The Saga of Los Bosques, an Activity Book for Kids

One of my friends sent me an email the other day saying how she loved hearing about my experiences in Mexico, along with this question: “Is there some crappier stuff you leave out?”  The short answer is H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks to the yes.  I don’t talk about that stuff much in my blog for obvious reasons.  Don't get me wrong - things are generally great and satisfying but life sadly is not filled with only tasty tacos and laughter.  The less awesome parts of my life as a volunteer are usually associated with physical ailments, loud noises and operating in a different work culture, where Autumn-E does not quite shine like a diamond.  As an example, let me share my saga of Los Bosques: Libro de Activities (a kid's activity book regarding forests).

View in a lovely, local forest. 

The never ending book of acitivities. 

  Example pages from the draft book. I think we need some more diversity with the cartoon kids here.

When I first arrived in my office, I was looking for an easy win and there was a lot of interest in developing some kind of environmental education activity for kids.  A lot of volunteers have had success with activity books, so I started drafting content and design ideas for a book to educate kids about the importance of our forests.  I designed a whole outreach strategy to accompany the release of this book which would include viewings of The Lorax in the local casas de cultura, and an interactive lesson plan to accompany the environmental education program I helped design and deliver to teachers earlier this year.  People in my office were totally on board with this idea and excited about this project.

I sent a draft book to my team for their review in August of 2016.  I slowly got feedback and sent another draft in November 2016.  I got confirmation that yep, it looked good to go and so I sent it to the powers that be to get our designer working on it.  Then nothing happened.  For 11 months.  I would periodically ask about the status of the book and if our consultant was going to be able to add some graphic designs to make this thing a reality.  The last time I asked, I heard that our 20-something landscape architect intern from Belgium didn’t think it was a good format for a kid’s book so it was put on the backburner.  As my brother would say, merrrrrrr.

Totally unrelated to this post, but this is a popular appetizer to share with guests. It's cheese with hot dogs, onions and I think chiles inside. You can also put it in a quesadilla. 

This is the fruit Annona purpurea. Also not related to this post but tasty!

Ok, so life isn't tasty tacos and laughter 24-7, but there are tasty tacos. Lots of tasty tacos. 

While I was in the US in October, I suddenly got a draft copy of a fully designed activity book!  I was super surprised and happy to see how colorful and beautiful it looked!  I could also see that some text needed to be updated, since it was written a year ago.  So, I set about the process for updating the book and getting feedback from my team yet again.  By the end of November, I got two people to commit to reviewing the book, which was great.  Except that they weren’t part of our team a year ago and now wanted to change more than just content.  My first thought was nooooooo - I was so close!  And then I took a deep breath, put on some Beck songs and settled in to wait for however much longer would be needed to finish the book.

If you’ve ever worked with me, you know that I don’t take a year to create a 10-page kids book.  I don’t take a year to create anything.  I love being productive.  I love feeling competent in my work and doing things that are meaningful and will hopefully have a lasting impact.  I really love having concrete accomplishments that I can eloquently describe to you.  

Things for me are a wee bit different here.  For starters, nothing eloquent comes from me speaking in Spanish.  If I’m lucky, I will be able to tell you that I got a 10-page kid’s book printed before my 27 months as a volunteer was up.  I have faith that will happen, but if you're going to be a volunteer, patience is key.  Patience and perseverance.  And access to Youtube for Beck videos to keep you pumped.  

One side note: I was talking with some family friends in California earlier this month and they thought everything I described in my volunteer work was great and important.  It was a good reminder that you can't necessarily compare your productivity as a volunteer in another country with your productivity as an employee back in the US, so, if you're also a volunteer, give yourself a break!