So incredibly my journey here in Oaxaca is finally approaching the end. We finished our presentations earlier today, and I was able to overcome my nerves about it with an ample supply of caffeine and wound up doing pretty well. All that's left now is our fiesta over at Oliver's house later tonight and to pack everything up. It seems fitting though that I do what I do best and rank the best moments of the trip. So here goes
5. The second trip to San Felipe: We spent about 6 to 7 hours with nothing but a few sandwiches and backpacks and got to see an absolutely beautiful forest and river. There's going to be a lot of pictures of the trip on facebook in a few days including the absolutely gorgeous 20 foot waterfall and the tree that Alejandro climbed up on by it.
4. The first day we met Margarita and Hector: This was one of the things I was most concerned about. Not knowing what to expect from our homestays. After about five minutes it was clear we couldn't have gotten a better more loving family here. We've gotten incredibly close over all this time and were all really sad to say goodbye tomorrow.
3. That whole learning about Mexico thing: Surprised to see this on here? I really loved learning about all kinds of different facets of Mexican culture, society and history. I never thought about learning anything about agriculture, land reform, sustainable living, property rights or weaving until I got here but it's been incredible to see all these different things fit together and play a key role in communities. It's really humbling to see how little your perspective really is once you see a completely different lifestyle. Also getting to speak Spanish a lot was great and I'm hoping to do some tutoring next semester with it.
2. My parents arrival: I wasn't sure how they would like the city, and whether or not we'd have time to do a whole lot but we were able to have a great time, eat some great food, and I got to have a great time catching up and showing them all over town and swim at their amazing hotel.
1. The epic Jalapa-Juchitan-Mazunte trip: Can anything really top that? I probably spent 2 hours writing those blog posts and it was truly one of the most surreal unforgettable trips I've ever been on. It just had a bit of everything action, drama, beautiful beaches, awkward moments, educational value, just the shared experience of suffering and enjoying the highs and lows of a 5 day trip. It also really showed me how far I've come as a man and how I can deal with bad situations without always having people look over my shoulder. What more could you ask for?
Overall I really have nothing bad to say about the entire experience and would do it again in a second. The people are so welcoming and friendly, and theres just so much you can do and see to enjoy yourself. The food is completely different from the Mexican food you'll usually find and I even managed to get myself to like the chapulines(fried grasshoppers) by the end of the trip. The three things that I'll remember most from the trip is first the friendships I've made with the other students, teachers, my host family, and the people of the city. Second, the stories and memories I've made that I feel like I will someday tell my kids and grandkids about(although I may have to edit certain parts). And last the challenge of a program that really makes you examine everything you've believed in and what you can learn from completely different lifestyles and cultures.
That's it I swear you won't have to read anymore until I try and publish this in book, short story, or movie form in a few years. Til then thanks so much to everyone who followed this adventure; to my family and friends who shared my adventures on skype and facebook. I can't wait to see you all in a few days or weeks. As always Nos Vemos
Monday, August 3, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Break's Over: Time for the Schoolboy to Do Work
So over the last 48 hours I've finished two books, watched a number of movies, walked around the city looking for gifts for friends, and gotten exactly... nothing done on my research project. Correction I wrote my interview questions in Spanish. Good stuff really. Anyways I got an email from my Spanish professor, who I was counting on to do a good bit of the heavy lifting by getting me in contact with a professor who's class I could use to interview and basically take care of the research in one fell swoop. Well as fate would have it, I finally got a response from him and lo and behold the class ended last week and that he suggested I visit another University in town.
At first I was irritated and some bitter thoughts went through my head like "It would have been helpful to know that last week" and "This really screws me." I sort of remained in my vegetable like state, watching an episode of the Sopranos. Ironically the show gave me a moment of clarity. Throughout the episode Tony is constantly losing money gambling, be at the horse races or the roulette table, or betting against the Dolphins. As his losses pile up he starts lashing out at his friends and finally in a fit of rage has a huge fight with Carmella. I said to myself, "God, can't he see after all that therapy that he's just blaming his friends for his own problems."
Bingo. Exactly what I was doing with Esau, my Spanish professor. Here's a guy who's helped my Spanish improve beyond all recognition, who gave me another University to go to and the contact info for one of his students to interview for the project. I realized that the only person holding me back from this is myself, and that I've got all the tools I need to get the project done.
In short the project has me talking to university students here in Oaxaca and asking them about their educational background, their experience with the University, what they hope to do after they graduate, if they think they can do that in Oaxaca or will have to move, and a few other questions about the city to gauge their attitudes.
So first thing tomorrow I'm gonna go get some background information at the University, then do what I should have been doing for the last two days and interview the hell out of people.
As President Bartlett would say, "Break's over"
At first I was irritated and some bitter thoughts went through my head like "It would have been helpful to know that last week" and "This really screws me." I sort of remained in my vegetable like state, watching an episode of the Sopranos. Ironically the show gave me a moment of clarity. Throughout the episode Tony is constantly losing money gambling, be at the horse races or the roulette table, or betting against the Dolphins. As his losses pile up he starts lashing out at his friends and finally in a fit of rage has a huge fight with Carmella. I said to myself, "God, can't he see after all that therapy that he's just blaming his friends for his own problems."
Bingo. Exactly what I was doing with Esau, my Spanish professor. Here's a guy who's helped my Spanish improve beyond all recognition, who gave me another University to go to and the contact info for one of his students to interview for the project. I realized that the only person holding me back from this is myself, and that I've got all the tools I need to get the project done.
In short the project has me talking to university students here in Oaxaca and asking them about their educational background, their experience with the University, what they hope to do after they graduate, if they think they can do that in Oaxaca or will have to move, and a few other questions about the city to gauge their attitudes.
So first thing tomorrow I'm gonna go get some background information at the University, then do what I should have been doing for the last two days and interview the hell out of people.
As President Bartlett would say, "Break's over"
Monday, July 20, 2009
Now I'm not dumb but I can't understand why she walked like a woman and talked like a man
Well the last few days have been... eventful to say the least. No less than an hour after my last post in Juchitan I met up with everyone at the bus station and we decided to get a few drinks to beat the still brutal heat. We walked for a block only to realize our first choice was closed, and quickly headed across the street to another one. We didn't think much of the place at first just a small dive bar with maybe 10-15 people. We eagerly scooped up a table with a fan above it and ordered a round. Now I didn't mention it in the last post but Juchitan is famous or rather infamous for the large number of transvestites in the city. Sergio told us this before we arrived to prepare us but I don't think we had seen more than one or two the whole time we were there. I say this because after a few minutes it became clear that the bar had hired several of them to be drink runners(I don't know whether waiter or waitress is appropriate so that should be gender neutral enough). We laughed a little bit about it but didn't think a whole lot about it and focused on cooling down. Shortly after this, our ears were plagued by the awful songwriting and musicianship of the band Limp Bizkit. The lyrics were so bad on one of the songs I won't even bother to try and reproduce them here. Anyways we agreed that we could use some music that didn't give us a headache so I strolled on over to the jukebox to right the situation. After looking over the songs for a second, I felt a tap on my shoulder. The guy at the bar next to me introduced himself and asked me if I knew English and how to say something in it. Before I could respond the guy next to him introduced himself. I didn't think much of it then and tried to respond to both of them. However when a third guy came over I started connecting the dots... the picture of a scantily clad woman dressed as a devil, their being only one bathroom in the place and the aforementioned transvetites. Yup we were in a gay bar and I was getting swarmed. I looked over to our table with a look that said "A little help here guys". Mercifully they were witnessing the whole scenario and Hannah came over and drew them off and we got some music on and returned to our tables. The other guys thought it was pretty hilarious and Nathan even got a picture of the whole spectacle on his cell. We got out of there a bit later and got on our 1130 bus to Pachutla for what we thought would be a relaxing end to our field trip.
We arrived in Pachutla, at 430 in the morning and took a taxi to a beach Sergio recommended(he calls it his favorite beach in the Pacific) called Mazunte, and that got us there at 5 in the am. Naturally there were no rooms to be had at any inns at this hour so we walked around the small town on the beach, while talking and eventually napping for a bit there. I must have been out, because apparently it took a few kicks from Nathan to wake me up. It was about 7 and the first places started opening so we picked out a cheap one close to the beach. It definitely wasn't the nicest of places but it had mosquito netting and wasn't as hot at the time as it became later that evening. Mostly we just needed a place for our stuff so it definitely fulfilled that requirement.
Anyways after a 2 hour nap and making liberal use of my sunscreen, I was ready to go. Alejandro and I picked up a little bit of food first(some really good crepes with fruit and honey) and listened to one of the many tour guides give us a pitch about seeing turtles and dolphins and going to a nude beach(we declined). Then we joined Will and Nathan on the beach as I relaxed for a bit, enjoying the beautiful scenery now in full view with the sun on the rise. There were some really nice rock formations in the area as well as a forest on top of the cliffs to the right side of the beach. After a little bit of that I was ready to hit the water, and had a good time bodysurfing and swimming and just taking everything in. We took breaks periodically and tried going to hike the cliffs, but were blocked by high tides over some rocks we needed to cross. After that we spent a little more time in the ocean before hitting a little cantina close to the beach. Will left midway thru his drink and said he had to use the bathroom. He didn't return so we were wondering what was up but when we ran into him later he said he was alright. We then went to grab some tortas for lunch and I chowed down after an awesome morning. Again Will left halfway through saying he wasn't feeling well so we were started to get a little concerned about it. We went back to the room after and asked if he wanted anything or was feeling alright, and he said he was good he just needed a nap. We went back to our routine of bodysurfing, swimming, exploring, talking with people, and relaxing on the beach or at a cantina.
