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José María Morelos y Pavón Elementary, Grades 2-6 During the visits at every school around the Sanctuaries, children learn that the treasure that our forests represent has multiple values to all. The forest provides habitat for the monarchs throughout the winter, but also for our local culture the forest provides herbs and some mushrooms that are important for our traditional medicine methods. These medicines have been with us and still prevail with our parents and grandparents.; a whole world to inherit, learn and preserve. The message Journey North delivers every year to children and their families living in the surrounding communities helps them realize how important the preservation of our Oyamel forests are to us inhabitants in the region. Today, January 8, on the way to visit the first school of the New Year, temperatures start to drop and will continue to do so over January and at least mid-February, although some snow may come even by early March. So far, freezing temperatures overnight keep us dressing with our warmest clothes for the following couple of months. Three Kings Day is being celebrated by students and their teachers and moms at this Elementary school. Three Kings’ cake is awaiting, and as each child, teachers and moms slice its loaf of cake and by chance gets in it a plastic little Jesus child form. The festivities will continye on February 2nd (Día de la Candelaria) when, according to the tradition, little Jesus boy is presented to church. This day will be the very last festivity for all the Christmas celebrations of the season! Estela, coming to deliver children their Symbolic Monarchs bringing their letters to them, was introduced to mothers as representant of Journey North, naming the program guest of honor in the celebration! Once the festivity was over and the tables empty, children were anxiously coming into their classroom to write their beautiful letters to their friends in Canada and the United states. They discussed migration facts, the overwintering surviving conditions of Monarchs in our Oyamel forests, and its richness and importance for conservation. Maps on each Symbolic Monarch shows children, as at every school, how they come from cities or states like Connecticut, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Mansfield, New Jersey, San Diego California, Georgia, Maine, etc. These maps help children understand the long distances real Monarchs fly in order to reach our Oyamel forests to overwinter with us during these months every single year They enjoyed their gifts, as all children at every school, very much, wondering whether their letters could be beautiful enough for their counterparts to love them as much. Donations: “Abremente” game; “Frida Kahlo’s Mexican Painter biography.”
Many of our stores this time sell nothing more than “piñatas”, candies and the typical fruits of the season to make our delicious hot christmas punch like the tamarindos, tejocotes and guayabas; also cookies, and the old traditional colación candies only seen at this time of the year. In Angangueo town, the “Posada” religious fests consist mainly in getting a child and a girl dressing up themselves as Holy Mary and Joseph, leaving Nazareth and going to Bethelem, knocking from door to door with a pilgrimage of many other girls and boys of town going along the main Street in town, following them, singing and asking for posada. The Piñata The blindfolded boy or girl - symbolizing Faith- hit the Piñata for a while, one after another, until the moments the “Piñata” gets broken, meaning Faith has won victory upon evil. The Piñata has got 7 pointy peaks on it symbolizing the 7 capital sins in the Catholic religion, which have finally been defeated once the Piñata gets broken. Then it is time for children and their families to enjoy drinking hot fruit punch, varied mexican typical dishes, candies, and the typical “Aguinaldos”, --a small plastic box with candies and fruit for children to take home with them as the typical Christmas time gift--. While this happened during the Christmas time, our Sanctuaries were actively having visitors; children to Ejidatario families were at the entrance of the Sanctuaries offering guiding service to tourists, among which even a young couple from Moscow, Russia, came into Estela’s family old store, and then Estela ran into a couple of friends coming from the Netherlands, choosing the roads to the Sanctuaries for doing some hiking with their bycicles!!!, all of them fascinated to visit the Monarchs at their overwintering Oyamel forests in Central México!.
Butterflies Received New Haven Elementary, Union, KY
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