More Community Visits

Friday was another day in the field for PET projects (temporary employment projects). We started the morning with a trip to San Miguel Espejo to check on the construction of 30 cisterns. These cisterns are key to having a more reliable water source and in some cases mark the beginning of running water near/within certain houses. The side theme on all of these visits is always migration. Inevitably everyone wants to know where the towering foreigner is from, and this is usually followed by a list of all the relatives that are currently in the “otro lado” (other side). The fascinating (and sad) observation about many of the smaller Mexican towns is the lack of males, combined with on-going construction of large, slightly out of place houses. These houses are generally pretty easy to discern in any community.

My boss with the head of the PET committee, a finished cistern, and its owner

The "real" process for making tortillas.....

One example a house constructed with funds from the U.S. (though 100% made from concrete, notice the siding)

Our next stop was a small town called San Juan Amecac that received funds for a reforestation project. They are reforesting a section of their forest about 10 minutes outside of town. While we were in the forest, the ground started shaking underfoot for a good 20 seconds. Luckily it was an earthquake. I say luckily because we were within the eruption zone of an active volcano. Turns out there was a 5.7 earthquake centered in the southern part of the state. 2^nd earthquake in 3 weeks. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/pager/events/us/2009gyba/index.html

After georeferencing the forest plots, we headed back to the committee president’s house for some snacks. His story is another interesting, and fairly typical one. He has 9 children ranging in age from 1 to 22. The three oldest are all boys and are in the U.S. The 22 year old has been there for over 7 years. The youngest that crossed is now 17, working in a restaurant, and crossed when he was just 15. The sons in the U.S. don’t even know several of their brothers and sisters in Mexico. Sitting next to the parent’s house (where we were seated), is an enormous, 2 story house, that is being completed little by little has money is sent back to the family. That money arrives several times a year, in cash, brought by someone returning to the community. After having heard the same type of story from numerous families, I finally decided to ask the question that I always want to ask... How and where did they cross? I could never cross, I would be terrified, and with all the horror stories about crossings, I always wonder about the particular cases of the families we are talking with. The sons crossed from Sonora and were fortunate to spend no time in the desert. Just wanted to throw this anecdote in since it is something that is read about from a policy standpoint in the U.S., but I feel like often the issue is not connected with the actual Mexican families that are impacted. Yet, being down here it is an inescapable topic with direct connections to the people we work with. (less so in cities, like Puebla, but I have yet to visit a small town where someone doesn't have a close relative in the U.S.)

The last project was located in a town called El Aguacate (the avocado) that is actually within the limits of our other Valsequillo project. The town received funds to construct a jagüeye, or basically a retention pond that will be filled during the rainy season. From Puebla it is possible to get to El Aguacate solely using roads, but it is a much longer route. The fastest way is to cross the Valsequillo reservoir on a small car ferry, which is also a great way to see a little more of the reservoir.

The car ferry

La Presa (reservior) Valsequillo

San Luis de la Paz and visit of the Secretario of SEMARNAT

Last weekend I headed to San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato for a little get together with some vols that are about done with their service. In a very out of context weekend for me, I did not take a single picture. Probably for the best though. Anyway on Wednesday, the Secretario (head) of Semarnat was here in Puebla to sign the coordination agreement between the federal and state government. It’s a big show at the signing, that took place in an ecological park, that includes the governor, the municipal president (pretty much the mayor of Puebla), the head of SEMARNAT, and then the state heads of SEMARNAT, CONAFOR, PROFEPA, and CONAGUA. The Secretario also took advantage of his brief visit to Puebla to check in on the progress of our Valsequillo project, which is quickly moving into its first phases of the diagnostic and participatory workshops. The press session after the signing was pretty much only questions about the project since there have been more than a few problems in the area of study lately.

For those that read Spanish, here is a fairly inaccurate newspaper article about our project, but the comments of the Secretario were accurately recorded.

http://www.lajornadadeoriente.com.mx/2009/05/21/puebla/ecl103.php

The Secretario after the signing, being mobbed by the press, this is where being tall really comes in handy in Mexico (both for him and for me)

Puebla's soccer team played against the Puma's on Wednesday night, so coming back from the signing, mascots and flags were flying everywhere in anticipation of the game. (unfortunately they lost 1-2).

Valsequillo

I normally don’t talk that much about work-related stuff, but here is an update on one of our projects. We are working on a joint development project for a region of the municipality of Puebla called Valsequillo (named for the large reservoir). The Valsequillo Reservoir is one of the most contaminated bodies of water in Mexico. The area surrounding the lake has a tremendous amount of development pressure, as well as some of the most marginalized population of the municipality of Puebla.

Right now we have a fair amount of money from SEMARNAT to apply towards a sustainable development plan for the region. We are working together with the state and municipal government on the project and just met in Mexico City last Wednesday to hear the presentations of prospective consultants. There is rule with federal money in Mexico that dictates that we cannot directly pay a private consultant or university for work. There are two options, the first being to jointly contract a public university and a private consultant, with the public university receiving at least 51% of the funds. The second option, and not the best, is to simply pay a public university for their signature, but for this, they often charge 35% of the total just for filtering the funds. So we ended up contracting a pubic university and 2 international consultants, one from Spain and one from England. The Spanish firm has done a lot of sustainable development from working with the city of Casablanca to doing community based art projects in a small village in Africa. The British company was actually behind the Olympic Stadium and the Water Cube, but also has more environmentally focused projects, like the soon-to-be completed (2010) 1^st carbon neutral city in the world, located in Shanghai China.

So what we’re working on is a series of plans. We have to have a thing called a Partial Program of Sustainable Urban Development to modify the existing land use zoning for the area. The second part is the work leading up to the declaration of a new natural protected area in the south of the municipality. The third will be the creation of a series of sustainable development and ecotourism projects (to be enacted once additional funding is secured). And finally, we are starting on the plans for an example “eco-village” that will demonstrate the use of alternative energy sources, energy and water conservation, green building design, mixed use planning, and many other things. So that is basically the project to date. Last Sunday we went out to the area to get to know the region better and try to find locations for some projects. The following are a series of photos from the Valsequillo Region.

The Valsequillo Reservior

Slight problem with invasive aquatic plant (Eichhornia crassipes or Water Hyacinth)

and with trash

Squash drying on a roof-top

Sunday was also palm Sunday so people were returning from church with their palm weavings (actually a significant threat to the surrounding forests where they are harvested in mass quantities every year for palm sunday)

Many of the streets in the various towns were still covered with remnant flowers from the morning's processions