Dearest
amigos,
I thought I would drop a line telling some tales of my travels so far.
So much happens each day that I fear the vivid memories will fade if
I don't put them on the electronic page. If you don't want to get
these messages as I pass through countries from Mexico to Chile on my
dissertation research journey until January, please let me know, and
I'll take you off the list.
I stepped off the plane in Mexico City a little apprehensive about the
four and a half month journey ahead of me. The last time I lived
abroad was almost ten years ago, and I was a little less accustomed to
my Boulder creature comforts of a daily adventure in a river, on a
bike trail, in powder, or on soccer field. The news stories about
kids having to wear masks on the playgrounds in Mexico City let me
know that exercise would not be a priority in the city. But, I was
pleasantly surprised by the amount of parks and well-kept green spaces
and brisk weather. Frequent earthquakes prevent the city from being
all skyscrapers since as much steel must go in the ground as goes up,
and streets in the trendy neighborhoods near the center are all lined
with trees.
So, while crashing on the floor of a friend of a friend's place, I
began a series of interviews with project developers, development
banks, carbon funds, consultant firms, and governmentally-appointed
folks in the climate change office. The quick and dirty, but not
totally precise way of explaining my research is that I am
investigating the barriers to a type of financing (available through
the Kyoto Protocol) for small-scale, renewable energy projects. I
crossed the city by foot as much as possible to get my bearings, but
soon found that the metropolis with somewhere between 23 and 30
million was far too huge to navigate. With a friend of a friend who
is a chafer, I had a massive scavenger hunt every morning and
afternoon to find offices on streets where numbers do not go in order.
When I did find places, people spend hours chatting with me, giving
me much more time and candid info than I thought I could glean with my
rusty Spanish.
After a week in the city, I set out for the countryside in Puebla and
Veracruz to visit hog farms and slaughterhouses, not the most savory
for me since I won't even cook meat for myself, but really interesting
for my project. International consultants have helped farmers convert
anaerobic lagoons of blood and pig excrement that eventually would run
into the closest waterway into plastic enclosed digesters that produce
methane. At all of the farms, this methane is flared to produce CO2
(a less potent greenhouse gas), but some plan to send it through a
microturbine for electrical production. Despite the best intentions
of these projects, they have run into numerous technical, political,
social, and bureaucratic problems and are not working as planned.
Electrical lines were planned over the flares, unprotected cables near
the flares burnt (this happened 3 times in the farms I saw), and
locals steal system parts and let their pointy-hoofed animals graze on
digesters to get the water that collects on top. I got lucky enough
to see some of these sites in Veracruz literally hours before
Hurricane Dean hit. An engineer taking me to sites and I were in the
mountains when the worst of it arrived.
Besides being in remote towns and touring farms, I have gotten a
chance to do some touristy things like visit Teotihuac‡n, which dates
back to hundreds of years before Christ. And, I have visited some of
the must-see sights in Mexico City like Parque Chapultepec where there
are voladores who once hung from their feet (now by their waists) and
spin around a pole in the Veracruz tradition. But, nothing has been
as interesting as the people I have met along the way. I have
encountered some real characters that definitely belong in a Borges or
Marquez book.
The engineer who accompanied me to the sites was literally chained to
his phone where he received no less than 100 text messages a day from
his girlfriend, his 2 packs of cigarettes a day (not so uncommon
here), and his typical 7-8 diet cokes. The other day on an abandoned
country road we saw no less than 500 bikers. Were they out for their
Boulderesque 100 mile spin? No, they drafted cars filled with paper
and plaster alters to the Virgin Mary pilgrimmaging hundreds of miles
to churches over a period of days in a Peregridaci—n. Clowns put on
comedy acts in parks that mock crowd members and have lewd references
that would be found in nightclubs in the US. Fledging musicians hop
aboard busses to serenade riders with MX classics and American
favorites that sometimes are missing key consonants like "Sand by Me."
Last night I got to see Mexico City's finest in drag queen dancing and
singing; many of the costumes were enhanced by plastic surgery. The
mix of past and present (horse drawn carts carrying loud speakers
advertising cell phones) colored by these people makes magic realism
writing only natural here.
My next stop is Guatemala on Friday. I will probably not get out to
see projects in the field as I did in Mexico because they are in the
midst of some tumultuous elections that have roads blocked. If I have
anything interesting to write, I'll do it from there. Otherwise, I'll
pass along word from Tegucigalpa, Honduras in two weeks where I will
be visiting some microhydro sites. I'm passing along a few pics of
the slaughterhouse, a biodigester, and Teotihuac‡n. If I get some
good pics from a friend of the drag show, I'll pass a few along.
I hope life is throwing a few good surprises at you all too. ÁCuidense!
Lizzie
--
Elizabeth Lokey
Ph.D. Candidate in Environmental Studies
University of Colorado
lokey@colorado.edu
(303) 898-5558
