End of Week 19 - The Week Before Christmas: Atoyatempan, Sierra Tentzo

Community Ecotourism Project - Atoyatempan, Puebla

http://ecologicoatoyatempan.blogspot.com/

Sierra Tenzo

Atoyatempan is a small community about two hours southeast of Puebla. There is a community ecotourism project with cabins and trails near the Sierra Tentzo Natural Protected Area that was constructed with money from SEMARNAT last year. We arrived on Friday evening, the week before Christmas, for an office party. After eating a lot of grilled meat and corn tortillas, and drinking some tequila, our co-workers decided it was time for them to go.

The campsite

The cabins were in the middle of nowhere - we couldn't see any other lights on the hills around us - and it was getting cold faster than it was getting dark. After a lot of prodding (from me), Ana and I decided to stay the night, and the owners decided to drive us to the bus in the morning. After all, I spent the first four months in Mexico trying to get out of the city and now that I had arrived I wasn't about to wuss out. Anyways, most volunteers live everyday in places like this.

Giant Cactus

As the sun set, beautiful nighthawks came swooping in over the camp. The untouched desert scrub and chalky white marble soil that surrounded us began to glow in the light of the full moon, almost brighter than when the sun was still up. We sat on top of the tiroleza (zip line) tower and looked out over the valley between us and the mountains. Mist slowly rolled in and crept into the camp, flowing over the cactus and acacia trees.

After accidently locking ourselves out of the cabin - briefly - we fell asleep. Although there was no heat and it was nearly freezing in our open air cabin, we were actually hot all night with all of the blankets that we had.

We woke, at about 3am, to the sound of explosions coming from all around us. Was it miners dynamiting hill sides? If so, why so early? Aren't there noise ordinances in the middle of nowhere in Mexico? I kept hoping that they knew we were there and would avoid blowing us up. The explosions continued to get closer and closer as the hours slowly went by. I started imagining that there was a heated land dispute outside, with gunfire at the heart of the fight, and we were about to be in the middle of the approaching war. As the sun started to rise, the blasts started moving further away from us, at last. We had survived! We discovered later that there was a religious procession that night that went from Puebla to the nearby community. They like to set off loud firecrackers in Mexico during religious processions.

Our guides

The camp owners returned the next morning and brought food with them; tamales, tortillas, atole, and texca, a kind of small insect. We ate everything, grateful to have people around us that weren't trying to dynamite us. Two women from the community decided that we should go for a hike down to the river with them, and led the way after breakfast was over. We soon saw a Lesser Roadrunner bolt through the brush and a Black-vented Oriole perch atop a tree. The cactus along the canyon were tall and straight, nearly 15 meters high. We walked down into a steep river valley with giant cypress trees growing along the edges of a clear mountain stream. Black Phoebe and Blue-grey Gnatcatchers ate insects from the trees. Rock walls lined the sides of the canyon and lush green ferns grew around the springs that poured ancient rainwater into the river. At one point, the river actually flowed back under the mountain, coming out in a wide cave on the other side.

Our guides, the same that cooked us breakfast, walked with us for miles, climbed up and down rock faces, forged through the river, and taught us Nahuat (an indigenous language), never got tired. Amazingly, they refused to accept money for the hike, the stay, or the food.



The giant cypress trees in the middle of the desert




Ferns on the wet cliff sides.



The cave where the river comes out of the mountain

Posadas - Tlaxcala

That night, after returning to Puebla, we went straight to Tlaxcala for a posada at Ana's work counterpart's house. A posada is a Christmas ceremony where every night the statues of Jose (Joseph), Maria (Mary) and El Nino (Jesus) are carried to a new house after everyone eats tamales. Of course, this procession is accompanied by loud firecrackers. We spent two nights here, and the kids in the community had a great time talking to the American. They wanted to know who my favorite wrestler was, and I kept telling them Hulk Hogan. Im really not a wrestling fan, but I didn't want to sound un-cool. I think Hulk Hogan's still alive.

End of Week 17 - The Colors of Oaxaca

Oaxaca - the state, not the city - is an off-limits area, meaning we need to have permission from Peace Corps in order to go there. I don't know much about Oaxaca or why it's off-limits, but I do know that what isn't allowed is usually more exciting than what is. But I'm not about to break any rules that could get me kicked out of Peace Corps, especially after spending so much time trying to get in. So how can I get to Oaxaca?

About two months ago during training I went with the environmental education group to a center for "ecotecnias", permaculture and environmental education in Huixquilucan, near Mexico City. We spent an entire week at the center where we all realized that ecotecnias, like estufas lorenas, are complicated things to build and that Mexico actually does get cold, especially at 3,000 meters. I also learned that the center had a partner center in Oaxaca - the state, not the city - and that was my answer. I could travel to Oaxaca if it was with work. But how do I convince my new work place, SEMARNAT in Puebla, that a six-hour trip - each way - to Oaxaca is worth their time as well as mine?

