Weeks 78 & 79: Monday, February 17, 2025

(Written 3/2/2025)

Good evening, everyone!

It’s been a minute since I’ve gotten the chance to write to you all. It’s been a busy couple of weeks.

I’m writing to you from the car on my way back from Tilaco with the host family. Today, we took a trip to see Margarita’s daughter Diana and her family to celebrate one of Diana’s children’s 25th birthday. It was a beautiful day with a vibrant energy in the air. We had mole and carnitas and pulque and beers and enjoyed good company. It's days like today that make me so grateful to live with such a wonderful host family that has fully embraced me as part of the family and has invited me to share in their festivities.

Since I last wrote, I took yet another trip to Querétaro to present at the 2024 volunteers’ (PCM24) early in service training. My fellow PSN member Sarah and I led the volunteers through some problem-solving exercises and then gave the volunteers a chance to ask us questions and chat with us individually if they wanted to when our session was over.

I personally really like the volunteers in the PCM24 cohort. They’re all super sweet individuals who are just getting started in their service and beginning to learn the ropes. Talking to them and answering their questions reminds me of how much I valued the volunteers in the group ahead of me. I remember how I thought they knew so much about service and how to navigate challenges. I like being able to pay back PCM22’s friendship and generosity to this new group. And I’m excited to see what this group accomplishes in the months ahead of them.

While I ultimately was in Querétaro for that presentation and a couple of doctors appointments, I also had the added bonus of seeing Pluto (they/them), one of my best friends from university, who flew up from Guatemala to Querétaro to spend time with me. Pluto and I met in the summer of 2018 at Northeastern’s freshman orientation. They were also majoring in environmental sciences and as such we had the luck of having a few classes together. We were also generally drawn to each other as individuals and as friends. Since then we’ve been close, maintaining a long distance friendship both during the pandemic and now during my Peace Corps service. And I was so happy that after a year and a half of not seeing each other, we were able to meet up and I was able to show them around my Mexico (that is, the part of Mexico that I know).

We first spent a few days in Querétaro together, mostly seeing the historic city center, but also visiting Querétaro’s pyramid, El Cerrito, which is only a 15-minute drive away from the city. I found it especially interesting, learning about the vast history of the first peoples who inhabited the territory that is now Querétaro and seeing the beautiful native vegetation that surrounds the area.

The amazing thing about most of Mexico’s pyramids (or better, temples) is that for centuries they were reclaimed by nature, and so people built around and even on top of them, thinking they were nothing more than hills. El Cerrito (which literally means the little hill) still has a colonial hacienda sitting atop the original pyramid. Because it’s historical as well, authorities aren’t sure whether to take it down or to leave it to represent the layers of history that the site has seen.

After our visit in Querétaro, Pluto took the journey back with me by bus and van to Neblinas. We spent a night in Jalpan to break the trip up, but I’m still impressed at Pluto’s willingness and tolerance for the long and windy journey.

Once we arrived in Neblinas, we were greeted with not so beautiful weather, and so we spent the first day relaxing at home. But on the second day, I was able to take Pluto around the community so they could get a better sense of the community that I get to call home. Last Monday morning, Pluto left for Querétaro and at 5am we said our early goodbyes.

On Tuesday, a group of representatives from the municipal government came to visit Neblinas to talk to Rayanne and me about the possibility of collaborating on various projects. Principally, I wanted to see if there was funding for the cisterns that I’m still intent on building. Unfortunately, at this time there isn’t funding available for the cement cisterns that I am hoping to build; however, the municipality is working on building large water storage systems in communities throughout the region that will be filled by rainwater captured from the giant arched roofs that commonly cover basketball courts and other recreational areas in Mexican communities.

It also seems like there is a good amount of potential for collaboration with the individuals working on ecology and sustainability in the municipal government on things like environmental education and ecotourism and biodiversity. I'm excited to see what possibilities exist in my last 7ish months of service and I'm hoping that this newly forged relationship will lead to larger projects and collaboration in the future.

On Friday, the high school held a campus beautification event for the parents and students of the high school. The activities included planting trees and other vegetation, moving dirt that was excavated when we built the cisterns, and painting the cisterns with a natural sealant that the parents helped me make to make the cisterns more weather resistant. It was exciting to see the whole school come together and work to make their campus more beautiful and it was equally as exciting to finally get the cisterns painted and watch the parents and students interacting with the cisterns that will hopefully be there to serve the school for many decades to come.

On Saturday, I organized a community cleanup event. A group of 10 students came together to help pick up trash and make the community a little more beautiful. My goal is to organize events such as this one every Saturday for the rest of my time here in Neblinas (or as long as there is interest / when it's possible / as long as there is trash to clean up, which I know there will be). I also plan on organizing a few community events for Earth Day and International Biodiversity Day and possibly World Environment Day to bring the community together and really lock in some of the themes we've learned about over our 2 years together.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, due to some administrative changes, my plans for my service have changed—and greatly at that. However, I have found this transitionary period a good time to reflect on my interests as well as the needs of the community and reassess what I want to put my energy into. It's kind of like starting from square one again, organizing smaller grassroots community events and thinking about ways to do high-impact work with a low budget. But I'm enjoying the creativity of it all and allowing myself to have time to enjoy Mexico and my community and really savor and appreciate the last few months that I have left.

Wishing you all a great week!

Love,
Ilana