By Arq. Tania Zavala
Civil Works Manager

Hello Everybody!!! It’s a pleasure to be part of this blog.

I was born in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas – the southernmost of Mexican states, bordering with Guatemala. I am a 25 years old architect, the smallest of the family… for which you may think I am the most pampered, but its not so. He He.

When I was kid, my family used to visit some uncles. I loved talking with my older cousin, particularly because she was studying architecture; she used to tell me all the things that she did and how much fun she was having. I watched her work, watched her drawings, and her books. She had this special space in her house to do her homework and sometimes I saw my uncle helping her! I though that was so neat!

At some point, I don’t remember when, I said to my parents that I wanted to study architecture. Absolutely everybody, including my brothers and uncles, said to really think about it, since it is a very difficult and hard career.

This really set me going, it thrilled me to have such a challenge…

When High School was over, I started to prepare myself for the College entrance exam. I studied every single day with my cousin Cristina; it did not matter that we had selected different career paths, we helped each other.

In a blink of an eye, I was already in college, which I found out was not the hard part… in the end, the complicated part was remaining in school.

On the first year there were 3 groups with an average of 35 students per group, for a total class of 105 people; eventually only 25 of us graduated, of which, only 10 came from the original generation!

At the beginning of college, on the due date of a requested project, we were asking each other, did you actually have some sleep? It became a game, knowing who had deprived sleep on the night prior to due date. As time went by, the question changed to, How many hours did you sleep? Evidently, after 2 or 3 days of continuous work… it was great knowing who had slept the most with a neatly finished project.

When I started college, my dog Dingo was 9 months old; he was my roommate and took care of me during those long nights of work. |in the early days, he tried to be awake… he stared and was most probably asking himself, at what time will Tania go to sleep? It was funny looking how he was falling asleep, fighting himself… and he actually would not go to sleep until I did so.

As time went by and after long, long nights, Dingo understood that awake or asleep, he was still keeping me company.

Having studied architecture was difficult indeed, but not impossible.

And now I have a new challenge, here at Casa Dorada!