SchoolsEstela RomeroFebruary 18, 2020

"Tierra y Libertad"

SchoolsEstela RomeroFebruary 18, 2020

SCHOOL VISIT

Dear friends, as you will see in the first images attached to this post in our visit to our school today, “Tierra y Libertad” elementary, we can show you how our typical coldest days in winter time for us look like. Anytime, we would have been waiting for snow, which finally did not happen these days, but could happen until next early march when finally our very short, warm, efimerous winter time shall be over. For a whole couple of weeks, we had rather cold days, rain, fog and frost. Our temperatures can go from 8-10 Centigrades to 2-4 in town, but as we go higher in altitude to either of the Sanctuaries, temperatures could be from Zero, down to -2, -4, … rarely, very rarely colder than that. Well, when it cools down this way in our region, many children may not attend regular classes at school. Even though we are used to our cold weather with no heating at schools or at work, but only at our homes with wooden stoves or our very rudimentary, traditional coal heaters, many children simply do not attend classes during these days, and families choose to stay at home; our little homes in the tiny villages (communities, or ranchos as we call them), are most typically one-storied built, consisting on the warm kitchen, two to three bedrooms at the most, and our restroom facilities mostly are out and across our courtyard. No living room is part of our homes. This would mean having a second wooden or coal heater there for us to stay comfortable and warm. That is for us not practical and convenient. Our meeting point, where wonderful stories, anecdotes, learning and talking, decisions and big news on the family and the community are shared, is the kitchen, and we all share around our table every day, morning, afternoon and evening, while our moms and grandmas’ cook delicious hot meals and drinks for the rest of the family all day long to keep us warm. Mexican kitchens are indeed, the point where the tradition and culture of our Mexican families are inherited from generation to generation since ancestral times. Today has been one of those days, and children at the “Tierra and Libertad” elementary only attended classes to impatiently wait for their Ambassador Monarchs being announced to arrive!. HURRAAAA!!!!, they all shouted in happiness at seeing them arriving, getting their environmental lesson and getting at last their symbolic Monarchs in their little cold hands!!!. Two moms and the two teachers at the school also asked to participate in the lesson, wrote their letters, and… received their ambassador Monarchs, since they value our visit so much and said “we wish that the program could visit us at home, at our community assemblies, so that our husbands, our fathers, brothers, sons, would listen how important and valuable our locations are for the world; thank you for visiting our children these couple of years; you are always welcome!”. That mothers specially were so enthusiastically attending and participating, is something exceptional and unvaluable.