Back in town...

Here's some chocolate for you! It's a present from my workshop group.

I'm back to Mexico City after my workshop in Chilpanchingo. Interesting and challenging experience, I learned a lot. But it was very tiring too, I have to admit. I have never facilitated a workshop alone for three days, and it really takes all your energy.

I was prepared to encounter some difficulties, especially after I heard that the teachers and school directors who participated in the workshop, had only been told about it the night before it started and were pretty pissed off by that. But my group turned out to be very nice! They worked well together and I think we managed to create a warm atmosphere so everyone felt comfortable enough to speak. I had only one difficult person that joined the group on the second day. He created some negative energy complaining all the time that instead of participating in some useless workshops he should be directing his school and teaching the kids. But finally I won him over too. The third day, when they were telling their feelings about the workshop, he was also saying how important it is that the teachers make the most of the workshops they are offered. I think that was my greatest victory in the workshop!

I learnt a lot about the conditions of the teachers in rural communities in Guerrero state. Nothing to envy, definitively! The salaries are very small and they even have to pay for themselves the sometimes very long trips to the communities where they teach. The material resources are also very scarce. Sometimes they have computers, for example, but not the electricity to use them.

What comes to Chilpanchingo as a town, I really can't recommend it. It's small and ugly and the people aren't very nice - except for my group, of course. We had even difficulties to take taxis - for some reason they always turned away when they saw two foreign girls (my friend was there too as a facilitator for another group). That doesn't happen often in other parts of the country. I'm glad to be send to some other place for the next workshop, even if I'd love to work with the same group (and they wanted me to go back).