More photos here!

In December, I returned back to Singapore and then almost immediately straight on to Chiang, Rai, Thailand. I’m sure you all know that I’ve been working in Thailand for about 10 years now and after living and experiencing the power to relación tutora here in some of the toughest communities in México, I wanted to bring it back to my region.

For me, for the first time in about 10 years in Chiang Rai, I really felt we did something special in both Blessing Home and in Negseduak, something we can continue, something we can keep building up as we build ourselves up.

December 12, 2011, we began a network of tutors through a teaching method called relación tutora or check here in 1) a village hill tribe community and 2) Blessing Home, a youth hostel for mainly Lahu students who had come from various villages to the city center to study.

You see, there were so many challenges against us and at times I’d think of all the reasons why it would fail. There was no teacher in the village, and yes- it’s a village, not a school – so we would be going into people’s homes and trying to create a red de tutoría (network of tutors) there. Second, time as it always is, was against us. Many students work on Saturdays and we literally only had Sundays to count on to be sure there would be people in the village. During the week, the students would only come home at 5pm and we would be clothed in pitch darkness at 6pm as there was no electricity in the village, and no more tutoría could happen after 6pm. Almost none of us (except for 3 university students and another local Thai from Bangkok) were fluent in Thai, the team was new and this was the first time we would come together, we wanted to create a English program where students would learn to speak, listen, read and improve their vocabulary, but above all, speak. And in tutoría now, speaking a foreign language has been the most difficult to train. Furthermore, English while taught in school uses an alphabet completely different from Thai. When in Spanish it’s easy to decode words and figure out cognates of large words, it’s a completely different system in Thai. And to me the biggest challenge was for the students to see themselves as teachers, it goes so against Thai/ Asian culture where all we are taught is to absorb and we are in no place to teach. I’d thought getting over this hurdle would be the hardest. I was so worried that the kids wouldn’t want to teach, would feel too shy etc. But shame on me, and was I in for a shock because I had met on this trip some of the most creative and innovative teachers.

I just needed to believe.

We began on Sunday with a whole day with the kids. We started with an ice-breaker and then asked the kids to choose the listening activity or adjectives and Jamorn, Jap and I worked with one secondary student each. That day, we worked 3 hours in the village and had to completely modify our lessons on the spot. Some students had such a low level of English that we really had to start from scratch. We had to think of activities that would engage the students and be at a level where student could really understand and apply what they have learned. So each day, we would prepare for lessons in the morning and in the afternoon, drive up to the village by 3pm to work on painting the new sports court or build a small library and then at 5pm or 5.15pm, we would begin our lessons. What was most astonishing was that even after a long long day of school, even as the days went by, the students would still run up to the team at 5pm each day, with notebook and pen in hand, ready to begin their tutoría. In fact, as the days went on, the students took less and less time to change out of their school uniform to come and join us. I don’t even think I would change quickly to do more learning after school. Something different was in the air.

You could see a change in how they viewed learning. My absolute favorite part was our last day in the Negseduak village and at Blessing Home. That was when they tutees became the tutors. At Blessing Home the kids paired up and began tutoring each other, using the same styles, the same activities that we had used with them, and they knew it by heart. They knew the content well but I was amazed at how they could really guide their tutees, and they were even better than us, and could lead their own peers to a high level of understanding and knowledge in a much shorter time than we could. A lot of it was learning vocabulary and also using our senses and actions to experience the words, it was a whole new way of learning and teaching that the team had created. And when tested, their tutees knew the content, and knew it well.

More than new English vocabulary and speaking and listening practice in English, we created a real culture of learning. Now asking questions and encouraging curiosity became a way of life. As we walked in the village, they would point out or pull out things like leaves or flowers or the table or the chicken and ask what that is in English. The kindergardeners would tug at our shirts and show us that they knew where their head was, eyes were and all the body parts they had learned the day before. And best of all, you could see them asking each other questions. There was a new faith in their people, that everyone knew a little bit, and knew something different, and that even the kindergardeners could teach a secondary student. In the village, there was one girl, Nitaya in Primary 5 who created new activities when learning adjectives she had begun tutoring two students from K2. After she was done, another boy, Witaya who was in a grade above, from the village came up to her to ask her to teach him too. With a glisten in her eyes, she proudly took him on. Each tutor had a real experience sharing that knowledge, and tasted that they could. They were driven, so driven by the opportunity to share the knowledge with their peers. And they had confidence because we really believed they could. For me, Meizhi and Bevin were exemplars of that. There was in this village, a girl named Ah choo, an 11 year old who refused to go to school at a young age and was made to take care of the peanut harvesting in the village, she would barely read or write her own name. Driven by the sheer delight of seeing another learn, Meizhi and Bevin were so patient with Ah Choo and made sure she knew various adjectives. They had the highest belief in her and by the end of it, her face shone with satisfaction as she eagerly showed me her notebook filled with new words and new knowledge.

