Week 13: Monday, November 20 – Sunday, November 26, 2023

Hello my beautiful loved ones!

I hope you are well and that you had a lovely holiday week surrounded by friends and family.

Many of you might be wondering, what is it that I actually do in Neblinas? Well, I’ll start by being completely honest and telling you that there is a lot of downtime and a lot of sitting around, talking with family and community members. That might sound a bit confusing to you all. I’m supposed to be working on projects related to climate change and resilience, right?

That is certainly the case. But as I keep reminding myself, and what I’ll tell you all, is that the first three months of service are crucial for getting to know the members of the community and getting to know what their interests are as far as projects go. So, while it may seem like nothing is getting done, we are laying the groundwork for what we hope will be a successful service, with great buy in from community members.

So far, from conversations with community members and our counterparts, it sounds like starting up a community gardening program might be of interest to the people here and a great place to start our work. Currently, the people of Neblinas do not cultivate their own crops. Instead, the town store owners and other individuals drive over an hour to a nearby community to purchase vegetables, which from what I have heard are the end-of-the-line veggies that the larger cities did not want.

But wait, how does growing vegetables tie into climate change mitigation and adaptation? Well, it might be a bit of a stretch, but bear with me. Having your own garden where you can cultivate your own veggies improves food security. Let’s say, for example, a mudslide causes an obstruction that blocks off the only access point to the community and people can’t leave to buy food. With community gardens, the people are less likely to go hungry because they have direct access to food that doesn’t rely on other people or other communities. The ability to cultivate your own crops means less travel time to access fresh fruits and veggies and even more, access to higher quality produce, free of pesticides, and access to a wider variety of fruits and veggies.

And we’re not pulling this idea out of thin air. This week, Rayanne and I went to other nearby communities that have already begun to implement a community gardening program. In Cerro de la Palma (a community about an hour drive away), 20 or so women are engaged in a program where each of them has a vegetable garden that belongs to them and their family. The women cultivate and use however much of their veggies that they need or want, and whatever is in excess, they sell at a local farmer’s market. These women, instead of paying in excess for their vegetables, now engage in a valuable economic activity that provides food for their family and brings in extra money to spend on other goods and services.

Needless to say, this is a project that both Rayanne and I are passionate about.

To get started, yesterday, I invited Santiago, Julian, and Juliette (three of the children living in my house) to help me plant seeds in my seed tray! Because it’s about to be winter (although you wouldn’t know it based on the sunny 75o weather we are having today), we started with radishes, chard, beets, and carrots — vegetables that can endure the cold a bit better. Miguel, my host’s son who lives next door, has graciously invited us to use a plot of land on his property for our first garden, so once my seeds have grown enough to be transplanted, we will get started on our first garden in the community! Hopefully inspiration for other families who too want to start growing their own veggies.

Now, enough about gardens for now. Here are some highlights from the week:

Tuesday was a celebration for the Mexican Revolution! In the morning, we went down to la cancha (basketball court) to watch performances by each of the different school groups. Melanie, the oldest daughter in my host family, performed in the dance put on by the elementary school, and Isaid (Rayanne’s host brother) participated in a pyramid formation with a group of kids from the high school. It was great fun to watch the kids perform and participate in another cultural activity.

Wednesday, the day we went to visit the other communities with our counterparts, was a cold and rainy day where you could hardly see anything, the clouds were so dense. This proved to be quite an interesting condition to be driving in, and I put all my trust in the people who had to drive through it. Probably the lowest visibility I’ve ever driven through (but don’t tell my parents... oh wait, they’ve probably read this already ;) )

The rest of the week was pretty standard: hanging out with the host fam, looking for more interesting flora and fauna, and helping out at the Casa de Cultura.

I hope my letters are keeping you all sufficiently entertained. Please, let me know what you’d like to learn more about re: my new life.

Until next week!

Love, 

Ilana