Weeks 26 & 27: Monday, February 19, 2024

Happy Sunday!

I'm about half way through my time away from my community, and I have lots of fun updates to share with you.

I'll warn you now, it's a long one, so prepare yourself.

The week I left Neblinas was a busy one. Rayanne and I taught classes Monday through Thursday in the middle school and elementary school, teaching our 9th grade students about composting, our elementary schoolers about water pollution, and starting our middle schoolers on group projects that we hope will be finished in time for our Earth Day celebration in April. It was great to see the students really get into the work, particularly with the compost.

Before giving the compost class, we asked the students to come prepared with bags of food scraps from their homes to start their compost with. We weren't 100% sure if they were going to come prepared, but we were pleasantly surprised when we found that more than half of the class had brought in bags full of food scraps with egg shells and peels of different fruits and veggies. A week before that, we had given a class on how to compost with instructions on what could and could not go in the compost, and the students really paid attention! They followed our directions incredibly well, and after mixing all of their food scraps with dried leaves and sticks and straw (a healthy compost needs a good balance of both greens and browns — fruits and veggies as well as dried materials) we were left with a nice looking compost pile.

While Rayanne and I are gone for the next few weeks, we tasked the students with maintaining the compost — one group responsible each day for adding more food scraps to the compost, turning it, and either watering it or mixing in additional dry materials depending on how wet or dry it was. We're hoping to find good results when we go back in a couple of weeks.

After our week of teaching, on Friday morning, Rayanne and I left Neblinas with Margarita (my host), her daughter Felix, and grandkids Tatiana and Uriel. It just so happened that Margarita and her family members were on their way out of the community, so we were lucky to catch a ride at 8am with them rather than at 5am with Miguel.

While we didn't have to be in Querétaro until Sunday afternoon, Rayanne and I were invited to stay the weekend with our fellow volunteer, Sean, at his site in Rio Blanco, Peña Miller, which, while also in the Sierra Gorda, is still about a 4 hour drive from Neblinas. Nevertheless, stopping in Rio Blanco was a great halfway point to break up our trip and to spend some time with our friend at his site.

However, the day before our trip, Rayanne had a bad allergic reaction to watermelon rind of all things, and she wasn't feeling 100% on our way from Neblinas to Rio Blanco. So just to be safe, she made the decision to go all the way to Querétaro that day to be closer to medical care in case of any further complications. So it was time for Ilana's solo adventuring senses to go into high gear.

The nice thing about Rio Blanco is that there is a bus that goes directly to the community. The tricky part about getting that bus, however, is that it only comes once a day at 4pm. So once Rayanne made her decision to go directly to Querétaro, I had to really trust my senses to be able to get off the bus that goes directly to Querétaro and catch the bus that goes to Rio Blanco. But it was not the easiest to find. I followed the instructions Sean gave me exactly, but once I got to the general area where I was to get off the bus and wait for the other bus, I started to get anxious. Luckily, all went well. The bus stopped in a place called Camargo and although I hesitated, I was just quick enough able to ask if that was the place where the other bus would come for me, and thank goodness I asked, because I would have definitely overshot it had I not.

So after waiting for about half an hour and wondering if the bus would ever come, it finally came, and I made it to Rio Blanco to start my weekend with Sean.

Friday night, we walked around the town and Sean introduced me to many of the people in the community with whom he is acquainted with. The town is only 450 people, so it was easy to meet a good percentage of the community.

On Saturday, Sean took me on a beautiful walk down to the river which runs throughout the town — hence the name Rio Blanco (White River). The town is particularly fortunate to have 2 natural springs from which they get their water. While most of the surrounding towns in the region are suffering from extreme drought, Rio Blanco still has access to freshwater. However, there is still significantly less water than there used to be, and Rio Blanco should be looking for alternative solutions like rain water capture to ensure a water-secure future.

After our walk down to the river, Sean and I ate lunch at one of the restaurants in the town. To me, it was shocking to hear that there were restaurants in Sean's town — a town of 450 people — especially compared to Neblinas — a town of 740 people — which doesn't have a single restaurant to speak of. I'm not sure if the restaurants are frequented by locals or by people from outside of the community, but the quality of the food was considerably good and the prices were close to that of the city of Querétaro, which also came as a surprise.