It’s hard to measure belief but one can feel it. I saw how that made people come alive. To be honest, the first day we arrived, we were treated as outsiders- exactly what we were. And slowly the kids started to warm up to us, and still not the families yet. Then the families started staying out with us after it was dark, and then by the end of it we were eating and sleeping with the villagers, singing and dancing together. We became family.

Now our biggest challenge is to take care of the process very very carefully. We will have to keep refining our work, the temas, keep building more temas, keep building relationships, keep changing, while keeping our principles constant and our passion to learn and work, our hunger and heart constant.

And something that tutoría is about, is that, whatever we do will never be enough. But that’s good, because it shouldn’t. That keeps pushing us to innovate, improvise and keep working, keep believing in others and in ourselves.

Back in México, I feel like there’s so much more to be done, and my burden to go back is even stronger. I keep thinking of all the places in Southeast Asia I have worked in, in the school for street children in Cambodia, in another children’s shelter, in Calcutta… they people are so hungry to learn, and I feel like finally I’ve found some answers that could make create real changes in both the students and their families through relación tutora. This is just the beginning. This is where it gets exciting.

Hands in!

¡En español aquí!

I came to México excited to learn how relación tutora (or tutoring relationships) really changed people. I had heard so much about the changes in the students, in the communities and was so curious to understand how that happened. But little did I imagine how I would change too.

I changed because I saw changes in the people that I worked with, and through, not just the work, but through the way each person worked on the team.

An experience in Veracruz taught me that.

In November 2011, I had the pleasure of going back to Tehuipango, Veracruz and this time to a primary school called Lic. Adolfo López Mateos. It was a bilingual school and most, if not, all of the teachers taught in both Náhuatl and Spanish.

I came, excited to work with the teachers, but also slightly worried because the school had been resistant to the relación tutora program when we last visited. I guess schools don’t like to be labeled “insufficient” or “schools that need focused attention.” The teachers and leadership are on the defensive, and feel the authorities don’t understand their situation. Things can get tense.

During the previous visit, the teachers were talking about some of their students who had difficulty learning. Some of them were at a loss at what to do. So along with Maestra Ruth de la Cerda and Maestro Román Fuentes, an advisor with an organization, Redes de Tutoría, we came back with the promise of observing some of their students, and above all offer some suggestions and then work in tutoría, along with Maestros Sandra Ortiz and Artemio Ríos.

At the back of my mind, I always knew that tutoría changed the people it touched, but I didn’t understand how or why.

Tutoría session

But it did. On that Thursday, I had the privilege of being in tutoría with a group of 5 teachers and also have them tutor me. And through the session, something changed. Through the dialogue, and through the excitement of wanting to learn and share, the cold resistance melted away, leaving a warm and joy of sharing a profound learning experience together. We were no longer “assessor” and “assessed”, we were just learning together. That’s the power of tutoría. The work itself immediately broke the barriers between us. You enter into a different kind of relationship. You became tutor and tutee – at the same time – you were both there to learn and to share, and there was a horizontality about that. I changed too. I learned to respect the work of the teachers as they taught me Náhuatl. Their faces shone with pride. We shared “aha moments” and I saw hunger in their eyes as we figured out the area of a hexagon. And I, who always ran away from math, started to discover how intricate and interesting math really is. It took me this long, and only in México to rediscover that joy. The teachers I was working with kept thinking about how to teach in their classroom, how to ask the right questions, and how the math problem we were cracking, called “The Bikini” or how the content Román was teaching about Spanish accents could be used in their classes. There was a thirst to get better, be better and we shared that. There was something different in the air.

During our debriefing session that night, the head of indigenous primary schools, Maestra Ruth felt the same. She said, “I’m really feeling good about this primary school, even though it was tough at first.”  She then turned to me and said, “There are great teachers here, right?” They were. And it was a great pleasure and having them as my tutors.

So many try to change schools from the outside, or try to change structure that never gets down to the actual practice as Professor Richard Elmore always say, when it should be the reverse – sometimes we just need to get down to work, and let the magic happen.

Primary 1 class at Lic. Adolfo López Mateos

More pictures here!

I just came back from Tehhuipango, Orizaba, Veracruz, to a region where I marvel at the strength and determination of many of the students.

