Three weeks ago I spoke to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez. I was told then that my application materials have been received and were still being processed. The representative at Visa Services told me to call back today, May 17th, for an update. I just got off the phone with Visa Services and was told that they have not scheduled us for an interview and that I should re-send all the application materials if I want to be considered for a visa interview. That means running off about another 50 photocopies and paying another $50 in UPS charges and then waiting another 8 weeks for processing in Ciudad Juarez... you've got to be joking!
So I spent the majority of my day trying to call various agencies (the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, Customs & Immigration Services, National Visa Service, etc. etc.) trying to find if there was anyone who was actually accountable for the work (or lack thereof) being done at the Consulate in Ciudad Juarez. As should have been expected, this was futile. Apparently, the Consulate is semi-autonomous. Although run by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security and housing the offices of USCIS who conducts their work in coordination with the National Visa Center, no single entity is fully responsable for the entire process nor can the access information they may at one of the other entities depending where in application process you are, nor is there any oversight agency to whom you can report problems. Basically, if something goes wrong you are stuck with two options, give up or bend over and it.
I decided to call the Consulate one more time (and incur another fee on my credit card) in desperation, not really knowing what would come of it. I spoke to a different agent this time who, thankfully, was much more helpful. He confirmed that in fact my documents were not lost, had been received in March but that no interview had been scheduled because for some apparent reason they were unaware that I wanted one (because apparently I was just going through all this as an excersize in stress management). He did say, however, that he was going to "escalate" my file, which apparently means that the Consulate will dust off and either schedule me an interview ASAP or explain why they cannot (e.g. I need to send up more information or documents and further delay the process). Again, apparently if I had not called to check the status they would have just left me waiting for years on end with no explanation or communication on the matter. I know I should be thankful that I finally encountered someone who actually wanted to help, but all I can think is that I wasted money talking to the first idiot today and now I have to pay to call them back in two weeks because they can only communicate with us by snail mail. I swear, the next person that tells me that a Mexican is perfectly welcome to come to the U.S. as long as they do so legally... is going to get knocked out!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sure, just come here legally...
Since the passing of Arizona’s new law, immigration returned to the forefront of our collective attentions. Unfortunately, the media is doing its part to perpetuate several misconceptions, the most common of which also happens to be the one with which I have direct experience. It goes something like this: “if they want to come to the U.S., they can do so legally.” What most fail to realize, however, is that our government has put in place a complex web of logistical, financial and safety road blocks to prevent the legal immigration of poor Mexicans.
Late last August I married a Mexican woman whom I met while serving in Mexico with the Peace Corps. Our foray into this bureaucratic nightmare began early last October by downloading and filling out an application for an immigrant. On this application it is clearly stated that there are three methods for obtaining an immigrant visa for the U.S. – the lottery, employer sponsorship and sponsorship by a family-member who is a legal resident. It goes on to state that Mexicans, though, can only qualify for a visa if sponsored by family member legally living in the U.S.
That was about the most easily understood part of the instructions, the rest may as well been written in Chinese. We consulted the Embassy’s Web site for clarification, but only encountered contradicting instructions so as a last resort we decided to call the Embassy’s 1-900 number – the only way to contact them with questions about visas. Despite paying by the minute for the phone call, I had to continuously fish for information from the representative, who clearly did not want to be talking to me. In fact, she at one point told me: “you know all this information is ‘clearly’ laid out on our Web site.” I responded by advising her that “clearly” is a subjective term to which she bluntly informed me that actually it is pretty clear.
Eventually, we managed to figure out the forms. Our next challenge was figuring how to submit the $355 filing fee, payable only by cashier’s check issued U.S. currency. We spoke with several people at our bank; all insisted that a check could only be issued in pesos. It took going to a branch office in a bigger city 3 hours away to finally get a check issued in dollars. It was late October before we could finally mail back the application and it was not until February before we received notice from the Embassy that our application was approved and forwarded to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez for further processing. Despite the fact that we live only an hour away from Mexico City and that there are 11 U.S. Consular offices in Mexico, the Consulate in Ciudad Juarez –the most dangerous city in Mexico – is the only office authorized to process immigrant visas for Mexicans.
That letter came with instructions to download another packet of forms from the Consulate Web site and mail them back to their offices. In addition these forms, you are instructed to begin collecting a long list of documents that you will need to bring to your upcoming interview in Juarez in order to prove your identity, financial stability and marriage – with triplicate copies. Because I do not work in the U.S., I had to recruit my mother to co-sponsor my wife’s visa application so that we met the financial requirements of the immigrant visa.
Eight months into the process and we are still waiting for our visa interview appointment to be scheduled in Ciudad Juarez. When we do eventually get an interview, we will have to pay approximately $600 for plane tickets, plus hotel and food costs for three days minimum stay. You see, as part of the approval process my wife also will have to undergo a physical exam at one of the only two clinics in Mexico authorized by the Consulate, which they recommend doing three days before the interview in case there are problems or delays with the results. We have been advised that this exam will cost us $150 plus the costs of any required vaccinations; apparently $300 is the average total medical cost. Another $400 will be due at the interview for processing, plus costs for UPS shipping of the visa. When all is said and done, we expect to have invested well over $2,000 for her visa. I have called there (also a toll number) several times, but they could only confirm receipt of the additional materials in early March and that they were still being processed. Even I am beginning to think that at this point it would have been cheaper (and faster) to hire a coyote.
So the next time you hear someone claiming that they have no problem with immigrants, as long they come here legally, do me a favor. Remember that the illegals predominantly consist of the poor, marginalized, rural citizens of Mexico. They do not have the resources to download forms or make 1-900 calls; much less pay for travel and shipping costs, processing fees and medical exams with vaccinations. In the end, I have to say that admire the vast majority of illegal immigrants. After all, how do you look your hungry children in their eyes and tell them to hold on for eight months or more because daddy needs a visa? When faced with that difficult decision, they had the courage and integrity to decide that taking care of their families was the most important thing. If that isn’t family values, I don’t know what is.
Late last August I married a Mexican woman whom I met while serving in Mexico with the Peace Corps. Our foray into this bureaucratic nightmare began early last October by downloading and filling out an application for an immigrant. On this application it is clearly stated that there are three methods for obtaining an immigrant visa for the U.S. – the lottery, employer sponsorship and sponsorship by a family-member who is a legal resident. It goes on to state that Mexicans, though, can only qualify for a visa if sponsored by family member legally living in the U.S.
That was about the most easily understood part of the instructions, the rest may as well been written in Chinese. We consulted the Embassy’s Web site for clarification, but only encountered contradicting instructions so as a last resort we decided to call the Embassy’s 1-900 number – the only way to contact them with questions about visas. Despite paying by the minute for the phone call, I had to continuously fish for information from the representative, who clearly did not want to be talking to me. In fact, she at one point told me: “you know all this information is ‘clearly’ laid out on our Web site.” I responded by advising her that “clearly” is a subjective term to which she bluntly informed me that actually it is pretty clear.
Eventually, we managed to figure out the forms. Our next challenge was figuring how to submit the $355 filing fee, payable only by cashier’s check issued U.S. currency. We spoke with several people at our bank; all insisted that a check could only be issued in pesos. It took going to a branch office in a bigger city 3 hours away to finally get a check issued in dollars. It was late October before we could finally mail back the application and it was not until February before we received notice from the Embassy that our application was approved and forwarded to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez for further processing. Despite the fact that we live only an hour away from Mexico City and that there are 11 U.S. Consular offices in Mexico, the Consulate in Ciudad Juarez –the most dangerous city in Mexico – is the only office authorized to process immigrant visas for Mexicans.
