Our first field trip of the course was to visit the NGO EcoSan, an ecological sanitation project located in Tepoztlan which trains and employs local ecologists, architects and engineers to raise awareness, develop information materials and design water conservation systems throughout the country and as far as South America. This is a great example of social entrepreneurship with a social change agenda. EcoSan has close ties to Huehuecoyotl and some community members consult with them on occasion. Huehuecoyotl also serves as somewhat of a demonstration site for the water collection, conservation and reclaiming systems promoted by EcoSan. They get funding from the UN and the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment to carry ecological work in our hemisphere. Fabiola Garduño, EcoSan’s lead architect took us on a tour of the site and spike with LR students at length about their philosophy and strategies for working with rural and urban communities in Mexico. She ended her presentation at the site’s “Toilet Bowl Museum” where they have on display a number of waterless toilet bowl designs ranging from European, Eastern and Mexican models. It was an eye opener to the students.

Having covered the bulk of the theoretical and academic work for the course the students and instructors need a well deserved break. This is the time for inviting creativity and free form expression to come in. We took a short hike to Mo’s house up the street from Huehue. Mo has a long time friend of Huehuecoyotl who has traveled a similar path and often collaborates with members of our community in music making and crafts. He showed the students his workshop, where he makes a variety of drums and other musical instruments and then led us to an outdoor patio he built to lead drum circles from groups like ours. Mo explained that the drum serves as a healing element in many cultures, as it focuses the mind and causes us to stop thinking to direct our energies to the moment and to the sound and rhythm of the drum. He led us through a series of entertaining and team building exercises through drumming. Students learned rhythms, danced, sang and breathed while playing African and Caribbean patterns on their drums.

When we returned to Huehue the students begun their practice of the skills and theory they learned for group facilitation and decision making. Giovanni demonstrated how it is done by facilitating their first meeting, and soon the students got eager to do it themselves, which started a planning process for meetings and timeline for research and implementation of their project. Their research started by enacting a series of interviews with community members to get a needs assessment and identify potential options.

They also watched a video conference on women and power and hear a speech by Nobel Peace Price recipient Wangari Maatai who eloquently spoke on leadership and empowerment. This led to a rich and inspired debriefing and look at leadership using Maathai as a model.

The following day Toña, one of our community’s member who has un bound artistic abilities and creativity facilitated an art workshop to let the students discover self expression and creativity with paints, images and graphics. Some of their results will serve as inspiration for the service learning project they will develop for the community before the return home.