Day Twenty-Eight - Tlapanapa (July 24, 2010)

Today we took a bus trip from Puebla to the small town of Tlapanapa. The point of today’s trip was to learn more about the Mexican perspective of migration to the United States. A professor from el Universidad de las Américas, Héctor Peláez, gave us a lecture on site, which was pretty interesting. On our way to the town, we encountered a few cemeteries that were ornately designed and a herd of animals being led down the street...

When we finally arrived to Tlapanapa, we met with a large group of locals and had a two-hour conversation with them. It was interesting to hear of their personal experiences with migration, some of them having spent three days and nights walking through the desert near Tijuana to try and enter the United States. They cooked lunch for us and then explained some of the small projects they do in their community, like recycling soda cans and turning them into purses and other small accessories. Oh, and as it turns out, they have a blue door to enter the house (I found a blue door in Puebla for you, Eliomar, but I don’t know if it was your grandma’s house!). Here’s a picture of me going inside (while wearing my 3-311 t-shirt!)...

After we dropped Professor Peláez back in Puebla, we headed for our final destination...Districto Federal, aka, Mexico City!  On our drive, we watched the movie "Frida" about the famous Mexican painter from the early-20th century and saw Popocatépetl (Popo for short), one of Mexico's active volcanoes!  If you look carefully at the picture, you'll see part of its peak hidden in the clouds.

Popocatépetl has had a number of eruptions, small and big, in recent years. One article I read says that on June 8, 2010, "Popocatépetl volcano had one of its larger explosions during recent years: an ash plume was generated that rose to 8 km (27,600 feet)."  Hopefully there will be no eruptions in the coming days....!