Leaving Palenque

Check out 3 months worth of photos here.

I have officially left Palenque. That’s right, 2 weeks ago today I left what was my job for 3 months and my home for the same period of time. I left with mixed feelings. A little weary about what the future holds and where my adventure will lead me to but also feeling happy to be on the move again and not locked into any particular project. I definitely will be sad to be leaving my flatmate Cintho – we’ve spent a great last 6 weeks together, eating our way through our time in CAM, with wacky adventures and lots of belly laughs (and food babies!)

A little summary of Palenque for those of you thinking about going to visit (damn you for not visiting when I was there!) – it’s a small town that tries to act bigger than it is, mainly because it has an influx of tourists coming through all year around to visit the ruins nearby. People are a little apprehensive of newcomers (understandably with the amount of people coming for short visits) and therefore are a little reserved. But the atmosphere of Palenque is very relaxed probably partially to do with the heat that it radiates - a constant sauna where sweat runs off your skin in litres. There isn’t much to do in Palenque town apart from eat your way around and check out the nightly activities at Parque Central (normally it involves Marimba music being played and eating deserts from the stalls in the plaza). On the other hand, the surroundings of Palenque have a whole lot of amazing waterfalls, wildlife, jungle, ruins and many, many adventures to be had.

As for a little update on my work, Cinitha and I worked hard to pull together the recycling campaign launch in a little less than a month. It was frantic and stimulating, working to such a tight deadline, but sometimes a little frustrating, especially when people from within the organisation weren’t too supportive or helpful. We had surprisingly lots of media interest and although I was pushed to be the one who spoke to radio and television, I managed to get out of it as I believed that my 3 months old Spanish just didn’t cut the mark to be heard throughout the media! The actual day itself rolled out well and could even be called a success. We had quite a few people who came along, including school kids, media and community members. Of course the municipality failed us by promising to lend us some tables and never turning up with the goods (this was after visiting them 6 TIMES to make sure that they would provide these tables). We solved the table situation by quickly escaping to our office and stealing the tables from any place we could find, wildly piling them into the back of the ute and screaming off towards Parque central. We had workshops on how to make a compost, how to weave chip wrappers into e.g. purses, how to make flowers out of egg cartons and lots more arts and crafts for kids. We had speakers, documentaries, a singer, my guitar group performing and even a karate group came along and performed (without the organisers prior knowledge – not very linked to the environmental theme...but what the heck!)

So after the event I went about trying to make sure that the campaign would be continued (with not much success I believe). I was a little disappointed overall with how the organisation functions in regards to management and everyday work that the workers are meant to carry out. A lot of projects aren’t well planned and are rushed together with little ongoing input. It seems a little tokenistic, a way to say that they have worked on e.g. capacitating women in one day. But, I do believe that CAM has a lot of potential and is well placed to make sustainable change in communities. They have lots of contacts and are close to the grassroots and the coordinator has a lot of knowledge. Little by little changes can be made.

Nest stop - San Cris, Guadelajara and then the famous DF!