Yo no te olvidaré

Hola amigos,

For those of you who did not know Friday was my last day at Ayala Campus. These past few days have been fulfilled with team building, hard work, sharing knowledge, laughter, and emotional tears. Thursday the Cactus group worked on planting new cacti they had gathered. The Self-watering container group maintained the compost and Ricardo (the artistic student of the school) started to design the drawing for our special activity. Last week’s proposal has been approved, therefore Kendall and I went to buy paint and paint brushes for the students of Ayala. The final activity we wanted to do with the students was to create a UPN Ayala Peace Wall.

My visit in Mexico was all about sharing knowledge, therefore I wanted to show them the Peace Wall we have in Canada and offer the students to have their own Peace Wall. When we met with the students to present this activity, we had Gisela on Skype to congratulate the students for all their intense work. They had a meaningful discussion with Gisela. When we proposed the Mural activity to the students, they agreed to the idea.  We asked them to reflect upon what brings them peace, so they could paint a peace message or image on the wall to share with their school.

In Canada our Peace wall, is in our teacher, Chris Adam’s, house. As a class we devoted ourselves to peace and non-violence. We wanted to take action to promote our values for non-violence and our Peace Garden at Dawson College. We wanted the community, country and the world to be aware of our goodwill. The creative way of promising the world that we are peace messengers was by engraving our signatures onto the designated Peace Wall.

On Friday, the students were ready to paint their Peace Wall. Even if, at our surprise the medicinal plants had finally arrived, the students wanted to keep the planting for Saturday so Kendall and I could be there for the creation of their Peace Wall. We got the paint and brushes ready for use. The students quickly got their creative mind started. Hand painting was the new trend. The students were smiling, laughing and enjoying the feel of the paint in their hands. Teachers joined and added their peace touch to the wall. It was beautiful to see the Ayala campus coming together to create their Peace Wall. Each person had his or her personal handprint on the wall. Some even added a personal image or phrase to share. Friends helped each other and had fun playing with the colors. They watched each other engraving their handprint. The school gardener joined in with enthusiasm. Even though the Peace Wall looks beautiful, it is a growing mural. More teachers and supporters outside of the school who have devoted their time to help Ayala campus are awaited to add their handprint to the Peace Wall.

I do not think I could have asked for a better month in Mexico, Cuautla/Ayala. The memory of seeing the students I worked with playing and enjoying themselves doing something special was touching. It was difficult to say goodbye to Ayala. Students crying, “Stay another month!” was not making it any easier for me to leave. As much as I would love to have stayed longer I believe that Ayala campus is surrounded with many knowledgeable and talented people. The students have the goodwill to make their environment a peaceful and healthy living. They have grown tremendously throughout the past few weeks. They have made me proud, more knowledgeable and shaped me to a richer spirit. This makes me excited to see what more Ayala has to share with the world. I know that they have great potential to making whatever else they want the world to see and believe.

I am looking forward to going back to Canada to share all of my memorable discoveries and adventures that I have had with the people from Mexico. I am especially excited for our Earth Week from April 22-26 at Dawson College, to tell all of Mexico what we have been doing in Canada to help our world become more sustainable, peaceful and engaged with Nature.

I thank you once again, all my friends from Mexico, for making my stay here a life-changing experience. I look forward to seeing how your projects are developing and we will keep in touch exchanging our growing knowledge.

Le doy las gracias una vez más, a todos mis amigos de México, para hacer que mi estancia aquí una experiencia que cambia la vida. Espero con interés ver cómo sus proyectos se están desarrollando y seguiremos en contacto intercambiando nuestros conocimientos cada vez mayor. 

 Hasta luego y we will see each other through my next post.

With great love; VIVA MEXICO,

             Gabrielle

    

Community Gathering

Hola a todos,

 This week is our final week at Ayala Campus. Therefore we are keeping ourselves busy until the last drop. Tuesday we worked in the Cactus Garden and had a lovely donation of 80 roses from a student. We spent the afternoon planting the roses along the entrance path of the school. We also looked after our radish seeds and they are growing fast! Buds have started to spread. It is great to see. As for our self-watering containers, some are looking good and others are in shock from transplanting.

Wednesday we had another exciting day! The Students from Ayala played a hockey tournament with the students of Normal Superior. The players were full of energy and the stands were vivid with cheers and encouragements for both teams. The event was electrifying. I was able to Skype with my professors and classmates in Canada. They were able to enjoy and cheer on the teams live via Skype. It was moving to see the amount of spectators and the students eager to play. Happiness was flowing all around us.

Normal Superior also started constructing their Peace Garden. Cindy Elliott has been there for over a week to help and support their garden. I helped plant a couple of plants and really was proud of the students who have been working over the past few days preparing this project. Their garden looks beautiful and I am excited to see the end result of their Peace Garden. Just walking in their garden yesterday I could feel the peaceful environment and the community building as the students worked hard in helping each other and working as a team.

 On our way back to Cuautla with Jesus and the students, we stopped for coconuts and ice cream on the side of the road and it was delicious. We finished the day in beauty with big smiles. J 

Hasta luego,

Gab

Having Fun Working Together

Hola amigos!