Apparently, its not as hard as I thought. My counterparts at work, like me, enjoy traveling. And when we started working on the development of a center for training in ecotecnias in Puebla, I suggested we go to the center in Oaxaca for a visit to a model center. My counterparts jumped on the idea and within a week all three of us were on the highway at 6:30am, heading to the center about 60 kilometers from Oaxaca city.  http://www.grupedsac.org/portal/index.php/en/demonstrations-centers/itt.html

Pico de Orizaba

Mountains along the highway.

The road to Oaxaca was fascinating. First we passed Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's tallest mountain. Then we went through the Tehuacan-Cuicatlan Biosphere Reserve, one of the most remote and arid places in I've ever seen. We were surrounded by deep canyons, rugged mountain peaks, bare rock faces, and tall cactus forests.

Deep cactus valleys.

Adobe building with natural ochre paint.

The center that we were traveling to, called Tonantzin Tlalli Institute (at least there are no x's in this one), is in a very remote, rural community, where the forested mountains meet the scrub desert below. There is very little water there. The center uses ecotecnias to generate energy, supply water, and support its permaculture gardens. Each building uses a different natural building technique, and all structures were beautifully painted and sculpted, even the outhouses.

The art of a dry toilet.

After our visit, we headed to Oaxaca city to spend the night. Before heading back to Puebla the next day, we spent a little time touring the historic city center. Oaxaca is a beautiful colonial city in the center of a large fertile valley. Its historic architecture was painted with colors that you can only find in warmer climates. It's central zocalo was lined with vendors, selling beautiful ceramic pottery, paintings, and clothing. Oaxaca is famous for its alebrijes, or ceramic figures of creatures with features from multiple animals, some real some fantastic. Its market was crowded early in the morning; meats, fruits and vegetables filled the stalls. I walked by women making blue tortillas, loaves of golden bread, giant pink pigs feet, mounds of white cow stomach, orange chickens piled high, crates of dried chilies in various shades of red and purple, stands with tropical colored fruits, and buckets of mole of all the colors of the rainbow.

Oaxacan hot chocolate.

Crickets, or chapulines, are a local favorite - the little ones taste like whatever they are cooked in, while the big ones taste like, well, sour grasshopper - and I bought some to bring home to Ana and my host family. I also tried Oaxacan chocolate. Oaxacan chocolate is well-known and for good reason (remember the movie Chocolat with Johnny Depp?); it's a mixture of cinnamon and cacao grown in Oaxaca, served for breakfast in hot milk or water with a loaf of sweet bread.






The city isn't all just pretty colors, though. Less than four years ago it was the home to a brutal fight between protesters, anarchists, the state police, and eventually the federal army. During a routine protest by local teachers, the governor ordered the state police to attack, killing several of the protestors. The protestors eventually took the city from the state police and held it for several months before the federal army was sent in to win it back. The city was shut down for nearly a year.

A new governor took office the day before I arrived; it was the first change in political parties in over seven decades. Although political graffiti covers nearly every building, the hotels and restaurants are filled with tourists, and the markets are bustling with shoppers, both local and from abroad. The crickets were alive and well, at least until we arrived. The beautiful colors of Oaxaca have largely returned since the violence ended, but there are still many subtle tones of grey left over from memories of the not too distant dark past.

Ceramics

Fruits and vegetables

Pigs feet

Chicken

Chilies

Fruits and vegetables

Ceramic parachuters

End of Week 16 - Angry Volcanoes and the Paso de Cortés

We woke up before sunrise on Sunday morning to catch a bus to Cholula. We were headed to the Paso de Cortés, the route between the two volcanoes that separate Puebla from Mexico City, Iztaccíhuatl y Popocatépetl. Popo, for short, is the taller one - and the active one - spewing smoke and gas constantly. Puebla feels a lot more tranquil at 6:45 am on a Sunday morning; there was no traffic, no car exhaust, and the traveling natural gas sellers and their loudspeakers weren't yet prowling the streets.

A church in Cholula.

We were meeting Cole and Jason, the Cholula gang, at 8 am in the Cholula zocalo. We caught one bus at the corner near our house to go to the bus terminal where we caught a second bus direct from Puebla to Cholula. To our surprise, the direct bus to Cholula returned directly in front of our house, which means we could have slept an extra half an hour and saved 10 pesos had we just waited for the Cholula bus. This was only a minor defeat and we were on our way.


When we arrived in the zocalo in Cholula (at 7:50 am), we learned that there was a marathon that day. Cole and Jason weren't as punctual, and had us scared that we were in the wrong Cholula (there are two), or the wrong zocalo (there are three; Puebla, Cholula 1, and Cholula 2). But we did eventually find each other, right before discovering that the streets in Cholula were closed due to the marathon, and our combi (mini van bus) that was taking us part of the way up the mountain was not running. This was a bit more of a defeat. The same thing happened to us in San Miguel de Allende, when a marathon had closed the highway to our hot spring.  But, like in San Miguel, there was another way, and after much prying of the locals, we found our combi on the other side of the city, working the leg of the route beyond the marathon.


