“This Saturday we’re going to hike up to a lookout with a gorgeous view—hope you can come,” said the email I sent out to people on my list of Caminantes (hikers).
I thought my friend Rodrigo Orozco (also known as Tarantula Man, due to the anti-poaching project he leads in western Mexico) would be the first to sign up, but he replied, “Sorry, John; I’m going to be tied up for the next 44 Saturdays.”
Of course, I was curious as to what my friend planned to do on nearly a year’s worth of Saturdays.
“Not long ago, I made a little visit to La Villa de los Niños,” he explained, “and I ended up offering to give them my talk about the Dangerous and Harmless Bugs of Mexico. Well, there just happen to be 2,000 boys over there. Now, in my presentation, the kids always get a chance to see and to touch tarantulas, millipedes, walking sticks, vinegaroons, etc., which means the most individuals that could attend any one sitting would be 45… so, if you do the math, it’ll be about a year before all of them can see my show. Do you want to come along as my assistant sometime? Of course, I said yes.
La Villa de los Niños is located 30 kilometers southwest of Guadalajara, near Acatlán de Juárez, on Highway 35, just 20 kilometers northwest of Jocótepec. As we drove through the gate, Rodrigo pointed out several large buildings we could see ahead of us. “Over there is a huge fish farm and that is a bakery and on our right you can see a body shop. Besides an education, all these boys get vocational training in several skills.”
We stopped at the library. As I helped Rodrigo set up his projector and unpack Tupperware containers full of little wiggling creatures, he turned to me. “You know, I’ve been giving this talk to kids for years. I usually start by asking my audience if they’ve ever heard of arthropods (the family which includes spiders, ticks, mites, etc.) and never once have any kids ever said yes—with the exception of this place. Here several boys immediately raised their hands and they knew exactly what I was talking about. I suspect this Boys Town may have the best high school in all of Mexico.”
A few minutes later, around 30 boys walked into the library. They were around 15 years old and they were quiet and orderly. To my surprise, they were not accompanied by an adult. Throughout the conference, which lasted over an hour, the boys were not only well behaved, they were alert and interested, participating and asking questions the whole time: the kind of audience we presenters dream of.
After the talk, I had a chance to interview the person in charge of the entire operation at Villa de Los Niños, a small, shy ever smiling nun from the Philippines named Hermana Nenita.
*Restricted Article* - To view rest of this content, please login or register..
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