At around 8 or so we got back to find Will in pretty bad shape. He had just gotten done throwing up in the bathroom, and said the nap had made things even worse. He couldn't keep water down and the heat was getting to him. We kept him comfortable and decided the first thing we should do was get some pepto bismol and a cool cloth for him to cool down. We ran over to a guy nearby and asked where we could find a pharmacy and he pointed us to the only one in the village. We got back and he drank some of it and we did our best to keep him comfortable(or as comfortable as you can be in 100 degree heat when you can't drink water). After 30 minutes he had to take another trip to the bathroom and it was clear pepto bismol wasn't gonna do it. We explored the idea of a clinic or hospital but decided against it then after finding out the closest one was in Pachutla and most of the cabs had left. After that we ran back to the little pharmacy and grabbed some Pemalite to try and hydrate him. He still wasn't doing too well and we asked if wanted to go to the hospital. He said the thing he really could use was just a hotel with AC. We asked around and discovered there was one lone hotel called "Pan de Miel" in the village with AC. Nathan and I decided to go look for it while Alejandro kept an eye on Will.
So it started off simply enough, we found a cab driver and asked if he could take us there, he said we didn't need to as it was just a 5 minute walk or so in the other direction. Great we said and set off. We went for a little bit and after about that amount of time we asked again and they told us to keep going for a bit more and it'd be on the right. After about 50 more yards there were no more lights guiding us, so I pulled out my cell for a little light. It was crazy dark and we kept seeing shadows all the way so we weren't sure if we were alone on the road or otherwise. All of a sudden we started hearing a sound from behind. At first it sounded like a man chanting. It got louder. We suddenly realized he was talking to us. He sounded angry and started saying things like "you shouldn't be here" and that we weren't welcome and that the Zapatistas would be dealing with us; he punctuated these thoughts with creepy laughs every few seconds. We started walking faster and even though the small rational part of our brains was whispering "he's probably harmless", the sleep deprived, crisis mode, running on andrenaline, parts of our brains were saying "Get the hell out". Thankfully we soon ran into a truck and asked for directions to Pan de Miel . They said we had passed it but it was close and offered us a ride. As we climbed into the back we caught sight of our tormenter and he said the words "Nos Vemos" or in english "We'll see each other".
They dropped us at the "entrance" of the hotel which was a gate that was still about 200 yards and 3 turns away from the actual hotel and was also poorly lit which was not something we needed then. We found the place only to discover the office was closed and they didn't have any rooms to rent. After a disheartening walk back, we arrived at the hostel only to find no sign of Will or Alejandro. We hurriedly searched for the owner to see if we could figure out what happened and after a bit she said they had gone in a taxi to the hospital. Now we were really worried. Between everything that had already happened, and our wondering what could have caused them to abruptly head off like that. We grabbed a few things to drink and snack on at a convenience store(it was now 11 and we'd had nothing to eat) and waited 20 minutes for a taxi but had to settle for a collectivo. They drove really fast on the way to the hospital which was not what we needed after such a harrowing night but we got there okay. We waited for a bit inside and asked the guy at the front desk if he knew where he was and he went to ask somebody before Alejandro got out attention. Relieved, he proceeded to tell us that the reason they left wasn't because he got any worse but because the people at the hostel started to notice he wasn't okay and told them that it would be really tough to get a taxi and that they could take him now. In the meantime they were checking him out and gave him and IV to get some fluids back in him. While waiting we started talking to the guy at the front desk, named Uriel, who was eager to practice his english with us and we started talking about his trips to Canada and other parts of Mexico. He was really funny and joined in when we started badmouthing Juchitan(we found out later that Hannah got sick from it's food too so 3 our of the 5 of us got sick from that city). After an hour or so Alejandro said Will was doing better and that he'd probably be able to leave in a little bit. He came out looking greatly improved about 30 minutes later and said that he'd gotten a bad case of diarrhea courtesy of Juchitan. We helped him fill out some paperwork and get his meds(total cost of the trip only 99 pesos). It was around 130 then so he decided it'd be best if we stayed in Pachutla for the night instead of spending another 150 pesos to go back Mazunte and sleep in a hot hostel for the night. We got a nice place called Hotel San Pedro and slept well for the first time in a while.
The next morning Will wasn't quite up to beach activites so Nathan Alejandro and I decided to have just a quick day at the beach before collecting all our stuff and heading back to Oaxaca. We mostly just ate and hung out on the beach before heading back. Needless to say we were pretty eager to put this trip behind us. We got back to Pachutla, headed over to the bus station and proceeded to have an 11 hour bus ride back home. It was made all the weirder by a creepy guy who wouldn't get up from our seats, wasn't wearing a shirt at times, and started talking to himself during the trip when we went by a military checkpoint. Thankfully the trip wasn't too bad and we got home alright around 130am.
Some final thoughts on the trip.
1. As much as I hate to admit it, all the time I spent in Boy Scouts did help me. When Will was doing bad, I remembered a lot of what I had to do back then for first aid, and just dealing with sick people and I really think that I with the help of the other two guys handled a bad situation really well.
2. I would probably like to go back to Mazunte some day, as it is very beautiful, but you'll need to tie me up and drag me to get me to go back to Juchitan
3. The whole time when everything was going down in Mazunte we felt like we were in a bad movie that couldn't make up it's mind what genre it wanted to be: comedy, drama, horror, etc
4. It made me realize how much I really enjoy the comforts of Oaxaca city and have really grown to love the place. I'm definitely going to be sad to leave this place in a few weeks
That's all I've got for now, hopefully the rest of the trip is less dramatic. Adios
We arrived in Pachutla, at 430 in the morning and took a taxi to a beach Sergio recommended(he calls it his favorite beach in the Pacific) called Mazunte, and that got us there at 5 in the am. Naturally there were no rooms to be had at any inns at this hour so we walked around the small town on the beach, while talking and eventually napping for a bit there. I must have been out, because apparently it took a few kicks from Nathan to wake me up. It was about 7 and the first places started opening so we picked out a cheap one close to the beach. It definitely wasn't the nicest of places but it had mosquito netting and wasn't as hot at the time as it became later that evening. Mostly we just needed a place for our stuff so it definitely fulfilled that requirement.
Anyways after a 2 hour nap and making liberal use of my sunscreen, I was ready to go. Alejandro and I picked up a little bit of food first(some really good crepes with fruit and honey) and listened to one of the many tour guides give us a pitch about seeing turtles and dolphins and going to a nude beach(we declined). Then we joined Will and Nathan on the beach as I relaxed for a bit, enjoying the beautiful scenery now in full view with the sun on the rise. There were some really nice rock formations in the area as well as a forest on top of the cliffs to the right side of the beach. After a little bit of that I was ready to hit the water, and had a good time bodysurfing and swimming and just taking everything in. We took breaks periodically and tried going to hike the cliffs, but were blocked by high tides over some rocks we needed to cross. After that we spent a little more time in the ocean before hitting a little cantina close to the beach. Will left midway thru his drink and said he had to use the bathroom. He didn't return so we were wondering what was up but when we ran into him later he said he was alright. We then went to grab some tortas for lunch and I chowed down after an awesome morning. Again Will left halfway through saying he wasn't feeling well so we were started to get a little concerned about it. We went back to the room after and asked if he wanted anything or was feeling alright, and he said he was good he just needed a nap. We went back to our routine of bodysurfing, swimming, exploring, talking with people, and relaxing on the beach or at a cantina.
At around 8 or so we got back to find Will in pretty bad shape. He had just gotten done throwing up in the bathroom, and said the nap had made things even worse. He couldn't keep water down and the heat was getting to him. We kept him comfortable and decided the first thing we should do was get some pepto bismol and a cool cloth for him to cool down. We ran over to a guy nearby and asked where we could find a pharmacy and he pointed us to the only one in the village. We got back and he drank some of it and we did our best to keep him comfortable(or as comfortable as you can be in 100 degree heat when you can't drink water). After 30 minutes he had to take another trip to the bathroom and it was clear pepto bismol wasn't gonna do it. We explored the idea of a clinic or hospital but decided against it then after finding out the closest one was in Pachutla and most of the cabs had left. After that we ran back to the little pharmacy and grabbed some Pemalite to try and hydrate him. He still wasn't doing too well and we asked if wanted to go to the hospital. He said the thing he really could use was just a hotel with AC. We asked around and discovered there was one lone hotel called "Pan de Miel" in the village with AC. Nathan and I decided to go look for it while Alejandro kept an eye on Will.
So it started off simply enough, we found a cab driver and asked if he could take us there, he said we didn't need to as it was just a 5 minute walk or so in the other direction. Great we said and set off. We went for a little bit and after about that amount of time we asked again and they told us to keep going for a bit more and it'd be on the right. After about 50 more yards there were no more lights guiding us, so I pulled out my cell for a little light. It was crazy dark and we kept seeing shadows all the way so we weren't sure if we were alone on the road or otherwise. All of a sudden we started hearing a sound from behind. At first it sounded like a man chanting. It got louder. We suddenly realized he was talking to us. He sounded angry and started saying things like "you shouldn't be here" and that we weren't welcome and that the Zapatistas would be dealing with us; he punctuated these thoughts with creepy laughs every few seconds. We started walking faster and even though the small rational part of our brains was whispering "he's probably harmless", the sleep deprived, crisis mode, running on andrenaline, parts of our brains were saying "Get the hell out". Thankfully we soon ran into a truck and asked for directions to Pan de Miel . They said we had passed it but it was close and offered us a ride. As we climbed into the back we caught sight of our tormenter and he said the words "Nos Vemos" or in english "We'll see each other".
