Record of Event - Inauguration
Where: Community House in Palencia – 1hr north of Dolores Hidalgo,
When: 11th Feb 2011 12midday start (left SMA at 9am), event finished 3.10 (back in SMA5pm)
Who: Chela, Benigno, Saul – Cedesa, Laura (& my son Abe), Doris, Maureen – Rotary, 33 adults (incl 4 man) many kids!
Purpose:
Take visiting Rotarians to attend the inauguration & view some of the completed cisterns.
The trip there:
We first visited the current project in Vivienda Urbana & took some photos of the completed cistern, as this is the final day of the pilot. Collected Saul & drove to pick up Humberto, he must have misunderstood our intentions as he was in San Miguel for the day. We continued & drove to Cedesa.
We collected Benigno & Chela at Cedesa & headed for Palencia…
We arrived late at 12midday.
The people were ready in the salon waiting for us.
The welcome & program began immediately.
There were many speeches including the history of the working relationship between Cedesa & this community, ie more than 20 years working together to resolve issues of necessity as determined by the community.
Chela spoke a little about the project, & asked me to speak, I spoke & one of the men spoke English so interpreted for me (whew!). I congratulated them on their achievements, both past & present, & spoke of the pride Rotary (including our absent Tallahassee friends) have in their accomplishments.
Chela held a mini workshop with the kids, the theme was natural resources, she asked them to all run outside & in 2 minutes return with an example of a natural resource. They stampeded out the door & we thought they might just keep running, but back they came with hands full of leaves, branches, dirt, a can of water, flowers from the cactus, rocks…
She separated them into like resources & then engaged the kids in Q&A about natural resources, whether each object was, or how it was, & the need for conservation etc.
The kids were very animated & one in particular showed not only interest but lots of knowledge on the topic. They all enjoyed it!
Next the kids rushed off into the corner with their mums & returned dressed ready to do a dance for us… Mexican line dancing, best describes it, very cute with kids so young, some keen others reluctant but all participating…
Back they ran to the corner & came back this time (boys & girls) dressed in masks with walking sticks, as old men… they did an hilarious dance bent over, mimicking old men, going round in circles, with a dog joining in! & it ended with them all bunching together & falling over! We laughed so hard we had tears, & Maureen said she felt well mimicked…
Again they retreated to the far corner & this time the mothers came out dressed up, one large mum came dressed as a baby with a big babies bottle filled with brown liquid, it took us a while to work out what was going on, but basically it was a pantomime about the history of the water, going from germy water to well water, then discovering it had fluoride & arsenic & ending up at cisterns… interspersed with songs about germs & water etc… Very funny, & we had never seen adults performing before so extra special planning had gone into this!
A few more speeches & heart felt teary thank you’s directed at the visiting Rotarians & Cedesa…
Then they asked if there was a possibility of a 2nd phase in Palencia as there are many more families who need water… I said for them to get their list of names together & present them to us & we’ll see… I mentioned the project needs to be for a minimum of 20 cisterns.
Food came next, a special treat, plates of carnitas, nopal, red rice, & tortillas, washed down with pineapple flavoured water…
We were so full we were reluctant to follow the next part of the program, we headed to the primary school, it was a very hot day & super dusty, people offered to carry the bags of Doris & Maureen. Next we went to 4 other cisterns & ended up back at the salon, in the shade for a Q&A session.
The overwhelming feeling was one of gratitude for the assistance we had given them to solve their own issue. The possibility of a 2nd phase was raised again & I said there was no way we could promise anything but to submit the request & we would take it from there.
Cedesa will be visiting on following Tuesday to do a diagnostics /needs analysis, to determine what they wish to work on next, traspatios (back yard production), health workshops etc.
We climbed back in the Van & headed home… Dropping Chela & Benigno at Cedesa, Saul at the turnoff & the Rotarians back home…
Gracias a todos!!
Then end of a successful project, thank you to all concerned!!
Photos can be seen on the blog www.02h2o.blogspot.com under the label Palencia.