That letter came with instructions to download another packet of forms from the Consulate Web site and mail them back to their offices. In addition these forms, you are instructed to begin collecting a long list of documents that you will need to bring to your upcoming interview in Juarez in order to prove your identity, financial stability and marriage – with triplicate copies. Because I do not work in the U.S., I had to recruit my mother to co-sponsor my wife’s visa application so that we met the financial requirements of the immigrant visa.
Eight months into the process and we are still waiting for our visa interview appointment to be scheduled in Ciudad Juarez. When we do eventually get an interview, we will have to pay approximately $600 for plane tickets, plus hotel and food costs for three days minimum stay. You see, as part of the approval process my wife also will have to undergo a physical exam at one of the only two clinics in Mexico authorized by the Consulate, which they recommend doing three days before the interview in case there are problems or delays with the results. We have been advised that this exam will cost us $150 plus the costs of any required vaccinations; apparently $300 is the average total medical cost. Another $400 will be due at the interview for processing, plus costs for UPS shipping of the visa. When all is said and done, we expect to have invested well over $2,000 for her visa. I have called there (also a toll number) several times, but they could only confirm receipt of the additional materials in early March and that they were still being processed. Even I am beginning to think that at this point it would have been cheaper (and faster) to hire a coyote.
So the next time you hear someone claiming that they have no problem with immigrants, as long they come here legally, do me a favor. Remember that the illegals predominantly consist of the poor, marginalized, rural citizens of Mexico. They do not have the resources to download forms or make 1-900 calls; much less pay for travel and shipping costs, processing fees and medical exams with vaccinations. In the end, I have to say that admire the vast majority of illegal immigrants. After all, how do you look your hungry children in their eyes and tell them to hold on for eight months or more because daddy needs a visa? When faced with that difficult decision, they had the courage and integrity to decide that taking care of their families was the most important thing. If that isn’t family values, I don’t know what is.
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Little Things You Take For Granted
As I anxiously count down the (hopefully) weeks that I have remaining in Mexico, I thought I would turn my attention to some of the little cultural idiosyncracies that differentiate life in Mexico from that of the U.S. This is intended to be an ongoing list, mostly for my own venting, but if you have lived outside the U.S. you may wish to contribute as well...
1. Free public restrooms. I just took my garbage out to the street to find a young man urinating on my building, in plain view and not the least bit disturbed by my interruption (or lack thereof). I guess when they collectively decided as a culture to charge for the use of a restroom, even to clients at many establishments, they did not foresee this unintended consequence, or perhaps they just don’t care. As I once explained to Lety, Americans are an ‘entitled’ society. If we are conducting business at an establishment, we feel entitled to certain accomodations (such as free restrooms) and would be most offended if told we had to pay extra such accomodation. It may be arrogant, but at least we don’t have people peeing on public streets in broad daylight, sober at least. Even our bums usually have the courtesy to seek a dark alley or a park tree.
2. Apartments with water and tenants protected by the law. We are now on week 3 of no water in our kitchen and constant outages in the bathroom. When we complain to the landlord, his response is to tell us to fill up our buckets with at the spiget in the patio for use in our homes. My neighbor apparently went as far to threaten withholding the rent to which he responded that if she did not like the situation, she was free to find another place to rent. I guess this old man has nothing better to do with his days than to clean and prep an apartment to go on the market for another month without rental income. In that case, why does he not have time to fix the plumbing?
3. The customer is always right policy. The examples of how this mentality is not shared by most business in Mexico are too numerous to describe. Over the past two and a half years I have learned that any attempt to complain to management about poor service or products is usually a futile exertion of energy on my part. If you are lucky enough to receive more than just a blank stare, you are probably being told that you always have the right to spend your money somewhere else. I forget the exact number, but apparently these proprietors have not learned the basic economic rule that it costs somewhere in the vicinity of twice as much to recruit a new customer as it does to retain a current one. Most recently I went to the market in search of fresh cilantro. As per the norm, I asked the man at the first stand for $1 peso’s worth of cilantro. He responded by saying that they only sell a bushel for $2 and he did not care when I explained that I could not use that much before it would go bad. So I walked to the stand next to him where I successfully purchased a bushel for a peso and as I walked past the first stand, he gave me a disgusted look. Annoyed, I told him I was sorry but he had his chance.
More to come as I encounter them...
1. Free public restrooms. I just took my garbage out to the street to find a young man urinating on my building, in plain view and not the least bit disturbed by my interruption (or lack thereof). I guess when they collectively decided as a culture to charge for the use of a restroom, even to clients at many establishments, they did not foresee this unintended consequence, or perhaps they just don’t care. As I once explained to Lety, Americans are an ‘entitled’ society. If we are conducting business at an establishment, we feel entitled to certain accomodations (such as free restrooms) and would be most offended if told we had to pay extra such accomodation. It may be arrogant, but at least we don’t have people peeing on public streets in broad daylight, sober at least. Even our bums usually have the courtesy to seek a dark alley or a park tree.
2. Apartments with water and tenants protected by the law. We are now on week 3 of no water in our kitchen and constant outages in the bathroom. When we complain to the landlord, his response is to tell us to fill up our buckets with at the spiget in the patio for use in our homes. My neighbor apparently went as far to threaten withholding the rent to which he responded that if she did not like the situation, she was free to find another place to rent. I guess this old man has nothing better to do with his days than to clean and prep an apartment to go on the market for another month without rental income. In that case, why does he not have time to fix the plumbing?
3. The customer is always right policy. The examples of how this mentality is not shared by most business in Mexico are too numerous to describe. Over the past two and a half years I have learned that any attempt to complain to management about poor service or products is usually a futile exertion of energy on my part. If you are lucky enough to receive more than just a blank stare, you are probably being told that you always have the right to spend your money somewhere else. I forget the exact number, but apparently these proprietors have not learned the basic economic rule that it costs somewhere in the vicinity of twice as much to recruit a new customer as it does to retain a current one. Most recently I went to the market in search of fresh cilantro. As per the norm, I asked the man at the first stand for $1 peso’s worth of cilantro. He responded by saying that they only sell a bushel for $2 and he did not care when I explained that I could not use that much before it would go bad. So I walked to the stand next to him where I successfully purchased a bushel for a peso and as I walked past the first stand, he gave me a disgusted look. Annoyed, I told him I was sorry but he had his chance.
More to come as I encounter them...
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The End of the Road
It's been a long time since I last wrote. I wish I could say that it has been due to a lack of time, but that seems to be all I have now days is an abundance of free time. As some of you may remember, I was trying to extend my service for another 6 months after the director of the park informed me that they were no longer going to sponsor the community service activities of the eco-club I founded in one of the communities in the park. Well, about the same time this was going on, the state government made a power-play for control of the park and to make a long story short, the federal employees with whom I had been working with for the past 2 years were removed from the park's administration.