About a month ago, I spent a whole day in tutorial relationships with some students at the Escuela Secundaria Technica No. 126. We finished up just a few moments after the bell rang and one by one we parted ways. It was started to get cold and the drizzle began.

I quickly hopped into our car, thankful for the shelter and the warmth inside. As we drove out, I waved my farewells to the last of the students that trickling out of the school gate. About 30 minutes into our journey back from the Sierra to the city, I spotted two people in the distance in a café brown sweater with two orange stripes on each sleeve – the school uniform of the secundaria. As we whizzed past them, I waved, but wondered, where were they going?

Luis Avala, the technical academic advisor (or ATP for its Spanish abbreviation) for this school told me that there are some students in the school that live almost in the next state, near Puebla, and walk about an hour and a half to get to school by 7am. And it’s dangerous to be walking so early in the morning.

I shared these stories with some other enlaces, Fidel García and Juan Pedro Rosete and nodding, they told me that an hour and a half is little. In Pubela, some walk 3 or 4 hours up and down the mountains each way to get to school – both primary and secondary school students. That’s determination.

It takes a whole lot of love for school and learning to put in that much effort to get to school. I don’t know if I’d have it in me to stay in school against these odds. But these kids do. Day in and day out, with their bags filled with schoolbooks, rain or shine, they come to school, wanting to learn.

On one hand, I think of those of us who take taxis to school or are driven right to our school gate, making it to easy for us to excel in our studies. But I think those who are really cherishing their education and excelling are these kids in Tehuipango, who everyday go against the odds to learn. And on the other, the student’s brute determination reminds me that our call as educators, policy-makers, principals, teachers – all of us better make that walk worth it. Our call and our duty to these students is higher, more intense, more crucial; we have to make each day count. Otherwise we’d be letting our students down, we have to keep growing, keep learning so that they can receive the best of us.

That is why I believe the work we are doing here with EIMLE and relación tutora is so important – we’re learning to walk. We are all learning to climb the mountain of the immense challenges before us- be if parents who are illiterate, or students who are more comfortable speaking Nahuatl – to bring real quality learning to each classroom.

In schools with many students who clock the miles daily coming from one end of the mountains to the next, from teacher to ATP, our collective vision is clear: we need to do everything possible to make sure that walk is worth it.

More photos HERE!

I just visited an indigenous school called Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in Barrio las Palomas, San Miguel la Labor, Municipio San Felipe del Progreso, State of México, and did we have a party. They even called it that- una fiesta pedagógica – a pedagogical party. It sounded strange at first but I realized this must be the one of the best things ever.

Education or pedagogy is usually (at least in my culture) associated with high stress, with tough competition, or something with heavy content. We think of education policy, education reform, ministries of education with high-flying personnel- education is serious business. I hardly think of educational parties, or spaces where the community can “party” academically. Even as I’m writing this now, the phrase “academic parties” sounds slightly odd.

A team and I were at the primary school for the day, for the grand opening ceremony of the state’s very first classroom for tutoring (tutoría). The day began first with tutoring teachers from the school and the surrounding area, followed by speeches by officials and presentation by the students in the new classroom, and ended off with a tree-planting ceremony to mark a commitment of the people to nurture and grow their students. At Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, so much emphasis was placed on the celebration of education, and that meant the celebration of people. For all the academic authorities, their students were at the heart of the celebrations, and I saw that in the little things.

1) Cutting the ribbon.
During the opening ceremony, Mtro. Bernardo Váquez Irineo, the academic technical advisor for the region asked the representative of all federal primary schools in the State of México, Profra. Esperanza Elizabeth Pacheco to cut the ribbon but she said, with a big smile on her face, “No, let the children cut it. This classroom is for them.”

See the whole day here!

2) The front row.
This row is usually reserved for the fancy authorities but in their place, were the students who were both tutors and tutees. While there was still the panel of speakers, Juan Pedro Rosete, National Advisor for the Integral Strategy to Improve Academic Achievement (or EIMLE for its Spanish abbreviation), and Profra Elizabeth wanted students to be seated there. They kept reminding me- the children are the center, they should be in the spotlight.

3) Eating together.
In many of the other schools I’ve been to, I always didn’t like that I had to eat away from the children in the school. My body would be with the authorities, but my heart and mind would be outside in the yard, longing to get to know the students more. There never seems to be enough time to be with the children. But at Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the children were interwoven with the adults, with the authorities. We were eating together, and that made me and them the happiest.

