Day 20 - INTEGRANDO a Mexico

From experiencing poverty at a local level to the simulation of debate of legalisation of marijuana at a national level, today has enhanced my personal understanding of the importance of ‘integration’ in a number of ways.

After collecting the right participants of the poverty workshop and four participants of other Social Issue Workshops in the pleasantly lively centre of the city, we set off with a lady from DIF (Desarrollo Integral de La Familia – a government-supported organisation that seeks to develop and help families in the poorer areas of Mexico) to visit a ‘colonia’ near San Miguel, an area that I feel comes closer to the reality of many Mexicans than the wealthy, highly condensed with American and other rich foreigners, centre does. Having visited one of the biggest slums in Africa (Kibera, part of Kenya’s capital Nairobi) I had the opportunity to compare the neighbourhood to my previous experience of severe poverty. What I noticed right away was the amount of space available for housing and that most houses were constructed of brick. The poverty I witnessed in Kenia was a lot worse at first sight, but that does not make the situation of the Mexicans living here any better. Little food, almost no employment and half constructed houses are the strict norms rather than the exception. However, to my surprise the lady told us the neighbourhood is very safe, partly due to the police station that is based right next to it. More importantly though, many of the people seem to have not lost hope in improving their situation and lives and do not resolve to violence, unlike many other neighbourhoods around. There seems to  be a strong support for the importance of education and most of the children have access to schooling ( orat least frequently…). Considering the quality of public education in Mexico, I admire their persistancy and gratitude for their possibility. It made me question the number of times I have lacked attention and passion for learning in the class room, alongside many of my co-years in the Netherlands.

Perhaps the way we approached the visit wasn’t most respectful towards the community. We were a large group of 15, including two non-mexican visitors (me and Luke), with a big camera and lots of wealth (think about all the cameras, ipods, shoes etc. we had on us). Even the three bananas that were hiding in my bag made my stomach twist a little with guilt. We had questions prepared for the interviews and asked our students to focus on what we had been discussing the last week – how and whether they noticed the larger causes (such as history, bad governance and geographical causes), personal causes (such as a lack of inititative and passive acceptance); which governmental programs were active in the area and how they were working. One of the participants had a healthy feeling of unease, partly caused, as she explained me later, she felt that we did not want to get to know the people, but rather just hear the answers to our questions. We did not have enough time to truely engage with the people, but I agree that the interviews were not conversations. I think the majority of us felt quite intruding on their lives.

The visit did make a great impression on some of the participants, including me. It made me think and reflect on how I want to spend my life creating change. Because, although Integrando a Mexico is for the participants, it has inspired me to explore myself how I can change to become a true ‘agent of social change’ (as we say in the project’s terminology). This includes the question whether I want to help on a more local level, truely engaging and integration with a community or on a more distant, but larger scale in, for instance politics. Both are things I will have to explore during my time at university, which starts the coming month. What is, either way, really important is the concept of ‘integration’. With this integration comes the personal connection you have with what you are doing, wether it’s directly with the people or from a distance. It means diving into the topic and issue you are dealing with, eliminating a selfishness that could distract from truely helping the people.

The afternoon continued with hungry stomaches and a number of final speeches after three afternoons of the simulation of a society. A concept that might sound vague, but was a great success for the participants’ understanding of one current issue in Mexico and how the process around referendum in the government works. The question was whether the sale and consumption of marihuana in private establishments (in Holland these would less elegantly be labled as ‘coffee shops’) should be legalised in Mexico. Unexpectedly the issue was voted against with a one vote difference. The debate involved many intelligent and well developed arguments. Mexico seems to deal with the problem of Marihuana consumption as a criminal issue rather than a public health issue. Would this change, prevention and educational programs would be more accesible and easy to organise. Of course the War on Drugs was an important topic of discussion, with the question whether the legalisation would make the problem worse or would improve it.  It was argued legalisation would lead to a greater consumption and an aggrevation of the violence. I was told later that more or less 50 % of all the drug trafficking in Mexico consists of Marihuana, a number that rather shocked me. More important than the participants gained knowledge, an ability to create arguments (that they might not personally agree with) and the ability to discuss such an issue, is I think the enforced important of Civic Engagement. Many who disliked politics thought of civic engagement and democracy as a politcal action, but did not realize that it can also be implemented on a local level. The activity has served as a great movitation (that of course yet has to be put into action) to raise more awareness and create discussion in home communities about these issues of public concern.