We finally reached San Nicolas, the end of the combi route, at about 10:30 am. And again, to our suprise, the bus (this next bus was really just someone's van) was not waiting, as it usually does, in the town square. Another man was also waiting for the bus to take him from San Nicolas to the other side of the pass in Mexico State. He told us that he had been waiting for two days...




Our following of dogs.

Feeling much more defeated, and since there really wasn't much else to do in San Nicolas - other than watch Jason feed the mangy dogs - we decided to wait for the "bus". And at 11:45, our patience and lack of options finally paid off. The bus driver, who lived a few houses from teh squre, finally woke up, started his van and pulled up to the square. An hour later we were in the national park at the Paso de Cortés.






In 1519 Hernán Cortés, the Spanish Conquistador, and his men massacred an indigenous town in Cholula and traveled through this pass on their way to the valley of Mexico in order to fight the Aztec emperor Moctezuma. On the other side of the pass they found the bustling island city of Tenochtitlán, today's Mexico City, connected to the mainland by several large causeways. It was a city larger and more modern than any European city at the time.








Popo from the trail.



Pine forests.

The same pass today is a national park. The mountains are covered in deep pine forests and separated by vast alpine meadows. The start of the trail was along a road carved into the meadow, and the road bed was sand-like volcanic ash. Along the side of the road we could see different layers of soil, ash, pumice, and clay, representing different volcanic eruptions. Although it was cloaked in clouds and we couldn't see much of it, we knew that Popo was nearby, waiting to burst again.


We hiked to a nearby waterfall; it was the clearest, cleanest, coldest water I've seen in Mexico, too high to be polluted by sewers and factories. In the forest we saw several interesting birds, including a red-phase Mountain Pygmy Owl, three Seller’s Jays, a Brown Creeper, a Hairy Woodpecker, Yellow-eyed Juncos, Mexican Chickadees and a Western Bluebird.

Luckily, transportation on our return trip home was punctual, although a little bit crowded. And, most importantly, Popo didn't get angry and we weren't added to a new layer of ash along the road.

The waterfall.

End of Week 15 - What's Going On?

Over the last few weeks I have often found myself chuckling within and wondering "What the hell's going on?" We are less than two weeks into our actual service as volunteers, yet so far from Queretaro and the swearing-in ceremony that made us official Peace Corps volunteers.

Puebla is a huge city, one with a large historic center and massive sprawling suburbs. It is surrounded volcanoes, and is famous for its food; chocolate mole (mole poblano), ant roe, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. We live with a new host family in Puebla, but it's no typical Mexican family. They have a nice suburban house. One son went to NYU and studied fine arts, another went to a university in San Antonio on a Fulbright scholarship, and another was the starting quarterback for UDLAP, a university in Puebla that just won the national championship in Futbol Americano.

Puebla government building.

Cathedral on the zocalo.

At work I have tried to let everyone know that I enjoy getting out of the office, going on field trips or whatever the option is. One day last week I was invited to go to a new city park inauguration and took the opportunity gladly. I wasn't sure what to expect and didn't really know why we were going to the inauguration. When we arrived, the Mexican military was guarding the park's perimeter, automatic machine guns ready. The state's governor was arriving by helicopter, and for some reason we were sitting on the stage with the most prominent Poblano officials, everyone dressed in an expensive suit and tie except for me (I was wearing a dirty fleece jacket, a bright orange backpack, and my Buffalo tourist baseball hat). Before the governor arrived, my co-worker from the office decided he needed to take some photos of the park, so we left the stage and commenced inspections of every bathroom in the park, taking photos of both men's and women's restrooms. We never went back to the stage and I missed the inauguration. Why did we need photos of the bathrooms? Why was I there at all? I don't really know yet.

Later that week we had a theft at the office. Someone's cell phone was taken. The entire 40-person office was told to go to the central courtyard and stay there while they did a search of everyone’s workspace. For me it was like crossing the border into Canada; I know I wasn't doing anything wrong but I couldn't help feeling guilty anyways. I kept hoping that they wouldn't find the cell phone in my desk, hoping that the thief wouldn't stash it in my backpack. And when they finally got around to searching my work area, there it was, in the plant pot next to my desk. Great, now I'm the thief from the US!

We had a meeting today at the office; everyone from the planning team was there. We discussed the cell phone incident - I'm pretty sure they don't think it was me - and a few other things. Most of the discussion was directed to the group and away from me, but that changed suddenly; the boss was looking at me and talking. I kept looking back to make sure he knew I was paying attention. I realized everyone else was looking at me too. Great, I hate being the center of attention, especially when I don't understand anything being said. He stopped talking and everyone started laughing. Oh, it must have been a joke! Just smile and laugh, they will all think you get it. Wait, they stopped laughing and they're still looking at me... It wasn't a joke it was a question! Oh please change the subject. Just shrug and nod your head in agreement. You can hold out longer than they can!.... This happens pretty regularly and I don't always figure out what happened later.

