This past December, seven other engineering students and I traveled to Mexico. We spent time in Mexico City, Teotihuacan, Puebla, Cuetzalan, and a farming community named Taltokalis, where we did our service project.

Upon arrival, one could already tell a lot about their culture just by how willing the native people were to help us. Throughout our whole week there, the Mexicans were extremely nice and helpful to all of us. We began our journey by traveling to our hotel in Mexico City using Uber. Along the way to the hotel, we passed a huge market on the streets with hundreds of booths and stalls full of clothes, shoes, crafts, art, food, and many people walking around the market. The hotel was very different from the hotels here in the USA. It took us a while to find the hotel because there was just a small sign above a door with the name on it. Other than that sign, there was nothing to indicate to us that there was a hotel in the building. The stairway up to the hotel room was completely opened up to the sky and breakfast was served on the roof. Other hotels in which we stayed were similar to this style.

The first night we went to the Zócalo, which is the main square in central Mexico City. The city was gorgeous at night with all of the lights lit up in preparation for Christmas. We got to see the Palace of Fine Arts and the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, which is also known as the Sinking Cathedral. The architecture in Mexico was truly amazing and extremely colorful, reminding me of Spanish architecture.

For dinner that night, I got tacos, which were delicious, but to my surprise, the tacos were rolled and looked more like taquitos. I tried tacos a couple more times during the trip and each time they were rolled up, which I found very interesting since that is not how they are ever served in the US.

The next day we traveled to Teotihuacan to see the pyramids there. As an engineer, the pyramids were fascinating to me because they were built by hand hundreds of years ago, and they are still standing today. My favorite place we visited during the week was Puebla. Downtown Puebla was an extremely lively and fun place to be. There were a bunch of different markets downtown with lots of handmade crafts. We toured the Museo Amparo, which is a very important museum of Mexican history, as well as the Puebla Cathedral. We tried churros at a famous churro place, and they were super delicious! I was surprised by how inexpensive all of the food was in Mexico.

Cuetzalan was another favorite place of mine. It is a smaller town located in the mountains, and just by walking through the streets, one could tell that the town was rich in culture, history, and tradition. From Cuetzalan, we traveled to Taltokalis, which is the name of a small community and school that teaches others how to take the skills they have and turn them into a business.

Our service project on the farm was using bamboo and palm leaves to build a dry ecological bathroom that could be used for compost. It started with us using saws to cut down stalks of bamboo that were strong (mature) enough to be used for support structures. This was really interesting because one doesn’t normally think of bamboo as a material that is strong enough to provide support, but it was actually very hard to cut through the bamboo. Once the structure was built, we had to tie palm leaves together for the roof in a way that would essentially make the roof waterproof.

This project took us about two and a half days to finish, and we were all excited to see the finished product! It was a lot of manual labor, but the project was fun, and I am very glad we got this opportunity to help the community and learn from them. Overall, our trip to Mexico was amazing and most definitely worth it! It was a wonderful opportunity to see another country and learn about their culture and customs, while at the same time giving back to others. For anyone thinking about doing an alternative break/volunteer trip, I would highly recommend it!