Relax, I am not trying to create even more alarmism by suggesting there is a relation between the two diseases; they just happened to be the hot topics of the past 24 hours… quite an eventful day!!

The day started with a number of silly headlines about the potential pandemic of the Gripe Porcino (to call it a la Mexicana) and luckily also some sensible voices (check out Simon Jenkins pointing out we have gone demented… indeed we have!), then went on with the clearing of my inbox of ‘I feel sorry for your business’ and ‘maybe we should cancel our trip’ messages and with a phone call with my mother in which I had to promise I will not be crossing the Atlantic anytime soon. Finally, after checking on a few friends in Mexico, I saw they are far more relaxed about the whole thing than us here, but now we are going into genetics, so that does not count

Cancer, on the other end, is killing far more people than the Swine Flu and it is already a real pandemic to which no one seems to be immune regardless of the age, race, life style and sneezing habits (either in a tissue or to the neighbour’s face). Which is why we should keep ourselves as fit and healthy as possible and grab any chance we have to support the research. And here (finally) comes the link to yesterday’s event;  another exciting London Bloggers Meetup sponsored by Fashion Targets Breast Cancer a charity established in 1990 by Ralph Lauren which has raised over £9m for Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

I must admit I am particularly sensible to breast cancer due to my family history; plus, by coincidence I had my first BC screening a few hours before the meetup (I am getting to that venerable age when they start keeping an eye on you…) but I am not particularly into fashion. However, I was very impressed by the web-marketing and social media techniques this charity has been using to communicate with the public and to get young people involved into its cause. Its main campaign - Million Model Catwalk - uses a very fresh and fun approach to both fundraising and raising awareness.

At the event they did not just offer drinks and canapes, but USB keys full of information, website urls, facebook and twitter accounts… and organised raffles with their fashion items as prizes (I won a lovely t-shirt, and I am certainly considering buying some more stuff to support the cause). Today the PR girls sent follow up messages to the meetup members and got an amazing feedback. There were hash tagged twits (#1mmc) like the one I sent last night, blog posts (like this) and comments on their own blog, all techniques charities should learn and take advantage of! Well done!

Most travellers ask me about what to bring when they go on tour, and some of them are concerned about taking something to leave at destination, especially if they are visiting a local community, or if they have chosen a homestay formula.

Bringing a present for the people who will be hosting you is always thoughtful, but too many times I hear people saying that they also fill their luggage with ’something for the kids’, meaning that they walk around with bags of sweets, pens or small toys which they give away to the children on the streets. Even worse, when the bag of sweets is empty there is some money coming out of their pockets.

Unfortunately these ‘nice thoughts’ become incentives for hoards of kids to run after tourists for presents and coins, sometimes in a very insistent way, and often encouraged by their parents, who let them skip school for a begging session in the street.

To people who really want to help by bringing extra goods on holiday, we strongly recommend a visit to stuffyourrucksack.com, a website listing organisations that deserve support and need ’stuff’. There are schools needing books or stationary, orphanages needing clothes and toys, all things that you can stuff in your rucksack and deliver personally at destination.

If you have been somewhere and got in touch with a NGO or a local charity that you would love to help, you can provide fellow travellers with some information about ‘what stuff is needed and where’.

I have come across this site only a few days ago, and I find it the perfect example of a useful online travel community. Well done to Kate Humble for this great idea!

Having been learning Spanish for a couple of months now I feel like I have a reasonable grasp of the basics and seem to be communicating quite well.

Yesterday however, pushed my knowledge of Spanish to the limit as I helped out a friend here in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, who organises group sessions with some local kids to help them with their English and school homework.

Firstly, I have never claimed to be an expert in the arts, language or grammar and am only now getting to grips with words like ‘preposition’ and ‘infinitive’ (damn the UK education system), so I’m not exactly well placed as a language teacher.

Secondly, my Spanish is of a level where even trying to explain simple things can be very challenging, but you have to give these things a go.

I spent most of my time with a boy called Victor, pictured above with me in mid confusing explanation, who is very bright but really quite shy, especially with the other kids in the group. We seemed to get on pretty well though and he bombarded me with questions in rapid machine gun like Spanish.

The main task was to try to help him correct mistakes in a presentation he has to give in English, in front of his class. It was a great experience!

I learned odd words such as ‘canicas’ (marbles) and a useful one in ‘juntar’ (to join), the latter being an effort to get him to connect sentences instead of saying really short ones, kind of like my Spanish.

The benefit beyond learning more Spanish and an ‘in the deep end’ lesson on how hard it is to teach, is as my friend put it; ’showing the kids that tourists are more than just people who turn up for a while, buy things and go home, but are people who care and can help the community’.

I advise anyone with even a basic grasp of another language to seek out these kinds of opportunities, either here in San Cristobal or wherever you travel to. How often will the word ‘marble’ come up in a normal class?

For information on helping here in San Cristobal check out the Chiapas Childrens Project.

Unfortunately, the 2007 Day of the Dead celebrations will be remembered as tragic by the Tabasquenos and some of the Chiapanecos.

The exodus is reaching enormous proportions and more than 100,000 people have been evacuated, saved from their homes and sent to temporary refuge shelters in Villahermosa.

It is real devastation, another disastrous effect of this global warming which still some people are refusing to ackowledge.

The newspaper El Universal published some emergency bank account numbers to help Tabasco, and this is the link to the Mexican Red Cross. I have not found any easy way to donate online yet, please add info on a comment if you know any.

Last week I have received the first After-Dean photos from some of the people we work with in Costa Maya, the southern part of Quintana Roo.
These are a few shots of Bacalar, near the beautiful lagoon.

Although the village of Mahahual has been hit pretty badly, Carolien - owner of Hotel Maya Luna - said they consider themselves lucky when compared to most people living in other villages just north of Mahahual, like El Placer, Limones, Bacalar, where entire families (mostly within poor indigenous communities) have lost everything.

These are a few images of Maya Luna after Dean
Carolien & Jan are already working to clean up the place and rebuild the thatched roofs.
I wish them the best of luck to get back to business asap.

Also 30% of the beachfront houses and resorts in Tulum suffered some damage. Hemingway lost 3 beachfront palapas and their restaurant. They will reopen the surviving palapas in about 10 days and plan to complete the restoration of the restaurant in about 45 days.

Most people who emailed me from Costa Maya shared the same concern about the government support; Dean has not been as strong as Wilma, but will the reaction and reconstruction be as quick when the affected areas are not ‘big tourism money machines’ like Cancun and Cozumel?