It’s been interesting here. My Spanish is considered mid-advanced, but there are some people that just seem to be speaking an entirely different language than Spanish. Ours is definitely a different cultural immersion experience than the new volunteer without much Spanish who is living in a community of 24 people on top of a remote mountain in the campo. If she had access to the internet, or electricity, she would probably be writing a similar story, but would likely be using stronger four-letter words than "hell".


Adendum
Mexico - what's with the overuse of "ecologico" in the naming of everything? Parks can be ecological parks, but city parks that are just soccer fields are not ecological. Periferico Ecologico (ecological highway) ...? Parque Industrial Ecologico (ecological industrial park)....really?

It continues....
So last Friday I went to to grab something to eat for lunch. When I returned, everyone was gone except for Alicia, the co-worker that I go to small communities with. She was locking the office and leaving in a hurry. When she saw me she seemed startled and asked me a question (in Spanish), that was something like this: I thought you went with Francisco (my boss) to a community? I told her "no, I'm working in the office today." I didn't know anyone was going to a community visit and I was a little disappointed that Francisco didn't bring me with him. She repeated the question and I responded with the same, "no, I am staying here." So she left...

Ana came back from lunch soon after, and to her surprise, I was still in the office. She asked why I hadn't gone with Alicia to the community. Diego, Ana's boss, returned and asked me the same. Then Francisco returned and asked me too. Apparently, Alicia had been waiting for me to return from lunch to take me to a dinner in a small community south of the city. I really did want to go. I found out that Alicia, who had been waiting for me to return from lunch, had actually asked me if I was ready to go with her to the community. And I had responded "no, I am staying here." I told her later that if I ever say anything stupid, just shake me!

And Again...
We were preparing for our trip to Oaxaca and the Arqi (my boss' nickname, short for Arquitecto, or Architect) asked me if Ana wanted to go with us. I asked Ana and she said no.

I told the Arqi that "Ana no va a ir", which means Ana is not going to go.

The Arqi responded "no ayer, mañana", which means not yesterday, tomorrow. He thought I was saying "ayer" instead of "a ir".

I repeated myself "no, Ana no va a ir."

So did he - "no ayer, mañana." Then, in broken English, "Ayer mean yesterday, mañana tomorrow." Of course I knew that and I knew what he was saying and why he was confused. But, even in Spanish, he couldn't understand me.

I smiled, and so did he. I had to let this one go. Since they don't think I speak Spanish, they can't understand me when I am speaking just fine. It is what it is I guess.

Videos from Peace Corps in Mexico

September 2010:
El Castillo (fireworks from the Bicentenario) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBRnD2YtHWY
Los Concheros (dancers from the Bicentenario) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbFvaj6MPdo

November 2010:
Monarchs in Parque Nacional El Cimatario - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHA78wpv3Og
More Monarchs in Parque Nacional El Cimatario - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg354OgJrVs
The insect bush in Parque Nacional El Cimatario - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyJAVmT3Z6s

December 2010:
Jelly Fish at La Mancha - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahdpdFykyEo

March 2011:
Carnival in Huejotzingo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqG9lnKBPz8

June 2011:
Market in Puebla - http://www.youtube.com/user/anahernandezbalzac?ob=5

November 2011 - San Blas Nayarit

http://youtu.be/Vyb_15klcC4

http://youtu.be/45-BLKgUnsU

http://youtu.be/p3aotEO9zRo

http://youtu.be/y9DPuRx9pCU
http://youtu.be/6Wh_sOjk-QQ
http://youtu.be/SDfMDP4PFyA
http://youtu.be/wTgJquvb5Os
http://youtu.be/c5U9_iBi-BU
http://youtu.be/oyxk5C29Pnc
http://youtu.be/KfuZw9bEEPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlYvtgLFs0k

End of Week 13 - Thousands of Monarchs! Queretaro

The summit.

It was early November; the sun was shining, the sky was a cloudless deep blue, and the fall breeze rustled the fallen leaves and desert scrub on the trails in Parque Nacional El Cimatrio. This was our fourth attempt to hike to the top the extinct volcano in the park. On our first attempt, the gatekeeper told us that we needed to obtain a pass and gave us vague directions for who to call. On the second attempt, without having obtained a pass, we tried to evade the gatekeeper and enter the park undetected, but failed to go unnoticed. With clearer instructions on obtaining an entrance pass, we returned a third time with the required forms and were allowed to enter and use the trails. But without trail maps we underestimated the time it would take to reach the top and had to leave the park to return later. With a little help from Google Earth we discovered a shortcut via a cow trail and when we returned to the park for the fourth time on our last weekend in Queretaro, we finally summitted the mountain.



View from  the top.



From the top we could see all of Queretaro, from the pyramid in El Pueblito to the south, to the historic center of Queretaro, and across the expansive suburbs sprawling in all directions towards the mountains in the distance. The wind whistled and chimed as it blew through the radio and microwave towers above us.