They dropped us at the "entrance" of the hotel which was a gate that was still about 200 yards and 3 turns away from the actual hotel and was also poorly lit which was not something we needed then. We found the place only to discover the office was closed and they didn't have any rooms to rent. After a disheartening walk back, we arrived at the hostel only to find no sign of Will or Alejandro. We hurriedly searched for the owner to see if we could figure out what happened and after a bit she said they had gone in a taxi to the hospital. Now we were really worried. Between everything that had already happened, and our wondering what could have caused them to abruptly head off like that. We grabbed a few things to drink and snack on at a convenience store(it was now 11 and we'd had nothing to eat) and waited 20 minutes for a taxi but had to settle for a collectivo. They drove really fast on the way to the hospital which was not what we needed after such a harrowing night but we got there okay. We waited for a bit inside and asked the guy at the front desk if he knew where he was and he went to ask somebody before Alejandro got out attention. Relieved, he proceeded to tell us that the reason they left wasn't because he got any worse but because the people at the hostel started to notice he wasn't okay and told them that it would be really tough to get a taxi and that they could take him now. In the meantime they were checking him out and gave him and IV to get some fluids back in him. While waiting we started talking to the guy at the front desk, named Uriel, who was eager to practice his english with us and we started talking about his trips to Canada and other parts of Mexico. He was really funny and joined in when we started badmouthing Juchitan(we found out later that Hannah got sick from it's food too so 3 our of the 5 of us got sick from that city). After an hour or so Alejandro said Will was doing better and that he'd probably be able to leave in a little bit. He came out looking greatly improved about 30 minutes later and said that he'd gotten a bad case of diarrhea courtesy of Juchitan. We helped him fill out some paperwork and get his meds(total cost of the trip only 99 pesos). It was around 130 then so he decided it'd be best if we stayed in Pachutla for the night instead of spending another 150 pesos to go back Mazunte and sleep in a hot hostel for the night. We got a nice place called Hotel San Pedro and slept well for the first time in a while.
The next morning Will wasn't quite up to beach activites so Nathan Alejandro and I decided to have just a quick day at the beach before collecting all our stuff and heading back to Oaxaca. We mostly just ate and hung out on the beach before heading back. Needless to say we were pretty eager to put this trip behind us. We got back to Pachutla, headed over to the bus station and proceeded to have an 11 hour bus ride back home. It was made all the weirder by a creepy guy who wouldn't get up from our seats, wasn't wearing a shirt at times, and started talking to himself during the trip when we went by a military checkpoint. Thankfully the trip wasn't too bad and we got home alright around 130am.
Some final thoughts on the trip.
1. As much as I hate to admit it, all the time I spent in Boy Scouts did help me. When Will was doing bad, I remembered a lot of what I had to do back then for first aid, and just dealing with sick people and I really think that I with the help of the other two guys handled a bad situation really well.
2. I would probably like to go back to Mazunte some day, as it is very beautiful, but you'll need to tie me up and drag me to get me to go back to Juchitan
3. The whole time when everything was going down in Mazunte we felt like we were in a bad movie that couldn't make up it's mind what genre it wanted to be: comedy, drama, horror, etc
4. It made me realize how much I really enjoy the comforts of Oaxaca city and have really grown to love the place. I'm definitely going to be sad to leave this place in a few weeks
That's all I've got for now, hopefully the rest of the trip is less dramatic. Adios
Friday, July 17, 2009
Welcome to the Jungle
So this tuesday we started our field trip for the week which has us going all over the Isthmus of Oaxaca, southeast of the city. We had a 4 hour bus ride at 9:30 that morning to Jalapa de Marques. The ride was a lot smoother than the trip to Sierra Norte and we got the privelege of seeing the awful Mummy 3 in Spanish as our entertainment for the ride. Needless to say I made liberal use of my ipod during the ride. One thing that´s different about the trip is that Oliver isn´t leading it(he is ironically stationed in Canada), instead we get the company of Sergio and his girlfriend Erin who are excellent guides and have tons of traveling stories, a combined encyclopedic knowledge of South Park, and excellent taste in cuisine to keep us entertained and well fed.
But as I was saying, we arrived in Jalapa having no idea what to expect. I hate to steal from my cousin, but his description of Wasilla Alaska(a shithole surrounded by such loveliness) applies perfectly to Jalapa(albeit with completely different climates). Jalapa used to be in an entirely different location in the area, but the citizens signed (or were forced to sign depending on who you ask) away their land rights so the government could build a dam to help with irrigation in other parts of the state. They had to build the land they were on from the ground up as it was literally a wasteland. Over the course of about 50 years they have been able to introduce new trees and other plants and animals to make the terrain hospitable, but the climate has been pretty fierce(hot and humid). Our first stop was to an underground radio station where they provide a counter narrative to many official government stories as well as a place for local citizens to have their announcements read(for example if someone gets sick and can´t afford to pay their hospital bills). It was a cool place but I´m starting to get a little tired of hearing one viewpoint(government bad, indigenous people good, development bad, Zapatistas good). We finished around 630 and had a few drinks to cool off before dinner. The house we were staying at, like most in the region, is made of cement rather than adobe. This might be fine in the US where everyone has AC but here it makes things pretty close to unbearable. Thankfully we had hammocks outside to keep us a bit cooler. I drew the short straw though and had to have one of the beds inside. Before bed we walked around a bit and made friends with some of the kids operating the motorized rickshaws in this tiny town. They were pretty cool and had a surprisingly good knowledge of American music(they knew Arctic Monkeys!) and got a few cigarettes for some of the other guys. We went back to sleep after a bit and I had one of the worst nights ever unfortunately. In addition to the heat, I didn´t really have a pillow to work with and finally after a few hours I got to sleep. Unfortunately, their are roosters that crow constantly from 5 to 7 in the morning so that made it difficult as well. Anyways, enough complaning.
Day 2 in Jalapa was just as hot although we took a lot of water to keep cool and we started to adjust so it wasn´t as bad. We listened or attempted to listen to a few guys from the municpal government talk about the history of the town and an archaelogical site they wanted to take us to(Sergio and Erin had fallen into that trap previously so we dodged a bullet). After that we had lunch and got ready to go out on the river. This is where Jalapa turned around for me. We got to go out on this guy´s motor boat and see the whole area as well as some ruins. We even saw a church from the old village, now underwater(when the water comes down in the dry season you can go down inside it though). He also showed us some of the Tres Picas ruins and he even found a relic which he gave to us. After all that we also got to go swimming in the river although a few of us got bit by fish at the bottom. Overall this made things a lot better and made me remember how much I love being out on the water.
The next morning we made for the city of Juchitan(pronounced hoochy-tan, come on I can´t be the only one that finds that funny) although a taxi strike forced us to go on foot for part of the way. Juchitan is not nearly as nice as Oaxaca city as it is much hotter, more cramped, and just doesn´t have the welcoming atmosphere of Oaxaca. That aside our stay here has been very pleasant. We got to see an ecological site where 10 years ago some local citizens had taken up shelter near this extremely polluted river in town, and since then have helped clean up the river, improve the sewage system, create programs for kids in the neighborhood, work on repopulating iguanas and turtles in the area(they are both popular in Isthmus cuisine), and create an excellent recycling facility. It was really cool to see how far it had come in such a short amount of time and even the government had gotten behind their effort after some initial resistance. We had garnachas for dinner after that and hung out in the Zocalo for a bit. While walking around the center, we all commented on the abundance of bird poop everywhere, then right on cue I got hit with the aforementioned excrement. I whiped it off and consoled myself with the knowledge that in Italian superstition, being pooped on by a bird means good luck and that Sergio also got hit with it a minute later. We then retired to our hotel, which was again really hot but bearable.
Finally, this morning we got up early to go have breakfast(hot cakes, fruit, and coffee for me) and then head over to another underground radio station. Our guide Carlos explained to us all the history of of uprisings in Juchitan and how they provided similar services to the station in Jalapa although it seemed they had a bit more experience with the operation. Again the station was a little much for me as it was littered with pictures of Che Guevara and Subcommandante Marcos, but the people were nice enough. Afer that Carlos and a few other guys loaded us into their truck to go check out some hot springs and the wind project they were working on here in the Isthmus. Our first stop was in the La Venta region which is the windiest region in the entire world. Literally about 5 seconds after we got into it, I came about an inch away from losing my Texas Rangers hat for all eternity but it mercifully fell back into the truck. The wind project presents a very interesting dilemma. On the one hand, this is a gold mine for wind power and it has the potential to provide Oaxaca with enough power so that it could be a net exporter of energy and run almost everything renewably. On the other the companies involved have fallen back on the ancient tactics of explotation of the indigenous population. They have been signing contracts for 150 pesos a year and a tiny share of the profits, and give the corporations ¨renting rights¨ for 30 or 60 years and then transfers the title to the company upon the owners death. The people have had some success in their work with NGOs to overrturn some of the contracts(some of which were handwritten or had huge legal problems) but some of them have gone ahead and signed again, so it´s hard to say whether they understand the consequences of the documents. Anyways its an issue thats caught my attention and I may end up writing my research paper on it, if I can stand being in Juchitan for 5 days. After that we visited a hot spring nearby and got to do some swimming.
Overall it´s been an excellent trip so far. The official field trip is over but as we´re nearby we´ve decided to continue on to Pochutla and live it up on the beaches for a day or two before the Guelaguetza. I´m currently killing time before we have to go to the bus station as our bus leaves at 1130 and arrives around 530 or 6. Thats all I´ve got on this installment. Hasta Luego.
