Our light-labour projects in the mountains of Chiapas

I’m not sure if today really happened, as I spent four hours in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico with a group of international volunteers picking up garbage at an education park in the rain during the dry season.

Our day began at 8:00am where myself and four other ISW students met with Thomas, a Belgian volunteer and Ricko, a Japanese volunteer, in front of the Revolution café to get picked up by the parks combi. San Jose’s educational park is a natural reserve of mild forest and is part of the Natural History Institute of Chiapas. This is where we will be working for the next four days as part of our light-labour project. The seven of us next jumped in the back end of a truck that had the front already full of three other people. We continued through San Cristobal, picking up three more park employees on the way.

We had offered to come early in order to get a head start on the day, but by the time we did the rounds and picked everyone up we arrived just on time – good thing the boss was driving.

As we drove higher and higher into the mountains surrounding San Cristobal even our Canadian bones, familiar to the cold, began to feel chilled as we sat exposed to the wind. With our toques and fleece jackets, we squeezed together to make room for everyone in the back of the combi and it was kind of nice to have an excuse to sit close together, as it was secretly keeping me warm without having to ask to cuddle my classmates.

The entire drive took about an hour and allowed us to look out over the city of San Cristobal. We passed small villages along the sides of the mountain and I couldn’t help but imagine what life must be like for those who live there. Some living in adobe homes, others in small simple concrete squares surrounded by livestock and dry vegetation. It would be a day’s journey to descend into the city to retrieve basic essentials and return.

When we arrived at the park there was a thick content to the air and it felt as though we were walking through midst of clouds. This morning things were wet and although I packed a small rain jacket, I was convinced I would not have to use it in Mexico and obliviously left it at home. I suppose its purpose was solemnly to protect the maple syrup we brought from Canada for our Mexican family.

Yesterday when we arrived at the park we had an introduction to our projects and today we finished the tour of the grounds and got to work. The job consisted of hiking up, down through and around bike and hiking trails picking up any sorts of garbage. It was definitely a work out but was mentally undemanding. While doing this work I discussed with a classmates some of our own personal significant learning experiences since we arrived in Mexico. We shared insight as to what skills we feel we have gained, experiences we won’t forget and things we hope for our future. The best part of this discussion was recognizing we had created more than an understanding of each other but a friendship, as in the beginning of the year we would barely discuss the weather yet share intimate details of our life experiences.

As we moved along from past to present, we began discussing some of the things we recognized within the project that caught our attention. Some items were things such as:

-The lack of understanding and initiative to promote recycling and proper waste disposal. (Not necessarily at fault of the park, we filled over 8-10 LARGE garbage bags and were told they do this about two times a week.)

-The need for educational programs within all levels of schools and the benefits that would allow having children and youth involved with natural conservation, recycling and proper waste reduction (Children come to look at the animals in the ‘zoo’ learn about habitats, plants and play, but could benefit from an hour of garbage picking to understand waste does not just go away and to learn about the process of proper land use, waste reduction, etc. After spending time picking up others waste, you may often think twice before throwing your own on the ground again.)

-The need to re-evaluate the use of the parks ‘zoo’ (There are numerous animals that live throughout Chiapas and have come mainly from the Tuxtla zoo, but do not belong in mountainous climates or such captivated environments. The park is in the process of rebuilding larger cages but could greatly benefit from creating natural breeding grounds for animals that belong in such mountainous climates as opposed to those who don’t.)

Although cleaning garbage is something that we could do in Canada, I feel there is a lot to learn from this project and I hope tomorrow we will have the opportunity to ask the big-guys some of our more in-depth questions that volunteers and lower level staff were unable to answer. Personally, I am interested in discussing the possibilities of working in collaboration with local schools to implement programs where students, youth, adults and their families can come and learn about proper waste disposal, recycling, composting, the environment and natural habitats of animals.

I can recall as a child in Canada going to ‘The Outdoor Education Center,’ in Northumberland County. There we learned the basics of waste disposal, recycling, reusing, respecting habitats of natural ecosystems and learning about nature without keeping species captive. During our four hours of clean up I thought back to those experiences and thought of how great it would be for the guide at the Outdoor Ed Center Mark (chic-a-dee-dee-dee) to come to this Mexican conservation area and work in collaboration to implement similar programs here. I recall saying today I would much rather see droppings from an animal that was free than the animal itself stuck in a cage (Often at the outdoor-ed center animal droppings and tracks were as close as we would get because the animals ran free).

Although there is a lot of work to be done, I am optimistic as ISW students we will be able to use this learning opportunity to the best of our ability. Tomorrow we return to the park, this time taking the collectivo so we can grab an extra 20 minutes rest, to clean out the rivers of garbage and begin clearing and marking hiking and bike paths.

As tiring as it is, another day of noiseless scenery and company of good people will be nice. Hopefully tomorrow we will have an opportunity to look closer into the details of the conversation park and their plans for the future.

Perhaps I will bring my raincoat just to guarantee it won’t come again.