Iowa partners newsletter spring 2014 (1)

Iowa —Yucatán Partners

Spring 2014

El Compañero 21 Enhance Iowans’ lives through interactions with the people of Yucatán Participate in jointly planned activities that are mutually enjoyable and beneficial

Promote fellowship and friendship among Iowans and Yucatecans Encourage greater understanding of each other’s cultures and lifestyles

Habanero Chili Project Advances in Farmer Cooperative at Opichen Yucatecans are leading efforts to create jobs in the peninsula’s rural areas, and enhance pride in Mayan culture, thereby giving residents an alternative to relocating to Cancun and other big cities. Iowa-Yucatan Partners is lending its support to such efforts. One such project is underway at the Chac Lol Cooperative, a cooperative dedicated to improving farmers’ crop and livestock production. With assistance from IowaYucatan Partners ($1,000) and Partners of the Americas ($3,000), as well as others, the Chac Lol Cooperative is undertaking a new project involving the growing of habanero chili peppers, a variety of chili pepper known for its spiciness which is popular in Asia, in particular. The Iowa-Yucatan Partners’ funds will be used to assist the project with the purchase of harvesting materials and technical assistance for the production and marketing of habanero chili peppers. The February 2014 Yucatan Immersion Tour group visited the project in Opichen, Yucatan (32 m SW of Merida), viewed the initial pepper plantings, met with Co-op leaders, observed the irrigation equipment, and visited other Co-op facilities. The Immersion group was delighted to meet with Romel Gonzalez and Dana Silverman, a husband-wife team who have taken the lead on the habanero chili pepper project, and also met their three beautiful children. The Immersion group was also fortunate to meet up with Iowa Partner Ken Choquette who was visiting the Co-op, and who has been a stalwart advocate for the habanero chili pepper project. The Immersion group learned from Co-op leaders that the more stress a chili pepper experiences while growing, the spicier it will be when harvested. The group was informed that (continued on page 2)

President Brent Parker and President Roberta Graham de Escobedo present $1,000 to Romel Gonzalez and the members of the Chac Lol Cooperative.

Read more about: Chili Project Launched in Opichen Cooperative 2014 Yucatan Immersion Tour is Successful Hunger Hike Funds Support Nutrition Programs in Merida New Members Join Iowa Partners Yaxunah Cultural Center Thrives Water Stewardship Participants Visit Iowa 1

Dues Are Payable for 2014

Habanero Chili Project (cont.)

Chinese consumers particularly enjoy the spiciness of the habaneros, and will be the focus of marketing efforts. As of this writing the habaneros are growing, the irrigation system is working well, and workers have been trained in soil improvement/organic fertilizing and in plague control and management.

Historical note: The habanero’s origin is thought to be in the Amazon, and a domesticated habanero some 8,500 years old has been found. The chili spread to present day Mexico early in its history but at one time was thought to have originated in China.

Yucatan is now the world’s leading producer of habaneros.

Associated with this article are three photos: clockwise, Jim Secor (Immersion group member) and Ken Choquette help clear limestone from the field; habanero seedlings ready to transplant; Co-op members and Immersion group in the field.

2

2014 Yucatan Immersion Experience From February 7–17, 2014, eleven Iowans traveled the Yucatan Peninsula as part of the Iowa-Yucatan Partners Cultural Immersion Trip. This year’s Immersion group included: Janet Secor, Jim Secor, Bill Secor, Al Goldberg, Jim and Jolene Hultgren, William and Jane Edwards, Scott Provow (Iowa native, now a Florida resident) and Chuck Montgomery, and was led by Brent Parker, Iowa Partners President. Tour arrangements were made by Maya Ecotours, an eco-tourism company operated by Yucatan Partner Alfonso Escobedo, husband of Roberta Graham de Escobedo, Yucatan Chapter President.

The 2014 Immersion group visited Chichen Itza (Mayan ruins), Yaxuna Cultural Center (project led

by Yucatan Chapter’s VP Elias Alcocer), the town of Tinum (two-night home stay with local families), Ek Balaam (Mayan ruins, bike ride and cenote swim), Rio Lagartos (fishing village, flamingo migration site, salt mines), Merida (sight seeing, museum, good food, music performance), Oxkutzcab citrus market (sampling the fruit), cacao (chocolate) museum, and the Flycatcher Inn (bed and breakfast in Santa Elena).

The group also enjoyed a dinner meeting with Yucatan Chapter Partners and Valerie Grimsley at the Central College house in Merida.

A major highlight of the trip was the two night home stay visit in the farming village of Tinum, where group members split into groups of two and stayed with farm families. This included sleeping in beautiful, high quality hammocks made by the women of Tinum, eating meals with home stay families, visiting a milpa farm site and participating in planting, harvesting and shelling of corn, learning about the production of masa (corn dough), a major component of the Mayan diet, and visiting a traditional basket weaving project. Milpa refers to the traditional Mayan farming method featuring the complementary cultivation of corn, beans and squash.

