For the past four years, I’ve been visiting a public sports park in Querétaro; I spend many hours there each day while my son trains.
Every time I go in, I have to walk across a bridge over the Querétaro River. The smell is terrible! And the worst part is that all the athletes who enter by crossing that bridge have to hold their breath for a few minutes while they walk or endure the stench.
When it’s the rainy season, the situation gets even worse. The river rises and carries trash and sewage, and the pervasive smell intensifies not only on the bridge at the entrance but throughout the park where people are exercising. Nobody says anything. I suppose the hundreds of people who pass by wonder, “What can we do?”
We decided to take action as a company. We sent a letter to Iridia Salazar, the director of INDEREQ, to see if we could volunteer to clean the river and reforest the green areas, and to find out why so many high-performance athletes from Querétaro train in that park athletes whose medals in national and international championships the government so proudly boasts about yet do nothing to ensure they have clean and healthy spaces. We received no response.
We decided to take matters into our own hands. We cleaned the river and discovered that it wasn’t just about removing trash; the drainage system is connected to the river, and the water from this river likely flows into the sea at some point.
We want the children, teenagers, and adults who train in that park to breathe clean air. There are many volunteers, who want to solve the unsanitary conditions of that river, but we want to work hand in hand with the government and feel like we’re all working toward the same goal.
Let’s stop worrying and start taking action!