This resulted in complete disarray on the part of Peace Corps because their contract for volunteer service is with the federal government and we needed their approval to extend my service. I was given an extra month to try to sort things out, which I used to meet with the local delegation of the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat as well as with the new park administration. I managed to work out agreements with both agencies but my attempts to communicate this with the Peace Corps staff went largely unanswered until a few days before my provisional extension was due to expire at which time I was informed that it was now too late to work out anything. In the end, I shouldn't have been surprised as this lack of professionalism is typical for the staff here in Mexico. The sad result is that the ecoclub has now been disbanded by the national director for lack of a facilitator and the kids who have dedicated a year of their lives to improving their community will not finish what they started. They now have to find another government agency to sponsor their community service requirements for graduation, which will inevitable take their work outside of their small town as they seek service in the bigger city of Pachuca.
All this has left me with a rather bitter feeling toward the Peace Corps as an organization. Like so many government agencies, they are too myred in their own bureaucracy to be truly effective in realizing the goals they have set for themselves. I guess that should not be a surprise, but I was really hoping that the Peace Corps would be different. That's not to say there has not been any successes in the Mexico program, but rather that those successes a that result of the volunteers' ability and dedication to triumph despite the Peace Corps, not because of it. I won't say anymore on the issue for now as I plan on writing a seperate piece dedicated to the topic which I intend to share with my congressmen and perhaps a few newspapers.
Since my work with the Peace Corps ended, I have been filling my days hunting for jobs and working on the mountain of paperwork needed for Lety's visa. The job hunting is going as well as can be expected. I've probably sent out at leat 100 applications and resumes and have only had three interviews. One never went anywhere, the other turned out to be an unpaid position (a fact which they did not advertise) and the other would have ended in a job offer, at least so I was told. That was with the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, who informed me that I was going to be hired and that HR was going to contact with the details but before they did I decided to withdraw my application as it appeared we were still several long months out from receiving Lety's visa. I still scour the Internet looking for a job in the case that the perfect one might be availabe and Lety's visa will get approved at the same time.
On the visa front, our application was finally sent from the Embassy in Mexico City to the Consulate in Ciudad Juarez. We then sent another long packet of forms to fill out and send to the consulate, which had to be done before we could be scheduled for an interview (the next step in the long process). This whole process has left me with a lot of sympathy for the illegals in the U.S. We have had to deal with a series of representatives that really did not want to talk to us, much less help us over the telephone. Because of this we have relied heavily on the Internet to download forms and look up instructions. We had to pay $300 do the Embassy to file our paperwork and have been told we will need to pay another $400 to the Consulate at the visa interview. Every phone call to them requires a credit card charge of $7 and we have easily racked up a couple of hundred dollars in UPS fees and photocopy charges. The only Mexicans have the means to do all this are those that are not trying to immigrate to the U.S. I've contacted my congressmen about this but as is par for the course, they have not responded (not surprisingly, being that my permanent residence is in Florida, they are republicans and most like anti-immigration reform).
Anyways, we remain patiently waiting for notice of our interview appointment and dreaming of starting fresh in the U.S. and more specifically, escaping the mountain climate and returning the beach. It's a probably a good thing that I am not working as it has afforded me the time to handle all the logistics of her visa application and preparing for our (hopefully) upcoming move. Lety does continue to work. Her boss knows that she is preparing to leave but has been supportive, thankfully. I pass my days taking care of the house, the laundary and preparing dinner like a good little house-husband. I've found time to experiment with new recipes and expand my repetoir, much to Lety's delite. I also think our cat has become spoiled with me around all day. She follows all around the house and always wants to play, much to the dismay of my hands and ankles and any other exposed skin on my body. Luckily, the landlord either has not noticed her return or has chosen not to say anything. Hopefully, by the time he does we will have a departure date anyways.
Despite the cut-back in our lifestyle, due to the loss of one our incomes, we still manage to get out of the house every now and then. Usually it's for a cup of coffee or walk around the plaza. There's also the requisite Saturday dinners at her parents' house, though that is becoming a chore as we get up early on Saturdays for Lety's English classes before going to her parents' house. We joke that we can't wait until we are living far away from our families so that our free time will be ours again. Last Saturday we also managed to escape for a while to check out a free concert of some big Mexican pop singer and an air show. We were having fun until our niece got a nosebleed and we had to bring her to the ambulances before heading home for the night. This Sunday we have a big family dinner to celebrate Family Day. If it's anything like last year, at least there will be beer and tequila.
Until next time...
This resulted in complete disarray on the part of Peace Corps because their contract for volunteer service is with the federal government and we needed their approval to extend my service. I was given an extra month to try to sort things out, which I used to meet with the local delegation of the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat as well as with the new park administration. I managed to work out agreements with both agencies but my attempts to communicate this with the Peace Corps staff went largely unanswered until a few days before my provisional extension was due to expire at which time I was informed that it was now too late to work out anything. In the end, I shouldn't have been surprised as this lack of professionalism is typical for the staff here in Mexico. The sad result is that the ecoclub has now been disbanded by the national director for lack of a facilitator and the kids who have dedicated a year of their lives to improving their community will not finish what they started. They now have to find another government agency to sponsor their community service requirements for graduation, which will inevitable take their work outside of their small town as they seek service in the bigger city of Pachuca.
All this has left me with a rather bitter feeling toward the Peace Corps as an organization. Like so many government agencies, they are too myred in their own bureaucracy to be truly effective in realizing the goals they have set for themselves. I guess that should not be a surprise, but I was really hoping that the Peace Corps would be different. That's not to say there has not been any successes in the Mexico program, but rather that those successes a that result of the volunteers' ability and dedication to triumph despite the Peace Corps, not because of it. I won't say anymore on the issue for now as I plan on writing a seperate piece dedicated to the topic which I intend to share with my congressmen and perhaps a few newspapers.
Since my work with the Peace Corps ended, I have been filling my days hunting for jobs and working on the mountain of paperwork needed for Lety's visa. The job hunting is going as well as can be expected. I've probably sent out at leat 100 applications and resumes and have only had three interviews. One never went anywhere, the other turned out to be an unpaid position (a fact which they did not advertise) and the other would have ended in a job offer, at least so I was told. That was with the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, who informed me that I was going to be hired and that HR was going to contact with the details but before they did I decided to withdraw my application as it appeared we were still several long months out from receiving Lety's visa. I still scour the Internet looking for a job in the case that the perfect one might be availabe and Lety's visa will get approved at the same time.
On the visa front, our application was finally sent from the Embassy in Mexico City to the Consulate in Ciudad Juarez. We then sent another long packet of forms to fill out and send to the consulate, which had to be done before we could be scheduled for an interview (the next step in the long process). This whole process has left me with a lot of sympathy for the illegals in the U.S. We have had to deal with a series of representatives that really did not want to talk to us, much less help us over the telephone. Because of this we have relied heavily on the Internet to download forms and look up instructions. We had to pay $300 do the Embassy to file our paperwork and have been told we will need to pay another $400 to the Consulate at the visa interview. Every phone call to them requires a credit card charge of $7 and we have easily racked up a couple of hundred dollars in UPS fees and photocopy charges. The only Mexicans have the means to do all this are those that are not trying to immigrate to the U.S. I've contacted my congressmen about this but as is par for the course, they have not responded (not surprisingly, being that my permanent residence is in Florida, they are republicans and most like anti-immigration reform).