On the way up the mountain, the vegetation changed from Eucalyptus plantation, to pine forest, then low thorny plants and acacia brush, and finally to cactus and yucca forests at the top. Each type of vegetation brought with it different types of wildlife.

A Great Horned Owl in a zoo-like cage at the park.

The bird-life in the park was spectacular. The trees near the bottom were crawling with various chirping warblers, tanagers, finches and sparrows. Bright red Vermilion Flycatchers, among numerous other species of flycatchers, were feeding on flying insects. Woodpeckers, like the Golden-fronted and Ladder-backed and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, hammered away at tree trunks. Iridescent green and blue Broad-billed Hummingbirds buzzed and chirped as they flew between flowers. Jet black Phainopeplas watched anxiously from bushes at the edge of the pond, as egrets, herons, and sandpipers fed along its shores. Curve-billed Thrashers sat atop cactus eating the bright red fruits. Northern Mockingbirds sang away, often mimicking other birds in the park. A Greater Roadrunner dashed into the bushes as soon as it saw us on the trail in front of it.

The park is also home to huge amounts of insect life. A single flowering bush in one of the high montane meadows had hundreds of small, colorful, Skipper-like butterflies, several types of brightly colored crickets, a mating pair of Walking Sticks, and was swarming with bees. We saw a small number of various lizards and turtles basking in the sunlight. Many mammals inhabit the park, like fox or even mountain lion, although they are elusive and rarely seen.

Insects on the insect bush. (Click the image to enlarge)

A single Monarch.

After summiting the mountain, we made our way back down towards the entrance. A single Monarch Butterfly fluttered over head into a nearby tree. I ran after it, hoping to get a photo in the bright afternoon sunlight. I found it stationary, clinging to a branch on a short pine tree, shaded by the taller Eucalyptus trees surrounding it. As I used my camera to zoom in for the perfect shot, I realized it was not alone; it had landed on the outside of a cluster of hundreds of other Monarchs and was only one in a large chain! I looked around and saw other clusters of Monarchs, one after the other, each one larger than the last. The beautiful deep, contrasting orange and black color of their wings glowed against the green foliage and blue sky. The clusters would sit silent and still for a while, then would burst into commotion, vibrating as each butterfly beat its wings until calming again, becoming motionless and hidden once again. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind came blowing through the trees, and all at once hundreds of thousands of Monarchs took flight, criss-crossing through the trees, seemingly blanketing the sky. The butterflies slowly came to rest again in a new cluster somewhere else in order to keep warm together.

Monarchs at Parque Nacional El Cimatario - November 2010. (Click the image to enlarge)


The Monarch migration and lifecycle is fascinating. The butterflies that spend winters in Mexico start flying north in early spring and breed in the southern US. It takes two or three more generations to reach the northeastern US and Canada. Each generation breeds, lays eggs, and dies within a span of two months. The eggs hatch within a week of being laid. The hatched caterpillars feed on milkweed, grow fat, and begin their metamorphosis as they change into a chrysalis two weeks after hatching. Less than two weeks later a full-grown Monarch Butterfly emerges from the chrysalis and mates within a week, laying its own eggs then dying. In early fall, the final generation that hatches in the northern-most parts of their range flies all the way back to Mexico where it’s great, great grandparents started the journey six months earlier, and lives up to seven months overwintering in Mexico before heading north to start the life-cycle anew come spring.

The cold weather that day was a sign of the winter to come. It brought with it flocks of colorful migrating birds from the north in search of food and shelter. It set each flowering plant abuzz with life, as sources of nectar and pollen were few and far between. And it blew in millions of Monarchs Butterflies, exhausted from their 3,000 mile journey from places as far north as my butterfly garden in Buffalo, NY, gathering to stay warm, to this little known and small patch of forest in central Mexico.

Videos:
Insect Bush - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyJAVmT3Z6s
Thousand of Monarchs flying - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHA78wpv3Og
More Monarchs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg354OgJrVs

More Week 12 - Bicycle Kicks and Soccer Riots, Queretaro

On Saturday, October 30th, 2010, the Gallos Blancos (White Cocks... or less comically, the White Roosters) from Queretaro took on the Pumas from Mexico City in a soccer match (or futbol, in Spanish) in Estadio Corregidora, the hometown stadium in Queretaro, a large stadium that seats 35,000 fans.

The Pumas are one of the best teams in the country. The Gallos, in contrast, are not; like my hometown Buffalo sports teams, the Gallos seem to be perpetual losers, and like Buffalo, the fans never give up hope and still watch the games. And so the stadium was filled to capacity on the evening of the game. Fans, myself included, waited in long and confusing ticket lines before waiting in an even longer line to enter the stadium. In fact, there was only one entrance line for all 35,000 fans, and the gates opened ten minutes before the game started, making many fans, like myself, late. We joked that it would only take one Peace Corps Volunteer with a free hour to  solve this problem - i.e. open a second gate.... a little earlier - but, if everything went more smoothly in Mexico there would be less fun!

