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 14th,
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 3rd 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 :]
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