Anyways, we remain patiently waiting for notice of our interview appointment and dreaming of starting fresh in the U.S. and more specifically, escaping the mountain climate and returning the beach. It's a probably a good thing that I am not working as it has afforded me the time to handle all the logistics of her visa application and preparing for our (hopefully) upcoming move. Lety does continue to work. Her boss knows that she is preparing to leave but has been supportive, thankfully. I pass my days taking care of the house, the laundary and preparing dinner like a good little house-husband. I've found time to experiment with new recipes and expand my repetoir, much to Lety's delite. I also think our cat has become spoiled with me around all day. She follows all around the house and always wants to play, much to the dismay of my hands and ankles and any other exposed skin on my body. Luckily, the landlord either has not noticed her return or has chosen not to say anything. Hopefully, by the time he does we will have a departure date anyways.
Despite the cut-back in our lifestyle, due to the loss of one our incomes, we still manage to get out of the house every now and then. Usually it's for a cup of coffee or walk around the plaza. There's also the requisite Saturday dinners at her parents' house, though that is becoming a chore as we get up early on Saturdays for Lety's English classes before going to her parents' house. We joke that we can't wait until we are living far away from our families so that our free time will be ours again. Last Saturday we also managed to escape for a while to check out a free concert of some big Mexican pop singer and an air show. We were having fun until our niece got a nosebleed and we had to bring her to the ambulances before heading home for the night. This Sunday we have a big family dinner to celebrate Family Day. If it's anything like last year, at least there will be beer and tequila.
Until next time...
Monday, January 18, 2010
Christmas Vacation
Well, I finally got around to sorting through the 800 and some odd photos from our recent vacation to Chiapas, Guatemala and Belize. I tried to make this as brief as possible but it was a long trip and we did a lot, so wait until you have some free time to read this (photos are linked to title)...
Day 1: We left for Tuxtla Guiterrez from Mexico City by bus. We purchased the tickets in advance and realized too late that we had made our hotel reservation in Palanque. So our 12 hour ride turned into 18 hour ride since we had to buy another ticket from Tuxtla to Palanque. Actually, turned out to be a bit longer since the driver had to make a middle of the night stop on some desolate intersection to meet up with his girlfriend. Rained the whole time, which didn’t help our travel time either.
Day 2: Still raining. We finally arrived in Palanque and checked into our hotel early in the evening and quite exhausted from the long haul. Only really had time to grab a bite to eat, stock up on some supplies and reserve our passage to Guatemala for the next day.
Day 3: Still raining. We left early in the morning, finally, after our transport arrived an hour late to pick us up. About mid-day we arrive at the border town of Fronterra Corozal. The townspeople, avid Zapatistas, wouldn’t allow our van to pass through the town so we had to unload our backpacks, walk down the road and board a town-approved local transport (a cargo truck in which we loaded like cattle into the back). Everyone had to pay $15 pesos to the town for “town improvement” tax... sure didn’t look like that is what they were using it for. After passing through the immigration kiosk we boarded a large gondala which ferried us for an hour across the Río Usumacinta to Guatemala. After paying $20 USD per person for our tourist visas we were shuttled another 5 hours to Flores. Still raining, we dropped off in downtown Flores only to be told that our hotel was another 45 minutes away in the town of El Remate. We started walking around trying to find a taxi but only encountered motorized rick-shaws. A friendly Guatemalan family in a rick-shaw stopped to help us by calling their friend, who has a regular taxi. The gave us a ride to the bus station where their friend drove us to our hotel. Our hotel was a lovely complex of cabañas set in the jungle with its own vegetarian-friendly restaurant and located close to the Mayan ruins of Tikal.
Day 4: Still raining in the morning we decided to sleep in and cancelled our tour to the ruins. By mid-day the rain had stopped so we found a local combi (public transport) that took us to the ruins. Tikal is a series of pyramids that tour over the jungle canopy and home to Howler Monkeys and Toucans (in abundance). A truly magical place unlike the majority of the ruins we have seen in Mexico. Star Wars fans will recognize Tikal as the filming site for the moon of Endor (where the rebel base is located and home of the Ewoks). At the end of the day we went back to wait for a combi where we were dropped off. After an hour of waiting (by now the rains had started up again) we were told that there were no more combis and we had to buy seats on a tour bus to get back to our hotel. We spent the evening relaxing over a few beers and window shopping at the artesan shops.
Day 5: Still raining, we woke up early to catch our bus for Belize City about 7 hours away. Most of that travel time was spent at the border crossing. We finally arrived in Belize City around 3PM where we instantly bombarded by beggers offering to find us hotels or restaurants and taxi drivers. We were on our way to the island of Ambergris Caye so were able to dodge most of these people as we were dropped off right at the water taxi terminal. By 4PM we were on our boat making the hour long journey to the island. Thankfully, we managed to leave the rains behind in Guatemala. We arrived at San Pedro, the only real town on the island, and checked into our hotel we had reserved after reading Lonely Planet’s recommendations. Upon seeing our room, we quickly discovered why this particular hotel was popular among the backpackers... it was cheap and basic. It’s only amenities, besides its beachfront location, were that it came with free moisture stains, cockroaches and the ever-so-pleasant smell of insecticide. We immediately left the room to spend the evening lounging on oversized couches on the beach at a cozy little bar next to the hotel.
Day 6: After breakfast we made it a mission to find a better hotel, since it was only a day before Christmas Eve, this practically an impossible mission. After seeing several rooms comparable to where we were at, we finally found a cheap hotel that was clean, on the beach and came with all the regular amenities (i.e. cable TV, clean towels, maid service, etc.). So we checked in and enjoyed a real shower before walking out the back door onto the beach where we found a dive shop willing to give Lety the resort-diver course (even though she doesn’t know how to swim very well) so we could go diving together. We made reservations for the next day then rented a couple of bicycles to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the island. We rode to the other side in search for the Palapa Bar, a popular drinking establishment on a pier that we never did find but enjoyed some excellent black-bean burgers with cajun fries (man how I missed thoughs) at another restaurant we found nestled away in the expat community. In the evening we stayed close to the hotel, eating and drinking at their beachfront bar while watching the other tourists play Chicken Bingo on the beach for free drinks (and the honor of cleaning up after the chicken).
Day 7: Lety and I found a nice little Cuban restaurant to eat breakfast before going out diving. Our first dive was at Hol-Chan National Park. Within seconds of entering the water we were greated by nurse sharks, snappers, angelfish, jacks, barracudas and jewfish not too mention the finger, mustard, cactus, brain, starlet and blushing star corals as well as sea fans. After about an hour we boarded the boat again and headed out to go snorkelling at Shark Ray Alley. This is where the guides bait the water with various fish parts to attract nurse sharks, eagle rays and sting rays before prompting you to jump in the water. It was touristy, but I have to admit I enjoyed swimming around the water chasing nurse sharks and rays with my camera. Lety was more interested in staying close to the boat and viewing the wildlife from a “safe” distance. Still, she got bit by the diving bug and was eager to sign up for two more dives the following day. In the evening, we dined on Chinese food before Lety went to Christmas Eve mass at the local Catholic church while I waited at the bar next door and chatted with a retired American expat about the ups and downs of living on the island.
Day 8: Christmas Day. Lety and I joined a group of ‘regulars’ to go diving at Victoria Canyons and Sandy Point on the reef. We saw much of the same species, including more sharks, with the exception of a 6-foot green morray eel, some beautiful blue sponges and a juvenile sea turtle. Both dive spots where characterized by deep, coral canyons that you made you feel miniscule as swam through them. Lety was officially hooked on the sport. In keeping with the truly eclectic style of Belize, we found a Lebonese restaurant for dinner and enjoyed a nice conversation about politics and the economy with the two brothers who owned and ran it.
