Kelly recently wrote the following update about her first year in Mexico:
I have been reflecting a lot about reaching my first anniversary of living in México as a Peace Corps Volunteer. What a year it has been! Full of both exciting successes, difficult challenges, and everything in between, just like your lives back in the US. Serving and representing the United States in México as Peace Corps Volunteers has been a honor and pleasure. To me, quality programs like the Peace Corps represent what is right and good about our country.
I have been very fortunate to work at a Mexican government agency that assists and oversees state agencies that provide a variety of services to people of their communities. It is called La Junta de Asistencia Privada del Estado de Querétaro (or something like the “Counsel of asistance for private social agencies in the state of Querétaro). There are 120 agencies around the state of Querétaro that are part of the Junta. 18 of the 31 Mexican states have this type of agency. These agencies are closely linked the the state and federal social services type agency called DIF-Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (or Essential development of the family). I work at the Junta 3 days a week.
My job at the Junta has been very interesting. I have completed or helped with a number of projects to improve their infrastructure, allowing them to better help the agencies, ultimately helping the people of the state. I developed/improved a data base of the agencies, helped develop and now help maintain a web site, and currently I am working on a fantastic project to develop a system to link people interested in volunteering at the 120 agencies with projects at the agencies, through the Junta. VERY COOL project…plus I get to work closely with Brian, as he is developing some technology to complement the organizational parts of the program. We should have it up and running in the next month.
My other job is quite interesting as well. Two days a week I work for the state delegation of the Mexican federal government program called SEMARNAT -Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (or Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources.) I work in Environmental Education on a solar cooking project.
I wrote and was awarded a grant through USAID- United States Agency for International Development– for this project. The goal is to decrease the use of firewood to cook food thus achieving some major objectives, including prevent diseases and illnesses associated with inhalation of wood smoke while cooking, decrease deforestation, prevent erosion, maintain biodiversity, and assist low income families to decrease the funds needed to purchase firewood or gas to cook. Currently my counterpart Julian and I are working on finding a more efficient and less expensive solar cooker than the one used for this program in the past. Since we are currently in the rainy season here in central México, we have some time to work on finding or developing a solar cooker that provides the most watts/peso. We are planning a competition with university students, community members, and members of the 18 municipalities in the state of Querétaro to design the most effective and low cost solar cooker. The gold standard: able to cook beans!!
Brian is doing GREAT and has been AWESOME with all of his great IT projects for his job at CIDESI-El Centro de Ingeniería y Desarrollo Industrial (or Center for engineering and industrial development), for Peace Corps México Volunteers, the Junta, etc… He is greatly enjoying tutoring his coworkers in English. His broken ankle healed well and he is almost back to normal. He had a GREAT Spanish language day today!
We have been in our little house (La Casita) since late March and are loving it. I finished painting the remaining two walls last week and it is so cute. I love when our Mexican friends see the house for the first time and say, “Muy Mexicana!” because of the colors and decorations. Some wall are a a nice shade of azure blue and others a buttery yellow. Plus we have “papel de china” (rectangular pieces of colorful tissue paper about 18″ x 14″ and 8″ x 6″ cut in designs and hung from a string) hanging in several places. Brightly colored local art and pictures, and an amazing rug from Oaxaco (a southern Mexican state)…not to mention our green apple colored love seats!! It is fun, very bright and cheery.
We are making a lot of great friends in our jobs and community as well as among other Peace Corps volunteers. When possible, we have tried to do some traveling. Even with our travel restrictions (due to areas considered unstable or unsafe due to Narco-trade/violence) we are able to get away many weekends to see different places and learn about México. So far we have been able to visit around 10 different Mexican states. Such a diverse and interesting country. There is so much more to México beyond the beach resorts! We have been trying to visit the “Pueblo Magicos” (small unique cities with amazing history, architecture, and culture) and the major archaeological sites….but have also slipped in two beach vacations .
I am learning to like tamarind, guava, nopal (cactus) and tuna (cactus bud). I no longer even consider drinking water from the tap. Seldom miss driving (prohibited for all Peace Corps Volunteers) and have learned most of the bus routes in the city of Querétaro. (Probably a good thing as PCVs in México live on a very modest $700 dollars a month and could not afford a car). I have even gotten myself adjusted to eating my second meal of the day (“comida” the main meal of the day) between 2:00 and 4:00, and dinner (“cena” a light meal or snack–often an ice cream cone from the little local shop) at 8:00 or 9:00 pm.
Learning Spanish continues to be a major goal/challenge for me. I have been pleased with my progress, but the more I learn, the more I realize I have so much more to learn. (I guess like any other educational endeavor). I do enjoy being able to have increasingly more intellectually stimulating conversations in Spanish. I am diligently working on learning and using the “subjunctive” in Spanish. If you have no idea what the “subjunctive” is, consider yourself lucky.
As we finish our first year in México, Brian and I have been thinking about and discussing the “NEXT” for our lives as our 27 months in Peace Corps México is about 1/2 over. Hummm… Any interesting ideas???
Hope to hear back from you and what you and yours are up to!
Saludos y abrazos a todos!!
Kelly
