Weeks 49 & 50: Monday, July 22, 2024 – Sunday August 4, 2024

Good afternoon, everyone,

I hope you are having a beautiful Sunday.

It's been a busy couple of weeks of adventuring. Apologies in advance if this edition runs long. 

After my trip to the river two weeks ago, I took Monday and Tuesday off to recover and work a bit on my grant application and various other projects. I finally submitted my application to the committee, and I'm waiting for their response.

Having rested for a couple of days, by Wednesday, I was ready to get back out there and start adventuring again. So I went with Tito and Jair down the carretera to do some birdwatching and to see what other cool organisms we could discover. We saw a good number of species of birds: motmots, red-legged honeycreepers, different varieties of woodpeckers and parrots and other species. There truly is an abundance of biodiversity in this forest that enchants me every time I step foot outside of my house. 

We even encountered a really cool alligator lizard sitting in the middle of the road sunning itself. At first, I thought it might be dead because as we approached closer and closer, it didn't move an inch. But then after picking it up, it started to wriggle around a bit and even tried to bite me, but well, without teeth, its bite couldn't do too much. But being the nature nerds we are, we spent a good ten-fifteen minutes observing this lizard and taking pictures of it from all angles and just generally nerding out about how cool it was.

Then, on Thursday, Tito, Jair, and I took a trip to a town called Guayabos, which is located about a 30-minute drive or a 2-hour walk away from Neblinas. While 2 hours may sound like a long walk (and it is), we all had the idea of walking instead of driving to Guayabos to be able to look for interesting plants and animals. So we started our journey to Guayabos on foot. 

Well, shortly after climbing up the first hill from my house up to the community El Aguacate, we decided that maybe we would try to catch a ride going part or all of the way to Guayabos, given that it was hot and it wasn't going to be the most pleasant to walk all that way after all. 

Such was our luck that we ended up catching a ride right away with a man taking a supply of cervezas from Neblinas to Guayabos. So we rode in the back of the pickup with the cervezas and endured the bumpy ride for the 20 minutes that it took us to get to a point about a mile away from the community with a beautiful waterfall — a tactic to delay our arrival to the community as we left about five hours earlier than we needed to. 

The idea behind going to Guayabos was to get to know the community, to spend a day outside of Neblinas, and to play a movie for the children in the community so they could get to know the work of Neblinas Vivo. 

Wendy, one of my students, happens to be from Guayabos. And by pure coincidence, we ran into her mom — whom I had met the week before at Wendy's high school graduation — and she invited us into her home to share a meal. We came prepared and brought tacos with us as sustenance for the day, but Wendy's mom (I unfortunately never caught her name) generously invited us to eat some of the food that she had prepared in her home and offered to show us around the community.

Guayabos is very similar to Neblinas. It is also a small town isolated in the mountains and it has just about the same ecosystem as Neblinas. It is also located on the same river as Neblinas, and while we did not have enough time to hike down to the river, we ended up visiting a gorgeous lookout point with incredible views of the river and valley and mountains surrounding us.

Around 4pm we began inviting some of the local children and youth to come watch the movie that we promised we would put on for them. A few of the kids and a couple of adults in the community showed up to watch the movie and around 6pm we started to wrap things up and get ready to leave. 

Now, this is when things get interesting. As we were about to leave, it started to rain. And not just a light drizzle but a real heavy rain. (This is the rainy season after all). So we waited out the rain for a bit, hoping that once it stopped, someone would offer to give us a ride at least part way back to Neblinas so we could get home before dark.

Well, it turns out no one in the community was available to give us a ride, even after asking around a few times, so we decided that the only logical option was to start walking to Neblinas and hope that a ride would pass by on our way back. So we started walking, but after about 20-30 minutes, it started to rain again, and we were soaked. 

Luckily, a car passed by shortly thereafter, and we were able to squish ourselves into the back seat with the daughter of the couple who were sitting in the front of the car. 

"What luck," we thought. Some nice people heading to El Aguacate were willing to give us a ride and rescue us, even though we were soaking wet. Well, not 15 minutes later, we were driving along and we started to feel the car tip over. The left wheel had fallen into a small ditch on the side of the road and we couldn't get it out.

This wasn't the driver's fault at all. The roads at this time of year are horrible and it was also incredibly difficult to see as the windshield was completely fogged up and very difficult to clear. 

So we were stuck in a ditch. 

