Oxfam Canada's Fair Trade Working Group is collecting "signatures" for their online petition asking the Second Cup, Canada's largest gourmet coffee retailer SECOND CUP, to serve/sell certified Fair Trade coffee in their cafes.

They are collecting signatures until the end of May 2004, when they will send the petition to Second Cup for consideration. If you choose, you can hide your e-mail address (even from the petition author), so no need to worry about being spammed!

To sign (and learn more!), go to:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FTT1/petition.html

[Picture of a Guatemalan coffee farmer in San Pedro on Lago Atitlan, taken in December. Larger context (including the lake in the background) can be found below under the 2003-12-24 15:08:50 entry!]

is that you learn from your experiences, right?

This has been one of the most (if not THE most) challenging experiences of my life. People & politics can be difficult to juggle.

For mom, and interested others, just changed my return flight. Current itinerary is:

Mon, Feb 16: AMERICAN AIRLINES, AA 2114
From: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (MEX) Departs: 7:40am To: MIAMI INTERNTNL, FL (MIA) Arrives: 11:40am Aircraft: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE JET Mileage: 1273 Flight Time: 3 hours and 0 minutes

Mon, Feb 16: AMERICAN AIRLINES, AA 0869
From: MIAMI INTERNTNL, FL (MIA) Departs: 1:25pm To: SAN JUAN PR, PUERTO RICO (SJU) Arrives: 5:03pm
Aircraft: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE JET Mileage: 1042 Flight Time: 2 hours and 38 minutes

Mon, Feb 16: AMERICAN AIRLINES, AA 5430
Operated by AMERICAN EAGLE/EXECUTIVE
From: SAN JUAN PR, PUERTO RICO (SJU) Departs: 9:45pm
Departure Terminal: TERMINAL D To: ST LUCIA SLU, ST LUCIA (SLU) Arrives: 11:46pm
Aircraft: ATR TURBOPROP TURBOPROP Mileage: 463 Flight Time: 2 hours and 1 minutes

Sun, Feb 22: AMERICAN AIRLINES, AA 5245 Operated by AMERICAN EAGLE/EXECUTIVE From: ST LUCIA SLU, ST LUCIA (SLU) Departs: 6:30am To: SAN JUAN PR, PUERTO RICO (SJU) Arrives: 8:38am
Aircraft: ATR TURBOPROP TURBOPROP Mileage: 463 Flight Time: 2 hours and 8 minutes

Sun, Feb 22: AMERICAN AIRLINES, AA 0297
From: SAN JUAN PR, PUERTO RICO (SJU) Departs: 9:46am
Departure Terminal: TERMINAL D To: MIAMI INTERNTNL, FL (MIA) Arrives: 11:31am
Aircraft: BOEING 767 JET Mileage:1042 Flight Time: 2 hours and 45 minutes

Sun, Feb 22: AMERICAN AIRLINES, AA 2177
From: MIAMI INTERNTNL, FL (MIA) Departs: 1:30pm
To: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (MEX) Arrives: 4:05pm
Aircraft: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE JET Mileage: 1273
Flight Time: 3 hours and 35 minutes

That makes for over 30 transit hours and 5556 miles in one week. Wow. I changed the flight so I could take Saturday to check out St. Lucia - on my own time/$, since I imagine the remainder will be somewhat reminiscent of the GEO Juvenil Mexico meeting, in terms of not seeing much aside from work spaces, sleep spaces (http://www.glencastleresort.net) and food spaces :)

Anyways, things are starting to come together, at least from my end... Got the presentations looking decent and starting to get my confidence up - despite the fact that I just spoke to Osmond in Barbados and he emphasized how important my (UNEP's) comments at the press conference would be... EEK - Wish me luck!!

1) I have officially been offered (and have happily accepted!) an additional two-month contract with UNEP-ROLAC/PNUMA-ORALC, which means I will not be returning to Winnipeg to attend the IISD YCLSF debriefing session in March.

2) I will be travelling to St. Lucia next week to attend the Planning and Implementation Meeting of the Global Environmental Outlook for Youth in the Caribbean project as the UNEP-ROLAC representative.

Aside from being slightly overwhelmed (I mean, I will be coordinating a international meeting in a country I've never been to, acting as the one and only UN representative for a region to which I don’t even really belong!), I am feeling quite relieved to have been exempted from Canadian Winter 2004 and to not have to focus too hard on planning out the rest of my future quite yet.

Anyhoo, lots to do to prepare, so more another time!

[Photo of La Peña de Bernal accompanies Querétaro entry below!]

