Crazy times with Climate Change

After Cuetzalan began the first day of the rest of my life (ok, month). For those who don't know, I'm one of five reporters in the COP16 News Center, which is a semi-official function of Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry. The COP16 is the UN-organized conference where diplomats and delegates get together to not reach any binding agreements regarding greenhouse gas emissions, alternative energy, and programs to mitigate and adapt to the effects of man-made climate change (i.e. global warming). This year it's in Cancun!

For the first week and a half, our team of 10 (reporters, editors, translators and the like) met for 10 to 12 (or 13) hours a day to practice, practice, practice producing multimedia reports for our website. We stalked people on the street, in parks, in their offices, to produce somewhat mindless videos and written stories on climate change, mostly to practice our production skills and familiarize ourselves with the language of the business.

Last Wednesday (Nov. 23?), we flew out together to Cancun. We're staying at an all-inclusive resort at one of the best beach spot's in the Caribbean city. It's incredibly bizarre to wake up each morning dressed to impress, laptop strung across the shoulder, stress levels set to explode, and see a bunch of lobster red, overweight tourists in tank tops and flip flops enjoying the beach and buffet. Our first afternoon, at least, we got to join them. Since then, however, it's been hectic, and as today (Nov. 29) is the first official day of the conference, it's only going to intensify.

Sunday was a very go-go-go kind of day, but I enjoyed it. My production team (cameraman, camera assistant, photographer and slighty-nuts production assisant) and I were rushed out of our bedrooms without breakfast to head north up to an archeological zone, where who knows what was happening. Once we arrived, not even the security guards knew what was happening, but as we walked past the gates, the camera dudes went racing up a sandy hill to where a huge group of people was standing. I scurried along in my pretty gold flats as they filled with rocks and sand. When I got up, I saw that the leader of an indigenous Mixe community from Oaxaca was performing the ritual sacrifice of a wild turkey to bless the inauguration of a Foreign Affairs-organized campsite for NGO workers and indigenous groups participating in the COP16. In retrospect, it was a little psychotic of me to ask that the cameras cover the actual slaughter, because of course we couldn't put that in my video, but at the time the ridiculousness of it all made me hysterically amused. Luis, the photographer, has an excellent picture of the neck and head splayed across a rock.

After the butchering, the Mixe leader passed around cups of mezcal, and the Foreign Affairs Secretary poured some on the turkey like any proper gangster would do. We hung around for a while waiting for an official to grace us with his presence, and finally bolted back to Cancunmesse, a convention center and one of two headquarters for high-level talks and events. There, we dropped off the van and caught a COP bus to the Moon Palace Hotel, the other HQ and home to our News Center. Which is in a basement. The space is normally used for training and hiring service personnel for the hotel (like cleaning ladies, waiters, cooks, etc). To get to the bathroom, we essentially walk through their complex, and it's still silly to me that when I take a break from a story and rush to pee, I run past neatly dressed Yucatecos in squeaky white sneakers and crisp uniforms.

Today, I've been blessed with a 10:30 a.m. work call, which can only mean that I'll be in the office until 2 a.m.

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