We all filed out of the car to be able to help lighten the load and perhaps try to push the car out. But, the car was really stuck. 

Fortunately, a truck passed by with a man who generously offered to help us. But would you believe what happened next? The car ran out of gas. So the owner of the car had to run up the road to the next town to buy gasoline. Meanwhile, we were standing outside of the car, drenched with rain. Eventually, the man came back with a bottle of gasoline and we were able to try again to get the car unstuck. Still no luck. 

Luckily, another truck passed by offering to help. And with a rope tied to the car and us pushing from the front, the car finally came out of the ravine and we were able to continue our journey back to Neblinas. So that was Thursday's memorable adventure. 

Friday was another rest day for me.

Then on Saturday of last week, Neblinas Vivo hosted a curso de verano for the children of Neblinas ages 7 – 15. The day was filled with games and lessons and activities and fun snacks and lots of learning about the environment and how we can all do our part to protect and better the community and its surroundings. 

Rayanne and I were invited to participate in the curso, mainly being there to listen and participate in the various activities, but we were also invited to share an activity with the children. Jair had originally asked to talk about adaptation to climate change and then he changed his mind and asked us to talk about our work as volunteers, but since our work is climate change adaptation, we decided to combine the two topics and create an interactive activity for the children themselves to think like volunteers. 

We started our activity by asking the kids why Rayanne and I were in the community and what they remembered about what we taught them this year. Luckily, a few of them remembered (I chalk the rest of them not remembering up to "summer brain") and we started from there. 

In preparation for our activity, Rayanne and I made four posters, each with an environmental problem that we have identified in the community: food insecurity, drought, plastic pollution, and biodiversity loss. Each of the posters had a drawing of the problem and drawings of potential solutions. The first step of the activity was for the kids to match the names of the problems and solutions to the images on the posters. For example, they had to match "rain-water harvesting" to a picture of a cistern with a roof-top rainwater capture system. 

Next, the kids were tasked with solving a problem for a hypothetical community. We gave them slips of paper with a fictitious community and said to them, "Imagine you are a Peace Corps volunteer. You are placed in a community with such problems. Pick the best solutions to the problems facing your community." And then each of the kids in groups took turns presenting their community and talking about the solutions they would choose and why.

While environmental programs hosted by Rayanne and me or by Neblinas Vivo typically only attract a handful of individuals, it is reassuring to see that there are people and families in the community that are motivated to fight to make their community more resilient. Even if it's only ten people that show up to an event, those ten people can still make a difference by influencing their family members and neighbors in an information-sharing capacity. 

This week during the week was pretty quiet. I spent a good part of the week reading and going for short walks and planning out lessons for the upcoming school year. But on Friday, I took another trip down to the river and had an excellent time. 

You all know by now that I go to the river with Tito and Jair. They say I should try to get down there by myself, but as of now, I don't know if I feel comfortable enough getting down and back without a knowledgeable guide. 

In any case, I went down to the river on Friday with Tito and Jair and Rayanne and a family from Mexico City who used to live in Neblinas and whose family still lives in the community. Well, I wasn't sure what to expect, going to the river with a bunch of people from the city. They didn't come dressed ready for the river and I just didn't know what to think. 

But we ended up having a fantastic time, crossing the river multiple times, hiking to the waterfall that we climbed to the time before, but this time the waterfall had even more water and there were beautiful pools with clear water that felt so refreshing after all the sweating we had done on the hike. We swam and laughed and just generally had a lovely time. 

It turned out the family that went with us was in town for a big family gathering with the entire extended family. They invited us to the party and last night, Rayanne and I went with Margarita to the dinner and the dance and we had a great time. 

I don't usually love the parties in the community. But last night, the mood was just right, and we were in the company of very nice people and friends. 

Today is a chill day for me after the adventures of these last couple weeks. Tomorrow, I'm off to Querétaro for a number of reasons: 1) to renew my residency in Mexico (I can't believe it's almost been a whole year!!), 2) to have my annual physical, 3) to attend a training for the Peer Support Network that I was chosen to serve on. 

I also hope to talk to the Peace Corps staff to see how things are going with my grant application. I was told that this past week the grants committee met to discuss my project and that they really liked it. I hope that with the few comments they have for me, I'll be able to get my funding and start working on my project by no later than September. 

Okay, I promise that's all. 

Wishing you all a wonderful week!

Love,
Ilana