When we talk about education reform, it often starts from the top-down, instead of the bottom up, and at the bottom lies the heart of education – our children, our students. As Juan Pedro noted in his speech to the group, if all the fancy things we do on the top doesn’t reach them, then what we do is useless. Often there is too much talk with big words and not enough little voices, there is too much politics and not enough parties. There is too much talk about schools being lost, and not enough talk about schools being in love with what they do.

The words we use matter. And here in México, I’m learning a new vocabulary. Instead of just implementing change, the call here is to live out the strategy. Instead of a talking about politics and trying to buy-over policy-makers who are clouded by self-interests and other big things adults talk about, we talk about getting them excited and getting them to fall in love with what can be done in schools. Instead of a competition where each student or teacher is in a race against the other, we’re creating a competition to see who can share more. In fact, just two weeks from now, we’re having a huge fiesta in the capital where representatives from every state – 2 students, 1 teacher, 1 authority and 1 parent is going to learn and share their knowledge with the other.

I believe by changing the way we think about education, we could really create a world that is more in love, with more people who live in peace and a generation that is more alive.

Here in México, the words of this song, Come Home echoes in me.
“I get lost in the beauty of everything I see,
The world ain’t half as bad as they paint it to be.”

There’s a lot of good in this world, a lot of good in México. The people here know how to be excited about education and how to celebrate it. So as laughter and claps fill the room and fistfuls of confetti are tossed into the air, as it was last week – it’s time to party.

To see more of our work and videos, visit: http://logroeducativo.wordpress.com/

Presentación al Normal

When I was in Singapore with NorthLight, Mrs Chua Yen Ching, our principal would always remind both teachers and students, “The darker the night, the brighter you shine.”

A little background on NorthLight School, to be able to enter into the school, you must have failed the PSLE exam or have had difficulty continuing onto secondary school in Singapore. And this was our message to our students who, in the highly competitive Singapore, were often labeled “failures” or “rejects of the Singapore education system.” And for all those at school, our vision was so clear and we had clear strategies to really uplift these students, and they uplifted us at the same time – that was the beauty.

I had always associated this phrase with NorthLight School. And last Wednesday, Sara and I gave a short presentation to a teacher’s training school, called a “Normal”- Normal de Santiago Tianguistenco, I was sharing about NorthLight and shared this phrase with them. I realized this phrase applied to México as well. In midst of the violence that increases everyday, in midst of the 9000 failing schools that we’re working with, in the midst of the isolation many teachers feel in the rural schools, that’s where we must shine.

There are some people, teachers, academic authorities and politicians that keep looking at the difficulties, at the challenges, and all the reasons why we cannot, why change cannot happen.  But in the dark nights, that’s where we got to ramp up our energy, reignite our spirits and shine.

I’ve been so blessed to be with this team of dreamers at EIMLE who are also clearly grounded in the reality of the dark night, but keep on dreaming, keep on fighting. It’s this team of people who really believe a change is possible, one student, one life at a time through relación tutora.

More photos HERE

I’ve always believed, no matter how broken a community is, there is beauty. I just came back from the mountains of Chihuahua, specifically Turuachi, Chihuahua with Sara and Luis Gerado and it was quite an experience. I’m not sure how I should actually think or feel about it because my emotions are still so mixed up.

The thing about the mountains in that the people there have heart. They give without expecting anything in return, and just hosting you is an absolute pleasure, an honor. They care for you like a sister, and respect you like a teacher, and laugh with you like an old friend. The people in community and also the people hosting us went beyond “taking care” of us. I want to introduce you to a few characters:

Leo, Sara, Luis Gerado, Me, Alma, Prof De La Rosa and Luz Elena (Left to right)

Profe De la rosa, he would shout “Dientes!” and run to the sink to brush his teeth after every meal. Maestra Elva from Durango who always had the wisest words of wisdom, a woman who was just interested in who you are. Maestra Luz Elena who would gather the group every night for a game of cards and always knew how to have fun. Maestra Alma from CONAFE was just a sweetheart, and who could forget Leo, the soft-spoken representative who drove us all the way from Chihuahua to Turuachi and back – the steadiest mountain driver ever. All of us, and Luis Gerado spent a good 10 hours together each way from the center of Chihuahua city to the small little Pueblo of Turuachi.

Not to mention the girls from Durango who were Nely, Nery y Reynalda who were such intelligent, thoughtful and generous young women. And each hug with them was a real hug, felt from the heart. Nery (Betzy) gave me a graph she had made from a wooden board and nails, something she had made for the tutoring session to investigate quadrants and coordinates in graphs. They gave without asking anything in return.

