Okay, so this relatively mellow week back at the office went by without taking the time to write about last week. This is unfortunate, as I'm leaving Sunday for Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, where the GEO Mexico Editorial Meeting is being held, and I'm expecting yet another note-worthy non-stop week. Sunday to Sunday. Wondering when I'm actually going to get some weekends to do some "real" traveling!!

Anyways, I'm going to point-form the stuff I wanted to write about from last week for future reference:

-All the amazing GEO participants: Elena, Osmond, Camila, Kenneth, Edel, Rolando, Rafael, Jorge, Israel, Anguie, German, Ennio, Cesar, Mariela, Greses, Juancho, Angela, Lilian, & Jose (& staff, too!: Claudia, Sonia, Lorena, etc., and those crazy PRESERVAMB folks like Lola & Jesus & Susana & Rodrigo & Fernando!) [sorry if I forgot anyone!]

- Conversations, shared meals, spirited bus rides, silly dancing & singing in the rain, hard work, visits to cool places...

-Night walks through the monastary (including the underground "catacombas") and the surrounding forests at Disierto de los Leones, including in-character story-telling by Brother Caramelo and La Marguerita (is that the name of the Dia de los Muertes woman?)

-Building our alter of offerings for Dia de los Muertes

-Visits to Xochilmilco (tequila, tamales, & quesadillas in river boats, including a mid-water Dia de los Muertes show); Garibaldi (serenaded by the mariachis et al.); UNAM (to see the competition of offering displays); Teotihuacan (to climb pyramids and be sold lots of things to many vendors, all of whom had, oddly enough, seemed to wait for us to arrive to make their first sale of the day ;)); Coyoacan, etc.

-The challenges of translation (both for Angela & Osmond, and myself). Being saved many times by those able to interpret my "caras" of (mis-)understanding!

-Politics (i.e., the issues involved with my being the only "Northerner" at a conference for youth from the Latin America & Caribbean region)

-Planned vacations!



Totally unrelated, but worth putting down, reagrding the health hazards of living in D.F., a co-worker yesterday mentionned she suspects her "benign" brain tumor may have been a result of the toxicity in the city...


[photo: GEO for Youth LAC participants encouraging me to eat a worm in the bosque (forest) at Desierto de los Leones as we paused during a nature-walk to examine the soil.]