As my friends and I blindly stumbled our way to our "seats", trying to read our ticket stubs for some directional clues, asking the attendants for help, we landed in the middle of the Gallos' "porra", the section of diehard fans that travel from city to city to cheer them on, the equivalent of "the dog pound" from the Cleveland Browns. Wearing the hometown blue and black colors, they were singing the Gallos theme song in unison, chanting and waving to the beat of drums, never stopping the entire game; we must have gone the wrong way in the stadium tunnels to end up sitting where we did, in the middle of all of all that drunken excitement.

From the outside, the stadium seemed like any stadium in the US. But inside there were several interesting differences. Most seats were actually just concrete slabs. The game clock didn't work, ever. Each section of seats was fenced in; tall chain-linked fences, topped with barbed wire. The entire playing field was surrounded by a deep concrete moat, again topped with barbed wire. The stadium was designed for riots, and there were nearly as many fully geared riot police as fans. Every time the game got exciting, the riot police pulled out their clubs and started palming them, anxiously waiting for the real fun to start. I wasn’t sure what to be more afraid of; the trigger happy cops, the drunken fans, or the prospect of being crushed against a barbed wire fence by a massive and sudden crowd surge if the Gallos lost.

This soccer game had something many soccer games do not; scoring. The first goal came early in the game, as the Gallos took an early lead. I missed this goal as we were finding our seats. The second goal came in the last minute of regulation time, as the Gallos were down two men to red cards and the Pumas tied it up. I missed this goal too, as I was nervously watching the riot police as they started moving in formation behind us. Thankfully, for our fun and safety, the Gallos scored a miraculous goal with less than 10 seconds left in penalty time with an amazing bicycle kick (a backwards, over the head kick) in front of the net. And I actually saw this one!

This dramatic end, of course, sent the Pumas' porra into an outrage. Like all soccer games in Mexico, the visiting team's porra is confined to a small section of seats, fenced off with barbed wire, at the far end of the stadium. And, to set the mood, large quantities of beer are sold to the visiting porra. As the game ended, the Pumas’ porra quickly broke a hole in their fence and charged out into the stands in an angry, drunken wave. The riot police were waiting and charged back, clubs and shields ready, and the Puma wave retreated back to their fenced-in enclosure. But the fight wasn't over; the visiting porra fought back from the fence, throwing punches and beer at the police. This lasted for several minutes, and we left the stadium before it was all over.

It was a good old fashioned soccer game - bicycle kicks, soccer riots and all.


The goals - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QL9YioRlIo
The end of the riot - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzPnO8Ssb7g

End of Week 12 - Huixquilucan, Mexico

It is now the end of October and winter is closing in on Mexico too. Last week the environmental education training group traveled to Piedra Grande in the municipality of Huixquilucan (pronounced weeks key lou kahn, accenting the lou), a small town in the mountains on the southwestern edge of Mexico City. The fall weather brought mostly sunny but cold days, with one day of fog and rain. At night, frosts loomed just around the corner. It was jacket weather, and I wished I had brought a winter hat. 

Fog and rain on the last day.

We spent the week at a center called GRUPEDSAC (http://www.grupedsac.org/portal/), training in ecotecnias, or green, low cost technologies, like solar water heaters, rainwater collection systems, bio-intensive gardening, and efficient wood-burning stoves (in reality, I'm still trying to figure out what ecotecnias are). We started the week with 12 hours of a single lecture on diagnostic tools for gender diversity in participatory projects, which is as fun as it sounds. The week got better though; we helped build an organic garden at a local house in the hills and a wood-burning stove at another house. We ended the week by facilitating a workshop on watersheds and soils, in spanish, to twenty women and children from the community.

GRUPEDSAC

Piedra Grande is a picturesque village, not at all what I imagined Mexico to be like; it lacks both desert and beach. The village lies in a narrow valley about 3,000 meters in elevation and is surrounded by tall pine forests, oak trees, milpas (corn farms) and mountain ranches. In the mornings, when the sun rose above Mexico City and the volcanoes that surround it, it shined on the east facing slopes of Piedra Grande, illuminating the trees with bright orange light, and the warmth attracted hundreds of birds of all kinds; white-eared hummingbirds, northern flickers, hepatic tanagers, blue-hooded euphonias, grey silky-flycatcher, and red warblers, to name a few.

At this time of year the corn is tall and dry, awaiting the final harvest of helotes (ears of corn) for making tortillas. The rows of giant agave are green, and some are being tapped for their agua miel, or honey water, to make pulque, the local home-made alcoholic drink. Some of the trees have lost their leaves. Wind rustles through bare tree branches and rows of dry corn, chapping the cheeks of those that live there until they are calloused and red.

The Piedra Grande valley.