Day 9: We caught an early ferry back to the mainland just as the rains came to the island. Guess we can’t complain too much. On the mainland we caught a taxi to the bus station only to find out that the buses going to community of Bermuda Landing, where our next hotel reservation was, were suspended for Boxing Day. I knew Belize was formerly a British colony but it did not occur to me that they would celebrate Boxing Day. We were unable to reach the hotel manager to cancel our reservation or seek transportation advice so we took another cab to a guest house close to the water taxi terminal. After checking in and grabbing a bite to eat we finally received a call back from the hotel manager who offered to come into Belize City and pick us up for $25 USD. We thanked the nice people at the guest house and told them to keep our money before grabbing our stuff and heading into the city to meet our ride.
By the late afternoon we arrived at Bermuda Landing and checked into our cabin in the jungle. Bermuda Landing is a town which banded together in the 1980s to create a Howler Monkey sanctuary after an American scientist informed them of the dwindling population of monkeys due to development and habitat loss. We hired a local guide to take us into the jungle and bring us face to face with a couple of troops. We were lucky enough to be able to touch a few and sew some babies. Later, at night, we hired another local guide to take us on a three hour canoe ride in the jungle to look for nocturnal wildlife. We saw several nightjars, herons, a paca (a rodent the size of a large cat) and crocodiles. Our guide, plucked a baby croc out of the water and passed it to Lety to hold who was yelling at me to translate to our English-only speaking guide that she did not want to, which I ignored as I was fumbling for my camera. In her effort to avoid the croc she nearly dumped us into the water but eventually she did hold it before passing it to me. Later on, our guide found a three foot juvenile croc which managed to wrestle into the canoe as well.
Day 10: We were so enamored with the sanctuary that we decided to stay an extra day. We spent several hours drinking beers on the front porch of our cabin, watching the toucans dart from tree to tree and took a hike down to the bridge to watch a troop of monkeys climb around the branches of nearby trees while giant, orange iguanas lounged by their side. All our meals were home cooked by the hotel manager and served to us on picnic tables by the cabin. We were the only ones staying at the resort so we enjoyed lengthy conversations with the staff over dinner and breakfast and excellent personal attention.
Day 11: In the morning we headed back to Belize City to catch our bus back to Flores, Guatemala. Even though it had only been a week since we were last in Guatemala, the border patrol made us buy another visa... I’m fairly certain this is not legal since a tourist visa is good for 90 days. In Flores, we had to do some hunting for a decent hotel room and found one that was do-able for the evening. We then headed out to dinner at a what appeared to be a lovely restaurant over looking the giant lake that surrounded the island town of Flores. An hour after we ordered our food we flagged down the manager to ask what was taking so long and were told that there was a large table that was taking up their attention. He claimed they were ahead of us but I pointed out that we were actually here first and that six years of working in restaurants has taught me one important thing, never tell a customer that there are more important customers than him. He said if we didn’t like the service we could leave but just then our waitress arrived with our meal, so we unfortunately stayed.
Several bites into my veggie burrito we realized that it had fish. The waitress response was that it was my fault because she only heard me say I wanted a burrito and that I shouldn’t worry “it’s a little bit of fish, nothing will happen.” I informed her that it was against my religion to eat animal flesh so she proceeded to quiz me on my religion. I told her it was none of her business so she offered to get us something else but we told her we had no interest in waiting around another hour for more food. We asked to speak to the manager again but he refused to come to our table so we paid for our drinks and Lety’s plate and promptly left without leaving a tip or paying for the burrito.
Day 12: We woke up early and checked into a better hotel before taking a combi to the town of Poptún. Our plan was to arrive at the Finca Ixabel before 9AM in order to take a cave-river hike but we arrived 15 minutes too late so we decided to hike around the trails in the hills outside of the town. The trails, we were told, were well marked and we were even given a “map” but quickly found ourselves lost in the jungle-clad hills. We eventually retraced our path back to the finca after several hours of meandering around several different side trails trying to complete the supposed circuit. After eating at the finca we headed back to Flores and found a cave system just outside of town that we were able to explore on our own, though without the underground river.
Day 13: At 5AM we were on a bus heading back to Mexico. At the border we charged another $20USD per person to leave the country. We were not charged this when we left to go to Belize so we argued, as did everyone else on the bus, but to no avail. A Dutch woman refused to pay and was told she was not welcome back to Guatemala to which she promptly replied “I live in Amsterdam, I have not intention of ever coming back.” The bus cheered her on. After being ferried across the river to Mexico once again, we were promptly greeted by the local townsfolk who once again charged us to pass through and prohibited our tour bus from entering. We were told that one of their combis was going to take us to Palenque for a fee to which the entire bus revolted since we had just paid a good chunk of money in Flores to be taken all the way to Palenque.
After several minutes arguing along the side of the road, our tour guide agreed to pay the combi driver but we were still left in the middle of the city of Palenque to find our own ways to our respective hotels. Lety and I hiked to the bus station were we found another combi heading to the campgrounds at the ruins of Palenque were we wanted to stay. We were planning on camping since it was almost New Year’s Eve but lucked out and found a rustic cabin on a stream in the jungle for about $10USD per night. It was very simple but clean and located within a small community of about 6 different campgrounds (collectively callen El Panchán) each with cabins, tent sites and a few restaurants.
Day 14: We signed up for an all day tour of the major attractions in the area including the Mayan ruins of Palenque (like Tikal, they were set amidst the jungle), the towering waterfall of Misol-Ha and the series of jungle cascades and (frigid) bathing holes called Agua Azul. On the tour we met a young expat couple from Texas and their baby girl who fled to Guatemala for a fresh start after their home was foreclosed on and their business went into a heavy tax debt. We returned to El Panchán and celebrated New Year’s Eve with an intimate dinner at one of the restaurants before looking for our new friends at the local bar where a salsa band rang in the new year.
Day 15: We jumped on another bus to go to San Cristobal, a charming colonial town set in the mountains of Chiapas, famous for its retention of the indigenous culture. We arrived late in the afternoon and decided to opt out of any tours of the nearby indigenous towns, instead walking the downtown district of the city listening to street bands playing marimba from the plazas before grabbing some take out from a local vegetarian restaurant and relaxing in our hotel room.
Day 16: After an all-you-can eat buffet at another local vegetarian spot, we boarded a bus for the hour drive back to Tuxtla. We left our backpacks at the baggage check in the bus station and took a combi downtown to catch another combi for the suburb of Chiapa de Corzo, the jumping off point for a speed-boat tour of Cañon del Sumidero. We had just enough time to take the 2 hour tour (again, half an hour of which was spent waiting for our boat driver to finish making out with his girlfriend whom he met up with on another boat in the middle of the reservoir at the end of the canyon) and return to Tuxtla for dinner before starting the overnight journey back to Mexico City.
Day 17: We arrived in Mexico City early in the morning and caught a bus for Pachuca. We arrived home in time to shower and straighten up the house before Lety’s family came over for lunch, to exchange Christmas presents and share in our travel stores. By late afternoon we were finally left to crash in our own bed for a few hours before returning to work the next day.
