Casa and Tabasco

The organisation I work for is called Casa de Apoyo a la Mujer which translates as support house for women. The ‘Casa’ works mainly in 2 areas: health, which involves consultations by a doctor and sexual health promotion in communities; and support for women’s groups in communities such as micro-credit projects or a community garden.

The first week I started I was told to take a week off as they were really busy and I was quite sick. The following week started off slowly. Everyone was really busy and therefore had no time to sit down with me and talk about what I would be doing. Finally, half way through the week the coordinator and I had a chat and we worked out that I would help launch an environment campaign focused on recycling materials which we could then use in various ways, such as using plastic bottles for seedlings in gardens, or making tote bags out of plastic wrappers/bottles and encouraging people to use reusable bags rather than plastic. I was and still am very excited about this project. It’s exactly the area of work that I am interested in and was wondering before I started if the Casa would be keen to start a project like this. At the moment I’m doing lots of research on how we can use the recyclable material to benefit the women’s groups we are working with. There’s an amazing project taking place in Guatemala where they using plastic bottles stuffed with rubbish to build very much needed housing www.puravidaatitlan.org/index.html (in Spanish but has pictures!).

Last weekend I spent it in Tabasco (right next to a town called Tequila). That´s right, where the hot chilli sauce is meant to come from, but doesn’t. The name was stolen by a U.S. company and adopted as their own.

As I waited for my couch surfer to come and pick me up from Villahermosa (the capital of Tabasco) bus depot, I saw a clown sitting at the bus station, looking miserable. No one else seemed surprised to see a clown just sitting there, blending amongst the crowd. I guess clowns also need to use public transport to get to places – still seemed strange to me. I hear that clowns are quite common in Mexico. Well this was my first sighting of one here.

Also as I waited, I saw a white ute pull up and signal for me to get in. My couch surfer had told me he was coming in a white ute to pick me up so I jumped in and off we went. We said our greetings and 10 metres up the road my fellow driver asks me where I want to go. At this point I realise that maybe I got into the wrong car and so I ask him his name. Name doesn’t match. It turns out he was just passing by and offered me a lift = wrong car! No need to say that I quickly got out (clumsily dropping my bag and sarong on the road in a state of fluster) and said my adieus.

My couch surfer and his best friend had obviously decided that they would sacrifice their entire weekend to chauffeuring me around to the best sites around Villahermosa, the best food and taking me out to various bbq’s and even back to the families for lunch in a small town where one of them grew up. They were the most generous and hospitable people I have met here. I was introduced to beautiful traditional food - a local fish called moharra (cooked on woodfire) which is found everywhere here; platanos (a type of banana cooked in their skin until golden) with cheese and cream sprinkled on top; pozol – a drink made from ground corn and roasted cocoa which is more like a porridge type meal than a simple drink – this drink has been made for centuries and was/is used by field workers to sustain themselves throughout the day in very hot conditions; amazing caramelised fruits which are meant to be eaten with pozol and cocoa slices – cocoa is in abundance in Tabasco – my couch surfers family has fields of cocoa trees at the back of the house; sweet tamales (made from corn dough with lots of different fillings – these one’s had little fruits inside and were the best tamales I’ve had so far!); and last but not least, quesadillas – (tortillas with melted Oaxaca chese) eaten at one particular café called Dona Mary (highly recommended if you’re around the area!) which had pretty much any filling under the sun available including this superb mushroom called huitlacoche… mm..mm..mmmmm!

Don’t have any photos to show of Tabasco as I took with me an uncharged camera… =(