Piedra Grande is a pleasant, small community, but one that has its problems. Poverty and joblessness are the norm. Water has to be trucked in, and greywater is piped into the streets untreated. Although there is a weekly garbage collection, plastic bottles, paper, and even diapers litter people's yards and the streets. People use every creek and ditch as a landfill. Donkeys and horses are the local beasts of burden and most families have their own chickens and rabbits, but stray dogs outnumber all living things by at least ten to one, although feral cats are a close second. We witnessed the non-stop abuse of the dogs and cats by the local children, who held them down and kicked them in the face, threw rocks at them, punched them, through the cats at the dogs, and stuffed them in deep holes, all for our enjoyment.

Me and the professor (he promised to teach everyone how not to abuse their dogs and cats).

The monster that is Mexico City is not far away; its towers and sprawling suburbs can be seen from Piedra Grande, coming ever closer, reaching further from the valley floor into the mountains. People escape the city by heading further up the mountain sides, but, unfortunately, the city's smog now climbs the mountains with them; every morning as the air heats up the smog climbs higher and by late morning it chokes the air and blocks the sun in Piedra Grande. The smog makes its way up to Piedra Grande, over the ridge above the village, and down again into the next valley. Soon, Piedra Grande will likely be just another suburb of Mexico City; a wealthy subdivision, a high-rise town, or another massive concrete barrio.

Santa Fe - a wealthy Mexico City suburb - and its smog, as seen from Piedra Grande.

The Birds of Mexico (Las Aves De México)

Introduction
This post has been moved to the following two links:
Passerine birds - http://mexicanjajean.blogspot.mx/2012/03/birds-of-mexico-aves-de-mexico.html
Non-Passerine birds - http://mexicanjajean.blogspot.mx/2012/03/birds-of-mexico-aves-de-mexico-non.html

A few good online resources for identifying Mexican birds include:

Aves de Mexico (upload photos and share sightings): http://www.avesdemexico.net/
CONABIO (photos and information on distribution): http://www.biodiversidad.gob.mx/especies/aves.html
Wikipedia's list of of birds in Mexico (photos and descriptions): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Birds_of_Mexico
Birds of Mexico (photos and sounds): http://www.birdsofmexico.com/
EBird Mexico (submit observations and view sightings): http://ebird.org/content/ebird/averaves
Bird Sounds: http://www.xeno-canto.org/
The Audubon Society of Mexico: http://www.audubonmex.org/

And, my favorites from home: 
www.friendsoftimesbeachnp.org/blog.html
http://protectionfarmjournal.blogspot.com/
http://nicksbirdblog.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/GreenWatch/140401049308745

Local Bird Clubs: 

Club de Observadores de Aves de Puebla (COAP): https://sites.google.com/site/coapmx/  and http://clubdeobservadoresdeavesdepuebla.blogspot.com/

Club de Observadores de Aves de Xalapa (COAX): http://www.coaxxalapa.org/

End of Week 10 - Puebla, Puebla

Arcade around the central Zocalo.

Puebla, Puebla - yes, the city of Puebla in the state of Puebla. Everyone that asks me where Ana and I will be working for the next two years in Mexico asks for clarification after my simple response of "Puebla", so I went ahead here and clarified preemptively.

Puebla is a large city, with beautiful architecture, a dense historic center, one central zocalo or square, museums, restaurants, and many, many churches. It lies 7,000 feet above sea level in a high valley between some of Mexico's tallest volcanoes, some still active, that separate it from Mexico City. The mountains have pine and oak forests, while the valleys have desert scrub vegetation, like acacia and cactus. Puebla is known for its food; mole poblano (the chocolate kind of mole), chiles en nogado (not sure) and chalupas (ala Taco Bell). We are told that earthquakes are common occurances, but the buildings seem to be pretty old, so that's a good sign!

The tallest church in Mexico is in Puebla.

We will be working for SEMARNAT - Secretario de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales - a federal environmental agency, in their state office in the city. Acronyms in Mexico are usually a little bit long like this. In the US, we would probably shorten the name to SMARN; in Mexico, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be know as ENVPROTAGE, the National Park Service (NPS) would be called NATPARSER, and the National Football League (NFL) would be called An Exciting Version of Soccer In Which Points Are Actually Scored, or ANEXCVEROFSOCINWHIPOIAREACTSCOR. Just kidding Mexico!





The SEMARNAT office in Puebla. I'm not sure
why we advertise.



Ana will be working on environmental education projects related to climate change - they take it very seriously down here. I will be working on PET (Programa Empleo Temporal - Temporary Employment Porgram) projects in rural communities like reforestation, erosion control, and organic gardens. PET funding always increases during an election year for some reason, and elections are coming up so I will be busy. I will also be giving ecotecnias workshops in rural communities. Ecotecnias don't have an English translation, but they include things like solar stoves, rainwater harvesting like rain barrels, and greywater treatment systems like reed beds.

I will also be helping with some watershed planning in Valsequillo, a rural community outside of Puebla (soon to be well-within the sprawling monster) around a large man-made lake. Part of this project will include proposals for a new natural protected area, and all of the PET and ecotecnias projects are related to water because there 'just aint none no more.' The lake and its rivers are polluted, the water table is dropping, and although there is enough water in Puebla and Valsequillo for approximately 30,000 new homes, there are proposals to build 500,000 new homes.

