May in Mexico was really quite the amazing month. As I sit here and look back on it I want to start by just saying thank you. Thank you to all the people who spent it with me. Let's make our last month here magnificent. And thank you to my all friends in the states that gchat/fbchat with me. I can't wait to see you.
I want to make this post more picture oriented but before I make it more about the fun things I'll quickly mention that I did get mugged at the end of April and that I am thankfully not as jumpy as I have been the past few weeks. That jerk mugged me and fellow Fulbrighter, Claudia, on the way to a work dinner at 8:30 about .5 blocks from my apartment. He stole my iphone, camera, keys, credit/debit cards, school ID, Mexican ID among other things. I stopped running outside for a few weeks after that but I went for a run Sunday morning and even though I stared down every human/dog/plant that got too close, I think I'm going to head back out there permanently for my runs. Quick and hilarious song to celebrate that:
Can't nobody hold me down, oh no, I got to keep on mooooovin'
Anywho, here we go:
We (me and the lovely Sarah Hartzog) ran our first 5k in late April (the morning after the mugging to be exact). It was a blast because it was a Dia del Niño race so families came out with their kids and we get to cross if off the 2012 resolutions list. The training continues for our Reto Vikingo (Warrior Dash) in June.
This good ole group here headed to Puerto Vallarta for an amazing weekend to celebrate Victor's 24th birthday. Got some good beach time, pool partying and dancing in :)
This month has also just happened to be spectacular on the foodie development front. Here is a ceviche sampler that we had at the beach in PV
The week after Puerto Vallarta I had the workshop for FMCN in Valle de Bravo at this SPECTACULAR Spa/Resort type place called Rodavento complete with lake, cabins, pool and outstanding food.
While at the integration workshop a group of 18 of us decided to go into a Temazcal. It is essentially an indigenous sauna that is supposed to resemble a mother's womb and where you go release your toxins/impurities. To do this, first there is the sweating part but then you go around one by one and talk about the things you want to leave in the past, the things you want life to bring you and those around you, the things you are thankful for etc. I actually got pretty choked up during this..
I have a new roommate! His name is Victor and is from Brazil but then moved to New York and now is at UPenn while his family lives in Miami. Laura, Victor, Me. Argentina-Brazil-Nashville. Such an international group ;)
The Fulbright group at Kris's Bon Voyage. This is the house where I first lived when I got to DF and I'm more than thankful we had the chance to live there and weren't roaming the streets homeless.
Joe and I headed to Cuernavaca to have lunch with a chef he met on his flight to Germany last month! Words cannot explain how delicious this meal was and how beautiful Cuernavaca (the land of eternal Spring) is.
I knooow. I'm super artsy. I took this only because Joe pointed out how long it had been since we'd frolicked in real grass. This was post our romping around the yard like kids.
Joe chatting with Ms. Anita. She has had a very interesting life becoming an outstanding chef and opening restaurants in Switzerlandafter having been married to a top executive at MGM Studios in the 70's. She's met the Beatles and tons of other famous people so she had several great stories.
As I said, May was an incredible food month with the Puerto Vallarta trip and the trip to Ms. Anita's house. But it was also great in terms of meals in DF both in and out of work.
I am particularly proud of this thingy I whipped up. It's a pita pizza with hummus, broccoli, tomato, avocado, mushrooms and feta cheese :)
Sunday afternoon brunch with the boys on the rooftop
My happiness depends heavily on food intake..its a problem
Later, we went to a World Culture Fair where we ate nutella brownies, Indian wraps, cherry pie, plantains and pupusas:
Alright FINE. I didn't take this picture but I wanted to adequately portray the delightful things I ate at this fair. This was a cherry strudel pie from the Germany booth.
The El Salvador booth's menu
Making our Pupusas
I ended up working that USA booth at the World Fair the weekend afterwards and passed out American flags. The Mexicans LOVED them. I've never passed out a more popular item in my life. It was kinda exciting yet terrifying. Like if they were passing out Canadian flags anywhere in the states, would you take one
I post this because I went to a Pura Salsa concert where I got to see this guy and Oscar D'Leon live. I was quite the happy camper. Afterwards, I went to my first Mexican gay club with a couple of the FBs and it was a BLAST. This weekend coming up is the Pride Parade here in DF so more updates on my adventures to come!
Some other cool things I got to do this month include:
Celebrating Cinco de Mayo gringo style in Mexico. We went to Chili's and were aghast at the lack of food/drink specials.
Going to a circus show to watch a fellow co-worker do her Spanish web act.
My first protest! There were 10,000 Mexican youth demanding transparency from all media outlets during this years presidential election. It was covered in the Wall Street Journal.
