Despedida

After going to a fair/event for Environment Day on Friday, I headed back up to San Luis de la Paz just in time to go to Jackie and Travis' office going away party, but a little too late for the grilled meat. On Saturday we decided to go to San Miguel de Allende, a cute colonial town that is over-run with gringos.......

adding to the gringo population

My 1st and prob only bullseye
concentrating hard on the dominos

tacos al pastor (for those that haven't seen them yet...one of the most amazing mexican inventions)

Not sure....there was some sort of religious parade or something going on

J&T's house that i love.....

Archbishop, trash, and an old convent

So this weekend was a mix of various activities. One Friday night we had a going away party the 2 volunteers in my office that are done with their service and leaving. Lots of music, tequila, carne asada, and other good food like mole. Then on Saturday I went to mass. Well actually I went to see the confirmation of counterpart’s daughter, which was preformed by the new Archbishop of Puebla. Then after that we went back to her parent’s house for a big family party, which was fun up until the end when the 3 of us had to wash all the dishes.

The Archbishop....

The newly confirmed.....

On Sunday morning, we had a trash pick-up in one of the communities that in within the limits of the Valsequillo project. While the rest of the office (well those that came) were on the highway, we (Arqi and I) were in El Aguacate with about 11 community members picking up trash from the town and their small stream.

After the trash event, I convinced Arqi to drop me off in Cuautinchan, a near-by town with an old convent that I had been wanting to visit for a while. On top of being an interesting convent, it is also a kind of jungle gym for adults. You can climb up two different towers, which is pretty normal, but you can also walk around the entire convent on a small ledge that is at about the 2nd storey level (see picture below), as well as climb around on the lower part of the convent’s roof.

The rainy season has arrived.....

The steps up to the tower....

More steps (a little escher-like)

The ledge path....

San Antonio Juarez and Tepango de Rodriguez

On Tuesday, we visited San Antonio Juarez in the municipio of Tzicatlacoyan to check on a series of stone walls being built to trap eroding sediments. As you can see from the following pictures, soil is a major limiting resource in this area of Puebla.

After San Antonio Juarez, we headed to El Aguacata for a meeting with some members of the local ejido about a town clean-up dat scheduled for this coming Sunday. Trash pic-up within the town will be focused around the steam that runs through the town, but we also wanted to focus efforts on a large trash dump site just outside of town (see below). It turns out that this section of hte highway belongs to another ejido, so we headed to Los Angeles Tetela to find their ejido inspector and ask about the possibility of their participation on Sunday.

When we got to Los Angeles and asked for the inspector, we were lead to a large tent in the middle of town where we found the inspector in the middle of a party, complete with mariachis and a stage. We pulled the inspector away from the festivities, got permission and a promise of participation on Sunday, and were then informed that it was in fact his birthday party and he would like us to stay and eat. So after some seafood soup and tequila, we finally headed back to Puebla.

On Wednesday, we headed in the opposite direction, towards Tepango de Rodriguez in the Sierra Norte of Puebla (about a 3.5 hour drive) for the 4th (and final) workshop for the Ordenamiento of the Necaxa-Laxaxalpan watershed. This workshop is the most important of the series that are held during the ordenamineto process because it uses public participation to give opinions on how land-use is zoned and what types of uses are deemed appropriate. In an ordenamiento there are 4 general catagories that can be assigned: conservation, restoration, protection, and use. Within each of these catagories, there are various specific types of activies that can be lefted completly open, conditional, or closed. Some of these activites include agriculture, industry, eco-tourism, urban growth.....

Tepango is 90% indigenous and is a mix of Totnacan and Nauha communties.

This is the view from the back of the muicipal palace, you can see the town quickly gives way to a more rural setting.

We had representatives from 15 of the 26 municipalities in the ordenamiento, as well as various representatives from other government agencies that have a presence in the region. Not much going on in the workshop picts, but you get an idea what it looks like. Afterwards the municipal president invited everyone to eat and we had a type of chicken soup (caldo de pollo) before heading back on the curvy, speed bump filled road.