But as I was saying, we arrived in Jalapa having no idea what to expect. I hate to steal from my cousin, but his description of Wasilla Alaska(a shithole surrounded by such loveliness) applies perfectly to Jalapa(albeit with completely different climates). Jalapa used to be in an entirely different location in the area, but the citizens signed (or were forced to sign depending on who you ask) away their land rights so the government could build a dam to help with irrigation in other parts of the state. They had to build the land they were on from the ground up as it was literally a wasteland. Over the course of about 50 years they have been able to introduce new trees and other plants and animals to make the terrain hospitable, but the climate has been pretty fierce(hot and humid). Our first stop was to an underground radio station where they provide a counter narrative to many official government stories as well as a place for local citizens to have their announcements read(for example if someone gets sick and can´t afford to pay their hospital bills). It was a cool place but I´m starting to get a little tired of hearing one viewpoint(government bad, indigenous people good, development bad, Zapatistas good). We finished around 630 and had a few drinks to cool off before dinner. The house we were staying at, like most in the region, is made of cement rather than adobe. This might be fine in the US where everyone has AC but here it makes things pretty close to unbearable. Thankfully we had hammocks outside to keep us a bit cooler. I drew the short straw though and had to have one of the beds inside. Before bed we walked around a bit and made friends with some of the kids operating the motorized rickshaws in this tiny town. They were pretty cool and had a surprisingly good knowledge of American music(they knew Arctic Monkeys!) and got a few cigarettes for some of the other guys. We went back to sleep after a bit and I had one of the worst nights ever unfortunately. In addition to the heat, I didn´t really have a pillow to work with and finally after a few hours I got to sleep. Unfortunately, their are roosters that crow constantly from 5 to 7 in the morning so that made it difficult as well. Anyways, enough complaning.
Day 2 in Jalapa was just as hot although we took a lot of water to keep cool and we started to adjust so it wasn´t as bad. We listened or attempted to listen to a few guys from the municpal government talk about the history of the town and an archaelogical site they wanted to take us to(Sergio and Erin had fallen into that trap previously so we dodged a bullet). After that we had lunch and got ready to go out on the river. This is where Jalapa turned around for me. We got to go out on this guy´s motor boat and see the whole area as well as some ruins. We even saw a church from the old village, now underwater(when the water comes down in the dry season you can go down inside it though). He also showed us some of the Tres Picas ruins and he even found a relic which he gave to us. After all that we also got to go swimming in the river although a few of us got bit by fish at the bottom. Overall this made things a lot better and made me remember how much I love being out on the water.
The next morning we made for the city of Juchitan(pronounced hoochy-tan, come on I can´t be the only one that finds that funny) although a taxi strike forced us to go on foot for part of the way. Juchitan is not nearly as nice as Oaxaca city as it is much hotter, more cramped, and just doesn´t have the welcoming atmosphere of Oaxaca. That aside our stay here has been very pleasant. We got to see an ecological site where 10 years ago some local citizens had taken up shelter near this extremely polluted river in town, and since then have helped clean up the river, improve the sewage system, create programs for kids in the neighborhood, work on repopulating iguanas and turtles in the area(they are both popular in Isthmus cuisine), and create an excellent recycling facility. It was really cool to see how far it had come in such a short amount of time and even the government had gotten behind their effort after some initial resistance. We had garnachas for dinner after that and hung out in the Zocalo for a bit. While walking around the center, we all commented on the abundance of bird poop everywhere, then right on cue I got hit with the aforementioned excrement. I whiped it off and consoled myself with the knowledge that in Italian superstition, being pooped on by a bird means good luck and that Sergio also got hit with it a minute later. We then retired to our hotel, which was again really hot but bearable.
Finally, this morning we got up early to go have breakfast(hot cakes, fruit, and coffee for me) and then head over to another underground radio station. Our guide Carlos explained to us all the history of of uprisings in Juchitan and how they provided similar services to the station in Jalapa although it seemed they had a bit more experience with the operation. Again the station was a little much for me as it was littered with pictures of Che Guevara and Subcommandante Marcos, but the people were nice enough. Afer that Carlos and a few other guys loaded us into their truck to go check out some hot springs and the wind project they were working on here in the Isthmus. Our first stop was in the La Venta region which is the windiest region in the entire world. Literally about 5 seconds after we got into it, I came about an inch away from losing my Texas Rangers hat for all eternity but it mercifully fell back into the truck. The wind project presents a very interesting dilemma. On the one hand, this is a gold mine for wind power and it has the potential to provide Oaxaca with enough power so that it could be a net exporter of energy and run almost everything renewably. On the other the companies involved have fallen back on the ancient tactics of explotation of the indigenous population. They have been signing contracts for 150 pesos a year and a tiny share of the profits, and give the corporations ¨renting rights¨ for 30 or 60 years and then transfers the title to the company upon the owners death. The people have had some success in their work with NGOs to overrturn some of the contracts(some of which were handwritten or had huge legal problems) but some of them have gone ahead and signed again, so it´s hard to say whether they understand the consequences of the documents. Anyways its an issue thats caught my attention and I may end up writing my research paper on it, if I can stand being in Juchitan for 5 days. After that we visited a hot spring nearby and got to do some swimming.
Overall it´s been an excellent trip so far. The official field trip is over but as we´re nearby we´ve decided to continue on to Pochutla and live it up on the beaches for a day or two before the Guelaguetza. I´m currently killing time before we have to go to the bus station as our bus leaves at 1130 and arrives around 530 or 6. Thats all I´ve got on this installment. Hasta Luego.
Friday, July 10, 2009
The week that was
This week's been kind of low key. We've settled into a little routine and have traded turns getting sick so there's been a little less exploring and high adventure. Fortunately we've got a huge field trip next week that should culminate with a trip to the beach right on the coast so stay tuned.
So first of all I made a quick recovery from food poisoning this Saturday and was back to getting seconds of just about everything by Sunday dinner.
On Tuesday we made a trip to a collective called Cacita which works on all kinds of different machines made out of bicycle parts(if your reading this I'll give you the address Burin) and focuses on sustainable living in the city. Again it was pretty cool to see people really embody Jefferson's ideal of man(particularly the farmer) being able to govern himself, but the speaker may have been slightly hung over so are attention wandered at times. They also had a really cool bus that runs on vegetable oil, that they've taken all over Mexico and has bunk beds in the back.
Thursday was our big trip of the week to a village in Sierra Norte mountains here. It was a two hour drive to get there and had some of the roughest, and most winding roads I've ever been on. The drive was gorgeous though and you get to see just miles and miles of forests and all kinds of plant life everywhere. We got there and went into one the municipal buildings where we had a guide show us the basic map for the sustainable logging project in their land. Basically they've divided the region into 40 regions and each year their allowed to cut down the trees in one of these regions. After they finish, they bring up partially grown trees and replant them in the area they just finished cutting. We drove up to a few of the places and got to give our lungs a workout climbing up to one of the areas they were cutting the trees(I think we were a good 2.4 km above sea level or for those playing at home about 1.5 miles, needless to say the air was thin). The views were gorgeous and we saw a few more locales before heading back down to the village to talk with one of the guys about the mine that had closed a few years before. Basically there had been this mine there for about 40 years that had been extremely damaging to health of the workers and the villagers because of the runoff into the water supply(we saw some pretty nasty pictures of the water). So the people decided to organize and with the help of some Canadiens were able to effectively lobby the Mexican government to be reclassified as an indigenous population, which gave them additional say in their affairs and allowed them to have the mine removed and the water cleaned up.
After about 7 hours of presentations and trips to various logging sites, we were all hungry but I was in that cartoonish hunger mode where people's faces start looking like chicken legs. Anyways we finally got to the trout farm/restaurant and had a great lunch of tortillas, soup, and some fried trout. We also got to see the zip lines they had set up across the river and go across a rope bridge there which was pretty cool.
After another bumpy, windy, two hour ride back to the city it was time for parent's weekend to begin. I was really excited for this, as it gave me an excuse to play tour guide/ambassador for my new home, try out some restaurants, and show them a few of our favorite hangouts.
My parents had an eventful cab ride over, which as previously mentioned is pretty par for the course here. They came in midway through dinner and we had an excellent meal, and Jimmy and I competed to see who had the best Spanish among the gringos. After dinner we walked around and I got to show them a few places close to our house, including the grocery store and a few nice restaurants. After about an hour of that, their gas tanks were empty from traveling and an eventful week in Dallas, so they called it a night and we made plans for Friday.
We met up again the next morning after class and after a short but heavy rain we set off to find a restaurant nearby. We found a great restaurant that serves food from Oaxaca's isthmus in the southeast(where I'm headed this Tuesday) and had some enchiladas and shrimp and their excellent homeade salsa. while we continued to catch up. After that I got to see the hotel they were staying which is the beautiful Hotel Victoria. It's situated above the city so you get beautiful views from your room, the pool, and bar area. One thing my mom and I have in common is our love for a good deal, and I've heard her mention at least 4 times how she was able to get the room half price and then get upgraded to a suite(As Jimmy likes to say "we all know Ellis is a Jewish name!") Before dinner we had a few drinks at the bar and talked about family history and everything I've been learning in classes(this week we talked mostly about NGOs and the environment). We then our made our way to a restaurant called "El Che" which is an amazing Argentinean steakhouse and had a very satisfying steak dinner with potatoes and salad. We were all in a bit of a food coma after that so at that point we called it a night.
Saturday we decided to explore the city center for most of the afternoon as we checked out jewelry stores, book stores(I picked up one book on the Mexican revolution and one called "How Soccer Explains the World), coffee shops, and a few gift shops. I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record but again we had a great lunch at Pizza Rustica, which in spite of its name actually has all kinds of soups, seafood, pasta, and of course pizza. After that we all felt like relaxing for a while so we called up Will, Hannah, and Rachel and decided to go for a swim at the hotel. We polished off the evening with a few drinks and some tacos al pastor at a restaurant in the Zocalo.
Overall it's been a great week, and I can't believe how quick the trip is going. I've got a field trip from Tuesday to Sunday, followed by La Guelaguetza(the huge festival that the city is renowned for) on Monday, and then my last 4 classes before I start working on my research paper. Thats all I've got for now. Hasta Luego
So first of all I made a quick recovery from food poisoning this Saturday and was back to getting seconds of just about everything by Sunday dinner.
