Thoughts on Cuernavaca
Posted by Kevin Pitts on Aug 11, 2014
The first USA Mexico Friendship Conference I ever attended was in Cuernavaca, Morelos. But that wasn’t my first trip to Cuernavaca. In fact, I lived there for a time and really learned to love Mexico while I was there. It was also where I learned to speak Spanish through an immersion program. So I am very excited about this year’s upcoming conference to be held again in the “City of Eternal Spring.”
Cuernavaca is a quick one-hour drive from Mexico City. It is positioned on the South-facing slope of the volcano ring and daytime temperatures average about 75 degrees pretty much year-round. The semi-tropical capital of the state of Morelos has a population of more than 3 million but somehow it retains a small-town feel.
Our districts have done a good number of projects with clubs in Cuernavaca. But one of my cherished conference memories revolves around a sanitary water project we did with Prescott Rotary’s sister club C.R. Tabachines. A short distance up the mountainside from Cuernavaca is a small, mostly indigenous village called Nepopualco. The Tabachines club previously set up a micro-credit bank that was providing funds for building low-cost housing for the poorest inhabitants of the village. The bank was interestingly run exclusively by village women. Because of the village’s geographic position, water wells were impossible to drill and the municipality had no local water system. Potable water was provided by truck.
The village inhabitants were buying their water from the truck and storing it often in garbage pails, five gallon buckets and any other containers available to them. The Rotarians at the Tabachines club thought there had to be a better way. We agreed and applied for a matching grant to provide new 500-gallon cisterns the residents could use to buy greater volumes of water at reduced prices and store the water in sanitary conditions. Plus, water catchment placement systems were included for adding to the homes being built through the micro-credit bank. This was the first time I had participated in the Rotary matching grant process and it was exciting. Today we call these global grants.
If your club and its members are looking to get involved in the greater Rotary world, either by looking for an international project or finding an international partner for a local project, the USA Mexico Friendship Conference should be on your calendar: October 30 to November 4, 2014. Look for more details to come and do not hesitate to contact me with questions at 928-713-2906.