Modern Puebla.

But the people at the office are nice. They seem to want us there and need our help. We will be working with two biologists, an architect, and an engineer. In Mexico, professionals are called by their degree title, like doctors are in the US. For example, biologists are called Biologo, architects are called Arcitecto, and Engineers are called Ingeniero. If you have a bachelors degree, you are called Licenciaturo, and with a masters you are called Maestro. I would like to be called Maestro Planificador Urbano Jajean, or "Master Urban Planner with an Interest in the Conservation of Nature" -MUPINTCONNAT Jajean for short.

End of week 8 - Life on the Altiplano

As Peace Corps trainees, we are seeing a part of Mexico that few tourists travel to and fewer Americans think of when they think of Mexico. The high plains in the center of the country, know as the "altiplano", are characterized by broad valleys, tall mountains, mattoral or low, thorny trees, and cactus. It is a land of extremes; high temperatures during the day, cold temperatures at night, dry periods that last for most of the year, sudden downpours that wash away roads,  poverty and wealth, and huge expanses of empty, windswept land. It is vaquero country - dusty old pickup trucks, denim, and leather cowboy boots are the norm.

Outside Matehuala, in San Luis Potosi.

A dusty town on the altiplano.

The people of the altiplano make a meager living growing maiz criollo, or indigenous corn, whose success depends on the all-too-infrequent rains, or grazing cattle or goats. There are few schools, little access to freshwater, and few paved roads outside of the main highway that brings people from Mexico's central valley to its northern borders with the US. There are also a few large cities in the Altiplano. Some were built from the riches of long depleted silver mines like San Luis Potosi. Others, like Queretaro, are recent boom towns, sprawling with former residents of Mexico City escaping the magnitude of problems in one the largest cities in the world. A few cities, like San Miguel de Allende, have thriving economies based on tourism as people are drawn to their colonial architecture and many festivals.

Ejido Gogorron.

It is now the beginning of October on the altiplano, and as a group of friends and I left Queretaro for San Miguel de Allende early Sunday morning, the air was noticeably crisp. The hot summer that we had arrived to Mexico in just weeks before had transitioned to a colder, cloudier, and windier fall. The light fleece jacket that I was wearing was not enough to stay completely comfortable.

After a brief panicked moment as the bus appeared to be speeding by the city with us still on it, we arrived in the historic center of San Miguel, a valley amidst the high peaks of Guanajuato, where the streets are perfectly clean, the three and four-hundred year old buildings are vibrant with fresh coats of colorful paint, and real estate prices are listed in U.S. dollars, not Mexican pesos. San Miguel is well known for its large retired "gringo" population. Impressive architecture and expensive handicrafts aside, San Miguel was not as outstanding as it was supposed to be. Another colonial Mexican city, a parade of indigenous dancers and concheros, churches, museums, and a fireworks display. It is sometimes hard to tell the difference between traditional culture and the tourism industry.

A church in San Miguel

We decided to head to the outskirts of the city, to the high plains overlooking the valley. Under overcast skies and in stiff breezes, we spent the afternoon wandering through a nature preserve, El Charco del Ingenio. http://www.elcharco.org.mx/ The preserve was beautiful; trails through native plantings of cactus, agave, and low acacia trees. There was a large lake full of waterfowl and a deep canyon carved by a river flowing towards San Miguel. Ruins of ancient mills powered by small waterfalls lined the trails. When the sun occasionally peaked through the clouds, the air quickly warmed, and thousands of brilliantly colored wildflowers appeared, disappearing again as the clouds returned and temperatures dropped.

The canyon at El Charco

We promised a friend that we would meet her at the entrance of the local fairgrounds before returning by bus back to Queretaro, so after a few hours at the preserve we began the long walk towards the highway, on dusty, flat, roads, meandering through a partially complete, expansive soon-to-be suburb, towards the fair. We were all a little nervous about catching a bus home to Queretaro - we hadn't left any room for error and had to hail the last bus leaving San Miguel that day from the side of the highway to get home. The sun was setting, the clouds were growing darker, and the wind was picking up.

The fair was like any state or county fair in the US; cowboys, carnival rides, fried food, loud music, and the incessant cries of auctioneers. The fair was situated a little off of the highway, in the middle of the endless cattle ranch that is the altiplano. The parking lot at the fair was large and dust swept up into our eyes and mouths. We sat shivering at the exit, covering our faces with scarves as protection from the wind and dust, waiting for our friend to come out, hoping she would leave a little earlier than planned. And thankfully she did. We wisely decided to chip in on the cost of a 50 peso (4 dollar) taxi ride to the bus center, rather than wait nervously on the side of the highway, hoping a bus would come along in the dark and pick up four hitchhikers on the side of the road. We made it back to Queretaro as planned, although a little bit colder than expected.

The ferria.