On Tuesday we made a trip to a collective called Cacita which works on all kinds of different machines made out of bicycle parts(if your reading this I'll give you the address Burin) and focuses on sustainable living in the city. Again it was pretty cool to see people really embody Jefferson's ideal of man(particularly the farmer) being able to govern himself, but the speaker may have been slightly hung over so are attention wandered at times. They also had a really cool bus that runs on vegetable oil, that they've taken all over Mexico and has bunk beds in the back.
Thursday was our big trip of the week to a village in Sierra Norte mountains here. It was a two hour drive to get there and had some of the roughest, and most winding roads I've ever been on. The drive was gorgeous though and you get to see just miles and miles of forests and all kinds of plant life everywhere. We got there and went into one the municipal buildings where we had a guide show us the basic map for the sustainable logging project in their land. Basically they've divided the region into 40 regions and each year their allowed to cut down the trees in one of these regions. After they finish, they bring up partially grown trees and replant them in the area they just finished cutting. We drove up to a few of the places and got to give our lungs a workout climbing up to one of the areas they were cutting the trees(I think we were a good 2.4 km above sea level or for those playing at home about 1.5 miles, needless to say the air was thin). The views were gorgeous and we saw a few more locales before heading back down to the village to talk with one of the guys about the mine that had closed a few years before. Basically there had been this mine there for about 40 years that had been extremely damaging to health of the workers and the villagers because of the runoff into the water supply(we saw some pretty nasty pictures of the water). So the people decided to organize and with the help of some Canadiens were able to effectively lobby the Mexican government to be reclassified as an indigenous population, which gave them additional say in their affairs and allowed them to have the mine removed and the water cleaned up.
After about 7 hours of presentations and trips to various logging sites, we were all hungry but I was in that cartoonish hunger mode where people's faces start looking like chicken legs. Anyways we finally got to the trout farm/restaurant and had a great lunch of tortillas, soup, and some fried trout. We also got to see the zip lines they had set up across the river and go across a rope bridge there which was pretty cool.
After another bumpy, windy, two hour ride back to the city it was time for parent's weekend to begin. I was really excited for this, as it gave me an excuse to play tour guide/ambassador for my new home, try out some restaurants, and show them a few of our favorite hangouts.
My parents had an eventful cab ride over, which as previously mentioned is pretty par for the course here. They came in midway through dinner and we had an excellent meal, and Jimmy and I competed to see who had the best Spanish among the gringos. After dinner we walked around and I got to show them a few places close to our house, including the grocery store and a few nice restaurants. After about an hour of that, their gas tanks were empty from traveling and an eventful week in Dallas, so they called it a night and we made plans for Friday.
We met up again the next morning after class and after a short but heavy rain we set off to find a restaurant nearby. We found a great restaurant that serves food from Oaxaca's isthmus in the southeast(where I'm headed this Tuesday) and had some enchiladas and shrimp and their excellent homeade salsa. while we continued to catch up. After that I got to see the hotel they were staying which is the beautiful Hotel Victoria. It's situated above the city so you get beautiful views from your room, the pool, and bar area. One thing my mom and I have in common is our love for a good deal, and I've heard her mention at least 4 times how she was able to get the room half price and then get upgraded to a suite(As Jimmy likes to say "we all know Ellis is a Jewish name!") Before dinner we had a few drinks at the bar and talked about family history and everything I've been learning in classes(this week we talked mostly about NGOs and the environment). We then our made our way to a restaurant called "El Che" which is an amazing Argentinean steakhouse and had a very satisfying steak dinner with potatoes and salad. We were all in a bit of a food coma after that so at that point we called it a night.
Saturday we decided to explore the city center for most of the afternoon as we checked out jewelry stores, book stores(I picked up one book on the Mexican revolution and one called "How Soccer Explains the World), coffee shops, and a few gift shops. I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record but again we had a great lunch at Pizza Rustica, which in spite of its name actually has all kinds of soups, seafood, pasta, and of course pizza. After that we all felt like relaxing for a while so we called up Will, Hannah, and Rachel and decided to go for a swim at the hotel. We polished off the evening with a few drinks and some tacos al pastor at a restaurant in the Zocalo.
Overall it's been a great week, and I can't believe how quick the trip is going. I've got a field trip from Tuesday to Sunday, followed by La Guelaguetza(the huge festival that the city is renowned for) on Monday, and then my last 4 classes before I start working on my research paper. Thats all I've got for now. Hasta Luego
Saturday, July 4, 2009
A People's History of Bryan's 4th of July Morning
Let me start off by saying I love the 4th of July. Always has been one of my favorite holidays. Tons of good BBQ, huge fireworks ceremonies, and the political nerd in me knowing an inordinate amount about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I was a little bummed about not being back home to celebrate it since(surprisingly) there's not a whole lot going on here for it.
Anyways I woke up around 9 to get ready for the day. Went to the bathroom when all of a sudden I got that feeling. Yup I'll spare you the gruesome details but needless to say I was hugging the porcelain for a couple of minutes and couldn't even keep water down. In spite of my oftentimes subpar diet, I've managed to stay remarkably healthy. In fact I've probably had the most complete diet(at least according to the food pyramid) here than I've had in just about any other time in my life. So the few times I was actually sick and not pulling a Ferris Bueller's Day Off, were usually way back in elementary school. In college I've never had an illness keep me away from a class and recovered in a few hours.
Because all of this I was pretty bummed. It was a pretty clear cut case of food poisioning, so I quickly counted on having a 4th of July meal of rice, gatorade, pepto bismol, and jello(which Hannah had to suffer through for a better part of a week when she got sick). After kind of sulking and just feeling really weak in general for an hour or 2, I got a knock on my door. It was Will, Hannah, and Rachel(the last of 3 girls who's staying here to visit our host family and her friends at the University). They came bearing gifts! A 6 pack of gatorade, a pepto bismol bottle, and 2 sheet of temporary tattoos(Rachel has quite a few of the untemporary variety), all wrapped up in a plastic bag with a bow on top.
Really I can't thank them enough for it. That alone really shot my mood up and turned the day around for me. After some reading and 2 gatorades, I decided it was time for a nap. Our host mom, Margarita came in and gave me a blanket and a big hug right before I went off to dreamland. You can commence the Awwwwing now. Haha I woke up a little while ago, feeling rejuvenated and just wanted to use this to say thanks to all the great friends and family I have here and back in the States. I also wanted to ask for those of you who pray, if you could keep our troops in your prayers, particularly my cousin Jeff whose currently fighting in the Helman province offensive in Afghanistan, and my friend Michael Smith whose currently stationed in Iraq.
Thats all for now. Happy 4th and God Bless America.
Anyways I woke up around 9 to get ready for the day. Went to the bathroom when all of a sudden I got that feeling. Yup I'll spare you the gruesome details but needless to say I was hugging the porcelain for a couple of minutes and couldn't even keep water down. In spite of my oftentimes subpar diet, I've managed to stay remarkably healthy. In fact I've probably had the most complete diet(at least according to the food pyramid) here than I've had in just about any other time in my life. So the few times I was actually sick and not pulling a Ferris Bueller's Day Off, were usually way back in elementary school. In college I've never had an illness keep me away from a class and recovered in a few hours.
Because all of this I was pretty bummed. It was a pretty clear cut case of food poisioning, so I quickly counted on having a 4th of July meal of rice, gatorade, pepto bismol, and jello(which Hannah had to suffer through for a better part of a week when she got sick). After kind of sulking and just feeling really weak in general for an hour or 2, I got a knock on my door. It was Will, Hannah, and Rachel(the last of 3 girls who's staying here to visit our host family and her friends at the University). They came bearing gifts! A 6 pack of gatorade, a pepto bismol bottle, and 2 sheet of temporary tattoos(Rachel has quite a few of the untemporary variety), all wrapped up in a plastic bag with a bow on top.
Really I can't thank them enough for it. That alone really shot my mood up and turned the day around for me. After some reading and 2 gatorades, I decided it was time for a nap. Our host mom, Margarita came in and gave me a blanket and a big hug right before I went off to dreamland. You can commence the Awwwwing now. Haha I woke up a little while ago, feeling rejuvenated and just wanted to use this to say thanks to all the great friends and family I have here and back in the States. I also wanted to ask for those of you who pray, if you could keep our troops in your prayers, particularly my cousin Jeff whose currently fighting in the Helman province offensive in Afghanistan, and my friend Michael Smith whose currently stationed in Iraq.
Thats all for now. Happy 4th and God Bless America.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Lessons Learned
So I've been reflecting a little bit on different parts of my trip and life in general and just thought I'd put a few words into it.
The first lesson I thought about was the importance of confidence in your daily life. If you go to a bookstore or look up an article on it you'll probably find countless this articulated in a similar manner but I'll just use a few examples to illustrate it. So were at this club with live music on Friday. It's a salsa dancing club called La Candelita and 5 of us have no experience, while the 3 girls who were here last year are pretty damn good. There's not a whole lot of people dancing at first(basically 2 of the girls and the same number of random guys at the club). As they go on for a bit, I decide to throw caution to the wind and get my first salsa lesson. It was predictably awful as I had trouble getting the basic movement down, stepped on the poor girl's feet a few times, and don't even get me started on the hands part of it.
My reaction after moment's like that has always kind of held me back. In the past if I got rejected by a chick, or wasn't very good doing something for the first time, or just had to work hard to get better at something, I'd usually just abandon whatever it was and say it wasn't a talent or skill or usually girl that I was meant to have. Well I decided to get another shot and told my next partner to explain it to me like I was a 2 year old. We had to stop a few times, but by the end of it I'd made some improvement and at least avoided putting her toes out of commission. Encouraged by this minor improvement, I subtly practiced the 4 step move under the table while I was working on a Sol and talking to the rest of the group. After a few songs I decided to try my rudimentary skills with the best dancer in our group, Anisha. I tried to incoporate a few of the spins I'd seen some of the other guys doing all night into my arsenal with mixed results. She corrected my form and by the end I could do all of the above without staring at my feet. We decided to leave after the next song so I got back with my first partner and it was almost second nature to my at this point. After the song she said my dancing was "buenisima". High praise indeed.