Simultaneously, today’s events made me reflect upon my own civic engagement in the Netherlands. Though having voted in 2010 for the new government, I have not been up to date at all with the national news and events. I realize that if I am asked about the history of the Netherlands my knowledge barely scrapes the surface. And when was marihuana legalized (or decriminalized) in the Netherlands? How was that transition for our society? Neither do I feel up to date or knowledgeable about a lot of issues going on in the world community. I feel more than ever connected with the issues facing Mexico due to the intense interaction we have had with the participants and preparation we have gone through for the workshops. Nevertheless, I feel more than ever motivated to ‘integrate’ more in society, that of my home country and that of the world. And to talk. Because more important than anything, I feel conversation and sharing of thoughts is the most powerful device to meet opportunity and truely make a change.

While reflecting on the past day, I am enjoying sitting here in my room, with the buzz of conversation in the room next to me and Sonia writing post cards on the bed next to me, whilst listening to Juan Luis Guerra (a merengue artist) and feeling excited for a salsa night in San Miguel with my wonderful co-facilitators aka friends. 


Laura Brouwer (The Netherlands, AC 09-11) 

Day 19 - Making an Impact

I volunteered to contribute to Integrando a Mexico because I wanted to make a difference in some way, in some part of the world, but I was fed up with the all too popular aid programs that benefit the volunteer far more than the community he or she is serving. I’d accepted the general naivete of wanting to have an impact, to change the world, or whatever abstract desire for good motivates social work, but I at least wanted to focus such innocent willpower on a legitimate program with farsighted goals. So I signed up for Integrando a Mexico, because it aimed not to strive for the quick idealized social action people like me might have first imagined, like building a house for the homeless or raising money for disadvantaged families (though there are indeed elements of this in our program) but the goal was to educate future leaders of social change from communities all around Mexico with the hope, in the spirit of John Stuart Mill, that they would fight for change in their respective communities in the best way, a way crafted for the community and created by the community.

I won’t be so bold as to say I’ve already seen the seeds of this long term goal planted and thriving, indeed, we’re running a camp for a group of 42 teenagers, and kids will be kids (so I say an 18 year old myself), but this week we went through the most hard-hitting elements of our curriculum, exploring fundamental social issues like poverty, education, and national identity, democracy in practice and consumerism, and today marked a turning point as participants began to shift from the role of a student to the role of an activist. They began today their awareness projects that should seek to spread the information regarding the social issue they’ve studied this week, and next week they’ll begin to plan the social projects they’ll bring back to their home communities. In this way, the goals of this project are now coming to fruition, and I’ll admit, I’m becoming very excited by these prospects on the horizon.

This week was quite an exciting week for me in general as I was able to explore a variety of topics I’m personally passionate about, and in teaching these ideas (as best as I could in my still developing Spanish) the best moments brought the perfect satisfaction of watching this passion spread. In the poverty workshop I led alongside two other facilitators we discussed the identity of poverty in Mexico, the long term causes born from history and the governmental and social systems it developed, foreign influences and the impact all of these had in conjunction with naturally existing geographic diversity. We moved on to discuss the attitudes often observed in impoverished communities, those defined by Oscar Lewis’ famous article on the Culture of Poverty published in the mid-sixties, which often contributes to a vicious cycle of expressed apathy and passiveness that only intensifies a community’s poverty. We continued with a critical examination of Mexican anti-poverty programs; we discussed the ethics of aid giving and how to make aid sustainable, and we ended with a discussion of Muhammad Yunus’ system of microlending which, in much the same way as Integrando a Mexico, attempts to place the power of change directly in the hands of the people who desire it.

The class on microfinance was particularly popular with the participants, perhaps because it was the single standing glimmer of hope left after a week’s investigation of the bleak economic circumstances found in Mexico today, but also perhaps because it illustrated a system of legitimate aid, of empowerment, which rightly so empowered the participants with the hopes of using such a system themselves to create social change in their near futures.

