SchoolsEstela RomeroJanuary 25, 2022For hundrecds, For hundreds

For hundreds, maybe thousands of years?

SchoolsEstela RomeroJanuary 25, 2022For hundrecds, For hundreds

THE STORY

“OCTAVIO PAZ” MIDDLE SCHOOL

“PALO AMARILLO” COMMUNITY

“SAN JOSÉ DEL RINCÓN” MUNICIPALITY (COUNTY)

STATE OF MÉXICO

“SIERRA CHINCUA” SANCTUARY

COORDINATES: 19.6598890 -100.2245818

Dear Symbolic Migration participants,

We are at only a few school visits from completing our tour around the surroundings of the “Sierra Chincua” Sanctuary. Once again we reiterate the importance of visiting a few middle and even high schools where students belong to Ejidatario families. These families have, for generations, guarded extremely important Oyamel forest extensions, keeping pristine conditions for the local ecosystem’s equilibrium.

The lesson on “The Importance of Trees” was taught by Estela as a lecture. Teachers requested this, due to the importance of marking several aspects and important information within the contents.

ESTELA: “Could you guess for how long our mountains and forests existed?”

STUDENTS: “Five hundred years! One thousand years! Eight hundred years!” …they responded.

E: “Scientists calculate that the formation of our mountains could be as old as when the last glacier melted, which translates to over ten thousand years! No one knows when our forests formed or when monarch butterflies appeared and decided to hibernate here.“

S: “No, so so long our mountains and forests have existed? Oh my, why didn’t our parents and grandparents not share such information earlier in our lives? Wow, to have known this before! We are so unique as the map on vegetation for our country shows nowadays!”

E: “Oyamels, Cedars, Pines, Oaks, Ailes, Madroños, Tepozanes” Those are the main forest contents in our mountains. Oyamel trees, of course, are the most exceptional and the favorite of monarchs”.

E: “Trees, underbrush, mushrooms, soil,… These all act like a giant sponge retaining water, minerals, salts,… invaluable to monarchs and other plant and animal species which form this ecosystem!”

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SCHOOL TEACHERS: “Even though the use of technology in our small mountain communities is still incipient, the jump of our current generations into technology (Everyone nowadays has smartphones of all kinds and capacities.) has put into high risk the permanency of our ancestral mother languages, culture, traditions and our cosmovision of human life and its sacred connection to nature.”

“Thanks to the Symbolic Migration program for the visit every year and for supporting us in this great commitment to rescuing these aspects of our students with your lessons and your invaluable book donations.”

Teachers at schools strive to make our youth distinguish between technology as the great opportunity to step into further knowledge in sciences, arts, without losing sight of ancestral heritage.

Your beautiful and descriptive Ambassadors were warmly welcomed at this important middle school, reinforcing a sense of uniqueness and love for nature in these students.