That moment along with just having a few successful, random Spanish conversations with the people here, are the perfect examples to how important confidence is and how much it's held me back in the past. It's just seems so dumb to me how we deny ourselves chances to be happy or do something new and crazy because we're worried we'll embarass ourselves or make a mistake. Of course you might look like an idiot for a moment or suck at something the first time you do it, but if your confident you know that you'll be even more of an idiot if you refuse to try because of that. People will respect you a hell of a lot more if you've got the balls to step up and fail, than sit on the bench when your name is called. Basically the lesson is the only person your hurting is yourself, when you fail to try.
The other lesson I've been thinking a lot about was told to me by none other than my fraternity brother Grant Mulligan. During one of his many monologues during a trip to the Hungry Fox this past semester, he started talking about how the main reason he talks about nature and birds and the like is that he likes to be aware of his surroundings and all the amazing stuff that many people go through life looking through. I didn't think much of it at the time, as I was in a small food coma but it really has hit home lately. Earlier today it came full circle as we made a trip to Teotitlan, which is the home of many Zapotec people and has all kinds of natural weaving enterprises and cooperatives. We went to one run by a bunch of Zapotec women. I've seen a lot of the rugs around so I wasn't really enthused about having to spend the whole day there and figured I'd get bored after a bit. Much to my surprise, the whole thing was really fascinating as they showed us the whole process starting with the wool being smoothed out, to being spun into fiber, to the natural dyes they use to color it(for many of the colors they use this insect that's on almost every cactus that I never knew existed). Each rug is a 2 month process and has it's own unique meaning. At the same time they've been perfecting these techniques for thousands of years and each year send some of the rugs into art competitions in the US. It got me thinking to how little I know about most of the stuff I buy, and how most of it was made by machines to an exact specification and are identical to millions of others. It was just really cool for me to see how everything comes together to make something beautiful like that, and yes we all did end up buying rugs at the end to take back. So to sum up there's a million things I feel like I've taken for granted and never really wondered how they got there or how the hell they're made.
The other cool thing about the Teotitlan trip was a Zapotec ritual we got to participate in called "la limpia" or the cleansing in English. We were standing in a room with pictures of various saints and people who had passed away in the collective with just a little bit of light coming in from outside. The woman who was one of the leaders lit some incense and showed us the proper way to rub these herbs through our hair neck and arms. After we each took turns one at a time she changed the lighting and told us to relax for a bit. She told us to hold hands and get closer together. Then she lit a fire in a circle around us which was really cool and scared the crap out of Oliver(our teacher and guide for our trips). It was definitely really interesting and it clears your mind a bit. We also had a huge, delicious lunch there a big soup with corn in it, a large salad, tortillas, and a fried egg, cheese and chili pepper.
That's all I've got for now. Nos Vemos!
The first lesson I thought about was the importance of confidence in your daily life. If you go to a bookstore or look up an article on it you'll probably find countless this articulated in a similar manner but I'll just use a few examples to illustrate it. So were at this club with live music on Friday. It's a salsa dancing club called La Candelita and 5 of us have no experience, while the 3 girls who were here last year are pretty damn good. There's not a whole lot of people dancing at first(basically 2 of the girls and the same number of random guys at the club). As they go on for a bit, I decide to throw caution to the wind and get my first salsa lesson. It was predictably awful as I had trouble getting the basic movement down, stepped on the poor girl's feet a few times, and don't even get me started on the hands part of it.
My reaction after moment's like that has always kind of held me back. In the past if I got rejected by a chick, or wasn't very good doing something for the first time, or just had to work hard to get better at something, I'd usually just abandon whatever it was and say it wasn't a talent or skill or usually girl that I was meant to have. Well I decided to get another shot and told my next partner to explain it to me like I was a 2 year old. We had to stop a few times, but by the end of it I'd made some improvement and at least avoided putting her toes out of commission. Encouraged by this minor improvement, I subtly practiced the 4 step move under the table while I was working on a Sol and talking to the rest of the group. After a few songs I decided to try my rudimentary skills with the best dancer in our group, Anisha. I tried to incoporate a few of the spins I'd seen some of the other guys doing all night into my arsenal with mixed results. She corrected my form and by the end I could do all of the above without staring at my feet. We decided to leave after the next song so I got back with my first partner and it was almost second nature to my at this point. After the song she said my dancing was "buenisima". High praise indeed.
That moment along with just having a few successful, random Spanish conversations with the people here, are the perfect examples to how important confidence is and how much it's held me back in the past. It's just seems so dumb to me how we deny ourselves chances to be happy or do something new and crazy because we're worried we'll embarass ourselves or make a mistake. Of course you might look like an idiot for a moment or suck at something the first time you do it, but if your confident you know that you'll be even more of an idiot if you refuse to try because of that. People will respect you a hell of a lot more if you've got the balls to step up and fail, than sit on the bench when your name is called. Basically the lesson is the only person your hurting is yourself, when you fail to try.
The other lesson I've been thinking a lot about was told to me by none other than my fraternity brother Grant Mulligan. During one of his many monologues during a trip to the Hungry Fox this past semester, he started talking about how the main reason he talks about nature and birds and the like is that he likes to be aware of his surroundings and all the amazing stuff that many people go through life looking through. I didn't think much of it at the time, as I was in a small food coma but it really has hit home lately. Earlier today it came full circle as we made a trip to Teotitlan, which is the home of many Zapotec people and has all kinds of natural weaving enterprises and cooperatives. We went to one run by a bunch of Zapotec women. I've seen a lot of the rugs around so I wasn't really enthused about having to spend the whole day there and figured I'd get bored after a bit. Much to my surprise, the whole thing was really fascinating as they showed us the whole process starting with the wool being smoothed out, to being spun into fiber, to the natural dyes they use to color it(for many of the colors they use this insect that's on almost every cactus that I never knew existed). Each rug is a 2 month process and has it's own unique meaning. At the same time they've been perfecting these techniques for thousands of years and each year send some of the rugs into art competitions in the US. It got me thinking to how little I know about most of the stuff I buy, and how most of it was made by machines to an exact specification and are identical to millions of others. It was just really cool for me to see how everything comes together to make something beautiful like that, and yes we all did end up buying rugs at the end to take back. So to sum up there's a million things I feel like I've taken for granted and never really wondered how they got there or how the hell they're made.
The other cool thing about the Teotitlan trip was a Zapotec ritual we got to participate in called "la limpia" or the cleansing in English. We were standing in a room with pictures of various saints and people who had passed away in the collective with just a little bit of light coming in from outside. The woman who was one of the leaders lit some incense and showed us the proper way to rub these herbs through our hair neck and arms. After we each took turns one at a time she changed the lighting and told us to relax for a bit. She told us to hold hands and get closer together. Then she lit a fire in a circle around us which was really cool and scared the crap out of Oliver(our teacher and guide for our trips). It was definitely really interesting and it clears your mind a bit. We also had a huge, delicious lunch there a big soup with corn in it, a large salad, tortillas, and a fried egg, cheese and chili pepper.
That's all I've got for now. Nos Vemos!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Turning a Corner
So today we started a new optional program. We meet with students from Universidad de Benito Juarez who are studying English and get to talk to them one on one for 30 minutes in English and Spanish after our Geography class. I was a little skeptical at first, because I wasn't sure how well we'd be able to keep a conversation going. Well after one session I'm convinced that I might finally be getting close to conquering the Spanish language. It started off slowly enough with the basic questions(name, where your from, major,etc) but after 10 minutes or so Victor and I were talking about classic rock, sports, and the story behind Eric Clapton's amazing song Layla. Honestly I don't think I've ever had a conversation in Spanish go that well. The best thing I can compare it to is basketball. It's like one of those days when the rim is twice is wide and everything your shooting is going in, and your shouting GOOD before each shot. After that we spoke in English for a bit which was cool since Victor is training to be an English teacher. I really think this is the most effective way you can learn or quickly improve your speakin skills at a foreign language. You can critique each other as you go, and your both motivated to do it since you each get something out of it.
Geography has gotten surprisingly interesting as well. The syllabus has had us going over everything from development economics to agriculture to to history to social movements. These might seem random at first but they all relate to each other in their own way. The most important thing I've seen both in home life in class is the value of community in Mexican and indigenous culture. It's really eye opening since we tend to value the power of the individual so much in the U.S that sometimes we forget about our neighbors and even families at times, as we get wrapped up in our own lives. I'm not saying that this doesn't happen here in Mexico or that it's a superior way of life, but it's just different and not what I've been used to for most of my time in the States.
The only other thing I've got for now is on Sunday we got to see the legendary El Tule tree, which is one of the biggest and oldest trees in the world. That may not sound all that exciting to most people, but this thing is just a beast. We also had an 8 year old guide(crazily similar to the scene in Slumdog where they become tour guides at the Taj Mahal) show us the different names for parts of the tree that they'd come up with. He used a little mirror to reflect the light on each part and say things like el elefante or el leon or las pompas de Monica Lewinsky(said woman's butt) or la nariz de Vincete Fox(said man's nose) and after each one would say in his cute squeaky voice "Ya Lo Vieron?!". It was way fun and we got to have a huge meal afterwords complete with mezcal.
Hasta Luego
Geography has gotten surprisingly interesting as well. The syllabus has had us going over everything from development economics to agriculture to to history to social movements. These might seem random at first but they all relate to each other in their own way. The most important thing I've seen both in home life in class is the value of community in Mexican and indigenous culture. It's really eye opening since we tend to value the power of the individual so much in the U.S that sometimes we forget about our neighbors and even families at times, as we get wrapped up in our own lives. I'm not saying that this doesn't happen here in Mexico or that it's a superior way of life, but it's just different and not what I've been used to for most of my time in the States.