TO FILL THE REST IN LATER (we're being booted off the network at the office!) Spent the weekend with Yovana Julieta (she prefers the latter, but everyone calls her by the former) in Querétaro. Nice town, and with a higher concentration of colonial churches than I thought possible. I swear, they've got the sinners covered... Since her mom died, she and her father lunch daily at a little vegetarian restaurant - as a result, I finally got a taste of some of the Mexican specialties I've been longing for since my arrival (albeit made of soya rather than carne)

The murals on the colonial buildings in Morelia are no less than amazing. Exploring the ancient city Saturday with Lucía, my fabulous personal tour guide (who, when not acting as guía extraordinaire, also doubles as university student and GEO Juvenil Michoacán coordinator), I took in the world-famous "dulce" market, craft vendors, incredible baroque architecture, and lots of yummy enchiladas/sopes/tostadas/ate/poztole/elote/etc. Stayed in Lucía's family's lovely home, where I was warmly welcomed and enchanted by all the wood details - doors, stairs, furniture, and other fixin's (the state of Michoacán is known for its copper and wood products, as well as beautifully painted decorative plates and boxes). Turns out Lucía's oldest brother (the only one I somehow didn't end up meeting) is an artisan who makes paper mâché beads and boxes. Sol, Lucía's younger sister, presented me with three necklaces from which I was to choose one to possess. Honoured, I picked the light blue, a colour that doesn't tend to suit me; the painted images - a golden happy sun with stars on the reverse - were too much to resist.

Saturday night, we wandered past this huge pink house called la Casa de la Calzada, which Lucía explained used to be abandoned and scary and ugly before it was bought and fixed up by a rich family. She didn't know much more. Peering through the open windows revealed an impressive display of all sorts of art and artefacts, set up explicitly to give glimpses to passers-by. We chatted with some fellow wanderers, who were delighted by my Canadian-ness and took my e-mail address. Then, just as we were readying ourselves to leave, the two of us passed by an open doorway, and somehow started conversing with the people there, resulting in an invitation to actually go in and visit the legendary museum (which, as we learned, is in fact a store) the following day - like, inside!!

Sunday, February 1, Lucía & I headed to Pátzcuaro to check out the Fuego Nuevo celebrations in honour of the Purépecha New Year. Estimates placed more than five thousand Purépecha representatives in the town, where the church-front stage and surroundings were alit with colourful dress and excitement. Indigenous culture and traditions appeared in performance, sport, music, language, and play. Goodies being thrown into outstretched arms inspired me to pass off my camera (which I'd decided was worth the risk to take out for the weekend, despite its injury) and join the crowd in frantic attempts to catch one of the ribboned sombreros, traditionally used in the dance of the old, soaring above our heads. Alas, I didn't catch one, and the bread I snagged later on didn't quite make up for that earlier bajon - I really, really wanted to win a souvenir Fuego Nuevo sombrero (like I’m already not going to have transportation issues getting my stuff back to Canada ;))! Tamales and fruit and dried blue corn kernels also flew, and free food was served all day, but my post-amoeba consciousness just couldn't justify the risk. Got back to Morelia just in time to go to the surprise serenada in honour of Lucía's grandparents' wedding anniversary, where the hired quartet began its set in the street before the house was opened up and we were all (me and the whole, huge family - their 9? children, grandchildren, etc.) invited in.

Since we didn’t go to the pink mansion as per the invitation on Sunday, and weren't able to reach Yuri (the store manager) by phone Monday morning, we pretty much gave up on the idea. We stopped into the candy factory and I bought some ate (natural fruit candy typical of the region) for the folks at the office, went home for lunch, and headed downtown, where we ate nieve (otherwise known as ice cream, and also quite famous - in fact the most popular ice cream chain in Mexico is named for the region). On our way back to the house, we again passed la Casa de la Calzada, and it so happened that Yuri was there. We turned down his offer of cookies, but happily accepted the chance to take a gander (got lots of pics!)…

Rushed back to the house, already an hour after my original departure time… Lucía's mom actually shed tears over my leaving, insisting on gifting me with more jewellery and snacks for the road. I didn't want to go yet (apparently a motif to my travels), but it was almost 7pm, and el D.F. is 4 hours away from Morelia on the fastest express buses, and arriving in the city after midnight alone is not a happy prospect. Lucía's dad drove us to the Central de autobus, and on the way I rescued a cute lil’ inch-worm stranded inside the car.

On the bus, they showed 2 reasonably bad movies. Can't remember the first, but think the second was possibly Canadian ("Cause of Death" perhaps?). Arrived safely at home via metro and micro (don’t know if I’m getting more street-smart or stupider to be taking public transit so late), and was very content to be asleep soon thereafter.

For Spanish info on la celebración del Fuego Nuevo o Año Nuevo Purépecha, see:
http://www.turismomichoacan.gob.mx/img_secciones/noti_2.htm