by Linda Grier Pulliam
In the colorful four-hundred-year history of Hacienda Santa Maria de
Pipioltepec, few events have generated the level of anticipation —
and volume — of the Keremess. Each summer, 140 children and their
counselors at Camp Pipiol devote one day to the organization of a fair
and party for 3,000 rural children who live in the economically depressed
Valle de Bravo. When the children descend on the camp, the Pipiol campers
organize games, music, dancing, and food — with each visitor taking
home a bag of food, household items, and toys at the end of the memorable
day. But that’s only one chapter in the story of Pipiol . . . .
The Early History of Pipiol Hacienda
In the early 17th century, Hacienda Santa Maria de Pipioltepec was owned
by a wealthy Spaniard and encompassed roughly fifty thousand acres located
120 miles south of Mexico City in the mountainous area of Valle de Bravo.
At that time, Spanish landowners were also considered the "owners"
of the people who farmed the land, harvesting wheat and corn with Pipiol’s
aqueduct powering the grain mill. Following the Mexican Revolution in
the early 1900s, the huge pieces of land were subdivided by President
Lazaro Cardenas and redistributed among those who worked the land. The
revolutionary, General Juan Barragán, eventually became the new
owner of the hacienda.
During World War II, a German submarine was disabled and forced to land
on the coast near Vera Cruz. A group of the captured Germans were taken
to Pipiol Hacienda by the General Barragán, where they remained
as a labor crew in the warm, dry climate with an array of nourishing food
and comfortable accommodations until the end of the war — a sentence
much preferred over other imprisonment. In 1945, Gustavo Serrano, grandfather
of today’s owner/director, Genaro Ortiz Tirado, purchased the Hacienda
and approximately 100 acres of land as a weekend retreat for family and
friends.
Camp Pipiol’s Forty Years
In 1964, Genaro’s mother, Margarita Ortiz Tirado, founded the
camp to provide an educational program and vacation entertainment for
her seven children and their friends. Within one year, the word spread,
and the camp was filled during two separate sessions for fifty-six boys
and fifty-six girls, staffed by local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, who
served as counselors. The decision was made to establish a family business
with the goals of providing high quality, safe, educational, and challenging
activities for children. Forty years later, the ideal climate, scenic
location, and historical ambiance of a 17th century hacienda, has enabled
Camp Pipiol to offer an impressive program that includes six weeks of
summer camp — offered in three two-week sessions — and programs
for school groups throughout the year, as well as corporate ropes course
groups, weddings, reunions, and conferences.
The hacienda, of traditional brick and beam construction, has been converted
into modern bunk rooms, while retaining its authenticity. Campers and
staff eat outdoors on the veranda and on the meticulously landscaped grounds.
The hacienda garden provides lettuce, loganberries, herbs, teas, chilies,
spinach, and lemons for use in the camp kitchen.
Camp activities are held in the brick courtyard in the shadows of the
original aqueduct. Traditional camp program includes soccer, basketball,
hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, canoeing, bread baking, ecology,
and local crafts, with older campers venturing away from the hacienda.
The Cabalgatas program features two-night horseback riding trips into
the mountains, and Canoas, a water sports program on the shores of Valle
de Bravo Lake. Guerrilleros is housed in a tree house village offering
opportunities for rappelling, hiking, and a ropes course.
In addition to the annual Keremess, community service has been an important
focus for the summer campers and school classes who come mainly from families
living in Mexico City. The surrounding land is parceled into tiny tracts
where families can barely eke out a living. Visiting students and teachers
often visit the local schools where children can share the differences
and similarities of their homes, families, and schools. One of the participating
schools, the American School Foundation, provided computers, installation,
and support for a local school of Mazahua Indians. Pipiol Hacienda contributes
to the local economy by employing many residents and purchasing supplies
and produce from the farmers when possible. Participants in the 7th International
Camping Congress will have an opportunity to tour Valle de Bravo and Pipiol
and enjoy lunch and entertainment. For more information, see Camp Pipiol’s
Web site, www.pipiol.com.
