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!….

Francky and Fabrice from Paris were with us in Tulum in between 2 expeditions which was cool!!! Had lots of time for partying, chilling on the beach, dancing on live reggae or crazy house music sound with the moon light reflection in the sea as scenary at the legendary Mezzanine!!!…..Was really nice to be able to speak french all the time, enjoy delicious chocolate (argggggg miss it a lot!!!) and just catch up after not seeing each other for a few years!!…….Marie another friend from France also visited…..Happy moments in pictures!……

After 3 weeks of hard work with Jacky and Fran, we finally held our first workshop about the reef, the mangrove and the sea grass ecosystems mid march at the Julio Ruelas school. After telling the Starfish story, we handled 3 activities: The reef, the mangrove and the sea grass, teaching them through games  what are these ecosystems, why they are so important and connected and what threats they face. One of the highlight of the workshop being the creation by Fran of  the comic character ‘Cameron el Camaron’ living in the mangrove!!….Its always fun and rewarding to run these activities in the schools, can be pretty intense too though when 40 kids are getting really excited to end up their morning! But hey I think its well worth loosing my voice once in a while!!!…Nothing better anyway to see these kids proud faces when we give them their Passport as Official Coral Reef protectors once completed the workshop!…..Im looking forward to discover what drawings they will come up with on the theme’ What would you do to protect one of these 3 ecosystems’….

Here are our little Pucs Pucs at the beach, on a sunday about 2 weeks ago…

        

We are now in the second 5 weeks of the expedition where everyone has more time for projects as done with the TEFL teacher training. I have planned various projects which will happen along until the end of the expedition on the 21^st march. Part of the activities is a beach clean on sat 8^th march which we will start promoting next week and putting together (looking at a place on the beach to hold a small gig at the end of the beach clean with our friends from Maria Cantu and Cannabis club) We are also preparing an environmental education workshop about the importance of the reef, the mangrove and the sea grass ecosystems . 2 dates are planned at the Julio Ruelas School for this new workshop. Also working on a micro enterprise initiative where we will teach how to make and sell cards from recyclable paper. Finally we are planning to spend 2 days in a mayan community the last week of the expedition. This community approached us as they are working on developing an ecotourism project and need English for the group of guides to be. We already spent some time there and assessed their specific needs. Now our volunteers are planning the contents and the structure of the workshop that they will give there during 2 days at the end of the expedition. See! We work too in the tropics!

If you guys read some old articles about my role at GVI you should know by now that in addition to the expedition manager role I also look after the planning and development of our environmental and community projects.

One of the main achievements of GVI in 2007 was to build a recycling centre for plastics followed by some environmental education in schools to encourage children to separate garbage and some promotion in town in order for people to use it. The centre was then donated to the community and a committee was supposed to maintain it and outsource a company to come and pick up the plastics. Unfortunately lots of politicians in Mexico tend to talk a lot but not do very much. Anyway this is a long story but to make it short the centre is still used by people which is good! The Municipality of Playa sends us a truck every month to pick up everything there. Unfortunately we have to do what we can to maintain it and I have seen quite a lot of crazy stuff happening there like when a circus came in town (which circus I didn’t forget to denounce to my friends at Born Free as they were using Siberian Tigers…in Mexico!! Imagine these poor tigers in tiny little cages!! Anyway lets get back to the subject for now!…) well the people from the circus didn’t find a better idea than hanging their clothes on the gates of our centre! Then another day some horses had found shelter at night as I could recognize horse shit all over! And yesterday we had goats visiting! Oh well, It’s Mexico! …as I tend to say to myself often!

We’ve given another workshop on recycling at the Julio Ruelas elementary school and we are planning a couple more in another school I made contact with. Each time we’ve implemented this workshop in a school we’ve donated a container for them to separate their plastics. We then pass by the schools once a week with our tricycle and take everything to the centre. Its still a little bit messy though as it takes a while for all the kids to understand and remember what they can and what they can’t put in these containers. But this morning as I visited one of these schools to talk to the Director about another workshop I was delighted to see how 2 kids were sorting out the containers and asking me lots of questions about what they can and what they can’t put in there. Then they were asking about the paper, the cans, they were so keen to get these recycled too…..So this would be the next step, get these 2 schools to recycle not only plastics but also glass, paper etc….We are working on this second phase!……..

