I had the good fortune of spending the US Thanksgiving
Holiday working with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria in a community in the Sierra
Sur region of Oaxaca. It was the first time Puente had given a
plactica (educational talk) in San Ildefonso Amatlan and by all accounts it was
a great success. As a result, Puente
plans to work with San Ildefonso Amatlan during the 2008 calendar and I hope to
place AMIGOS volunt![]()
eers there for the summer as well.
Puente Health Promoters Hitzel and Liliana and I left Oaxaca City
at 6 a.m. in a Puente vocho (VW bug) filled with amaranth products, plactica
materials, and kitchen utensils for the day’s visit. The drive was beautiful—taking us through Oaxaca’s high desert filled with a variety of cacti,
passed foot hills and small towns including San Antonino Castillo Velasquez (my
AMIGOS community from 1998 when I was a veteran volunteer in Oaxaca).
Along the way Hitzel and Liliana and I talked about the plactica we
would give to the “padres de la familia” in San Ildefonso Amatlan as well as
other things like Lila Downs’ recent concert in Oaxaca City.
When we arrived to San Ildefonso Amatlan we were met by the
supervisor of Accion Comunitaria, a municipal organization that helped organize
our visit. After inviting us for coffee
and pan dulce (sweet bread) at a local home, we were introduced to the
Autoridades (local authorities) and taken to the large municipal meeting space
where the “padres de familias” (parents of families) were arriving to work with
us for the day. Soon, everyone had been
given a red baseball cap and camisa (shirt) to promote Accion Comunitaria’s
current campagn of healthy eating. After
formal introductions by the Autoridades, Liliana and Hitzel began their
plactica introducing Puente a la Salud Comunitaria and the use of amaranth to
the community members.
Liliana and Hitzel gave a wonderful plactica which included
breaking the participants up into 4 groups and drawing what they imagined an
amaranth plant to look like. The women
especially seemed to really enjoy this activity and then Liliana facilitated a
discussion about what nutritional properties were contained within the leaves
and seeds of the amaranth plant. The
history of amaranth in Oaxaca
was also given—the fact that amaranth was once a mainstay of the Oaxacan diet
before the Spanish conquest and that over time the tradition has been lost.
What impressed me the most about San Ildefonso Amatlan was
the high amount of enthusiasm in which we were received by the community
members and the obvious effort they had made in organizing our visit. Not only were the mothers of the families present
and participating but also the fathers of the families. Once the plactica had been given everyone
joined in to help prepare the comida (meal) in the municipal kitchen. We prepared rice, huevos a la Mexican
(scrambled eggs with tomato and chiles), chocolate (hot chocolate), and
alegrias (a local tradition of popped amaranth and molasses in a bar). Each item that was cooked included amaranth
in various forms. Everyone had a great
time and we all enjoyed eating together our amaranth rich meal!
After our meal the large group of about 40 community members
and their children walked to the local health clinic.
There, Hitzel and Liliana did an activity about how to plant and take care
of amaranth plants. We then did a sample
planting in a plot within the health clinic grounds.
As the day wrapped up I really couldn’t imagine being
anywhere else for Thanksgiving. I felt
so blessed to be able to spend the day with the residents of San Ildefonso
Amatlan and to work with Liliana and Hitzel from Puente. For a day that is meant for us to give
thanks, I had a lot to be thankful for—this opportunity to work for AMIGOS
again, to learn new things from our partner agencies, to be around the incredibly
generous and loving Oaxacan people and to appreciate their culture. This was truly a beautiful day and one that I
will always remember.
The local authorities and our Puente Team at day's end.
The drive home...a beautiful day.