Participants seemed equally excited by the consumerism related activities we offered in the afternoons this week. We started with a conversation on global warming, motivated by the British film ‘The Age of Stupid’ and through the viral Youtube video “The Story of Stuff’ we expanded this conversation to explore consumerism as a culture, a cause of global warming and a frighteningly imperialistic force. This was fascinating for me as an American facilitator as I was able to better understand the impact of what I would admit to be a painfully American cultural value system on one of my country’s closest neighbors. It was thus very strange, but greatly important, to discover the popularity of American clothing like brands American Eagle, Abercrombie and Fitch and Aeropostale in middle and upper class Mexico.   Potent despite a widespread disdain for the country these brands represent, this ironically ubiquitous fashion is, rather, popular for the symbol of wealth these brands bring that makes them marking signs for the in-group. In this way, I was very interested to have my suspicions about the nature of the spread of my country’s empty culture of wealth confirmed, but more importantly I was moved to see the participants take on the discussion of such a deeply rooted international issue with such enthusiasm. They were, again, empowered, because this crisis is one of their own generation, one they can fight in their own daily lives.

This theme of consumerism was rounded off in the next two days with a discussion of Permaculture, a lifestyle of absolute sustainability exercised in various locations around the globe, and finally we ended with a discussion of political ideologies (we covered Liberalism, Conservatism, Anarchism and Socialism/Communism) in an overt attempt to educate and furthermore encourage free thinking through applied and supported philosophical thought. I taught the workshop on Liberalism, using John Stuart Mill to discuss the central values of the classical form of the ideology, and I was overjoyed to hear participants respond with, again, such excitement. Many were simply happy to have confusions between the ideologies cleared, but others told me they were very interested to be introduced to a system of thought that they could relate to. On the bus after classes, one participant, Victor, told me he was very inspired by the lecture on socialism and wanted to learn more about how he can apply such ideas to his work in the coming week.

With examples like these, my hopes for the project are proving more and more realistic. Despite their youthful energy, very few participants were overloaded by the weight of this week’s topics, rather most had the opposite reaction; they’ve been inspired: they’re thinking critically about these ideas and in this way they’re thinking about their future. Another participant I talked to, Monica, told me today she’d like to create a project that works to strengthen the weary Mexican national identity through education programs that focus on history. She doesn’t know exactly how she wants to do it, but she’s truly impassioned.  Even more impressive, however, she exhibits a focused sense of seriousness in her inspiration, one much like the kind I experienced when I first arrived in Mexico. For both her work and for that of the rest of the participants, I look forward to next week when, through the development of their ideas, their hopes can begin to become reality, and in this way, propelled by their work, I look forward to the same final transformation of my own.

Luke Pizzato (USA, AC 10-12) 

Day 18- Pajamas. Mordidas. Marijuana? El Fua!

“No lo sabía…”
Our last “theoretical” Social Issue session explored the consequences of low-quality education. Seeing the participants making notes on the figures and facts about Mexico on the whiteboard carefully and conscientiously, I knew that my thirty minutes of continuous writing on the board was not in vain. The facts were shocking to the participants just as they were to us when we were preparing the session: Mexico only has an average of 1.8 years of effective education while the 5 most competitive countries have an average of 9.7 years; research shows that the school is the second most important institution to combat corruption, which is a problem so serious in Mexico that the average “mordidas” (literally “bites”, bribe acts) reached $138 for each Mexican home in 2007, which meant a family that earned up to a minimum salary had 18% of their household income “bitten off” from them in one year.
But the participants have moved forward from being shocked to being motivated. Tomorrow, they will spend the sessions working on their creative projects to raise awareness for the issue. And I am looking forward to it.

Demonstrations 

“¡Marijuana para Mexico!” a boy shouted.
“Di No a Legalización. Huelgo de silencio hasta 11pm…” was written on a cardboard on the other side of the corridor.
The simulation of a society before the referendum of the legalization of Marijuana in the Civic Engagement session was getting more and more exciting.
Interest groups made stickers, put up posters, yelled slogans, protested outside the rooms of political parties and the President’s Cabinet and presented their points of views to political parties. Groups of lobbyists went in and out of the “conference room” of the President’s Cabinet. The first female President of Mexico (in her pajamas, of course, for today was the participants decided that today was the Pajamas Day and that participants and facilitator alike should wear their nightwear) and her cabinet’s “conference” with the lobbyists lasted for more than two hours… The enthusiasm and the quality of the participants’ debates continued to impress us.



“Phew. I’m glad that it’s not chicken…”
It was at lunch in the cafeteria. I guess the movie “Food Inc.” shown in the Nutrition Social Issue Activity was really powerful-- a girl told me that she could not bear looking at the chicken legs for lunch yesterday after seeing how people raise and kill chicken for food.

