Early site 2: horseback riding, visiting friends

Cabalgata - A cabalgata is a horse back ride and a party in one! Usually to celebrate a patron saint, they ride from one town to another, and in the destination there is a ton of food, live music, and traditional dances. I celebrated El Día de La Santa Flor (if I remembered correctly) or day of the holy flower. Here are two videos from the day.

I taught about ecosystems and natural phenomenona in the elementary school. The images on the right are of a parade that the kids did a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the Mexican Revolution on November 20th. On the left is an activity that we did in class, the kids all wrote about different ecosystems.

Reunion Ejidal - Essentially this is a meeting with the local government that happens once every month. I introduced myself and explained to them what the Peace Corps is. Some people were asleep within the first 6 seconds of my presentation and I honestly found that rather amusing. They were already exhausted after being there the whole day, I arrived around the halfway mark so I didn't take it personally. A couple of hours of slow bureaucratic work that I could hardly understand later, I was falling asleep too!

Community clean up with another Peace Corps volunteer - Jordan is a PCV that lives about 40 minutes to an hour from where I do that's already been here in Mexico for just over one year. She had a community clean up at her site and invited the other volunteers in the area so I went to help out. She told me it would be 8 am - 1pm, I arrived at 10 am and they had already finished! As if I had planned for it, I arrived in time to be in the pictures and the party afterwards! They still put me at the table with important people who gave speeches afterward in front of everyone, just for being part of the same organization! I call that being at the right place at the right time. Afterwards, I went with representatives from the SEMARNAT (my bosses from the Mexican government) and the owner of the UMA, aka area for resources management, called Casa de Cactus to see her amazing collection of cactus among other things. It was truly a beautiful area with really cool cacti and a great way to get to know my boss a little more.

Tequisquiapan for a birthday party - I went to Tequisquiapan, a town about an hour away where my to PCV friends live, Marissa and Blake to celebrate Marissa's birthday. Mischell, Marissa's friend from Querétaro City came too. We had a really nice day. Marissa love fruit and nature so we went a frutería to buy some weird fruits we had never tried before and eat them by a nearby river. It was really nice, we were calling it a spiritual moment. Then we got these drinks pictured below called cantaritos which is Tequila and orange juice and a soda. I don't remember exactly what they are but they were really good.

That's all for this post. What craaaaazy adventures await me in the next one? Stay tuned to find out.