The girls from Durazno, Durango

The graph board

Background for what was happening in Chihuahua: I was at an “encuentro” or like an exchange program with students (Pre-school, Primary and Secondary), teachers, parents and administrators coming from two neighboring states, Chihuahua and Durango . It was hard, at first to understand what was going to happen, who was going to be there, but after talking to Profe De La Rosa and Maestra Elva, I realized that this was an event to unite communities, and help them go through time of struggle, time of change. The project was called Project of the Mountains, between 3 states: Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa, also known as the infamous “triangle.”  

I was at the purple region of chihuahua, where Sinaloa and Durango meet

The big question in the mountains, and especially this part of the mountains was of course the violence and the drug trafficking that was plaguing communities, families, homes, people. And I’d never thought I would feel the violence so close. It started off with learning about acts of injustice like Luis G’s son who was killed along the roadside 3 years ago, to learning about stories of the teachers, mainly women- one whose husband was burned to death, and the other whose husband was chopped into pieces 3 months ago. I still don’t understand why or who but I saw pain. I saw pain in the students who were living in communities that had almost no men left because of the violence, I saw pain in the women that had come as widows, I saw pain in the teachers that wanted to see change in their communities. And in this pain, I also saw the beauty of the students who really just wanted to learn, I saw the beauty of parents who took precious time off work to learn about relación tutora, I saw beauty in the leadership of the Project who wanted to motivate their teachers, students and families and really believed they could.

And I’m intrigued. Sometimes there would be a disconnect between what I was hearing and the “encuentro.” I knew that I believed that education could really change things, but how? The constant question at the back of my mind was “What is the role of what I was doing, the relación tutora in all this pain, all this suffering? Were we just doing it for ENALCE (national tests) scores? It can’t be. I threw this question at Luis Gerado and that’s when I understood more the power of relación tutora.

Luis Gerado said, “The thing about relación tutora is that is changes you as a person. It teaches people to respect, in places where there isn’t any. It’s a way of living.”

That’s it. This is why this concept of teaching is so much more than just academic learning, it’s teaching character and leadership at the same time. As a tutor, you learn what it means to learn, in all sense of the word. You learn academics, yes, but you also learn to be patient, you learn to respect, you learn to be humble, you learn to learn – and this way of learning, this way of living could save communities. And tutoring doesn’t have to be limited to math or spanish, it has been extended to history, to discussing issues of immigration to the US, to understanding what’s going on in the community and how to rise above it.  And maybe one tutoring session at a time, people regain their joy and trust and respect again, and that might be enough.

There’s still so much to be done in the sierra (the mountains) and issues of violence can’t be solved by one thing, but I do believe what we’re doing can instill some beauty back in broken communities. It can bring back a song where there’s no reason to sing. In Turuachi, I heard their voices – the voices of almost 4 generations of people from Chihuahua and Durango, singing again.

That’s The Mountain Song.

Primary school, Turuachi

Doing "tutoria" with Denise and Juan Manuel

More pictures HERE!

The first day

Let me see how I can summarize without cutting out the good parts. The first week was a whirlwind of activities. I got a phone number, shampoo, changed money.. Actually that was my first day. The second day was a lot of discovering the city center and a lot of dancing.

Retirement in Tepoztlan

Then the fun really began. On the Sunday I went to Tepoztlan and fell in love with the town. Gabriel (the guy who made all this happen basically, and the mind behind all that we are doing in Mexico) has a beautiful cottage there. He makes all his own furniture and has a million books on education and I could stay forever. I saw him and his wife there and I thought – yup, that’s how I want to retire. I also took the role of (anti)spiderwoman and tried to chase or kill the spiders out of the bedroom for Sara (the other fellow).

Schools – Giving Life

So Tepoztlan was a transit to Estado de México where all schools nationwide were just starting up after the summer. So a little background on what I’m doing here. I’m working with the Mexican ministry of education (also called la SEP: Secundaria de Educación Publico), specifically the Program to Improve Educational Achievement and this organization Conviviencia Educativa and the people here are just incredible.

They are working to change the way lessons are being conducted in the classroom with a radical shift- teaching in tutorial relationships. They started working with the worst secondary schools in the country and are currently working with 9000 “failing” schools right now and changing communities from inside the classroom, inside the school, and bringing the joy of learning back to schools. And the best part is that the basic premise of the “tutorial relationship” is that you’re creating a network of people in school.

Students are called to be part of the change, be part of the solution to their “failing communities and school.” They learn so that they can then be tutors, and the learning continues at all levels of the school.

These tutorial relationships are now a national policy that we’re working with and trying to make sure what the “tutorial relationship” is, is really happening on the ground, training teachings and students- starting the seed that germinates and empowers even more, one at a time.