Day 1: We left for Tuxtla Guiterrez from Mexico City by bus. We purchased the tickets in advance and realized too late that we had made our hotel reservation in Palanque. So our 12 hour ride turned into 18 hour ride since we had to buy another ticket from Tuxtla to Palanque. Actually, turned out to be a bit longer since the driver had to make a middle of the night stop on some desolate intersection to meet up with his girlfriend. Rained the whole time, which didn’t help our travel time either.
Day 2: Still raining. We finally arrived in Palanque and checked into our hotel early in the evening and quite exhausted from the long haul. Only really had time to grab a bite to eat, stock up on some supplies and reserve our passage to Guatemala for the next day.
Day 3: Still raining. We left early in the morning, finally, after our transport arrived an hour late to pick us up. About mid-day we arrive at the border town of Fronterra Corozal. The townspeople, avid Zapatistas, wouldn’t allow our van to pass through the town so we had to unload our backpacks, walk down the road and board a town-approved local transport (a cargo truck in which we loaded like cattle into the back). Everyone had to pay $15 pesos to the town for “town improvement” tax... sure didn’t look like that is what they were using it for. After passing through the immigration kiosk we boarded a large gondala which ferried us for an hour across the Río Usumacinta to Guatemala. After paying $20 USD per person for our tourist visas we were shuttled another 5 hours to Flores. Still raining, we dropped off in downtown Flores only to be told that our hotel was another 45 minutes away in the town of El Remate. We started walking around trying to find a taxi but only encountered motorized rick-shaws. A friendly Guatemalan family in a rick-shaw stopped to help us by calling their friend, who has a regular taxi. The gave us a ride to the bus station where their friend drove us to our hotel. Our hotel was a lovely complex of cabañas set in the jungle with its own vegetarian-friendly restaurant and located close to the Mayan ruins of Tikal.
Day 4: Still raining in the morning we decided to sleep in and cancelled our tour to the ruins. By mid-day the rain had stopped so we found a local combi (public transport) that took us to the ruins. Tikal is a series of pyramids that tour over the jungle canopy and home to Howler Monkeys and Toucans (in abundance). A truly magical place unlike the majority of the ruins we have seen in Mexico. Star Wars fans will recognize Tikal as the filming site for the moon of Endor (where the rebel base is located and home of the Ewoks). At the end of the day we went back to wait for a combi where we were dropped off. After an hour of waiting (by now the rains had started up again) we were told that there were no more combis and we had to buy seats on a tour bus to get back to our hotel. We spent the evening relaxing over a few beers and window shopping at the artesan shops.
Day 5: Still raining, we woke up early to catch our bus for Belize City about 7 hours away. Most of that travel time was spent at the border crossing. We finally arrived in Belize City around 3PM where we instantly bombarded by beggers offering to find us hotels or restaurants and taxi drivers. We were on our way to the island of Ambergris Caye so were able to dodge most of these people as we were dropped off right at the water taxi terminal. By 4PM we were on our boat making the hour long journey to the island. Thankfully, we managed to leave the rains behind in Guatemala. We arrived at San Pedro, the only real town on the island, and checked into our hotel we had reserved after reading Lonely Planet’s recommendations. Upon seeing our room, we quickly discovered why this particular hotel was popular among the backpackers... it was cheap and basic. It’s only amenities, besides its beachfront location, were that it came with free moisture stains, cockroaches and the ever-so-pleasant smell of insecticide. We immediately left the room to spend the evening lounging on oversized couches on the beach at a cozy little bar next to the hotel.
Day 6: After breakfast we made it a mission to find a better hotel, since it was only a day before Christmas Eve, this practically an impossible mission. After seeing several rooms comparable to where we were at, we finally found a cheap hotel that was clean, on the beach and came with all the regular amenities (i.e. cable TV, clean towels, maid service, etc.). So we checked in and enjoyed a real shower before walking out the back door onto the beach where we found a dive shop willing to give Lety the resort-diver course (even though she doesn’t know how to swim very well) so we could go diving together. We made reservations for the next day then rented a couple of bicycles to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the island. We rode to the other side in search for the Palapa Bar, a popular drinking establishment on a pier that we never did find but enjoyed some excellent black-bean burgers with cajun fries (man how I missed thoughs) at another restaurant we found nestled away in the expat community. In the evening we stayed close to the hotel, eating and drinking at their beachfront bar while watching the other tourists play Chicken Bingo on the beach for free drinks (and the honor of cleaning up after the chicken).
Day 7: Lety and I found a nice little Cuban restaurant to eat breakfast before going out diving. Our first dive was at Hol-Chan National Park. Within seconds of entering the water we were greated by nurse sharks, snappers, angelfish, jacks, barracudas and jewfish not too mention the finger, mustard, cactus, brain, starlet and blushing star corals as well as sea fans. After about an hour we boarded the boat again and headed out to go snorkelling at Shark Ray Alley. This is where the guides bait the water with various fish parts to attract nurse sharks, eagle rays and sting rays before prompting you to jump in the water. It was touristy, but I have to admit I enjoyed swimming around the water chasing nurse sharks and rays with my camera. Lety was more interested in staying close to the boat and viewing the wildlife from a “safe” distance. Still, she got bit by the diving bug and was eager to sign up for two more dives the following day. In the evening, we dined on Chinese food before Lety went to Christmas Eve mass at the local Catholic church while I waited at the bar next door and chatted with a retired American expat about the ups and downs of living on the island.
Day 8: Christmas Day. Lety and I joined a group of ‘regulars’ to go diving at Victoria Canyons and Sandy Point on the reef. We saw much of the same species, including more sharks, with the exception of a 6-foot green morray eel, some beautiful blue sponges and a juvenile sea turtle. Both dive spots where characterized by deep, coral canyons that you made you feel miniscule as swam through them. Lety was officially hooked on the sport. In keeping with the truly eclectic style of Belize, we found a Lebonese restaurant for dinner and enjoyed a nice conversation about politics and the economy with the two brothers who owned and ran it.
Day 9: We caught an early ferry back to the mainland just as the rains came to the island. Guess we can’t complain too much. On the mainland we caught a taxi to the bus station only to find out that the buses going to community of Bermuda Landing, where our next hotel reservation was, were suspended for Boxing Day. I knew Belize was formerly a British colony but it did not occur to me that they would celebrate Boxing Day. We were unable to reach the hotel manager to cancel our reservation or seek transportation advice so we took another cab to a guest house close to the water taxi terminal. After checking in and grabbing a bite to eat we finally received a call back from the hotel manager who offered to come into Belize City and pick us up for $25 USD. We thanked the nice people at the guest house and told them to keep our money before grabbing our stuff and heading into the city to meet our ride.
By the late afternoon we arrived at Bermuda Landing and checked into our cabin in the jungle. Bermuda Landing is a town which banded together in the 1980s to create a Howler Monkey sanctuary after an American scientist informed them of the dwindling population of monkeys due to development and habitat loss. We hired a local guide to take us into the jungle and bring us face to face with a couple of troops. We were lucky enough to be able to touch a few and sew some babies. Later, at night, we hired another local guide to take us on a three hour canoe ride in the jungle to look for nocturnal wildlife. We saw several nightjars, herons, a paca (a rodent the size of a large cat) and crocodiles. Our guide, plucked a baby croc out of the water and passed it to Lety to hold who was yelling at me to translate to our English-only speaking guide that she did not want to, which I ignored as I was fumbling for my camera. In her effort to avoid the croc she nearly dumped us into the water but eventually she did hold it before passing it to me. Later on, our guide found a three foot juvenile croc which managed to wrestle into the canoe as well.
