SchoolsEstela RomeroFebruary 14, 2021

An ancestral natural Sisterhood joining our three nations!

SchoolsEstela RomeroFebruary 14, 2021

THE VISIT

The Symbolic Migration drives down and then back up to as high as where Monarchs are overwintering in our mountain peaks, at over ten thousand feet at the “Sierra Chincua” Sanctuary!. A small group of children to families living in a very tiny village there called “Las Jaras” was waiting for us. On reaching the location, one can see the impressive altitude of the mountain chain here and tries to figure out how Monarchs, on arriving after their long journey south in the fall, locate their exact spots to land on and to spend a warm winter with us. It should be mentioned, dear friends, that besides the legendary Oyamel tree nucleolus in this region and several other facts that experts shall precise, this was, geologically speaking, an active, volcanic zone where important mineral deposits of, first and mainly, silver, then copper, also led and zinc and a worldwide known important vein of gold some 40 km further northwest, which was emptied by the beginning of the 1900’s, were formed. It seems that experts have sometime wondered whether any attraction effect here could be part of Monarchs guiding pattern during their journey south and final arrival to their ancestral Oyamel forests. The typical, tiny and cozy homes are just a picture completing the picture. There our little but wonderful group of students attending our formerly visited “Benito Juárez” elementary school were. Currently closed, this is the only school that children in this area can attend. If affordable, families shall send their children to further middle and high school studies down to Angangueo town. Many do. Very early in the morning, students will walk an average of 3 kilometer distance to reach the main road and catch the bus running down to town; at leaving school, the same routine shall bring them back home to join their family for dinner. Right now, for these elementary level students and their brothers and sisters attending middle school, and maybe a few more still trying to attend high school from Angangueo, classes through What’s App messages (available at certain open air points around) from their teachers, is not easy at all. Some attend and have the right smart device; others not. Rather, a father or a mother shall come down to town once a week to get the bunch of sets of sheets from teachers for the students to solve and bring back the following week. Many teachers drive to the far away villages to drop the printed sets; others not. The already particularly precarious conditions for our students here, have worsened while the pandemics prevails. Off we went with a brief but effective review of Monarchs’ overwintering phenomenon, occurring at only a few thousand meters from the homes of our friends today. “What are the names of our other ancestral trees besides the king of all trees, the Oyamel tree, among us?” –Estela challenged them, getting immediate response hearing every single name--: “Cedros, Encinos, Encinos-Robles, Tepozanes, Ailes, Madroños, Pinos-Ocotes…”— the students showed off responding, repeating and repeating while making sure no tree could be forgotten to mention. “Can you imagine our mountains only a couple of hundred years ago?. Look at the photo of one of a few mountains around us. How has it been changing over the years?. How do our grandparents and great-grandparents describe our rivers and forests used to be?. Is there any thing we can do?. How do trees protect us? What do they provide to us all living in the region? What can we see now?. Written information in Angangueo speaks about this area being a dark and closed forest in which riverbeds thieves and adventurers would collect some precious mineral being washed away by the heavy storms characteristic to the heavy forested area. Back then in those years and further, much further back into hundreds, thousands of years, a brown-copper-blond beaming mass, immobile when cold inside the forest and sharply buzzing when sunny, were already spending, anywhere, everywhere, winter time up here”. Your Ambassador Symbolic Monarchs are everywhere received as a special present by our children, as the Christmas card for many and the upcoming Spring announcement for many others now, which representation of Monarch butterflies makes them fully aware of the responsibility we share, obliged all of us as we are, to preserve the ancestral sisterhood with which nature has linked our three nations into the future, as long as Monarch butterflies’ habitat is conserved.