One more vegetarian for a greener world?


“Swap!”
15 minutes goes so quickly! Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism/Communism and Anarchism could not be possibly explained fully in such a short period of time. But an introduction to each of the four political ideas was made in today’s evening activity. A graph mapping their positions in the political spectrum was drawn in the auditorium too. I learnt a lot, and I believe the participants felt the same. We just wished that there could be more time.

Pushing the bus

“¿Dónde está el camión?” (“Where is the bus?”)
To our surprise, there was only one bus instead of the usual two waiting for us outside the school at the end of the day. After being “sardined” into the bus, singing and travelling for 10 minutes, we saw the other bus on the side of the road, stuck in a hole. More than 20 of us jumped off the bus and started pushing it while the others helped by shouting the supernatural word “Fua!” in support. Five minutes later, the bus finally moved.

Once again, “El Fua” saves the day.
“¿Cómo no?”



Sonia Hoi Ching Cheung (Hong Kong, AC 10-12)

Day 17 - Identity

We started this week doing the Social Issue Activities (SIA) and Civic Engagement Workshops ((CEW) as you might have read in one of the other blogs).The group I´m facilitating is about the Mexican National Identity. In many ways it is a very difficult topic, firstly because it is a very ambiguous and subjective topic. Nevertheless, it is very interesting. The other day, for example, we were talking about how language is a part of a national identity, and we talked about traditional Mexican languages.  The focus was on Nahuatl, as a creative activity all the participants had to create a poem existing for 25% out of Nahuatl words. It was nice to see, as I´m from Europe I can mainly derive Spanish words, but these words … they could have been Hindi and I wouldn´t have known! We also tried to do something creative in every session, this ended up in amazing mural! In the first activity they had to draw the map of Mexico its borders consisting of words (aspects of a national identity). Subsequently the participants wrote down words that would define regional cultures in Mexico, as Mexico is quite diverse. This was followed by the workshop of westernisation where they cut out pictures of typical Mexican things and things that were influenced by the West. The things that were typically Mexican were close to the map and the others were further away. The other workshop of today was gender roles in the Mexican national identity. With this they created a drawing visualising their aspirations for who the relation should be; all in all a lot of discussions, and a lot of creative exercises where they could apply what they had learned before. All the participant seemed to enjoy these creative parts thoroughly as they even stayed to finish their mural in breaks, we had to make them have breaks, which was very rewarding! Because there is no solid information about the Mexican national identity that we could teach, it turned out more of an exploration which was very interesting for the facilitators too!

Sadly I was not very much involved in the CEW´s, although I did do democracy on the first day. Where I had to, again, confront the language barrier. This was especially apparent in this workshop because my democracy workshop was very discussion based, although I did try and explain some things (the concepts of equal representation and the district system in democracy), I really noticed that my Spanish wasn´t sufficient for such terminology. Despite the fact that there is still a language barrier there definitely has been a lot of improvement (even from the last time I wrote the blog).

I cannot believe it is already the third week! So, unfortunately, I will have only one time left to write on this blog. They say time flies when you´re having fun, and I think, in this case, this is most certainly true!

Hans van Deursen (The Netherlands, AC 10-12)

Day 16 - Ripe Sweetness

New personal record today:

2 hours break

AND I had a complete, homemade, lunch for 10 pesos. (!)

And a bag of fruit for the same price. (conversion to foreign currency: next to nothing)
What a perfect country for foreigners that are obsessed with food but on an anorectic student budget.

The scenario where this, which seems like no less than a miracle to a Norwegian who is accustomed to the idea of spending an hours salary on a slice of bread, took place
is still unclear to me.

But it was a beautifully messy market, at some obscure location.

I felt nearly naughty as I embarked on this solitary adventure. But I didn't feel threatened, despite being reminded by sweet old men to take care. As my hair is not even slightly blonde (at least according to Norwegian standards) I shrugged it off and pulled down my skirt. (No worries mum, it was the decent one.) And I returned safely. Was never really doubting that. Only doubting my capability to manage a confusing public transport system. With reason.

Despite spending half of my break time walking under an aggressive sun, searching alternative buss stops, I was felt happy about my mini journey.

But even more when I returned to the course site, with a mountain of baby bananas and baby mangos.

As anywhere in the world (especially in deprived parts; United World Colleges) food is by far the best way to buy yourself friends. And in this case the satisfaction of that action was tripled by the how little it costed me.