Sunday morning, Sean and I woke up at the crack of dawn (5am) to wait for the bus to take us to Querétaro. Despite the windy, unpaved roads, the bus to Querétaro stops directly in front of people's homes in Rio Blanco. So all Sean and I had to do was climb up the staircase from his house to the street and get on the bus when it arrived at 6:30am. The bus got us to Querétaro 3 hours later at 9:30am (the fastest Sean had ever gotten from his site to Querétaro, he said) and we proceeded to head to the hotel in the city center.

Training started at 9am Monday morning at the Peace Corps offices with everyone from our cohort — CCAA and TEFL volunteers. Most of the day was spent hearing from each volunteer about their experience during the first 3 months. We heard a variety of experiences, ranging from excellent to challenging and everything in between. It was heartwarming to hear about the highlights of people's journeys.

Tuesday, the two groups were together once again to learn about more Peace Corps policies and understand the opportunities available to us going forward with our service. Tuesday was also the last day the two groups of volunteers (CCAA and TEFL) would be all together again until January 2025.

Wednesday morning, CCAA volunteers departed Querétaro for Vía Orgánica, an agroecological park located outside of San Miguel de Allende in the state of Guanajuanto. If you're not sure what an agroecological park is, it's a place dedicated to sustainability and implementing the most sustainable practices in regards to farming and ecology. In the case of Vía Orgánica, their main focus is sustainable farming and animal husbandry. Vía Orgánica also places a very strong focus on water conservation, due to the desert landscape in which they are located. In the past couple of years, Vía Orgánica has experienced the added challenge of being in an extreme drought, and being incredibly water stressed. We heard from a number of interns working at the farm that suffering from such extreme water scarcity means that they are constantly having to make decisions about where to allocate water resources — to the animals or plants or for human consumption.

Vía Orgánica was the perfect setting for the technical portion of our training. On Wednesday, we spent the day learning from the Vía Orgánica staff about different composting techniques — composting with worms and a Japanes composting technique called Bokashi — as well as how to best prepare garden beds to start gardens in our communities.

Thursday, we were visited by team members of the organization Caminos de Agua, which works in communities throughout central Mexico on water conservation and rainwater capture systems. Not only is Mexico suffering through a terrible drought due to lack of rainfall, the groundwater in Mexico is also being extracted at rates faster than it can regenerate, which means two things: the water levels are extremely low and the quality of water that remains contains high concentrations of arsenic and flouride, which can both be detrimental to human health. That's where Caminos de Agua comes in. They help communities test their water quality to identify if it is safe to drink; they also help communities make decisions about water alternatives that are healthier and more reliable.

One of the biggest preconceptions that many people have about rainwater capture systems (Peace Corps volunteers included) is that there isn't enough rainfall in their communities to make rainwater capture systems worth the investment. Well, to the surprise of most volunteers, this actually isn't the case. During our workshop, we were tasked with calculating the annual water needs of a household as well as the capacity of a rooftop rainwater capture system, and the results were quite interesting. Assuming that the minimum daily consumption of water for drinking and cooking is 5L per person and you have a 3 person household, your annual water consumption is 5,475 L. Now, assume you have a roof that is 60m2 and your annual rainfall is 300mm/year. Taking into account the capacity factor of the type of roof you have — a typical roof has a capacity factor of .8 — your maximum rainfall capture capacity is 14,400 L per year, more than twice your annual need.

Now, I know that was some quick math, and I appreciate you bearing with me through all that. But the point I'm trying to make is that rainwater capture is a valuable investment for many communities, especially water-stressed communities. There is a lot of maintenance that goes into ensuring your system is contaminant-free, but for many communities, rainwater capture is going to be their best option for ensuring that they have a reliable, toxin-free water source year round.

Friday, the last day of our training at Vía Orgánica, was focused on wildlife monitoring, a theme you all know I am quite passionate about. We learned about Mexico's rich biodiversity and learned how to place motion sensored cameras in the most ideal places in order to capture footage of local fauna in our communities. We even practiced setting up and placing cameras on the grounds of Vía Orgánica, which, while we didn't capture any animals on camera, was an excellent practice for an activity that I know many of the volunteers — myself included — are going to implement at their sites.

I know that was a lot of information all at once, but I wanted to keep you all updated on the fun and exciting things that happened over the last 2 weeks. That, and also I am very caffeinated from the coffee sampler I ordered at the cute café in the Querétaro city center that I am currently sitting in.