Life in Mexico is busy! I am in full swing with my 2
classes, really enjoying both of them. I have been asked to write some online
TOEFL and GRE writing lessons for which I will get paid (woo!). I’ll go from
where I last left off and give a basic rundown of stuff going on here.
I organized an event through Couchsurfing to go explore a
fantastic barrio (neighborhood) called Coyoacán. My primary interest was to go
see Frida Kahlo’s infamous Blue House, but I also wanted to check out the
neighborhood. The event was a great success, there were 6 of us that showed up
to the first stop, which was, of course, coffee at El Jarocho (a popular café
chain in the area). We went on a tour of the main plaza, snuck into a wine and cheese
festival, and checked out the Blue House. A few folks left after that as it was
getting late, but 2 more people joined us for food and drinks at a lovely
Spanish-style restaurant. All in all, it was a lot of fun to meet new people
and see a beautiful zone in Mexico City.
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| La Casa Azul |
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| Spanish food and drinks after a long day |
I have been working one-on-one with our lab teacher to learn
Stata. I am finally understanding this mysterious yet magical program! I also
moved recently. While I love my home, it was simply too far away from public
transportation and I needed to relocate. I now live 3 blocks away from a metro
stop, 1 block away from where the free CIDE school bus, and surrounded by
everything else I could possibly need. My roomies are 2 guys who just graduated
from CIDE with a bachelor’s degree in econ. Very friendly and chill
environment. I highly recommend a Mexican dark comedy we watched called El Infierno…el Cochiloco (one of the
main characters) is my favorite. You’ll see why.
CIDE was recently selected amongst 22 competing institutions
across Latin America to be the headquarters for CLEAR’s regional office. CLEAR
(Centers for Learning on Evaluation and Results) is a global initiative dedicated
to strengthening monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to improve development
outcomes. While the majority of their work is based in Africa, creating a
regional center in Latin America is an important step in developing programs
and trainings in the region. I attended their first conference which consisted
of a variety of panels from leaders in policy M&E across the region
discussing their experiences and approaches to program evaluation. I found it
really helpful to put what I’m learning at CIDE in context with actual
government programs, like the Dominican Republic’s innovative approaches to
community involvement in M&E and Guatemala’s integrative model for
improving public health across the country. I find this marriage between
qualitative context and quantitative assessment a crucial step in creating,
maintaining, and evaluating social programs that will have the best impact on
alleviating poverty.
***First excursion: Las Margaritas***
So, as I mentioned before, I was invited to help with a
research project about the digital divide in which we evaluate communities’
interaction with the internet. Our first site visit was to a community in the
desert of San Luís Potosí near a popular tourist area called Real de Catorce.
Since the project is ongoing, I shouldn’t give too many details on our trip,
but I can write about some of the people I met and experiences I had.
We left
at 5am on Thursday the 6th and returned at 5pm on Sunday the 9th.
I should probably explain who “we” are, no? Well, there were 4 of us from CIDE
(Angie- qualitative social scientist, Giannina- assistant to the lead professor
& graphic designer by trade, Lourdes- Peruvian visiting
researcher/librarian <>,
and myself). There was also a car with some representatives from TOA (English translation:
Environmental Operations Workshop), an organization that is dedicated to
designing and constructing environmentally friendly buildings. TOA is our
connection to the community, since they are in the process of building a
community center in Las Margaritas. This community center will provide both a
library and computer/internet access.
We arrived around 3pm on Thursday. It is hot. We are in the desert,
which is gorgeous, but certainly drainingly arid. Entering the community, we (when
I say “we” from now on I am referring to the CIDE group) know very little about
the community. Essentially, we know there are around 70 some-odd people and that
there is no cell phone service or internet. Our goal was to collect demographic
information through interviews and observations. Giannina and I were to focus
on collecting observational data and Angie and Lou were to conduct interviews.
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| Las Margaritas |
One thing we noticed right away is that nobody was out and
about. We later learned that most women stay inside during the day and that the
men go out in the morning to pick up work in fields near-by, if they can. The
women will also go out with their machetes and harvest crops as they come in,
as well (impressed and glad to know women in this community can hold their own
damn machete!). Income-generating work is few and far between here. We saw
virtually no one from ages 15-30 and later found out that the majority either
go to secondary school in neighboring towns or work in the bigger cities of San
Luís or Monterrey.
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| At the school. Angie- far left, Gianni- next to Angie in back, Kareli (teacher)- 3rd from the right in the back, Lou- 2nd from the right in the back, me- far right |
Gianni and I dedicated one day to creating a map of the
community, both for our own endeavors and for the community themselves. There
is something important, I feel, about being able to show somebody a picture of
where you live and I wanted to be able to give that to the community. We made feeble
attempts at drawing a map, so I suggested we use rocks and sticks and other
found objects to help create the map. You would think that making a map of a
small community would be easy to generate, but let me tell you, if there is no
rhyme or reason to placement of houses, it ain’t easy! In the end, we were
proud of our creation, and Gianni, being a graphic design guru, will take the
photographed image of our map and construct a more aesthetically pleasing map
using a fancy software program.
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| Okay, I know it doesn't look like much, but this is our ad-hoc map. It will resemble a real map soon, I promise. This took us all day. |
There were quite a few houses hosting about half a dozen volunteers
working on the construction of the community center. I will do my best to
control my prejudice, but I felt the majority were disingenuous and were merely
there to consume peyote (something I can’t comment too much on, but peyote
consumption is an important and illicit practice throughout the region). It was
clear that the folks living there (between 22-28 years old) came from wealthy
families in D.F. and had travelled the world on their parent’s dime. They all
had so many stories of picking up one day and leaving, but never clear on how
they managed to afford living a year in Brazil, visit half a dozen U.S. cities,
or even live in Las Margaritas on no pay. Normally, I would have no problem
with this lifestyle, but their attitude/opinion was that they were living a “less
materialistic” lifestyle and that they were doing something good for the
community. Sorry honey, but flying out to Orlando looking like a dirty hippie
doesn’t count as “less materialistic” in my book. Granted, we were only there
for 4 days, but based on our actual conversations with people from the community,
they had no interaction whatsoever with the community. It was a big frustration
of mine, but, alas, not our main purpose there.
I know this post is getting long, so I’ll be more concise.
Overall, I felt we learned a lot about the community and had a wonderful time
bonding with each other. I always love being around inspiring women, and my
CIDE associates are some awesomely badass women. I am grateful to have had this
opportunity and to have met some really wonderful women and children in Las
Margaritas (aside from the Comisario [Deputy], no men spoke to me). I look
forward to our next site visit. Luckily it will be in a semi-urban environment
where we will have access to showers because, ooh lordy, did we smell bad after
4 days! Hope you enjoy the pictures I
attached, but also please check out my Picasa album here.
Peace ya’ll
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