Centro de Actividades y Servicos Educativos El Molino
Peter Smith is an uncommon name for a director of a Mexican camp, but
Peter Smith is definitely an unconventional person. Raised in the United
States, Smith graduated from college, spent time in New York and New Mexico,
and then drifted to Mexico City in 1972, landing a job as a Montessori
teacher. He became interested in alternative teaching methods and developed
a field work approach for his students. After several years of taking
his students on field experiences, in 1982, he rented an abandoned 16th
century hacienda located five hours west of Mexico City as a base for
his classes. Devoting himself to the extensive repairs needed at the hacienda
and to the development of a challenging educational program, Smith has
enabled El Molino to evolve into a busy nonprofit organization offering
summer camp and educational programs for schools from all over Mexico
as well as at least a dozen schools each year from California, Texas,
and Oregon.
With a staff of forty-five, including local teachers and artisans, children
are immersed in field biology, bacteriology, botany, farm animals, indigenous
crafts, creative writing, theater, and music. A visitor to El Molino might
observe children dissecting a snake, studying the water quality of the
camp’s lake, or engrossed in a writing workshop. Local teachers
and craftsmen share their talents with groups cooking buñuelos
(cinnamon and sugar fritters) over traditional charcoal fires, learning
the dying art of deshilado — a technique involving pulling threads
through fabric and embroidery — or making cheese and sausage. The
music instructor has a group of nonmusicians entranced by their compositions
on keyboards, marimbas, and percussion instruments in preparation for
a performance. Smith looks forward to sharing El Molino during a Post-Congress
trip that will emphasize the local heritage crafts. For additional information
on El Molino, see the Web site: www.elmolinomich.com.
Camping in Mexico
Until the late 1980s, thousands of Mexican families sent their children
north to the United States for a camp experience unavailable in their
country. Although the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and YMCA had previously
operated some camps, Camp Pipiol, established in 1964, was probably the
first privately owned camp in Mexico. Today, it is estimated that there
are 168 organized camps, ranging from those in small country houses to
some resembling North American camps. A recent trend is the establishment
of camps by adventure outfitters. As a very small industry, camps have
been largely unregulated and unrecognized by either the government or
the public. The twenty camps of the Asociacion Mexicana de Campamentos
(AMC) have organized to present a united front and have recently been
successful in working with the Ministry of Tourism to achieve recognition
of the terminology, "organized camps."
At this time, there are some minimal regulations that are applied to
camps by the Ministry of Health. Schools must also have written permission
from the Secretary of Education for class trips to a camp, and all swimming
and water sports are prohibited during school programs. The AMC requires
member camps to sign a statement of compliance with minimum best practices
and a code of ethics. They have begun working with the Ministry of Tourism
to establish a standards program for organized camps.
With the school summer vacation shrinking to about six weeks, nearly
all organized camps in Mexico operate year-round in order to cover operational
expenses and overhead. Because many are located at a distance from major
cities, obtaining supplies and repair service personnel is difficult.
Because the majority of the country’s population exists in extreme
poverty, it is impossible for most families to even consider the luxury
of camp attendance, and camps struggle to seek funding for scholarships.
Insurance and potential lawsuits present little challenge for directors,
however, as Mexican society has as yet not become litigious, and cost
of insurance remains reasonable. The AMC has focused on education and
annually sponsors a camp counselor training workshop in the spring, attended
by up to five hundred young, energetic counselors. An American Camp Association
Basic Camp Directors Course will be offered in October prior to the International
Congress.
As the host and organizer of the International Camping Congress, the
AMC has assumed an ambitious undertaking for an organization of their
size, but the directors believe that one of the lasting values of the
Congress will be an enhanced image of camps in Mexico. They have seen
the rapid growth of camp in the past twenty years and recognize that the
talents of the professionals, the temperate climate, and the rich heritage
of their country will set the stage for continued growth in the future.
With considerable pride in the recent achievements of camp professionals,
AMC members and personnel of other Latin American camps are looking forward
to showcasing the best of Mexican culture and the new camp tradition during
the 7th International Camping Congress. In the words of the Host Committee,
"Bienvenidos a Mexico!"
Originally published in the 2005 July/August
issue of Camping Magazine. |
