto.

Thursday, we had the day off from training — a much needed respite. After a lazy morning, my host and I headed to el centro and visited two museums. The first museum we went to was an old cathedral-turned-art museum. While the museum hosted little art, the building itself was beautiful and evoked the architecture of some of the old churches in Europe (makes sense given that the city was a Spanish colonial town).

The second museum we visited was el museo de calendarios, literally the museum of calendars. We walked through an exhibit with ancient calendars from around the world: Aztec, Mayan, Hebrew, Persian, etc. We also went through many galleries with artwork from the calendars of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, which, while beautiful, my host and I agreed were perhaps more than a bit politically incorrect for today (we decided, however, that we could still admire the artwork for what it was and understand that it is of its time). More of the exhibits hosted examples of calendars from different years with advertisements for surprisingly mostly cigarette and alcohol companies. What a different time we live in now. The calendar museum lives in a beautiful old building — what was once the home of a very wealthy family in Querétaro. My host actually knew the family that lived there before it was converted into a museum. But much more than the actual artwork in the museum were the Día de Muertos decorations that were so beautifully arranged throughout the museum. That was the real highlight of the afternoon: seeing the traditional decorations and tributes to art patrons and others who had passed.

After finishing our time at the museum, we grabbed some esquites for the road (my host had something I’d never seen before — a bag of Doritos with esquites mixed in, called doriesquites) and headed to my host’s sister’s house for a delicious dinner of mole verde and frijoles (beans).

Friday we were back in the office for our last official day of training with our CCAA program manager (Angel) and program trainer (Benita). We wrapped up our training with some final words from Angel and Benita on our transition from training to service and spent time reflecting on the weeks past with a wonderful photo montage and words of advice from current and past volunteers. To celebrate, we had a pizza party, complete with salad, pie, cookies, and lots of other yummy foods. It’s sad to see training coming to an end, but I know that we are all heading into the field a lot more prepared than we were when we arrived.

Saturday morning, I left the house quite early (at 6:45am) and headed to El Parque Nacional del Cimitario de Querétaro, a national park that sits on the outskirts of the city, about a 15-minute drive away from the house. My friend Luis, a local from Querétaro who has become a friend of mine and many members of our group, and I met at the entrance, and we started our hike up the mountain. You may be thinking to yourself, wow, a hike at 7am is pretty early. And it certainly was, but going early was worth it. By the time we got to the top of the mountain, we were the only people there, and it felt like we were on top of the world. The clouds had not yet broken, and we were able to watch the sun rise over the luscious wall of clouds that blanketed the mountains in the distance. It was a truly magical experience, and I know next time I am in Querétaro, I will be hiking there again.

In the evening, I went to Peace Corps “prom” — our end-of-training celebration that a couple of volunteers thought up a few weeks back as a way to bring people together one last time before going our separate ways. The party started at our friend Xavier’s house with dinner — which our friend Georgette so generously offered to cook for us after we couldn’t find a restaurant to accommodate a group of 30 people — and awards — superlatives for people that were voted on via a google form. Once the party at Xavi’s was over, we headed to our other friend Luis’s house (a different Luis than the one I went hiking with) and continued the party there. There was dancing and singing, and everyone had a great time.

I know I still have a few days left, but looking back, I have had a wonderful time during the past 10 weeks of pre-service training. The people I’ve met, the experiences I’ve had, the memories I’ve made — they have all had a lasting impact on me. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I am so excited to see where the next two years take me. And, I am so grateful to all of you for following me along this journey. I hope to be able to provide you with equally as interesting anecdotes over the course of the next two years as I learn to navigate my new life up in the clouds. When you next hear from me, I already will be living in my new site, and I will officially be a Peace Corps Volunteer. Can’t wait to give you the update.

Sleep well, everyone, 

Ilana






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