Just back from a very quick trip to Mexico, where I attended the last few days of our fifth Latin America cohort’s initial training phase at the University of Guadalajara’s South Coast Campus in Autlan, Jalisco, Mexico. It’s been a long travel-filled year (I haven’t ever counted it up, but I’m sure near 60% of my time was spent on the road this year), and I was very eager to get back home and start enjoying the holidays. Apparently, though, I saved the best for last, since I got the best Christmas present ever the last night of the trip. 

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This cohort of seven women from Mexico, Honduras, Panama, and Paraguay decided to call themselves “The Gaias,” or, the Environmental Goddesses (particularly fitting, since our newest cohort of English-speaking trainees is made up of seven men who call themselves the Rare Warriors!).

During the last day and a half of their training they learned about video making from professor Oscar Carbajal. In no time flat, they produced a 9-minute video clip of their experience in Mexico. (Look for it soon on the Web site!). This was the last day of the initial phase of their training, which included a three-week module on social marketing.

That evening, after doing all kinds of nitty gritty final paperwork and course evaluations, we agreed to meet for a celebration dinner before they headed home to start planning their campaigns. Was I ever in for a great cultural treat! I soon was serenaded by a Mexican traditional “posada,” where guests sing (or, in our case, attempt to sing) back and forth sonnets in candle light about the search for a room in the manger.

[photopress:Guad_5_dancer.jpg,full,alignleft]But it didn’t stop with our dinner of fresh tamales and atole de guayaba. Out of nowhere campaign manager Elizabeth Cabrera Lopez of Paraguay, who works with Guyra Paraguay in the San Rafael forest, was standing in front of me in a stunning traditional Paraguayan dress which her mother made for her. She soon was teaching us all how to dance Paraguayan polkas (really—polkas!) to traditional harp music, and even did the Paraguayan bottle dance there in our little apartment in Mexico.

Elizabeth is interested in the connection between local artistic culture and environmental conservation. I suspect she’ll soon be making many more dresses and inspiring conservation of Paraguay’s last Atlantic forests with her beautiful dancing grace.

Thank you, Elizabeth, and all the Gaias, for the best Christmas present ever.

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