The only other thing I've got for now is on Sunday we got to see the legendary El Tule tree, which is one of the biggest and oldest trees in the world. That may not sound all that exciting to most people, but this thing is just a beast. We also had an 8 year old guide(crazily similar to the scene in Slumdog where they become tour guides at the Taj Mahal) show us the different names for parts of the tree that they'd come up with. He used a little mirror to reflect the light on each part and say things like el elefante or el leon or las pompas de Monica Lewinsky(said woman's butt) or la nariz de Vincete Fox(said man's nose) and after each one would say in his cute squeaky voice "Ya Lo Vieron?!". It was way fun and we got to have a huge meal afterwords complete with mezcal.
Hasta Luego
Thursday, June 25, 2009
So much time and so much to do
So there's a saying I've heard a few times here that goes "Si comias la chapulina, no quieres salir" which translates to If you eat the grasshoppers(a Oaxacan delicacy), you won't want to leave. I haven't had any of the renowned Oaxacan grasshopper yet but with all thats been going on the last few days, it may not be easy saying goodbye to this city.
It all started this Monday, when after class we decided to go on a hike in San Felipe which is about 20 minutes outside town. I'm not much of an outdoorsman despite(or more likely because of) my years in Boy Scouts, but I caved to the peer pressure and decided to give it a try. First we just stayed to a few roads trying to find a trail up into the area and kept running into dead ends and burros(donkeys) along the road. After a while we found a great trail that Will had heard about from some friends that was supposed to lead to some waterfalls. San Felipe is a lush region with tons of plant and animal life that 19 years in between Tucson and the Dallas suburbs have left me relatively unexposed to. It was a pretty simple hike more or less with only a few spots where you might need help like crossing the stream or going across a medium sized ledge. It was raining most of the time which was great since it was enough to cool you down but not enough to get you soaked. After about an hour or so we reached the "waterfalls" which were definitely pretty but not like anything you'd seen in a movie. Really more than anything it was just one of those moments where your like "Wow look how far we've made it".
For Tuesday we decided to go see Transformers 2 at our local Cinepolis, which I won't comment on other than to say the commercials and previews for Mexican movies are hilarious. Oh and that Michael Bay sucks and whoever wrote the movie should be forced to relearn the English language. That said if you go in looking at it as a comedy you'll be entertained for most of it.
Wednesday night brought us to the hallowed Estadio Lic. Eduardo Vasconcelos to see the Oaxaca Guerreros take on the Tabasco Olmecas. First off it costs about $5 to get in and a little over $1 for a beer so you're definitely getting a good deal no matter who's playing. Second instead of having concessions stands they just have people walking around to see if you want a drink or some donuts, tacos, or empanadas. They also have cheerleaders for the game or as they're called the "Guerrrrrritas" who come out and dance to some Latin pop in between the innings. After about the 5th inning or so they came into the stands and tried to get us to follow them. We resisted at first, but eventually the combination of their persistence and short skirts persuaded us to come along for the ride. We stayed for a little while in their little dugout area right next to the field til the inning ended and they had us play the classic bat spinning game. Now I've never done this on a field before, but one of my favorite stories from freshmen year is when Austin, Gabe, Labonte and I tried this with a few beers in us to hilarious results. So basically what you do is they give you a bat and you put your head to it and spin around for what seems like forever but is probably closer to 20 seconds, and then you run to the other side. Given that we'd all had a few beers, naturally our success was mixed. I'd like to say it was my superior balance and athletic ability that had me win it without falling but really it was more just dumb luck and some experience. Will, Alex and Hannah hit the turf immediately while Nathan ran straight into a baseball player on his way from the dugout. We got some calendars and team guides for our little display and stayed til the rain ended the game about an hour later with the score at 0-0.
One random cool thing about Mexican baseball aside from them having sweet team chants and ridiculous sound effects during the game. They don't use their screen for replays. Yeah, basically they put random videos of people getting hurt or classic youtube videos like Afro Ninja on there in the middle of innings. Good Stuff all around.
After rushing home in the pouring rain, we hung around til 3 new guests arrived at our house. They're gonna be staying here for the next 10 to 14 days, and were in a similar program with our host family about a year ago. We had dinner and then had an awesome time at El Bicho, playing pool and having a few drinks.
Finally, today we went to the home of Gustavo Esteva, just a genuinely really smart and nice dude, and the founder of Universidad de la Tierra(where I'm studying). Now officially I'm taking Geography here but it's that plus History, Culture, and Economics of the region especially of development in Latin America. So over the course of the day he showed his home which is pretty freaking amazing. I've always pictured myself living in a city, but after seeing his place and a few others here I could see myself going the complete opposite direction too. Words can't do it justice, but it's just a gorgeous combination of some farmland he's working on and a house that's incredibly well built and fits in with the beautiful plants perfectly. He's very loquacious(SAT word for ya) and we talked for about 3 hours about Oaxaca and his ideas on capitalism and localization and education. It doesn't do it justice to condense his ideas to just a few sentences, since it's not like he's pulling it out of his ass but in essence he's arguing that the bell is tolling for capitalism and that education only exacerbates inequality, instead of reducing it and that local communites can perform tasks much better than schools.
Again, a lot of his ideas are kinda radical as far as things go here in the States, and I disagree completely with some of them, but it's good to be challenged a bit and rethink almost everything you've been brought up with sometimes. In fact probably one of the most valuable things you can do is challenge convential wisdom. And also he admits that he nor anyone else knows how things are gonna fare with the economic crisis so he's definitely not inflexible on his positions.
Anyways after that long talk, we retired to his house to enjoy some of his wife's excellent cooking. The meal included a really good pasta and salad as well as some deviled eggs, followed by an apple custard desert.
Thats about all for now. Hasta Luego!
It all started this Monday, when after class we decided to go on a hike in San Felipe which is about 20 minutes outside town. I'm not much of an outdoorsman despite(or more likely because of) my years in Boy Scouts, but I caved to the peer pressure and decided to give it a try. First we just stayed to a few roads trying to find a trail up into the area and kept running into dead ends and burros(donkeys) along the road. After a while we found a great trail that Will had heard about from some friends that was supposed to lead to some waterfalls. San Felipe is a lush region with tons of plant and animal life that 19 years in between Tucson and the Dallas suburbs have left me relatively unexposed to. It was a pretty simple hike more or less with only a few spots where you might need help like crossing the stream or going across a medium sized ledge. It was raining most of the time which was great since it was enough to cool you down but not enough to get you soaked. After about an hour or so we reached the "waterfalls" which were definitely pretty but not like anything you'd seen in a movie. Really more than anything it was just one of those moments where your like "Wow look how far we've made it".
For Tuesday we decided to go see Transformers 2 at our local Cinepolis, which I won't comment on other than to say the commercials and previews for Mexican movies are hilarious. Oh and that Michael Bay sucks and whoever wrote the movie should be forced to relearn the English language. That said if you go in looking at it as a comedy you'll be entertained for most of it.
Wednesday night brought us to the hallowed Estadio Lic. Eduardo Vasconcelos to see the Oaxaca Guerreros take on the Tabasco Olmecas. First off it costs about $5 to get in and a little over $1 for a beer so you're definitely getting a good deal no matter who's playing. Second instead of having concessions stands they just have people walking around to see if you want a drink or some donuts, tacos, or empanadas. They also have cheerleaders for the game or as they're called the "Guerrrrrritas" who come out and dance to some Latin pop in between the innings. After about the 5th inning or so they came into the stands and tried to get us to follow them. We resisted at first, but eventually the combination of their persistence and short skirts persuaded us to come along for the ride. We stayed for a little while in their little dugout area right next to the field til the inning ended and they had us play the classic bat spinning game. Now I've never done this on a field before, but one of my favorite stories from freshmen year is when Austin, Gabe, Labonte and I tried this with a few beers in us to hilarious results. So basically what you do is they give you a bat and you put your head to it and spin around for what seems like forever but is probably closer to 20 seconds, and then you run to the other side. Given that we'd all had a few beers, naturally our success was mixed. I'd like to say it was my superior balance and athletic ability that had me win it without falling but really it was more just dumb luck and some experience. Will, Alex and Hannah hit the turf immediately while Nathan ran straight into a baseball player on his way from the dugout. We got some calendars and team guides for our little display and stayed til the rain ended the game about an hour later with the score at 0-0.
One random cool thing about Mexican baseball aside from them having sweet team chants and ridiculous sound effects during the game. They don't use their screen for replays. Yeah, basically they put random videos of people getting hurt or classic youtube videos like Afro Ninja on there in the middle of innings. Good Stuff all around.
After rushing home in the pouring rain, we hung around til 3 new guests arrived at our house. They're gonna be staying here for the next 10 to 14 days, and were in a similar program with our host family about a year ago. We had dinner and then had an awesome time at El Bicho, playing pool and having a few drinks.
Finally, today we went to the home of Gustavo Esteva, just a genuinely really smart and nice dude, and the founder of Universidad de la Tierra(where I'm studying). Now officially I'm taking Geography here but it's that plus History, Culture, and Economics of the region especially of development in Latin America. So over the course of the day he showed his home which is pretty freaking amazing. I've always pictured myself living in a city, but after seeing his place and a few others here I could see myself going the complete opposite direction too. Words can't do it justice, but it's just a gorgeous combination of some farmland he's working on and a house that's incredibly well built and fits in with the beautiful plants perfectly. He's very loquacious(SAT word for ya) and we talked for about 3 hours about Oaxaca and his ideas on capitalism and localization and education. It doesn't do it justice to condense his ideas to just a few sentences, since it's not like he's pulling it out of his ass but in essence he's arguing that the bell is tolling for capitalism and that education only exacerbates inequality, instead of reducing it and that local communites can perform tasks much better than schools.