Partners members Lisa Rock and Jim Schulze, who live in Yucatan (Tinum and Merida) several months each year, expertly managed the Tinum visit as they do for Central College students each year.

Associated pictures: Top, Jim Hultgren “using his head” to harvest corn; Bottom, Partners hand shelling corn. See the next two pages for more pictures.

3

Bill Secor planting corn the Mayan way near Tinum

Alphonso Escobedo and his Tinum hosts

Making tortillas at home in Tinum

Group photo at the Pyramid at Chichen Itza

New Museum of the Mayan World in Merida

Scott &Brent sampling fruit at Oxkutzcab

4

Al Goldberg and Scott Provow at a scenic overlook

A serious discussion while waiting for lunch

Brent, Jim and William at a rest stop

Al Goldberg harvesting corn at the milpa by Tinum

Elias Alcocer leading a tour of Yaxuna

Crop advisor explaining the Opichen chili project to 5 Janet, Brent and Jane

Hunger Hike Funds Used in the Yucatan In February 2014, Iowa Partners member Ken Choquette delivered $1,875 in funds awarded to Partners as a result of the October 2012 Des Moines Area Hunger Hike. Ken and Roberta Graham de Escobedo, President of the Yucatan Partners, used the funds to purchase healthy foods for distribution to nonprofit institutions serving the needy in the vicinity of Merida. Paulina Espinosa volunteered the use of the truck from the catering business that she and her mother, Minelia Romero, operate to deliver the food.

Kudos go to Ober Anderson, long-time Iowa Partner and point person for Partners’ involvement in the Hunger Hike.

Roberta Graham de E at children's home

Roberta Graham de Escobedo and Paulina Espinosa at children’s home On March 10, 2014, Iowa Partners members Sue Jarnagin and Brent Parker attended the annual “Soup Supper” at Des Moines’ First Christian Church where they were presented with a check for $2,175, proceeds from the 45th Annual Des Moines Area Hunger Hike, held October 2013. These funds will also be delivered to Yucatan by Iowa Partners members to support nutrition programs. Volunteers are needed!

New Iowa Partners from Immersion Trip

Roberta and Ken food shopping in Merida Food delivered to children's home

Please welcome our new Iowa Partners who participated in the 2014 Immersion Trip: Jim Secor (Janet Secor’s cousin and retired Superintendent of the ISU Research Farm located in Chariton, Iowa, and a former Peace Corps Volunteer); Scott Provow (Iowa native, retired Naval Aviator and Delta Pilot, prominent Grayton Beach, FL realtor and Captain of the Grayton Beach Charters, an Emerald Coast charter fishing business); Bill Secor (Janet Secor’s brother and Brent’s brother-in-law; an farmer who is newly engaged with family in opening the Soldier Creek Winery near Ft. Dodge, Iowa. Al Goldberg (an environmental consultant, retired from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, a former Peace Corps Volunteer); Jim and Jolene Hultgren (accomplished farmers from Storm Lake, Iowa – in 2011 they were named “Iowa Master Farmers” by Wallace’s Farmer magazine. Jolene is a long-time science teacher and track coach, now retired).

6

Yaxuna Cultural Center The 2014 Immersion Trip group spent a good part of their first full day in Yucatan, in Yaxuna (20 miles from Cancun), at the Yaxunah Cultural Center, a project led by Yucatan Partners Vice President Elias Alcocer. The Immersion group was treated to a guided grounds tour by Elias, performance of a musical play created by the children of Yaxuna who attend the YCC (assisted by a service corps of visiting international young people), a wonderful feast of cochinita pibil, a slow roasted pork dish that is Mayan in origin and is cooked while buried in a pit and wrapped in banana leaves oranges, lemons limes, vinegar and achiote, and eaten with corn tortillas, red pickled onion, refried black beans and habanero chilis. (Note: cochinita means “baby pig” and pibil means “buried”).

with Iowa Partners who did not make the trip, have raised an added $1,200+ which will be matched with $1,000 of Iowa Partners funds to support the acquisition of items such as computers and additional books for the Yaxunah Cultural Center.

Visit the website: http://yaxunahcentrocultural.org/ The pictures below show: top, preparation of the conchinita pibil; bottom, L to R, Jolene Hultgren, Jane Edwards, Elias Alcocer and Brent Parker in front of the Maya heritage mural at Yaxuna.

The group also visited the Center’s impressive museum and library. The group was interested to see that stilts were a part of the musical play the children performed. Inclusion of the stilts alludes to the depictions of stilts walkers in ancient Mayan artwork.

This kind of historical reference is part of the YCC’s mission of reinforcing pride in the students’ Mayan heritage. The YCC is also focused on creating economic opportunities in Yaxuna to give town folk alternatives to jobs in Cancun. One example of the latter effort is the project to develop a Mayan archeological site near Yaxuna itself. The ruins are unique due to an ancient Mayan road—the Sacbe or “white road”— that begins at the site and runs for 62 miles between the ancient Mayan cities of Yaxuna and Coba. The road’s color is attributable to its cover of limestone plaster. This “white road” is one of the longest from ancient Mayan times.

