Tulum, the end… 13 avril, 2008

We ended up the last expedition on the 22nd march,party at Mezz on this night to celebrate and on the monday I was on my way to Playa to give all my end of expedition reports and paper work…..Then when I asked he Country Director what was the situation staff wise as we were in the process of hiring new people he announced that they were closing down the Tulum project. The reasons being economic recession in the States affecting booking numbers and as they were very slow they just close down. This was a shock for all of us here in Tulum, above all because a month ago the company held an annual meeting in Costa Rica about where GVI was going and the notes for Tulum was “numbers are low but as the marine projects in this country are going well you guys dont have to worry’!…… To be honest during a week I wasnt even sure I would do this new expedition which started last friday. I just wasnt sure it was worth it for the projects, Ive started a whole program of environmental work and already you have to find handover solutions to make sure they are as sustainable as possible. Talking about sustainability I find it a little crazy to close down a 3 years old project so fast  as it doesnt give us much time to find sustainable handover solutions….. but I guess sadly money is always of a huge influence while making decisions, even within the non profit environment..

I finally I decided to do this expedition which will end up on the 20th june. I have been drafting a plan of potential solutions to handover some projects and my objective is to close the expedition the best we can. We also have a good group as it seems so far, 10 people coming again mostly from England but also Australia, the States and France houray!….We are a great team also, I was very sad to see amazing Rachel leave but sweet Felicity decided to come back for a second expedition as an intern and Sarah who was an EM last expedition is also working with us as an intern now…We also Have Energetic Ellen and peaceful Jacky…..Vanessa from the States is still here too , she is really cool, a lot into yoga, we get on very welll…..So this should be a great project!….