First Day of the Conference

Today was the beginning of the two week conference here in Cancun. Being the first day, getting to Cancunmesse was a bit hectic, and even though we were all up and on the road by 8:00am or so, we didn't arrive until about noon. We were told that this may in part have been due to the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, being at the opening ceremonies, but also getting all the delegates, observers, and staff there was a challenge on it's own.

Our goal today was to get a feel for the center, and become more comfortable with what we will be dealing with over the next two weeks. After passing through a brief security check, we walked into the first building to see about a hundred little cubicles where different organizations had their own space to promote their cause. These included Greenpeace, UNICEF, and Oxfam, along with many other international campaigns. At one that we were all familiar with, 350, a group started by author Bill McKibben, we ran into fellow Minnesotan Paul Thompson who biked to Cancun with the 350 Solutions Revolutions group starting after the October 10/10/10 event at Mill Ruins Park in Minneapolis. We also met with the our friend Reed Aronow, who invited us to join him and the SustainUS group at a YOUNGO (non-governmental organization designated for youth) meeting with international youth.

From left: Reed, Mr. J, Carly, Kia, Paul, Nicole, and Ausin.

At the YOUNGO meeting, we were joined by people from places like New Zealand and Germany, to discuss the events YOUNGO will be doing throughout the conference. The purpose of these events are to show the negotiators that we are here, getting involved, and also to get the point across to them that we will be the ones living in the world they're creating policy for. There were many great ideas circulating during the meeting, including what they are planning to do on the Future Generations Day on Thursday December 4th, which we will share more about when they happen. In addition to the YOUNGO meeting, we were able to see the end of a REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) discussion panel, which was specifically focused on the role of women in REDD and the importance of women in forestation. Unfortunately, within REDD women are not recognized as stakeholders, and therefore not considered in part of REDD's decision making.
What we got out of today was an idea of how things will work while we're here. For tomorrow, we are each planning out the events we would like to attend in order to get a sense of where we need to be and when until we leave the conference for the night.

The Adventure Begins...(Our first weekend in Cancun)

After an early arrival to the airport at 5am and a long day of flying we all arrived in Cancun in one piece. So far we have just been getting to know our homestay families and getting used to the drastic change in weather (it has been in the 80s and very humid). On Saturday after arriving in Cancun Mr. Luis Felipe Trigo picked us up and gave us a tour of the area. After we registered at the Cancunmesse and ate a quick dinner we got dropped of at our homestays. The rest of the night we spent getting to know our homestay families and getting some much needed sleep.

Sunday morning we spent with our homestay families. Kia and I spent it on the beach with our host sister Jennie, which is located right outside our back door. In the afternoon we all me up at Ms. Montse's parent's house (where Mr. Johnson and Austin are staying) for lunch. At the lunch we ate some traditional Mexican food and helado for dessert. We spent the rest of the time figuring out the logistics of our trip to the conference. The biggest issue was probably getting everyone in one place in the morning, but we managed to figure it out. Now that we have gotten our bearings here in Cancun we are ready and excited to begin attending the conference.