At this telesecundaria (a school in rural areas of the country where students learn by “television” and one facilitator,) I got the chance to meet and interview these three girls that had gone through 2 years of the relacion tutora program. Hearing and interviewing the girls who were both tutored and tutors was inspiring. They spoke with such confidence and were poised to lead their communities. This was a rural school and without fancy technology or resources, schools were improving and giving life to communities again. It was quite a beautiful sight, a humbling experience. I had the privilege of tutoring two kids in fractions (we all know how great my math is) and in Spanish, it was hard but so much fun. (Side note: the joke now is that I have a boyfriend called Octavio because 1/8 is un octavo but I said un Octavio, and my kids burst out laughing and were like WHO IS OCTAVIO? Your boyfriend?!”)

But in essence, the tutorial relationship is based on 1) Learning what you are interested in, 2) Teaching what you know and 3) thinking about a dialogue and a process of discovery – every mistake is a part of that. I keep thinking if this could work in Singapore, where there’s a time crunch on every exam, and we got to memorize all these formulas for math, without really understanding what π  is or why Pythagoras Theorem makes sense.

Maybe that’s why so many kids have their schedules filled with tuition in Singapore. Maybe we already are doing “relacion tutoras” but paying huge bucks for it. So for those in Singapore- they are trying to create a culture of tutorials in the general classroom, as a way of teaching in the hardest to reach, most marginalized neighborhoods, to change the schools from the inside. And it’s working. The school I visited improved their national scores in just two years with this new way to teaching.

México’s Heartbeat

Before Sept 1, I had been having a tough time settling in, there was no room to breathe and I was rushing everywhere, and I felt I didn’t belong, and the area that I’m living in was a pretty fresa (posh?) area with clubs at night, but it was safe. So I kept trying to find a place to call home, instead of just being with all the extranjeros (foreigners, although they’ve been so wonderful). Remember how it didn’t really hit me that I was in Mexico? Well, it hit me LAST FRIDAY and SUNDAY. I found Mexico on the subway on day on the way to the city center a week ago and coming back from Estado de Mexico.

1) Estado de Mexico

On the drive back from the mountains, I saw these kids about 6 or 7, playing football with sheep grazing alongside and then peaking out just round the corner were taco stalls with bright colors, and Maestro Pablo said, “You see these decorations. It’s for all the fiestas. That’s the thing about Mexico- even if the people have no money, they party and celebrate life anyway.” I loved it.

2) The Metro

Mexico has a great Metro system and it’s always filled with people with crazy speaker-backpacks which blasts music all the time, as they sell CDs for $1 each with like 300 songs. It’s great. Every train has a few people who walk in and out of the different sections, selling things like flowers, lollipops, chocolate, CDs… but on Sunday there was this guy who was selling Jokebooks. He went around to each person and tell a joke and by the end of his stint, almost everyone has a smile on their face. I didn’t understand many of the jokes, but it made me smile too.

Then next came a taxi driver, who spoke with a booming voice. “I represent a bunch of taxi drivers and I’m asking for your help. The lady that usually cooks for us, her daughter got into a car accident but she has no money to buy the coffin for her daughter. So we’re banding together to buy her a coffin, and we as Mexicans can help each other. So please if you can give just a little bit, please help us.” He walked around with a plastic bag of coins he has already collected and people reached into their pockets to give small change that they had. That’s the Mexican heartbeat.

My Mexican Family 

1 September was a big day for me, and I had been so worried about finding a good place to live. But again, I honestly don’t know how God is so so good, but this place just dropped on my lap. The other people would spend weeks finding apartments, seeing like 7 or 8 places, and this was the first place I saw, and I fell in love with it. I moved in on September 1, and my Mexican mother is hilarious and so animated. My brother, Sebastian is two and looks like he came out of a cartoon. He wear these rocket shoes around the house and there are two other Mexican girls (my new roommates) who are just great. And I just came back from a bike ride with Elena (my mom) and Fernanda (one of the girls) where we took a whole tour around the city on bike, ate DELICIOUS tacos on the streets and cricket parts in this crazy market. They brought me to chinatown, where I shouted, “MY PEOPLE!! (MI GENTE!)” and bought me a Yeo’s Lychee drink which I kept the can because just seeing the can makes me happy. The bad thing was that that can cost a whooping S$2.5 (US2)- simply ridiculous. The good thing is that I found COCONUT MILK for less than $5 a can so I can make some Nasi Lemak.

I don’t get it. 

Sara and I just got invited to document on this rural indigenous community in the sierra (mountains) of Chihuahua. We’re taking a flight on Wednesday with some experts in the field and I can’t wait.