There is a back road to the Casa de la Cultura where some of the poorest families of Tulum live in tiny wooden shacks. GVI Volunteers used to walk to town this way and because the kids were always yelling ‘Hola, Hola, Hola!!’ we started to get to know them. Little by little we knew the mum, Antonia, the dad and a few brothers and sisters (11 children all together) We found out that the youngest kids in age for school: Marcelina (9), Manuel (7) and Gricela (6) actually never went to school mainly due to costs reasons. Although primary school is free in Mexico, poor families can’t afford to send their kids as they don’t have the money for the books and stationary they would need to buy. I started going a few times during the last expedition and I go as much as I can during this expedition, with Rita, our intern who leads the project with grace. It is one of the most rewarding experience to see the smile of these kids when they manage to write properly one of the first letters of the alphabet or find the proper sound and word starting by this letter.

Its also sometimes sad to see that they are actually quite clever kids but don’t have the chance to be able to develop at school but need to work at the house. This week was extremally sad for all of us. The Mum had also 2 twin girls 8 months old. Rita came back to the base on Wednesday nearly crying as she just discovered that one of the 2 twin babies died due to asthma. We spent the rest of the week doing rounds to look after the kids. Rita, Rachel, Jacky and Fran managed to get the parents agreement to take Marcelina, Manuel, Gricela and Sandy to the beach today. That was their first time. They were crazily happy discovering this new world. We decided to take them again, I can’t wait to go this time!

Back from Costa Rica on the 6th January left me and the team only 5 days to prepare the next expedition, lots of paperwork and planning, a big 5 weeks shopping in Playa del Carmen and we were ready to welcome 14 new expedition members. This new year started with a few changes as I became the expedition leader and we welcomed a new staf member Vanessa knows as V (Im known as Van or Frenchy or Poison fish or Tiger monkey at the moment, long story!….) Anyway, V is very cool, American in love with african dance and reggae and I must say she knows how to dance! We also added up to our team Felicity and Rita as interns. All our EMs arrived on a sunny friday morning and from nearly the min they arrived we could feel a nice energy and a good fit between everyone. Lots of people from the UK, a few Americans (good ones! ), 2 swiss including one swiss italian and a lovely yoga teacher half british half venezuelian. We all went out on the first week-end for a big night out, starting in one of the good places in the village to listen to live music, I think Bandicoro was playing that night. They play african type of music with lots of drums and cristal voice from their singer. I have to say that Im very impressed by the quality of live music here during the high season. We all know them by now and even had our favourite band, Cannabis Club (reggae band as Im sure you would have guessed!), playing at the GVI base for our TEFL certification night last week. It was just crazy seeing them play live in our kitchen with everyone, students, friends, us dancing away!

So yes we have had 5 crazy, sparkkly and happy weeks….The good thing is that we have 5 more weeks to come!

I really see the difference between handling a group of nice people who like to have fun anda group of boring and groaning people. I sort of fear that moment where I will say to myself: “how the fuck am I gone deal with these people for 10 weeks!?…….Anyway so far so good!!…..

Cette Annee nous avons choisi le Costa Rica pour feter la nouvelle Annee, Pura Vida!!!

Ah les plages du Costa: Guiones, Santa Teresa, Mal Pais, Samara……..superbes couchers de soleil sur le pacifique, avant l’apero bien sur!

Coup de coeur pour notre petite perle de maison, chez Charly et Denise, a Santa Teresa, dans les collines……

Partie de peche memorable, yellow tail tuna de 20 kgs miam miam!!

!          

  qq parties de fumettes oblige, les parents inclus, video a la cle!!!!

Soiree sur la plage pour le 1erde l’an chez les Bresiliens a Rancho Itauna, Van fait une nuit blanche, et passe sa soiree avec des israeliens, un guatemalteque, des ticos super chidos, bref une tres bonne nuit pour passer le cap 2008…..

  ……Et en prime je retrouve mon pote Sebastian le jongleur avec le feu, rencontre aui honduras cet ete!….

    ]