Californians Barbara and John Dye have spent the last two years working in Guadalajara as members of the U.S. Peace Corps. Barbara, who holds a degree in geology, assisted the team which cares for the Bosque de la Primavera, while John, a graduate in mechanical engineering, carried out special projects for CIATEJ (Jalisco Research Center for Technology and Design).
The road to Guadalajara was a long one. Shortly after their marriage in 1971, the couple decided to tour Europe by motorcycle but after a while become disillusioned with the experience.
“The desire to see the world was still there,” says John, “but we were looking for more of a reason to be abroad than just sightseeing, so we started thinking about the Peace Corps, which seemed like a good option for getting to know a place in depth.”
As a result, the Dyes filled out PC applications but then plunged into volunteer work in George McGovern’s campaign for the presidency, working in Washington, D.C.Says Barbara: “Several months later, we remembered those applications and went over to PC headquarters to see what had happened. We walked in the door and they said, ‘Do you want to look at the list of jobs?’ So they opened this loose-leaf binder and asked us, ‘How about Ghana?’”
A few months later John and Barbara found themselves in Komasi, the second largest city of Ghana located in West Africa next to the Ivory Coast.
“We ended up in a house on a university campus with running water and mostly 24-hour electricity,” John says. “What more do you need?”
In accord with the machismo of the era, John was placed into a mechanical engineering project with the Faculty of Architecture, while Barbara was designated a “non-matrix spouse.” John spent his three years in the country working on alternative techniques for low-cost housing. His task was to figure out how to fabricate soil-cement blocks which could be made locally instead of importing concrete blocks from abroad. “I helped them design a hand-operated machine for making the blocks, a sort of giant tortilla maker,” he quips.
Although Barbara was not obliged to work, she was soon involved with the Ghana Building and Road Research Institute, looking for hard rock and clay in unexplored jungle areas. “I had a crew that would cut a path through the bush with machetes,” she says, “and then we would go in and take samples. It was a great experience!”
Fast-forward 35 years and three daughters later and once again the Dyes found themselves free for adventure. This time they had to undergo a year-long application process and were offered a tour in Mexico, which they liked because they would be able to stay in contact with their children.
The Peace Corps’ arrangement with Mexico is different from that with other countries. All volunteers in Mexico (there are around 70) must work either with SEMARNAT (Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources) or CONACYT (National Council for Science and Technology) and these organizations specifically request the volunteers they are interested in.
“In our case,” explains John, “the Peace Corps had to find a location that wanted both of us.” This worked out nicely as Guadalajara’s Primavera Forest asked for Barbara and CIATEJ requested John.
Barbara’s mission was to write a guide to the geology of the large wooded area to the west of Guadalajara. Two years later, she says the geology book is now finished and is being prepared for publication early next year. Barbara also turned her geological data into a video which is now on YouTube (look for “Geologia Primavera.” Note that the captions are all in Spanish). Apart from this project, Barbara also managed to get a Small-Project grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Her project was to train people living near the forest to make wooden signs.
Says Barbara, “I had noticed that there wasn’t much informational signage in the Bosque and the few signs out there were not easy to read. Women from the town of La Primavera attended the workshop and started making very fine signs, which involved working with both PowerPoint and a router. Eventually we installed about 400 of their signs in the woods. This turned into a business which is still operating successfully today.”
Barbara then went on to secure another grant for a project of hers called the Children of the Bosque. The children, she explains, live in the woods. They were full of enthusiasm to go to school and to learn but for various reasons had found themselves without a teacher. The aim of the project was to buy new and used books for a lending library, enabling the children to study on their own, which, says Barbara, “they did regularly and faithfully, even setting up their own school under a tree.”
A third project is an Eco-Club which meets in the town of La Primavera once a week and takes local children on walks in the woods. “I calculate 140 kids have participated in the Eco-Club so far, often as many as 30 times. They really enjoy taking walks near their town and I think they’ve all discovered what a special place they live in. The peak of the program, however, was a trip to the Trompo Mágico Museum, which they loved. This program was paid for by people in the U.S. who help out PCV projects.”
Barbara Dye is behind many other projects. Probably the most popular is a YouTube video (in Spanish) on how to make your own volcano (using papier-mâché, vinegar and baking soda) which went viral. “It’s had 18,000 views,” says Barbara with a broad smile. You can find it by looking for the words “Como hacer un volcan bosque.”
During his two-year service at CIATEJ, a biotechnology research center, John created an English version of their website. “This turned out to be a bigger project than I ever anticipated,” he says. “So many researchers came to me with their information that the number of pages I put on the site eventually grew to 400.”
Many of these researchers were also writing papers for publication in professional journals. “In numerous cases their English needed work, so I helped them, even though many were writing about subjects I knew nothing about,” says John. “I think I must have worked on at least 100 articles and I sure have learned a lot, especially about yeast and tequila. I even ended up translating a good number of them from Spanish. Happily, it seems all of these papers were accepted for publication.”
Both Barbara and John volunteered to help out during the Pan-American Games as translators and interpreters. “Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought two years ago that I’d be translating official documents from Spanish to English for the organizers of the Pan American Games!”
As for Barbara, reflecting on her experience, she says, “I feel I am so lucky that I was assigned to the Bosque La Primavera. It is such an amazing resource for the people of Guadalajara and it’s amazing that there’s a relatively pristine oak-pine forest of this size right next to such a big city, with such a range of habitats and animals.”
So delighted were the Dyes with their Mexican experience that they have elected to stay yet another year. Their new assignments will be in Queretaro. The reaction of the Dyes, when the extension to their tour of duty was announced? “This is great! We love Mexico.”