But the question that still lingers in my mind is: “How do the incredibly passionate and smart people that I’m working with trust someone like me to be part of this change?” They don’t even know me, or where I come from, but I’m so welcomed everywhere, in the schools and with the people. And I love my collegues- they are so passionate, so intelligent and it’s been nothing but a joy being with them. It’s very humbling to be part of the team and I’m so so grateful for their love.

I found México. I found the Mexican heartbeat. What an adventure I’m going to have this year.

Each day has been such a miracle and I couldn’t wait to share all my special moments here with you.

More pictures HERE!

With much Mexican Love,

Meixi

Kids at M19

I just went up to Chiang Rai, Thailand to start off this project! With my mom, sister, cousin, Nat Bala, Uncle Joe and Jamorn, we did community research in Huey Sak and after 3 days, had our research “Aha!” moment and felt at such peace with the direction this work was going towards. On the second day of research, we some people from mu 19 (Village 19 or V19 as we fondly call it), there was a grace about them, a hope and vision about them that somehow also showed pain. There was a sense of belonging but also a sense of loss, a sense of pride but also a sense of hurt, but overwhelmingly, a sense that they loved their people and their village.

Speaking with villagers at M19

After being on the ground on day 2, we met with local government officials on Day 3. I expected this day to be kinda boring, we were supposed to meet the village chief and the counsel members. So we drove into mu19, brought him the foundation’s constitution and started talking to him about how we wanted to work with him and the people to understand the community and see if we could partner to create something that will build the village’s capacity. The village committee was surprisingly skeptical at what we were going to do. “What will be the benefit to our village?” The village chief looked plainly at us.

That’s when I woke up. I liked them. A lot. After 2 hours of explaining what we were here to do, how we were going to work with them and our vision for the plot of land that was donated to us, they finally eased a little. Then the head of the committee (not the village chief) said, “Well, this sounds good and even if the villagers and the committee allow you to set up, after some time if you create any harm to the village, we’ll have to kick you out.” That’s when I got really excited.

I had never seen such love for villagers from a village committee. The care and concern they had was saying No to us. Plus, they better kick us out if we were creating any harm to the people there. What a cool thing to experience and see.

That’s the power of No. I’m pumped to keep working on this with these people!
- Meixi

UNHCR Post at Osire, Namibia

When you think of a refugee camp, you think of people in need, people who carry ration cards, people who can barely depend on themselves, people in poverty, people who are dirty, people who don’t even have a home to call their own.

That’s not what I found when I was in Osire. I found poets, businessmen, musicians, thespians, activists, teachers, leaders.

Papa Mbikay showing me his work in his house at Osire, Namibia

I want you to meet Papa Mbikay, a writer whose deepest desire is to leave a footprint where he treads. A refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Papa Mbikay fled his country when he wrote about the regime in the Congo. He is an elder in the community, and won a grant this year to start a mushroom cultivation project to help with employment in the community. He already ingeniously and meticulously grew 3 batches of mushrooms in the past three years.

A philosopher, he knows that knowledge is power and wants to use that power in Osire.

I want you to meet Gabriel, a 17 year old, who worked as a translator with us, also from the DRC who dreams of being a pilot. Outspoken and inquisitive, Gabriel has a fierce spirit that wants to understand how to make his community better. I remember when we were sitting in a small bench during lunch and him asking tough questions about the role of men and women in the household, culture and how do we go from here to protect women’s rights in community.

Gabriel is also a singer. When he sings, he sings with a smile and closes his eyes so he can focus on the words. He plays the piano. We sing, “Come now is the time to worship, Come, now is the time to raise your heart.”

Gabriel, the musician from DRC playing the piano at Obama Hope Youth Center

He sings and this uplifts my soul. In the midst of losing his parents and waiting to hear about his refugee status from the Namibian government, he sings, and calls me to come, for now is the time to worship and raise our hearts.

I want you to meet Haki Zimana, the entrepreneur who has started his own business in Osire, and has made enough money to support his family of 4 and pay for his own education at the University of Namibia. He was born in exile in Rwanda in 1977 and fled the country with his elder brother, travelling from Rwanda to DRC to Angola and then to Namibia – while being chased by a rebel group the whole time. He is studying to become a nurse because he remembers being helpless running through jungle after jungle, watching death and disease consume his fellow refugees.

I want you to meet Mama Isabel, a woman I admire and love. She has lived in Osire for 10 years now, a role model and activist in behalf on her community, especially for women. She is exactly what this community needs and has already begun to live for that change.

