Week 6: Sunday, October 1 – Sunday, October 8, 2023

Buenas noches, friends and family,

Another week, another newsletter. I’ll be honest, I love writing these newsletters, but they can be tiring. Thinking back on all the events that happened in a week and writing about the best of certainly takes a lot of brain power. Nonetheless, I am very happy to write for you all, and I hope these newsletters are bringing you joy and a glimpse into my life here in Mexico.

I included last Sunday in my recap for this week because I wanted to share about a fun moment the group had last weekend after returning from our site visits. On Sunday, one of our group members, Jordan, organized a picnic in Parque Carretas for anyone in our group to attend. The request was simply that we bring food, drinks, blankets, and stories to share from our site visits. The idea was for the group to reconnect after four days of not seeing each other and to have time to decompress from an information- and new experience-heavy few days. The picnic ended up being a huge success. We started off as about five or six individuals and slowly over the few hours we were there grew to a group of twenty people! People brought sandwiches, pastries, drinks, tostadas, fruit, veggies, chips, salsa, and much more. It was a wonderful moment shared among friends and I’m grateful to Jordan for organizing the event.

Monday was a real snap back to reality. Typhoid vaccinations called for an 8am start time, and we jumped back into the training routine quite quickly. *Another moment of honesty, when I write these newsletters, often I’m looking back at the multi-colored schedule created by Peace Corps staff in order to jog my memory about what actually happened during the week.

But looking back, what stands out for me from this week are a couple of things. For one, on Monday, we spent most of the day processing our site visits. In our Spanish class, we reflected on what we learned about our communities in respect to their culture, family structures, and customs. In our climate change class, we created maps of our communities based on our recollection, including geographical information, environmental information, and whatever else stood out to us while we were in our communities. In the afternoon, we each took turns presenting our maps to our fellow volunteers, taking note of many of the similarities faced in each of our communities with respect to climate change. The biggest themes throughout the presentations were, not surprisingly, a lack of water, and an excess of trash littering the natural environment, and biodiversity loss. Even in my site up in the cloud forest, there was a significant lack of water, especially for a place that is known for consistent rainfall.

Another stand out moment from this week was a trip to a reclamation center, or centro de acopio, that our climate change group took on Wednesday. The reclamation center is a place where people can take their sorted, discarded goods, specifically glass, paper, plastic, metal, textiles, and electronics. While at the reclamation center, we met with a woman named Mary who showed us around the center and spoke about challenges related to waste disposal in Mexico. Since the introduction of plastic, Mexico has had a significant problem with trash accumulation and a lack of responsibility especially on the part of beverage manufacturers for recycling and proper disposal. Mary told us that in the 1980s, people would bring their empty plastic bottles to the reclamation center, leading to a mountain of plastic bottles. After petitioning the government and companies such and Coca Cola and Pepsi, Mary was able to transfer the onus of plastic bottle disposal onto the companies themselves, and as a result, the center no longer has a mountain of plastic bottles piling up.

What the center does have is a pollinator garden, a turtle sanctuary (I still couldn’t quite figure out why), and several compost heaps for local food vendors to bring their food scraps to. The center still processes the materials that I mentioned previously, however, the main function of the center today is to provide education to groups (such as our group of volunteers) about how to reduce waste and create a more circular economy. Considering that so many of our sites have challenges with trash accumulation and proper disposal of materials, our visit to the reclamation center proved to be quite relevant and educational.

One other fascinating area of training that I’ll touch upon was a session we had earlier in the week with three returned Peace Corps volunteers (RPCVs). The three volunteers each served in Mexico from 2017 to 2019 and worked on projects touching on our three main themes: waste management, biodiversity conservation, and soil and water management.

The first RPCV that we heard from, Kimberly, served for two years in the state of Puebla, where she focused most of her energy on waste management. Specifically, Kimberly built her projects around proper recycling and reuse of plastic bottles, mainly made from the plastic type PET (think soda bottles, water bottles, things of the like). She initially started her service working with students in the local schools, educating them on how to dispose of PET bottles properly and what characteristics to look out for. She made planters out of plastic water bottles, built benches with Eco bricks (plastic bottles stuffed full of non-recyclable plastic trash), among other small-scale projects. After focusing on these smaller, more educational projects, she applied for a grant with USAID and acquired a plastic chipper, which allowed her to delve even deeper into her work. She collaborated with a group of local fishermen concerned about the amount of plastic accumulating in the lake they fished in and initiated a clean-up project. The plastic bottles were then put through the chipper, the disintegrated plastic bagged and sold in Mexico City to individuals who would then use the material to create new products. She mobilized students in the schools to collect their plastic bottles to give to the fishermen and created an entirely new economy for the community.

The other volunteers we heard from also had excellent projects. The second volunteer we heard from, Deanna, was placed in a biosphere reserve (I forget specifically which one) where she tracked biodiversity using special camera traps set up throughout the reserve. Adam, the last volunteer we heard from, got a grant from USAID to help build cisterns for every family in his community. It was truly motivating and inspiring to hear from three RPCVs, one, because it showed me that it is possible to make it through to the other side, and two, because it provided me with concrete ideas about projects I can effectively implement while I am in my community.

Much more happened this week, but I hope this recap gave you a glimpse into where we are in the training process. We are now officially passed the halfway point (crazy!!) and much of our time is spent in our specific program area groups. Of course, I still make a point of spending time with my English-teaching friends, and this Saturday, I spent my time in the center of the city with good friends drinking coffee, chatting in breweries, and finally having dinner at a wonderful Indian restaurant.

Today was a relaxing day. The weather has finally turned from scorching hot to cloudy and “wintery” (relatively speaking), and I spent a good amount of time at home, relaxing and catching up on work for the week. I also took a free Zumba class in the park near my house, which was great exercise and a lot of fun.

That’s all I have for now.
Thank you all for being such dedicated readers. Wishing you all nothing but the best.

Love, 

Ilana