La Soledad Tepehuastitla, San Diego La Mesa Tochimiltzingo

On Friday, my boss and I went to La Soledad Tepehuastitla in the municipality of San Diego La Mesa Tochimiltzingo to check on the progress on the construction of 70 stoves and take their gps coordinates. These stoves are more efficient at burning wood (thus the hope is that it will reduce the number of trees that are cut for firewood) and have a chimney that leads outside. While this may seem like a very basic idea, it is actually a major cause of health problems for women that are often in enclosed in confined spaces with their stoves and the smoke they produce. Our first stop though was actual a mezcal distillery. Mezcal is basically tequila, but unlike tequila which must be made from blue agave in a certified tequila region, mezcal can be made from various types of agave and is produced outside of the tequila region.

Distillery and the owner

My boss sampling the product

One of the stoves under construction

Many of the houses in the community are still made from palm, here is the view from the outside

and from the inside

storm rolling in

Unlike the other projects and communities that I have been posting about, this project is a special type of temporary employment fund that is directed directly at women, which after visiting the community and hearing stories of what happens there, is an extremely important group to focus on. Like most of the rural communities in Mexico, migration is an issue. In talking to one woman, 3 of her 8 children (though she said she had 8 still living, so not sure how many she had in total) were in the US (actually relatively low), and of these 3, one was in Chicago. She was very curious about the city where her daughter was living. The saddest quote of the day and perhaps of my time in Mexico was when the guy (non-community member who is assisting with the construction of the stoves) told us that (a) we need to leave before dark because things could get a little feisty since it was a Friday afternoon and most of the men were well into their rounds of beer and mezcal and that (b) in this town, una mujer vale menos que un guajolote (which translates to: a women is worth less than a turkey). Domestic violence continues to be a huge problem in Mexico and more so in many of the rural communities.