The visit to the YCC was particularly exciting for some Iowa Partners who recall Elias’s dream to do such a work, shared with Iowa Partners over 20 years ago. The Immersion group’s visit motivated Janet Secor to raise funds from the group to purchase children’s science books for the Cultural Center library. Since returning, the Immersion group, along 7

Yucatan Water Stewardship Project For ten days in October 2013, Yucatecans Karla Aki’ Morales and Valentin Cardenas Medina were in Iowa as Yucatan representatives of the Youth Communicators for Water Stewardship project.

Valentin is a high school agriculture teacher from Tizimin, and Karla is a high school student from the technological high school at Xmatkuil, near Merida.

The project utilizes tools developed in Iowa to educate young people in Yucatan to become water educators in their communities, and enables them to engage the scientific community. The project was conceived of and carried out by members of IowaYucatán Partners, with assistance from a number of other organizations, listed below. The project has been ably led by Iowa Partner Rick Exner and Yucatan Partner Jorge Cardenas, who have spent considerable time traveling the Peninsula training young people.

The Yucatán Peninsula is a karstic plain, a geology shared with northeast Iowa. It was in northeast Iowa that Iowans first understood the link between water quality and land management, and this awareness is now dawning in Yucatán.

Karla’s and Valentin’s visit coincided with the Global Youth Institute, the Borlaug Dialogue, and the awarding of the World Food Prize. These events provided them with new insights into world food and environmental issues. Their October visit included the following activities: the GYI Hunger Banquet, farm tours including an opportunity to see hog farming and several kinds of planned grazing on an organic operation, a barn dance where Rick Exner’s band played, a potluck hosted by Iowa Partners at the home of Jan and George Beran, a visit to the ISU Soil and Water Conservation Society—Student Chapter (where they toured the lab that produced the Yucatan version of the ground water flow demonstration model and described the Yucatan project), a presentation to an Ames High School biology class, a meeting with Iowa DNR representatives, a visit to an Iowa cenote (sinkhole), a tour of the Ames wastewater treatment plant (Yucatan lacks such plants), and Halloween festivities. Karla and Valentin were home hosted by Jane and William Edwards.

Among key impressions from the trip: the Hunger Banquet (Valentin was served a mere handful of rice, representing the diet of a majority of the world’s population) had a strong impact on Valentin who plans to use the banquet in his classes; and ISU students were sobered to learn that a few days’ supply of bottled water costs roughly one-third of the legal, minimum daily wage in Mexico—60 pesos (approximately $5.00).

Other supporters for the Youth Communicators for Water Stewardship project were Partners of the Americas, through the Education and Culture program funded by the U.S. State Department; Iowa Sister States, which offered in-kind support; the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, sponsor of the IOWATER citizen water monitoring network, which subsidized some of the water testing supplies; DGETA, the Dirección General de Educación Tecnológica Agropecuaria, which includes the participating CBTA technical high schools; and the Iowa State University student chapter of the Soil and Water Conservation Society through its advisor Dr. Richard M. Cruse.

The picture below shows Karla and Valentin visiting a northeast Iowa cenote, or sinkhole, which is much like those found in the Yucatan Peninsula.

8

More pictures of Karla’s and Valentin’s visit to Iowa, clockwise: visiting a water treatment plant; Valentin at the Hunger Banquet receiving his portion of rice; Karla presenting to an Ames High School science class; Karla and Valentin dancing at the “barn” dance; Rick Exner, his band, Karla and Valentin.

9

2014 Iowa–Yucatán Partners Renew your Iowa-Yucatán Partners commitment!

Annual Dues: Individual membership………$25 per year Family (two or more)………..$40 per year Student……………………….$10 per year Lifetime (individual)………………...$500 Volunteers also can give their support by hosting, transporting, organizing, telephoning, or entertaining.

Another way to support Iowa-Yucatán Partners (a 501(c)3 non-profit organization) is with a donation to the project of your choice. All donations are tax deductible (dues are not). ****************************************************************************************** Please send your check for annual dues and donations, payable to Iowa Partners of the Americas, to: William Edwards, Treasurer 2232 170th Street Boone, IA 50036 Name __________________________________________________ Phone _____________________ Address _____________________________________________________________________________ Town__________________________ State ______ Zip __________ E-mail___________________________________________________

2014 Projects That Need Your Support: Des Moines Area Hunger Hike

$_________

Habanero Chili Peppers Project

$_________

Yaxunah Cultural Center

$_________

Partners Who Have Paid 2014 Dues—Thank You! Lifetime Members Doris and Chuck Montgomery Ken and Jane Choquette William and Jane Edwards Adrienne Moen James Pollard

Annual Members Cyndi and Phil Ringgenberg Betty Emrich Janet and Heberth Obando Marjorie Caruth Jim and Jolene Hultgren

Al Goldberg Scott Provow Brent Parker Jim Secor Bill Secor Janet Secor

10