                  As you all must know from the wonderful blogs that Gabrielle has been writing, about our time in Mexico, new things are happening everyday. On Thursday March 14^th, unfortunately Gab had to take her first day off because of illness. Knowing that she was in good hands at the Spa, I accompanied Jesus to the school, to continue working with the students on our various projects.

                  The day started with Hispanic pop techno music during our regular mode of public transportation on a Combi “mini bus”. Once at the school, I had planned to take part in one of the classes in the morning and work with the students in the afternoon on they projects. However this class was canceled and we got straight to business.

        Our knowledgeable handyman of all traits, Josue Carmine Lopez, explained that they wanted to erect the tipi. I was more than happy to hear this news and also very curious to see what steps they would take to build one of these, “upside-down cone houses”. We began by drawing a circle on the grass with a makeshift compass and than by digging up the earth on our guidelines. We chose a spot for our door and proceeded to make deep holes for each large piece of bamboo. These holes were positioned across from each other on either sides our circle. After this was done, Josue sat on a ladder in the middle of our circle and we handed him the long pieces of bamboo for him to fasten together. Each piece of bamboo was secured in the ground with heavy rocks at its base. This is when we decided to take a break and the students explained to me that they would be receiving a cloth cover to drape over the bamboo skeleton of the tipi. They were exited to let me know that the cloth would be white, so that we could paint on it.

                  It didn’t take long for the students to move onto another project. Josue grabbed a large satellite dish that had been sitting in the trash and began to instruct the students on what type of earth and dry leaves to put inside of it. We had been planning to plant radish seeds in this satellite dish and this is exactly what we began to do. At the same time other students started to dig a trench close to a fence at the far end of the school to create a 3^rd compost. Do to the language differences here in Mexico, although I may have an idea of what we will be doing and why, many decisions seem to be spontaneous. This means that each day is new and exiting and I am always learning new things. We finished planting the radishes and decided to call it a day. What a day.

                  Last of all, I was able to drop in on the “cactus group,” who recently started planning their project to expand the already exiting cactus garden. They are working incredibly fast and efficiently. The whole group is working together to not only make the cactus garden larger, but also more appealing and divers.

                  We are overly impressed with everyone at Ayala Campus, especially those involved in the Earth Education Project. We have high hopes for this school and cannot wait to let you know what happens next.

As for Friday, Gab was back in shape and worked hard with the students. This is the day we counted Ayala’s carbon footprint. Students gathered all the garbage from the past week. We separated the plastic, metal, glass, paper, compost and wastes to weight. The students obviously got right to the task. They separated the garbage and calculated the weight of every thing we had. They did all of this in a really organized and clean fashioned way. The mission got accomplished quite quickly. I wonder why? Most probably because it was the most uncomfortable environment to work in. Nevertheless, no one complained and we once again worked as one to calculate Ayala’s carbon footprint. Once we were done we documented all the weight of each wastes and sent it to the experts for further calculations to find the total carbon footprint. More hard work will come next week but for now I leave with a picture of the students dancing in the garbage!

Hasta luego,

Kendall and Gab :]

NORMAL. They are SUPERIOR

 Hola a todos,

Wednesday Kendall and I were invited to go to Normal Superior campus (a lovely University campus where Cindy Elliot will be assisting the students in designing their own Peace Garden). At our arrival students were in gym class play games. The students included us to play along. It felt like my field of studies back at home, Community Recreation and Leadership Training. It was nice to attend this class. I was able to follow and observe they way they work. The students were animated and had fun playing games targeted for preschool and elementary children.

We were invited to attend a special photograph exhibition and the launch of an extraordinary film created by the staff and students of the campus. Everything they had to show us was revolved around the love for our earth and the importance of sustainability. The film was emotional and moving. The students expressed themselves powerfully about how important and essential it is to keep their community and country away from violence. Throughout the short film you can hear, see and feel the motivation, dedication and hopefulness the students have to make a change in their own and other people’s lives.  

          They started making their school a healthy environment by exposing profound photographs (taken by the staff) of the beautiful Nature surrounding them inside and out of their campus. Each photograph said more than a million words about their culture, community and country. Furthermore, each picture represented peace and non-violence. Every image brings you into a serene state of mind. They make you reflect upon the world’s existence and show the environment’s beauty. At first I thought, “Wow, I want to buy one of these images to put in my home! They are so inspiring and beautiful.” However, I realized that these photographs were too symbolic for the students and staff for me to take one away. These photographs were meant to be there all along and are there to stay to remind the students and staff what is the meaning of non-violence. The pictures bring them peace and are there to give them motivation to continue what they are doing. They are showing the world what they are truly capable of. And that is, they are the ambassadors of peace and non-violence.

Thank you to Normal Superior University for inviting me to a heart-warming ceremony. You have inspired me to do more good, to keep the faith and you have further given me reasons to continue what I do. Which is, to help the community find peace and to further understand, love and believe in Nature.

Love Nature and stay peaceful,

Gab