(If it had not been for the fact that exporting food in your luggage is slightly illegal I would have been the queen bee in Norway, considering the WONDERFULNESS of Mexican cuisine. Oh well, I am more than prepared to wrap whole families of mangos in aluminum folio.)

I am doubting whether this tale of my passion for mangos has any moral, but I can certainly say that even though a variation in food and location felt right and energizing, I cant say that it felt any more like a holiday than partaking in the course.

Interacting with the locals at and around the market place felt enriching, but I also missed out on intriguing things happening in the course.

For those who require examples:

Did you know that permaculture is as applicable to your way of living as it is to agriculture?
Have you reflected on what historical and demographical causes there are to poverty existing in your nation?

Whether national identity is a disadvantage, or maybe pure bullshit?

Did you know that ancient civilizations struggled with air pollution?

And what is actually the reasons for poor education? And its psychological consequences?

Can NAFTA agreements be seen to be the major forming force leading to Mexico's nutrition situation today?

More than just thinking we all know, feel, or have at least heard, that we have a certain responsibility to act. To change.

But how?

Today we actually dedicated time to theorize the dynamics of taking action. Cause is the really anything that have more repercussions than passivity? And isn't really terrorism one of the most drastic forms of civic engagement?

What do those to last words even mean?

I believe that I speak for a lot of us when I say that nothing is more painfully enlightening thank those moments where you suddenly understand what you already knew.

And is there anything more moving and meaningful thank for the first time hear a personal story that encounter all the things you chose to believe doesn't really happen, because you have heard its theoretical aspect to many times.

Nothing is more upsettingly beautiful than when you realize what part you play in all this talk about change. That you play a part at all.

Let me incoherently summarize all of this:

All this is meaningful cause we make it be it.

And thank you for making work be the most delightful holiday I have ever had.

Thank you for the sweetness that strangely accompany the moral challenges.

You all make up the other half of my inner mango stone.

and of course it is about sharing, and not about status.

And the pricelessness of that.

I guess that only what’s left is for you to make sense of it all.

Ingvill Maria Daatland Hekne (Norway, AC 09-11)

Day 15 - I Love Tacos

I love tacos. Proper Mexican tacos, straight from the mobile taco cart with the taco people making tacos in it: so delicious and awesome. I also love the special Mexican hamburgers they have here in San Miguel. You buy them from the small hamburger cart in the central square/park, the Jardin, with the hamburger people making hamburgers in it. Yum! The interesting thing about my love for these foods is that they represent a diversity of influence that you find in Mexican food and culture in general. Hamburgers are American (US) in origins, but through adaption they have become a part of the Mexican cuisine and got their own local twist. This makes people associate with them and even sometimes sees them as a part of their local identity. Tacos are a mix of the ancient Latin-American tortillas and Spanish meat and cheese culture. So all the way from the beginning of Mexico as a nation the national identity has been a mix of many different and sometimes contradicting cultures. 

National identity is one of the five social issues we are exploring this week, and it’s my session. The other ones are poverty, nutrition, education and environment. For a week the participants will explore different aspects of one issue, learn, discuss, engage and in the end spread awareness about the topic to people outside of course, in their local communities, schools and basically the rest of Mexico. As earlier weeks I am bitter for not being able to participate in all of the different workshops myself, as all of them are super interesting. I’m also craving to discuss and express my opinions about the different issues; it’s just such a shame that the language is a barrier. The participants are doing the job much better than I would have anyway, and it’s amazing to see the capabilities the participants have to develop knowledge. From a beginning of a really small amount of facts they can create an understanding of different aspects of society precisely and constructively. This is why I love the idea of developing each other through discussion so much more than a “teacher”-figure pouring information into his students.

The other thing we are doing this week is Civic Engagement Workshops. Today democracy and tomorrow different forms and civic engagement. This is the kind of stuff I really wish I learnt properly in school, just because I find it really important.  What do you need to have well-functioning democracy? What are the limitations in the world today? How is power distributed? What are the limitations of democracy itself? And so on and on and on. Personally I love the concept and pursuit of democracy and can keep discussing it for hours and hours, only time puts a limit. And hopefully that’s how it will be with the participants in the future as well, that they’ll keep searching for answers and then throw their passion into realizing them.


Albert Andersen Øydvin (Norway, AC 10-12)