A rooftop BBQ to celebrate Labor Day in Mexico
Taking a test
And to end off the month May, a midterm in Macro...mmmm
Soundtrack of my life these days:
This song just makes me happy and this month was just that. So happy.
So as I head into the countdown phase of my time here in Mexico, I am deep in the throws of my reflection stage and both loving and hating it. I am starting to remember all the things I love and will miss about being here and getting re-frustrated with the reasons why I simply couldn't stay any longer. I want to take this blog post to tell about my job at the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature (FMCN), to reflect on my time at work and explain how some of the issues I've had there transcend into life in Mexico overall. This will be the reflection piece where I comment on the bad things about Mexico so that I can get it out of my system, accept it for what it is, and relish the spectacular things about my life here in the remaining posts. Some of my observations will seem overly critical but they are honest and as a result of my on-going reflecting have all been turned into positives and constructive life lessons.
I. My job and lessons learned
If you go back to post 1 of this blog I listed the following as one of my goals for my time in Mexico:
Explore the inner workings of a non-profit that advocates for nature conservation in a country that has bigger problems (or maybe they're interconnected? I'll find out!)
My work here is based primarily on fundraising for FMCN's initiative to conserve the Golden Eagle; the bird on their flag and a national symbol (like the American Bald Eagle). This initiative is based on 5 pillars that range from finding corporate sponsors, to crowdfunding and creating a separate fund specifically for the Golden Eagle. I write concept notes for potential partners, I am working on creating a stronger media presence, launching a Global Giving page and have spent a couple of weeks working with the MAR Fund in whatever capacity they need. Translating, editing and writing random things in English are also part of my responsibilities.
*Before I get to the reflecting, I want to say that I love my co-workers and the work that the organization aims to do so that I don't sound like some crazed hater.*
The Golden Eagle is the most common National Animal in the world
I would say that unfortunately I have been a little bit disappointed in terms of my role as a grantee at FMCN but that overall I have learned a lot about how difficult environmental work is and how the inefficiencies that sometimes plague non-profits can ultimately be a debilitating detriment to substantial progress. What I learned about myself in this whole process is that although I like the idea of working at a non-profit, I'm a little more "corporate" than I thought. I like the structure, the expectation that you are working efficiently, the consistent feedback between manager and employee, the opportunities for growth, and the separation between the personal and professional. Granted, some of these issues are likely skewed because of Mexican culture. I'll comment on that later on in this post.
I also found out that the environment is desperate for help and that its conservation has direct social implications. Women that burn firewood to cook are killing trees but also inhaling an average of 15 cigarettes a day, the economies of fishing communities rely on the existence of certain species that are being over fished and will eventually become extinct, and species, like the Golden Eagle, are dying off partially because their habitat continues to be destroyed by livestock farmers that don't practice sustainable farming. I will never forget the direct link between the environment and people and I would actually truly enjoy working on initiatives that worked to help both.
I realized however that it really does take a passion for the work you're doing to be completely happy and that I just have a much deeper passion for social issues that arise from a lack of education, economic stability, government assistance or infrastructure.
A great video that shows the direct link between the environment and people
II. On frustrations and making lemonade
Last week, we had a integration workshop for the entire office in Valle de Bravo. I'm going to use some of what happened at this workshop to exemplify some of my difficulties with working in Mexico. These issues transcend into life in general here so I'll comment on that and then finally explain how all these "bad" things have really helped me out.
So we had this workshop that was supposed to help acquaint everyone and allow for all employees to not only learn of other's roles within Fondo but also to figure out some of the issues that face the organization and how personal development could help solve these. I am not exactly the biggest fans of development workshops simply because after having sat through many of them I feel that they fail at helping individuals work together more effectively.
It doesn't help to know that you are an ENTJ, that you would be a monkey in the animal kingdom, that 1 of your 5 strengths is "adaptability" or that in a word cloud of words that describe you the biggest one is "practical" if you are not going to take advantage of the lessons provided by these self-help surveys and integrate them into your lifestyle and your work with others.
I only highlight that sentence because I like it. Yes, I do think I'm clever. Sorry for the irrelevant aside.
Anywho, at this workshop we learned that based on a survey of all FMCN employees, the biggest issues the organization faced were:
Structures and Procedures
Conflict Management
The survey also showed that employees believed that their motivation to be productive was low, the level of clarity about their role was low and their desire to be working at Fondo in the long term was low. I believe that this stems from the way that the organization is set up. Fondo has one general director ("CEO") without whom the organization would collapse and leave the conservation of nature to the wind. He is 58 so it would make sense that at some point, a leadership training program would be implemented to ensure that in case he wants to retire (or you know, on the off chance that he get run over by a semi truck), the conserving continues. But no. They'll just take their chances I guess. Anywho, having only one "main boss" means that there is no opportunity for promotion or leadership development and since there is little clarity within roles, people get really good at doing a multitude of random things within a region (forests, wildlife reserves, reefs, oceans) and then leave.