Day 10: We were so enamored with the sanctuary that we decided to stay an extra day. We spent several hours drinking beers on the front porch of our cabin, watching the toucans dart from tree to tree and took a hike down to the bridge to watch a troop of monkeys climb around the branches of nearby trees while giant, orange iguanas lounged by their side. All our meals were home cooked by the hotel manager and served to us on picnic tables by the cabin. We were the only ones staying at the resort so we enjoyed lengthy conversations with the staff over dinner and breakfast and excellent personal attention.
Day 11: In the morning we headed back to Belize City to catch our bus back to Flores, Guatemala. Even though it had only been a week since we were last in Guatemala, the border patrol made us buy another visa... I’m fairly certain this is not legal since a tourist visa is good for 90 days. In Flores, we had to do some hunting for a decent hotel room and found one that was do-able for the evening. We then headed out to dinner at a what appeared to be a lovely restaurant over looking the giant lake that surrounded the island town of Flores. An hour after we ordered our food we flagged down the manager to ask what was taking so long and were told that there was a large table that was taking up their attention. He claimed they were ahead of us but I pointed out that we were actually here first and that six years of working in restaurants has taught me one important thing, never tell a customer that there are more important customers than him. He said if we didn’t like the service we could leave but just then our waitress arrived with our meal, so we unfortunately stayed.
Several bites into my veggie burrito we realized that it had fish. The waitress response was that it was my fault because she only heard me say I wanted a burrito and that I shouldn’t worry “it’s a little bit of fish, nothing will happen.” I informed her that it was against my religion to eat animal flesh so she proceeded to quiz me on my religion. I told her it was none of her business so she offered to get us something else but we told her we had no interest in waiting around another hour for more food. We asked to speak to the manager again but he refused to come to our table so we paid for our drinks and Lety’s plate and promptly left without leaving a tip or paying for the burrito.
Day 12: We woke up early and checked into a better hotel before taking a combi to the town of Poptún. Our plan was to arrive at the Finca Ixabel before 9AM in order to take a cave-river hike but we arrived 15 minutes too late so we decided to hike around the trails in the hills outside of the town. The trails, we were told, were well marked and we were even given a “map” but quickly found ourselves lost in the jungle-clad hills. We eventually retraced our path back to the finca after several hours of meandering around several different side trails trying to complete the supposed circuit. After eating at the finca we headed back to Flores and found a cave system just outside of town that we were able to explore on our own, though without the underground river.
Day 13: At 5AM we were on a bus heading back to Mexico. At the border we charged another $20USD per person to leave the country. We were not charged this when we left to go to Belize so we argued, as did everyone else on the bus, but to no avail. A Dutch woman refused to pay and was told she was not welcome back to Guatemala to which she promptly replied “I live in Amsterdam, I have not intention of ever coming back.” The bus cheered her on. After being ferried across the river to Mexico once again, we were promptly greeted by the local townsfolk who once again charged us to pass through and prohibited our tour bus from entering. We were told that one of their combis was going to take us to Palenque for a fee to which the entire bus revolted since we had just paid a good chunk of money in Flores to be taken all the way to Palenque.
After several minutes arguing along the side of the road, our tour guide agreed to pay the combi driver but we were still left in the middle of the city of Palenque to find our own ways to our respective hotels. Lety and I hiked to the bus station were we found another combi heading to the campgrounds at the ruins of Palenque were we wanted to stay. We were planning on camping since it was almost New Year’s Eve but lucked out and found a rustic cabin on a stream in the jungle for about $10USD per night. It was very simple but clean and located within a small community of about 6 different campgrounds (collectively callen El Panchán) each with cabins, tent sites and a few restaurants.
Day 14: We signed up for an all day tour of the major attractions in the area including the Mayan ruins of Palenque (like Tikal, they were set amidst the jungle), the towering waterfall of Misol-Ha and the series of jungle cascades and (frigid) bathing holes called Agua Azul. On the tour we met a young expat couple from Texas and their baby girl who fled to Guatemala for a fresh start after their home was foreclosed on and their business went into a heavy tax debt. We returned to El Panchán and celebrated New Year’s Eve with an intimate dinner at one of the restaurants before looking for our new friends at the local bar where a salsa band rang in the new year.
Day 15: We jumped on another bus to go to San Cristobal, a charming colonial town set in the mountains of Chiapas, famous for its retention of the indigenous culture. We arrived late in the afternoon and decided to opt out of any tours of the nearby indigenous towns, instead walking the downtown district of the city listening to street bands playing marimba from the plazas before grabbing some take out from a local vegetarian restaurant and relaxing in our hotel room.
Day 16: After an all-you-can eat buffet at another local vegetarian spot, we boarded a bus for the hour drive back to Tuxtla. We left our backpacks at the baggage check in the bus station and took a combi downtown to catch another combi for the suburb of Chiapa de Corzo, the jumping off point for a speed-boat tour of Cañon del Sumidero. We had just enough time to take the 2 hour tour (again, half an hour of which was spent waiting for our boat driver to finish making out with his girlfriend whom he met up with on another boat in the middle of the reservoir at the end of the canyon) and return to Tuxtla for dinner before starting the overnight journey back to Mexico City.
Day 17: We arrived in Mexico City early in the morning and caught a bus for Pachuca. We arrived home in time to shower and straighten up the house before Lety’s family came over for lunch, to exchange Christmas presents and share in our travel stores. By late afternoon we were finally left to crash in our own bed for a few hours before returning to work the next day.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Caos
Lately I feel as though I am stuck in some wierd episode of The Twilight Zone. One hand I was busily preparing to close my service. Most of my projects have been wrapped up to the best of my ability. The biggest being the environmental education center (photos linked to title). Only four exhibits remain to be installed, though it remains to be seen how we are going to finish them being that the director of the park decided to deliver my computer to the regional offices while I was out-of-town. I came back to an email from the grafic designer that she had lost the information for these four exhibits, which were saved on my computer. It would have been nice to have been given advance notice that I was no longer going to have a work computer so that I could have backed up my files first.
The other big project, my ecoclub, has been thrown into limbo at the last minute. The other week the director of the park informed me that the park was no longer going to sponsor the ecoclub and took away all their projects in the park. With only a few weeks left before my close of service it now appeared as though the ecoclub was going to be disbanded by the National Director due to a lack of a facilitator. That's when I began discussions with the Peace Corps about extending my service another six months in order to have time to look for a new agency to sponsor the efforts of these young adults so that they may continue to serve their communities.
Normally this would not be a big deal except that, also in the past couple of weeks, the state government made a power play in the park and effectively tried to kick out the federal government (with whom Peace Corps has a contract for volunteers). What followed has been several weeks of headaches and stress as my departure date drew ever closer, the ecoclub students prepared to go on Christmas break, no one in the park new if they would continue to have a job, and Peace Corps had no idea with whom they needed to negotiate an extension of my service. To further complicate things, there appears to be a very real possibility that the federal government will be temporarily removed from the park and the Peace Corps only has the authority to send volunteers to work with agencies of the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretary. So the future of all volunteers in the park hangs in the balance.
Last night I finally received a partial reprieve, a provisional extension of 30 days, in hopes that by this time next month things will have calmed down a bit and the issue of extending my service until June 2010 can be revisited with whomever is running the park. At the very least, that gives me the luxury of turning my focus on my own Christmas break/vacation plans (Chiapas, Guatemala and Belize) and putting these politics behind me for a couple of weeks.
The frustrating thing is that I am only trying to make sure that this group of disadvantaged teens continues to have the opportunity to develop their leadership skills, serve their community and improve the natural environment... an opportunity these young people, especially the girls, otherwise would not have. You try to do the right thing and all you get is problems and resistance. I guess it's true what they say, it's not easy to do the right thing.
The other big project, my ecoclub, has been thrown into limbo at the last minute. The other week the director of the park informed me that the park was no longer going to sponsor the ecoclub and took away all their projects in the park. With only a few weeks left before my close of service it now appeared as though the ecoclub was going to be disbanded by the National Director due to a lack of a facilitator. That's when I began discussions with the Peace Corps about extending my service another six months in order to have time to look for a new agency to sponsor the efforts of these young adults so that they may continue to serve their communities.
Normally this would not be a big deal except that, also in the past couple of weeks, the state government made a power play in the park and effectively tried to kick out the federal government (with whom Peace Corps has a contract for volunteers). What followed has been several weeks of headaches and stress as my departure date drew ever closer, the ecoclub students prepared to go on Christmas break, no one in the park new if they would continue to have a job, and Peace Corps had no idea with whom they needed to negotiate an extension of my service. To further complicate things, there appears to be a very real possibility that the federal government will be temporarily removed from the park and the Peace Corps only has the authority to send volunteers to work with agencies of the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretary. So the future of all volunteers in the park hangs in the balance.
Last night I finally received a partial reprieve, a provisional extension of 30 days, in hopes that by this time next month things will have calmed down a bit and the issue of extending my service until June 2010 can be revisited with whomever is running the park. At the very least, that gives me the luxury of turning my focus on my own Christmas break/vacation plans (Chiapas, Guatemala and Belize) and putting these politics behind me for a couple of weeks.
The frustrating thing is that I am only trying to make sure that this group of disadvantaged teens continues to have the opportunity to develop their leadership skills, serve their community and improve the natural environment... an opportunity these young people, especially the girls, otherwise would not have. You try to do the right thing and all you get is problems and resistance. I guess it's true what they say, it's not easy to do the right thing.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Fería de los Globos and Guanajuato
This past weekend Lety and I made a trip up to Leon, Guanajuato to visit a friend one last time before she departs for another Peace Corps assignment in Ecuador. We arrived late Friday night thanks to some poor planning on my part. It was a three day weekend, so like an idiot I did not buy my tickets in advance and had to wait three hours in the bus station for the last available departure to Leon, but better late than never.
After a quick three hour nap at our friend’s house, we met up with another volunteer and her boyfriend to drive across town to the Fería de los Globos (hot-air balloon festival). It was a beautiful day to spend walking around the lake, snapping some photos and grabbing lunch; but there was little more than that to do. Much to our dismay, they were not offering rides.
The afternoon was spent, for me, being drug around the Zona de Piel (Leather Zone) in Leon by my two shop-aholic escorts on a long hunt for the elusive perfect, pleather purse and wallet for Lety. Though they put up a good fight, in the end they were captured (much to the dismay of pleather wallet). Guess I can’t complain too much, Lety does make her own money and is free to spend it on what she wishes (and I spent an equal sum of money the next day on two plates, more on that later). In the end, I got to sit down (finally) and have a beer so the afternoon was not a complete waste.
The three of us woke early the next day and Lety and I prepared a pancake breakfast for our host and the other volunteer before heading out to city of Guanajuato about an hour away. Guanajuato is an old Silver mining town nestled in the valley. There seems to be a lot of these in Mexico, which surprises me, having always thought of the Spanish conquistadores coming here for the Aztec gold rather than the silver. Still, each is different and worth visiting.
Guanajuato is a three-tiered city with the first consisting of subterranean roads and walkways built in the remnants of the mining tunnels. The central business district and historic center can be found at the second, ground level while most of the brightly colored residences make up the third which climbs up the surrounding mountain sides.
We had only the day to spend there, so our tour was a quick and dirty one at best, a teaser if you will. The day was spent visiting the neoclassical Juarez Theater crowned in warrior statues, walking through the old train-station turned market shopping for handicrafts, snapping some photos of the old fort were the decapitated heads of the four heroes of Mexico’s independence (Jimenez, Hidalgo, Allende and Aldana) were hung by the Spaniards from its four corners (http://www.oldandsold.com/articles02/mexico_travel28.shtml), passing by the birth place of Diego Rivera and enjoying a mid-afternoon lunch at a French restaurant in one of the plazas before making the climb to the overlook and monument to another independence hero – Pipila – above the town for some twilight shots of the valley below. Along the way, I managed to find two hand-painted decorative plates depicting El Catrin and La Catrina, two skeletal folk figures synonymous with the Day of the Dead in Mexico.
We returned to Leon to enjoy one last meal with our friends and the next day we were on a bus to Mexico, ending what will probably be our last vacation until my service ends in December. Click the title of this post for a link to the photos.
After a quick three hour nap at our friend’s house, we met up with another volunteer and her boyfriend to drive across town to the Fería de los Globos (hot-air balloon festival). It was a beautiful day to spend walking around the lake, snapping some photos and grabbing lunch; but there was little more than that to do. Much to our dismay, they were not offering rides.
The afternoon was spent, for me, being drug around the Zona de Piel (Leather Zone) in Leon by my two shop-aholic escorts on a long hunt for the elusive perfect, pleather purse and wallet for Lety. Though they put up a good fight, in the end they were captured (much to the dismay of pleather wallet). Guess I can’t complain too much, Lety does make her own money and is free to spend it on what she wishes (and I spent an equal sum of money the next day on two plates, more on that later). In the end, I got to sit down (finally) and have a beer so the afternoon was not a complete waste.
The three of us woke early the next day and Lety and I prepared a pancake breakfast for our host and the other volunteer before heading out to city of Guanajuato about an hour away. Guanajuato is an old Silver mining town nestled in the valley. There seems to be a lot of these in Mexico, which surprises me, having always thought of the Spanish conquistadores coming here for the Aztec gold rather than the silver. Still, each is different and worth visiting.
Guanajuato is a three-tiered city with the first consisting of subterranean roads and walkways built in the remnants of the mining tunnels. The central business district and historic center can be found at the second, ground level while most of the brightly colored residences make up the third which climbs up the surrounding mountain sides.
We had only the day to spend there, so our tour was a quick and dirty one at best, a teaser if you will. The day was spent visiting the neoclassical Juarez Theater crowned in warrior statues, walking through the old train-station turned market shopping for handicrafts, snapping some photos of the old fort were the decapitated heads of the four heroes of Mexico’s independence (Jimenez, Hidalgo, Allende and Aldana) were hung by the Spaniards from its four corners (http://www.oldandsold.com/articles02/mexico_travel28.shtml), passing by the birth place of Diego Rivera and enjoying a mid-afternoon lunch at a French restaurant in one of the plazas before making the climb to the overlook and monument to another independence hero – Pipila – above the town for some twilight shots of the valley below. Along the way, I managed to find two hand-painted decorative plates depicting El Catrin and La Catrina, two skeletal folk figures synonymous with the Day of the Dead in Mexico.
We returned to Leon to enjoy one last meal with our friends and the next day we were on a bus to Mexico, ending what will probably be our last vacation until my service ends in December. Click the title of this post for a link to the photos.
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