A widow after the death of her husband at the hands of the government in the DRC, she fled to Namibia and is vice president of the Refugee Representative Committee in Namibia – the first woman to take office. In Osire, she has to defend being called a prostitute and accept looks from men who tell their wives not to talk to her for fear of them leaving the home. Confident and kind, she knows almost each family by name and fights on their behalf. She wears a “Forced Sex is Violence Against Women” tee-shirt and welcomes a discussion among the men on what forced sex is and what are the traditional men and women roles in the household. She took Gabriel’s questions seriously when the other men shot his questions down. She said, “We have to answer his questions, if not he’ll just grow up not knowing. We have to answer them now.”

Mama Isabel's smile

Mama Isabel believes in the power of the youth, and started a Youth Ambassador’s program to help the young in Osire uplift themselves through mentoring and sharing of mutual life experiences.

I want you to meet the Osire Youth Group. They are spunky, fun, daring and passionate. I was most privileged to sit in the audience of the Osire Youth Group performance yesterday. The group began with a powerful drama piece that addressed the issue of HIV in the community and the increasing teenage pregnancy that pains many community members. Teenage pregnancy (Girls between the ages of 14 to 18) is estimated to be as high as 65% in Osire.

They are real. Real with their own struggles, real with who they are and real with where they want to go in life. They believe they have power and I saw that yesterday. I saw the power of the young people yesterday and almost cried because they stood for everything I ever believed about what change is and what we need to do.

I didn’t get to listen to all their stories but I know for sure that each one will touch your heart. The way they sang, they rose above the pain of being a refugee and for a moment, believed that “To show power is to love.” The Osire Youth Group wrote the play themselves, planned it, acted it, and practiced it so that what we saw was perfect. But they almost never have the chance to perform it, maybe once a year on Refugee Day on June 20, 2010. They want to be heard, they want to be seen. Maybe it is for that one day in the whole year that they can show the world- not even, show the town, who they are, their struggles being young refugees, young refugees who are so passionate and excited about change.

Osire Youth Group at the Obama Hope Youth Center

I’m struggling a lot with this as a young person myself. What is our role in this? How can we as young people support each other? I still have so many questions unanswered.

My friends, this is Osire, the refugee camp.

This is Osire, the place where people have ran for fear of losing their life.

This is Osire, where there is great wisdom but little opportunity to share it.

This is Osire, where there is great strength and potential within but lack of opportunity.

This is our world. There is so much strength within it. Maybe we just need to find that same strength within ourselves to be part of that change in whatever way we can.

More stories on RefugeeLives.org

Mama Isabel's beautiful smile

I met Mama Isabel two days ago at Osire Refugee Settlement in Namibia. Dressed in an elegant white long skirt and top, she draped a pastel green scarf over both shoulders. Mama Isabel had a little magic about her. Maybe it was the way she walked, or her soft smile, or the way she looked at you with those hazel eyes.

Mama Isabel showing us around the Food Distribution Point at Osire, Namibia

She led Fabiano and me around Osire, and we spent the whole day talking to families in the settlement. We talked to businessmen, writers, farmers, students and other community leaders. Everyone knew her.

Mama Isabel is from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and, a refugee herself, she is the voice of the community in Osire to other government officials and stakeholders. At lunch, I sat with her just outside the UNHCR office.

I told her how much I was struggling with journalism and how I saw the power of journalism to bring the voices out to the world, especially for people who don’t otherwise have the chance to share their story, their fears and dreams. Yet, I wanted to bring their voices, not just to the world but to the discussion table as well.

Mama Isabel outside the UNHCR camp

She nodded and said, “That’s why local leadership is so important. You can represent the people. If UNHCR wants to do anything, they come and talk to me first. You gather and help them have access to the whole community.”

Mama Isabel was elected for the second time vice-president of the Refugee Committee at Osire. She was the first woman elected to the local leadership in 2005 and re-ran for the position in 2008.

As we continued walking around, she told us, “One of the stereotypes of refugees is that people think we are dirty, we are useless, but we are not. There are so many talents here that we can use to bring ourselves up. If people teach us to fish, we can fish for ourselves.”

Fabiano, Mama Isabel and I- a great team

Empowerment to create self-reliance, that’s what she said is needed in Osire. In the midst of monthly food distribution of beans and maize, where people are seen as helpless and in need of assistance, Mama Isabel just wants to teach people how to fish.

She told us of opportunities to submit projects for seed capital, and brought us to meet a carpenter, an agricultural specialist, a youth group so passionate about reaching the youth in community and the lifestyle ambassadors group – a mentoring program for the young people; she told us of people being creative, active and trying to be independent.

That day with Mama Isabel, we went fishing at Osire.