Based on my calculations 25% of the people at this workshop were new and had not been at last year's workshop. It probably doesn't need to be said but I'm gonna say it anyway: that is simply a ludicrous turnover rate.
Having all of this information presented to us was helpful because I could finally see that my frustrations were not isolated and unwarranted. I have had very little clarity about the objectives of my work, how to measure progress and little organizational support and mentorship. If I had been sent the survey (which I wasn't and displays the 'structures and procedures' problem employees mentioned), I would have to agree with all the things that were highlighted as issues.
Just a picture I stole from FB to show that I'm all smiles still :)
On a more interpersonal level, one of the things that I have struggled with both at work and out is the inability for many Mexicans to just shoot it straight . Mexicans do not like to say "no" or anything that they believe you won't want to hear and although you may think this is a nice way of sparing feelings, it is actually one of the main reasons I believe working and living here is so inefficient.
For example, in packing for this workshop, the instructions we received were:
"Bring clothes you can get wet because you might get wet"
Okay. Cool. Any rational human would think okay, well you probably mean flip-flops, maybe shorts or something because we're gonna be playing with water guns or water balloons or maybe canoeing. The assignment upon arrival was to build a makeshift boat out of rope, 4 sticks and 4 inner-tubes and to float your group of about 12 across the lake in turns. WHAT IN THE #!$?@*.
If you know me, you probably already know the face I made when I saw that. You MIGHT get wet? Of, effing, course you're going to get wet! And that right there is exactly what I mean. There was a slight fear that people wouldn't like hearing that they were going to get soaked so instead we were told that the chance of us getting wet was minimal even though in reality it was near certain. It was clearly not a big deal and ended up being a blast but the point is basically that I am excited to go back to people who just say what they mean and mean what they say. I am an adult. You are an adult. Let's cut the crap.
This cutting the crap thing is also applicable to asking for feedback and constructive criticism. Those concepts here are virtually non-existent. I am beyond ecstatic to get some on a consistent basis starting soon.
Our raft was even jankier than this
As I said, this inefficiency is clear at work but can truly be seen in essentially every transaction in Mexico. Most recently this became evident when I got mugged and despite the cop's advice, didn't file a report simply because I knew that I would never see my stuff again regardless. In the bag I got stolen, I had my official Mexican ID. It's been 3 weeks since the mugging and we still haven't even gotten close to getting a new one because there is a ridiculous, bureaucratic and undeniably ineffective system to get a new one that I am sure will conclude the day before I leave Mexico.
I've mentioned a few of these inefficiencies in posts before. We've got the unbearable crowding on the MetroBus, the lack of potable water, the fact that you run out of gas at the most inopportune time every 1.5 months and then have to practically beg a gas company to come fill it up ASAP, the preference businesses have for cash payments, the inability to get change when you pay with said cash, the lack of Greek yogurt etc. Yes, I said it. Mexicans LOVE yogurt. There are 30 brands of yogurt at the supermarket. No Greek yogurt. #vandygirlproblems
Now to the good stuff: Lemonada 1.
One of the interesting things I kept hearing during the workshop was how much "passion" influenced the chaos and the under-developed ideas tossed around at FMCN. I got to thinking about the role that passion plays in an organization where there is a deep commitment to the work being done. I decided that to promote environmental conservation or social change or any other good thing in the world, passion is necessary. Passion however, does NOT excuse inefficiency since in order to implement effective, sustainable and financially sound initiatives it is fundamental that a lot of time and effort be put into the research, analysis, development and implementation of these ideas. You can walk into any kindergarten class and get 100 ideas on how to save the world. It takes more than passion to actually do it.
It is a lesson learned the hard way but that will never be forgotten.
Lemonada 2. I realized that learning what you like is as important as learning what you don't like and that seeing the inefficiencies and opportunities for growth at Fondo will eventually be as helpful as seeing how a well-structured company operates.
Lemonada 3
It is essential that if things out of your control are inefficient, that you are not. I have learned that in the real world, your life is not scheduled out into classes and extra-curricular activities the way it was in college so it is even more important to be as productive as possible with the time available. I've been watching Ted Talks, Kahn Academy lessons and documentaries, reading, training for a warrior dash, studying for my Macro-economics class, traveling, reflecting, learning to cook, blogging etc.
Living in Mexico has its problems but Life is good. Sound track time:
