Most loving and joyful wishes to everyone!

Another year is drawing to a close. Christmas trees are being decorated, snow is being shoveled, extra sun block is put on, Christmassy recipies are being elected, extra beds are being made for friends and family that come to visit for the holidays and wonderful traditions are taking place all over the world.
Wherever you are, December is a special time of the year. A time of sharing, remembering, endings and new beginnings, reflection and celebration. I also know it’s a very busy time for most people, so I’ll start with what’s most important for me to share with you:

Thank you!!! Thank you for being you, the wonderful, inspiring and colorful presence that you are. Thank you for all the great things you bring into this world and for taking the time to read my message to you :)

With all my heart I wish you a very loving, warm and fun Christmas, full of sharing.
Not just for the new year, but for every moment to come (starting NOW!) I wish you everything. Everything that you belief will bring you and others around you joy, energy and peace. I wish all new moments to come to be inspiring and full of love, connectedness, creativity, harmony, awareness and happiness.

I feel incredibly blessed and grateful looking back on my own year. Having the opportunity to travel has led me to more incredible and inspiring places and experiences than I could’ve ever imagined! Moments of true ecstasy, feeling fully connected and in love with life, moments of deep sadness, frustration and doubt. Most of all I’m thankful for all the fantastic, inspiring people I already knew and all the new ones I met. All of them loving and beautiful in their own way, presenting me with gifts in the form of lessons about myself, about themselves, about their culture, about nature and the Universe, about sharing, hospitality and generosity.
I’m grateful to all of them, to you, myself and the Universe, for helping me recognize and open up more and more to see and take these gifts for what they are.

Though far away from my ‘Holland-home’, I’m very happy to be spending my December at the beautiful place where I am right now. The Tashirat project where I live is located about 10-15 min outside of Tepoztlan, an awesome little town (officially titled “Pueblo Magico” – “Magic Town”) situated in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. Tomorrow I’ll be heading to Orizaba (Veracruz state) to spend Christmas there with Christian (Mexican) and his family! I met Christian 4 years ago in Australia, where we were both on exchange in Melbourne. Now he has invited me to spend the holidays in Orizaba and informed me that his father was already thinking about day trips we could undertake, so I can get to know more of Mexico… isn’t that awesome?!

Upon arriving in Tepoztlan I went straight to Tashirat, where I received a very warm and enthusiastic welcome by my friend Antares (who I met at the Vipassana silent retreat) and many other people working here. Antares is the teacher for the 12 children in the combined 3^rd and 4^th grade class at the school named Ixaya. To start with a little clarification (see also www.tashirat.com): Tashirat has different facets. All parts of the project are located on the same terrain here, but functioning quiet separately. The project is completely based on funds (mainly coming from the USA), Tashirat receives no money from the government.

- “Ixaya” is a ‘open’ elementary school for children in the surrounding area. Right now they only have 3 groups of students: 1^st grade -starting at age 6- and 2^nd combined, 3^rd and 4^th together, and 5^th and 6^th. There are 5 students in the “secundaria” class (high school). Since this year the school has a new principal, Macu, who is an inspiring woman, passionate to give the kids the best possible by restructuring the school with her many years of experience.

- Then there is “Tashirat”, which are the approx. 8 staff members living together with about 30 “adopted” children (mainly orphans). Only 4 of the ‘Tashirat kids’ go to Ixaya (the school). The rest of them get classes at Tashirat itself.

- The sustainability and cultivation project includes amongst other things catching rainwater and saving it in big cisterns, dividing it over the houses; compost (creating); 2 green houses; and many other parts of ground where they plant fruit and vegetables (the also recently created an avocado and macadamia (nut) yard).

- The “ashram” aspect. Tashirat started as a spiritual community (without children), offering classes and student ship exchange programs to teach about (amongst other things) the chakra life lessons and healthy, balanced nutrition. The staff members still maintain their own spiritual practices and give “consciousness classes” to the children (teaching them about the chakras etc). However, with the coming of the children, all the staff members now live a very busy life, which hardly leaves them time to do studentship programs and give courses. They do however still have the yoga/meditation class every morning, which I enjoy very much!

Since the staff members are all very busy, they’ve officially stopped the volunteer program because there was no one with time to coordinate and guide the new volunteers. However, with Antares as my reliable source of information and contact with the staff members, I submitted my application anyway and got accepted :)
Also, I arrived during what appears to be the most busy and chaotic month of the year haha! Flowing into the project at this moment gave me lots of advantages and some disadvantages:

> It took me (and still takes :P) a while to figure out how the project works, who to contact for questions, to find out where and what for they can use my help, what the schedules of the children are etc. The communication between Ixaya and Tashirat is little, so I also act as a bit of a messenger between the two (not only about my own activities). Antares already ‘warned’ me about the fact that things change often/rapidly at Tashirat (e.g. schedules, where the kids live, where everyone is, classes, things that need to be done) which I found to be true :) Last is housing. They have a beautiful area which used to be the “volunteer area”, with lots of little houses and a common room etc. However, no one has lived there for months, so it’s all overgrown and not very functioning. They’ve put us (the current volunteers) in another building now, which was also unused for a while. With us I mean Craig (Scottish) and Donny (Irish), two very friendly guys who’ve volunteered at Tashirat before and are now here to spend a couple of weeks during the holidays. There will be some more (ex)volunteers coming for the Christmas period, but I’m not sure if they’ll still be here when I get back. Luckily Craig was here first and managed to get us some beds and blankets. Last week (my first week living at Tashirat) I spent 3 days poaching the old volunteer area for useful (kitchen)tools and furniture – which was actually a lot of fun because it’s all so beautiful here! Also cleaning a lot and fixing up my own room, so now it feels a lot more ‘home’!

> The advantage part is obviously paramount :D First of all the flexibility and freedom to create my own schedule! When I was commuting between Ixaya (the school) and Tashirat (the orphan children) it became clear they could use my help at both places. Macu (the principal) asked me if I’d like to start giving English classes to all the kids in primary, starting after the holidays in January. Although I’ve never done that (except for the 2 classes I gave in Xela, Guatemala), it seems like a great and fun challenge… so I accepted! Up to the holidays I’ve been helping out at Ixaya wherever they needed me: giving a sports class, helping in the normal classes, helping with the handcrafts for Christmas, preparing the Christmas event etc. It was super fun to get to know the children and teachers in this way!

I also arranged that I’m assisting in the morning class of the Tashirat kids and started tutoring Samuel (15y) in the afternoons. I’m helping him with whatever he needs help with, though I’ll be focusing mainly on problem solution skills and social emotional development (because I think that’s what he needs most right now). All the children that live here are marvelous, and interesting too. Since pretty much all of them have had ‘damaging experiences’ in their past (losing parents, all kinds of abuse/neglect) they individually all have their challenges and just image the group dynamic that develops when putting them in one class together! However, they are raised with a lot of love here and clearly progressing. All the staff members are super friendly.

In short, most of my days looked pretty much like this and probably will do so after the holidays as well:

8.00-9.30 Yoga and meditation

9.30-10.30 Class with Tashirat kids

10.30-11.00 (11.30 :)) Eating the “snack” (very healthy ;)) with the Tashirat kids

11.30-14.00/15.00 Helping out at Ixaya / giving English classes (starting half January)

Around 17.00 I try to meet Sami for our “class”.

Like I said though: things are flexible and constantly subject to change here, so I haven’t been able to meet up with Sami that much yet; I have spend more time here and there with the Tashirat kids; and I have been able to take lots of time for myself as well to settle in my new home and go into town (Tepoztlan) to enjoy the market there :) The town is just absolutely enchanting right now: there’s a big (extended Christmas) market going on every day, lots of lights, a big Christmas tree, performances on the zocalo (central plaza) every now and many traditions taking place. Tepoztlan has different neighborhoods, distinguished by the different churches. Every church (every neighborhood) has their own feast days. The festivities are pretty much the same in all neighborhoods, just different dates. On Monday the 12^th I was able to be part of the fiesta of “Virgin de Guadalupe”. People of the neighborhood Santissima organized a little market, had a band playing all weekend and Monday long, a “castle” made of fireworks being lit in the evening and many families opened up their houses to offer food and drinks to whoever came to visit. Wondering around I was ‘adopted’ for the evening by a family that went to visit 2 places to have dinner. Very beautiful and special to experience how hospitable and generous these people/traditions are!

Now Christmas drawing near, there are many posada’s held at the churches in town. This is a Catholic tradition concerning the part of the “pastorela” (Christmas story) where Joseph and pregnant Maria are looking for a place to stay. People gather at a set time at a church. The doors of the church are closed and the group outside is singing songs, answered by songs of a group a people that is inside of the church. When the doors open again, Maria and Joseph are ‘let in’ and all people and children that gathered line up outside: many older ladies, moms and grandmas come with huge bags of candies, oranges, chips etc. They go around giving everyone (big and small) the sweets.

The first week upon arriving I spent at Antares’ place. She lives in a beautiful eco village called Huehuecoyotl, a km or 2 further up the road from Tashirat. The lady who lives there and rents her the room got back the Saturday before I left (I moved to live at Tashirat on Sunday the 11^th), so Antares and I had the place to ourselves almost the whole week. It was really wonderful, comfy and fun to spent the time together, talking about many things, exploring Tepoztlan together and exploring the mountains when going for a hike on Saturday.

Last Thursday evening (the 15^th) we had the Christmas celebration at Ixaya… it was awesome! The children all prepared a little performance with their teachers, decorated their class rooms etc. A group of active moms worked 4 mornings to prepare marmalade (presents for people who supported Tashirat during the year) and 500 (!) Tamales (typical food: steamed dough made out of corn and filled with all kinds of things like chile (peppers) or vegetables, meat, pineapple, raisins etc), Atole (kind of drink) and Ponche (sort of Sangria, juice with many fruits, but without alcohol) to sell during the Christmas event. The money that was raised goes to new games for the children of Ixaya. It was a great success and also a good opportunity for me to get to know more people.

By Arlan and Kaisha, two staff members of Tashirat, I got introduced to Anneke and Aad. They are a very warm and friendly Dutch couple that support Tashirat and are helping out as well at another “Casa Hogar” in Cuernavaca (sort of orphanage, not all children are orphans but have parents with many problems). They invited me to come with them that Sunday (18^th) to the Casa Hogar and help with the Christmas handcrafts they were going to do there with the children. I gratefully accepted this wonderful opportunity to see another kind of orphanage (one that is completely different from Tashirat) and it was fun to meet the children living there.

That Saturday I met up again with Raul, a Mexican friend I also met at the Vipassana silent retreat. He came to visit Tepoztlan with his friend Paulo (from Brazil) and together we explored Tepoztlan and went on a hike up the mountain, to the “Piramide de Tepozteco”.

I’m really enjoying the beautiful and ‘quiet’ surroundings of the mountains every day, with amazingly clear star skies at night. I’m excited to get back after the holidays and spend more time here. When asking about the studentship program I was very happy to find out they will have time to do that! So from half January on I will be meeting once a week with Kaisha for a short “class” and build more time into my schedule to read on topics that I find interesting and more time to meditate.

It’s an exciting time we’re living in! Entering the infamous year of 2012, a new era (going from the era of Pisces to Aquarius), lots of elections coming up in many countries, increasing awareness and consciousness all over the planet… I’m very grateful and enthusiastic to learn more about what is going on in the world, gathering lots of interesting insights and perspectives. But most important of all:

Live, love and enjoy!

Love and hugs to you!