Weeks 28 & 29: Monday, March 4, 2024 – Sunday, March 17, 2024

Happy Sunday, everyone!

After 3 weeks of traveling here, there, and everywhere, I finally returned to Neblinas this past Thursday. 

What an adventure it has been.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I started my journey in late February in Rio Blanco, visiting my friend Sean at his site and proceeding to travel together to Querétaro for our 10 days of training. Training took us to the Peace Corps office in Querétaro but also to an organic farm in San Miguel de Allende, and back to Querétaro for our counterpart workshop. After the counterpart workshop, I went to Mexico City (henceforth CDMX) and Puebla with my parents before taking the long journey back to Neblinas.

When I last wrote, I believe our counterparts were just about to arrive in Querétaro, so let me pick up there.

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On Monday morning, the climate change volunteers from my cohort made our way to the Peace Corps office to continue our training and prepare for the arrival of our institutional and community counterparts later that afternoon. After a morning of intense and emotional discussion between volunteers and staff (I won't be going into detail here, but happy to explain more at a later date) and a session on how to account for all of the various activities we do in our communities, we pulled ourselves together and welcomed our counterparts from all different places to the Peace Corps offices. 

Rayanne and I had by far the most counterparts of any other volunteers in the cohort. Two members of the CONANP team arrived, along with four members from the organization El Maíz Más Pequeño, as well as Flora and Margarita from Neblinas. What we expected to be a group of four people joining us (one CONANP member, two community members, and one from El Maíz Más Pequeño) ended up being a group of eight — ten if you add Rayanne and me to the mix. So while it was excellent to have such a great showing, it was a bit overwhelming to have to navigate so many people on one team. But it ended up being a good thing, having so much support from our counterparts. I'll explain why in a moment. 

On Tuesday, volunteers and counterparts alike took vans from the Peace Corps office to a town about an hour drive away from Querétaro called El Carril, Colón — the site of a volunteer named Bruce who started his Peace Corps service the year before us. Once we arrived in El Carril, we were greeted by the community and the current PCV with a traditional lunch of gorditas with lots of fillings including potatoes, nopales, lentils, and many other good things. 

After lunch, we were split up into three groups and went around the community to visit different projects that had been implemented by Bruce and his community including solar water heaters, rainwater capture cisterns, and a biodiversity monitoring project. It was equally as valuable for us as volunteers as it was for our counterparts to see what is possible for our service and for our communities when it comes to securing funding and implementing projects. Bruce happens to be an experienced professional with a PhD, so perhaps for him, getting his projects in place so soon in his service and with so much success can be attributed to that. However, it was still exciting to see what kinds of projects are possible when a volunteer and their community work closely together to achieve a shared goal. 

Wednesday was the last day of the workshop and we were back at the Peace Corps office, feeling inspired by the previous day's activities, and ready to plan out projects for our respective sites. Our team agreed upon gardens and cisterns for rainwater capture as our main focuses (something I have spoken about at length in these newsletters) and got to work setting our timeline and sketching out who the main actors are in the project and what goals we want to achieve. As I mentioned previously, in the end, it was helpful having all of our counterparts there. With representation from the community, from CONANP, and from El Maíz Más Pequeño, we were all able to put our skills and capacities to use and come up with an excellent plan for the next 18 months of service. 

By 12:30pm, the workshop was over, and it was time for our counterparts to head back to their communities and for me to get on the bus to CDMX to meet up with my parents and start our vacation together. 

I arrived in CDMX around 5pm and went to meet my parents at the beautiful B&B we were staying in. The details in the B&B were so beautiful. The building where the hotel is located was once a family home and still has all of the charm of how I imagine the house was when a family lived there. You walk into a beautiful courtyard with natural light and a fountain towards the back. Then you walk up a few steps into the house and are greeted with the most charming sitting room with checkered floors and a regal chandelier. Another courtyard-turned-eating area adorned with bookshelves and picnic tables and lights that hang down from the ceiling was the perfect setting for our breakfasts in the morning. And upstairs were the bedrooms — each one with its own charm and flair. My room had a four-post bed, fit for a queen, with mosquito netting making it look like something out of a fairytale. And French windows that looked out onto a street with other French-inspired homes across the way. The hall outside of the bedrooms had a wall of old mirrors, perfectly positioned to take artistic mirror selfies, and a stained-glass roof that brought in a prism of light during different hours of the day. Truly a picturesque place to stay. 

The first night, we took to wandering a bit around the city, visiting the Angel de Independencia and eventually stumbling across a tapas restaurant where we stopped for a glass of wine and a cheese board. Craving Mexican food (being that we were in Mexico), we took an Uber to the Polanco neighborhood and had dinner at a restaurant recommended by a friend and local of the city. 

Thursday morning, we started the day by making our way to the historic center of the city — visiting the Zocalo and the Palacio Bellas Artes (home to some of the famous murals of Diego Rivera). Much of the city was boarded up in preparation for the Día de la Mujer (International Women's Day) march which has the tendency to turn violent in Mexico City. So it was a bit challenging to get around the city center, but we were still able to see some of the famous sites. And to top it all off, sitting at the terrace café located on the 8th floor of the Sears building, we were treated to a gorgeous view of the Palacio Bellas Artes.

Due to the heat and just the general energy needed to navigate a city like CDMX, we returned to the hotel for a bit of a descanso (rest). While my parents spent time relaxing in their hotel room, I took back out to the streets to go visit the famous Chapultepec Park.

I'm not sure how many of you followed me on my trip to Europe in 2022, but one of my absolute favorite ways to spend my days on that trip was to spend time in the beautiful city parks of Paris, Milan, and Geneva, watching the fish and turtles swimming by and either reading a good book or journaling in the shade of the trees. Sitting in Chapultepec Park in CDMX transported me back in time to that trip when I would sit by myself and reflect on the beauty of the world and the incredible importance of nature, especially in large urban cities. 

