Week 37 (and a bit): Sunday, May 5, 2024 – Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Hello everyone!

I didn't get the chance to write to you all this weekend, but I couldn't let the week go by without telling you about the awesome adventure I had and sharing some of my insights about living in Mexico and the importance of the work we as volunteers are doing in our communities.

As I mentioned, I just got back from an incredible adventure that took me from Neblinas all the way across the state of Querétaro to the town of San Pablo, Amealco.

My journey started Friday morning at 5am, when, per usual, Miguel picked me up at my house and we began our loop around the community, stopping for people looking to catch a ride out of Neblinas. But, given that Friday was Mother's Day (in Mexico they celebrate Mother's Day on the 10th of May), no one was out waiting and Miguel decided that he couldn't take me out of the community afterall, given that he was going to spend more than he would make if he went. Luckily, one of the other local drivers in the town, Porfirio, was making his way out of the community and Miguel was able to pass me off to Porfirio such that I could get out of the community and Miguel could return back to his house. So, I took a ride with Porfirio and the four other people he had in his car, riding in front with the smallest of the other passengers sitting basically on my lap — while it may not be legal in the U.S., this is rural Mexico and that's just kind of how it is.

After an hour of riding somewhat illegally — and not all that comfortably I might add — I got off at the crucero and made it just in time to catch the 6:30am bus to Jalpan (easily the earliest I've ever travelled since being in Mexico). Arriving in Jalpan at 7:30am, I was lucky to find that the juice/coffee shop that I usually go to was in fact open, so I spent a few hours waking myself up and preparing myself for the next leg of my journey, which would take me to the other side of the Sierra Gorda where I would meet up with my friend Katia who so graciously offered to host me at her apartment in Tolimán, the town where she is currently completing her Peace Corps service.

I arrived in Tolimán around 1pm after which, Katia led me back to her apartment where we spent the afternoon relaxing and trying to stay cool. Later in the evening, we took local transport to Bernal, a beautiful pueblo mágico about a 30-minute drive away from Tolimán. I had been to Bernal once before to hike, but I had not really spent time in the town, which is punctuated by rooftop restaurants and historic, colonial architecture. Katia and I found ourselves at a beautiful rooftop bar where we shared a bottle of wine and a cheese board, which for me, was quite the treat. 

Around 9pm, we took a passing bus back to Katia's apartment in Tolimán where we pretty quickly went to sleep — we were both exhausted from the heat and me even more so after my long day of traveling. 

The next morning (Saturday), we were up and out the door before 8am to get to Katia's work site where we planned to work for a few hours before catching the bus to Amealco. 

Katia has a really interesting project at her site. Like many of us, Katia is working on projects related to water resilience — building cisterns and biofilters and other technologies of the like. But Katia was also assigned to her site to work on preserving the Sotol cactus that for many centuries has had a relgious significance to the people of Tolimán and Querétaro. The thing about Sotol is that it grows in other parts of Mexico and parts of the U.S. However, in the region of Tolimán, the plant is at risk of extinction, due in one part to the exploitation of the plant on the part of the people, and in other part due to the extremely low rate at which the plant grows — it can take a plant up to 12 years to reach maturity. These two factors combined has meant that the people who want to harvest the plant have to go much further out into the desert be able to find a mature plant or they harvest the plant before it reaches maturity, implying that the plant does not have time to reproduce. So as part of Katia's project, she is working on revamping an abandoned nursery dedicated to growing Sotol — growing and protecting the plants and working with different groups throughout the municipality on restoration projects.

After working for a few hours with the group of individuals who were assigned to work that day, Katia and I grabbed a ride from a few of the men to a closeby town where we caught the bus to Querétaro, ran to catch the bus from Querétaro to Amealco and then took a taxi to the town of San Pablo, Amealco, for Ransom's community celebration. 

 

Ransom invited a number of volunteers to his town to celebrate the conclusion of his grant project in which he and his community built 13 cisterns for rainwater harvesting (capturing rain water to store for times of drought). Thirteen cisterns is a big feat and an incredibly meaningful project for a community in a water-scarce location. In fact, I plan on and hope to do something similar in my community to help prepare the community for potential times of water scarcity to come. More on that soon. 

But it was so lovely to spend time in Ransom's community and see how grateful the community members are for their new cisterns that will ensure water security for years to come. It was also great to see how invested the community was in the project. They say community buy-in is the key to success in projects and Ransom's project really seemed to hit the spot on what the community wanted to participate in and something that will greatly benefit the community and improve their resliency.

Before I continue telling you about the rest of my adventure, I just thought I'd take a moment and talk to y'all about the severity of the water crisis in Mexico. I'm not sure how much of the news from Mexico gets to the U.S. — especially pertaining to climate — but Mexico has been in an extreme drought and parts of Mexico are currently facing complete water scarcity. It's possible you've heard of the impending water crisis in Mexico City, but the problem gets even more severe in rural parts of Mexico. And I'm not telling you this to fear monger you, but the problem is extremely serious. What I didn't mention before is that my friend Katia lives in a place that hasn't had running water for over a month. If she's lucky, water comes through the pipes for about an hour in the morning and can fill up a few buckets for basic usage such as flushing toilets and washing her hands. But this is the reality of so many people in rural central Mexico. And not only is it an inconvenience, it's a public health risk and something that will continue to get worse as the effects of climate change take hold. It's something that I didn't realize was so serious until I experienced it myself this past weekend. By comparison, I'm incredibly lucky to be living in Neblinas, where, as of now, we have water running through the pipes. But there may come a day when the water doesn't run. And that's where adaptation projects such as water cisterns and gray-water biofilter projects and reducing water consumption are so important. I'm going to keep going with the adventure, but I just thought you all needed to hear about the reality of the situation we're living through and how important climate adaptation work is at this time.

Where were we? Right, so after the community celebration, Katia, Ransom, and I got to cleaning up and packing everything up for the night. The original plan was for the other volunteers who came to the event to all stay the night at Ransom's place. But as it so happened, all the other volunteers decided to return home to their sites (I think they were scared off by the idea of sleeping on the floor for the night) and so it was only me who stayed with Katia and Ransom (did I mention they're a couple?) for the night. 

But it was worth staying the night because the next morning, Katia, Ransom, and I went for a beautiful hike up the mountain literally in Ransom's backyard. The conditions were (almost) perfect — a beautiful, sunny, not-too-hot day. Had there not been hundreds of flies buzzing around my face and ears, the conditions would have been 100% perfect for a hike. But we soldiered on and made it to the top of the mountain with just enough time to turn back around and make it to the last van that was passing through the community on the way back to Amealco.

I spent Sunday night in Querétaro and Monday night in Jalpan and arrived in Neblinas around 11am this morning. 

Tomorrow is the festival for Neblinas's Patron Saint, San Ysidro, and that means that the town is partying. Tonight, there was a dance competition and music and fireworks and a giant tower of fire, which I did not stay for, but I should be able to send photos of in my next newsletter. 

Now I'm tired, but I wanted to get this out to you all before the end of the day. 

Wishing you all a wonderful rest of the week!

Buenas noches,

Ilana