So I spent a couple of hours in Chapultepec Park, sitting by the edge of the pond, admiring the fish and the turtles, writing and taking a few moments to myself. And then I headed over to La Colonía Roma to meet up with my parents and spend a few hours in one of the most hipster neighborhoods in CDMX. If you haven't been to Roma, I highly recommend spending some time there, even booking your Airbnb or hotel there when you visit CDMX. Hipster cafés and posh bars and restaurants line the streets and transport you to another universe that's a blend between Paris and New York City. I especially recommend the Mercado Roma, a food hall that is filled with cuisines from around the world and excellent drink choices. There's definitely something for everyone there. 

Friday was a full day of adventuring. We started the morning off at the Frida Kahlo museum (another must if you take a trip to Mexico City). The museum is hosted in the building that was first Frida's childhood home and then the home she shared with Diego Rivera in her later years. It's a beautifully preserved collection of her artwork and the spaces in which she lived. The museum also tells the story of her life and how much she struggled throughout her life with physical disabilities. But despite her physical limitations, how successful and how influential she was in her time and today. I can't express enough how much I recommend visiting her museum the next chance you get. Just don't forget to reserve tickets a few weeks in advance — they sell out pretty quickly.

After our trip to Frida, we made our way to the house of Eva Sevilla, the mother of my dad's childhood best friend, Jose Sevilla. Eva so generously invited us to have lunch with her in her home, and it was quite a treat. For me, what was even more special, was hearing about Eva's life and learning about her family who escaped Austria in the 1940s and how they were able to build their lives up again in Mexico.

After our wonderful lunch at Eva's house, we quickly called an Uber and travelled south to Xochimilco, where we met up with another familiar of mine: Daniela, the youngest daughter of my host here in Neblinas. Daniela lives in Xochimilco with her 7 year old son Dylan. She graciously met us at the embarcadero (dock) of one of the Xochimilco canals and we proceeded to make our way onto a boat where we floated peacefully down the river for a couple of hours. Xochimilco, while far away from the main part of Mexico City, is worth the visit — just be careful to net get tricked into a tourist trap!

Saturday morning we got an early start when we were picked up at our hotel by our tour guide Paulina to head to the ancient ruins of Teotihaucán. Teotihuacán, as we learned on our tour, was an ancient city inhabited by the Aztecs (or Mexicas) but was not built by the Aztecs. In fact, archeologists are still trying to figure out exactly who the ancient people were who built these great temples and had such a thriving civilization. There are some clues hinting to the fact that these ancient people had connections with the Mayan people in southern Mexico, but still no proof of a written language or anything specifically dictating who the people were. Nevertheless, the ruins of the ancient civilization are quite impressive, and I personally enjoyed geeking out over the history and imagining how these ancient (and some not so ancient) civilizations were living their lives before the invasion of the Spanish in the 15th century. 

Our tour guide, Paulina, did an incredible job of explaining the history behind the region, of presenting the different theories about who the ancient people were, and explaining the religious significance of the different temples (temples, not pyramids) to the different groups of people who inhabited the city throughout history. It seems that every year, the archeologists on the site are making new discoveries about the complex. Perhaps one day, they will figure out the mystery of the ancient group that so impressively built what is such an important monument in Mexican culture and history.

After returning to our hotel and resting for the afternoon, my parents and I made our way out of the hotel, first to enjoy drinks at a super hipster bar a few blocks from the hotel and then to our restaurant where we were dining for the evening. Both places were wonderful, with great atmosphere and great food and drinks. It was a great way to end our time in CDMX and a nice little culmination of that part of our trip. 

On Sunday morning, we had a few more hours to explore the city, first going to the Diego Rivera Mural Museum (which only hosts one mural, but an impressive one at that), and then trying to go to the National Palace to see the other famous Rivera murals. But, as we found out upon arrival, the museum was closed to visitors for the time being for restoration. I suppose I'll just have to take another trip to the city during my time living here in Mexico.

Sunday afternoon, we took a bus from Mexico City to Puebla, where we went to finish out our trip. Upon arriving in Puebla, we went to a restaurant with traditional Poblano food and enjoyed Mole Poblano, which is the mole you're thinking of with the chocolate in it. The food was delicious and because we were there to celebrate my birthday (it seems my birthday celebrations always start at least a week in advance), we were gifted a free desert of almond cake on top of the chocolate lava cake that we had ordered. 

Well, I'm not sure if it was something I ate or drank at that restaurant or perhaps somewhere else along the way, but the next day I came down with food poisoning and I pretty much couldn't leave the hotel. Luckily, the hotel we were staying at had a beautiful rooftop pool, so I spent as much time as I could up there. So, needless to say, I didn't see too much of Puebla, but that's okay. I saw what I wanted to see in CDMX and had a lovely time nonetheless with my parents who took great care of me when I wasn't feeling well.

Wednesday morning, I parted ways with my parents and headed back to Querétaro to start my journey back to Neblinas. I made it to Querétaro in the afternoon and met up with my friend Luis to grab dinner and drinks and then called it an early night so I would be ready for my 7-hour drive back to Neblinas.

Since getting back to Neblinas, I've just been spending time with my host family, reading, writing, and planning for the next few months of service, which is when the real work starts. I'm grateful for my adventures, but I'm equally if not more grateful to be back in the cloud forest with my cat and my children and the tranquility of it all.

Thank you all for sticking with me. That was a long update, but the details were important. 

And thank you all for the wonderful birthday wishes yesterday! I feel so loved. 

Wishing you all a great week!

Love,

Ilana