Again, a lot of his ideas are kinda radical as far as things go here in the States, and I disagree completely with some of them, but it's good to be challenged a bit and rethink almost everything you've been brought up with sometimes. In fact probably one of the most valuable things you can do is challenge convential wisdom. And also he admits that he nor anyone else knows how things are gonna fare with the economic crisis so he's definitely not inflexible on his positions.
Anyways after that long talk, we retired to his house to enjoy some of his wife's excellent cooking. The meal included a really good pasta and salad as well as some deviled eggs, followed by an apple custard desert.
Thats about all for now. Hasta Luego!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Week 1
So now that I've sort of got my bearings here in the city and have started figuring out I think I'll just give you some more thoughts on life here, in no particular order.
1. The food has been excellent so far. Margarita is a great cook and lunch (la comida FUERTE) is consistently awesome. I'm actually starting to like soup here which is a big step forward for me and gives me hope that I might be able to enjoy a full course meal when I'm at the State Department in the distant future.
2. We stand out like sore thumbs in the city and any time we notice other gringos it's typically an event and we either introduce ourselves or make fun of them for looking even more out of place than we do. We ran into some drunk Brits the other night from Cardiff and got to hear how the bar they were in the previous night got broken up by police which made Matt "nearly shat himself" in the process.
3. Compared to the rest of the city and to the house Nathan and Alex are in, we are quite comfortable. Our house has internet, hot water, a garage, and plenty of nice furniture. We took a tour of the whole city on Wednesday and saw the extent of Oaxaca's underclass. Literally house after house made out of tin and sheet metal for miles. And the mexican public housing system which has the government building smaller and smaller homes to meet the growing demand. Really puts things in perspective to how good we have it in the States.
4. There is a lot of free time in the afternoons and on weekends and we've spent it exploring the city, watching a 6 on 6 futbol game, and doing a little clubbing and bar hopping. We've rapidly become VIP member at the bar right next to our house called "El Bicho". Their combination of closenessto home, a jukebox with American music, a pool table, and cheap drinks make it tough to say no to after a long day studying and walking a few miles across the city.
5. Transportation in Oaxaca is surprisingly reliable despite the aggressive driving habits of the locals and their lack of conception of what we in the States refer to as "lanes". Taxis and buses are really cheap and can get you pretty much wherever you want to go.
6. The markets in town can get kind of repetitive. Womens clothes, shoes, trinkets, mezcal, etc. But the market we saw in Zaachila on Thursday had just about everything food related and otherwise you could find in Mexico, including an animal market filled with pigs(yes i encountered pigs in Mexico and lived to tell about it!), horses, cows, and goats.
7. There are bootleg DVD stands all over town and sometimes they'll have movies that haven't come out yet in the US yet. They are also ridiculously cheap so we may be using that pumpline to kill some time as it goes on.
8. Everybody is organized in Oaxaca. Teachers, plumbers, electricians, waiters, cab drivers, etc. We noticed this phenomenon when we were walking home from class and the cab drivers basically shut down a block with their cabs and then proceeded to inform us of our gringoness and their opinions on the US.
9. Our house dad, Hector, is a really cool guy and we decided to get him a bottle of his favorite Johnnie Walker Red label for el dia de padre today. I'll also take this moment to say Happy Father's day to my Dad, my stepdad, and grandfather.
10. Mezcal is not for the faint of heart. Especially if you get the homemade variety our family prefers.
11. Most of the female population of Oaxaca(at least what we've seen thus far) falls into the categories of too young or taken, and those that aren't in those categories aren't typically attracted to a gringo college student with limited funds and limited spanish skills. That said if you go into a crowded bar be prepared to have your butt pinched about 50 times by these aforementioned ladies.
12. Monte Alban is an amazing sight and way more than what I was expecting. I came in expecting maybe a few ruins here and there but the whole thing goes on forever(it takes a good 3 hours to see everything) and you get to see ancient temples, houses, and two ball courts.
That's about all I've got for now. Hope everyone in the U.S isn't working too hard and having a good time.
1. The food has been excellent so far. Margarita is a great cook and lunch (la comida FUERTE) is consistently awesome. I'm actually starting to like soup here which is a big step forward for me and gives me hope that I might be able to enjoy a full course meal when I'm at the State Department in the distant future.
2. We stand out like sore thumbs in the city and any time we notice other gringos it's typically an event and we either introduce ourselves or make fun of them for looking even more out of place than we do. We ran into some drunk Brits the other night from Cardiff and got to hear how the bar they were in the previous night got broken up by police which made Matt "nearly shat himself" in the process.
3. Compared to the rest of the city and to the house Nathan and Alex are in, we are quite comfortable. Our house has internet, hot water, a garage, and plenty of nice furniture. We took a tour of the whole city on Wednesday and saw the extent of Oaxaca's underclass. Literally house after house made out of tin and sheet metal for miles. And the mexican public housing system which has the government building smaller and smaller homes to meet the growing demand. Really puts things in perspective to how good we have it in the States.
4. There is a lot of free time in the afternoons and on weekends and we've spent it exploring the city, watching a 6 on 6 futbol game, and doing a little clubbing and bar hopping. We've rapidly become VIP member at the bar right next to our house called "El Bicho". Their combination of closenessto home, a jukebox with American music, a pool table, and cheap drinks make it tough to say no to after a long day studying and walking a few miles across the city.
5. Transportation in Oaxaca is surprisingly reliable despite the aggressive driving habits of the locals and their lack of conception of what we in the States refer to as "lanes". Taxis and buses are really cheap and can get you pretty much wherever you want to go.
6. The markets in town can get kind of repetitive. Womens clothes, shoes, trinkets, mezcal, etc. But the market we saw in Zaachila on Thursday had just about everything food related and otherwise you could find in Mexico, including an animal market filled with pigs(yes i encountered pigs in Mexico and lived to tell about it!), horses, cows, and goats.
7. There are bootleg DVD stands all over town and sometimes they'll have movies that haven't come out yet in the US yet. They are also ridiculously cheap so we may be using that pumpline to kill some time as it goes on.
8. Everybody is organized in Oaxaca. Teachers, plumbers, electricians, waiters, cab drivers, etc. We noticed this phenomenon when we were walking home from class and the cab drivers basically shut down a block with their cabs and then proceeded to inform us of our gringoness and their opinions on the US.
9. Our house dad, Hector, is a really cool guy and we decided to get him a bottle of his favorite Johnnie Walker Red label for el dia de padre today. I'll also take this moment to say Happy Father's day to my Dad, my stepdad, and grandfather.
10. Mezcal is not for the faint of heart. Especially if you get the homemade variety our family prefers.
11. Most of the female population of Oaxaca(at least what we've seen thus far) falls into the categories of too young or taken, and those that aren't in those categories aren't typically attracted to a gringo college student with limited funds and limited spanish skills. That said if you go into a crowded bar be prepared to have your butt pinched about 50 times by these aforementioned ladies.
12. Monte Alban is an amazing sight and way more than what I was expecting. I came in expecting maybe a few ruins here and there but the whole thing goes on forever(it takes a good 3 hours to see everything) and you get to see ancient temples, houses, and two ball courts.
That's about all I've got for now. Hope everyone in the U.S isn't working too hard and having a good time.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
First Impressions
So after months of preparations, applications, emails, and tuition deadlines, the time for me to make my trip to Oaxaca had come. The night before I left brought a lot of my anxiety to the forefront of my mind and all the questions that come with it. Will I fit in with the group? Is is place as safe as I've been assured it is? Will I like the food? etc etc. Thanks to a few conversations with some friends that night and the knowledge that my worries were a hundred fold less than my mother's, I was able to relax a bit and get a few hours sleep before the big trip in the morning.
Shortly after arriving in Houston and grabbing some food I was still feeling some of the same doubts and realized that once I got on the plane in a few hours there was no turning back. Maybe five minutes after I made it to my connecting gate I noticed another guy with a big bag and who looked decidedly less Mexican than the rest of the people there. It was Will who was the lone UK student in our group. We chilled for a while talking about Lexington and Tucson and why were in the program, then headed over to exchange our dollars to pesos(an awesome experience by the way as you always got a love having 200s and 100s in your wallet). Will is pretty cool, he does a lot of professional sculpting with cast iron and has a nice bike collection. The planes we flew on were tiny and I hit my head on the ceiling on more than one occasion. We landed and got through customs easily enough and made friends with a couple on vacation and some girls from San Diego State on another study abroad in our taxi from the airport.
I settled into Casa Arnel for the first two nights while Will had a reservation at Holiday Inn Express. Casa Arnel was very comfortable but I was momentarily surprised by the lack of soap and free shampoo. After reading for a bit I called a night.
The next morning I headed down for some breakfast from my hostess Liliana, and grabbed some pancakes, bacon, and coffee from the Gringo menu. After a few minutes at the table, Alex one of the UA students came down and we made a little small talk before he started telling me all about his trips to Brazil, Chile, and Nicaragua, while I told a few stories from my week in Spain. We headed down to el Zocalo, which is the big town square in the city, where we decided to grab some lunch and a beer. I was wondering what was up as Alex asked me a couple of times if I knew some random white people or tourists walking by, but the second or third time he pointed out Will, and Alex's keen eye for Gringos paid off.
We hung around a bit longer and explored some more of the city before we came back to Zocalo to see the biggest protest I've ever seen in my life. It was 3 years to the day that there were riots in the city after the teacher's union, which has over 1 million members in Mexico, came to protest for increased wages. It was really loud and you had people all over with APPO shirts and holding pictures of Stalin, Marx and Guevara. The newspaper said the next day that there were nearly a million people at the "megamarch". As a foreigner I totally respect how much energy, effort, and passion they put into it, but its kinda sad that a lot of these people they are glorifying completely betrayed any ideals they once stood for.
We met the fourth member of the group, a dude named Nathan, at Casa Arnel that night and he told us the hellish story of his 8 hour trip by bus from Mexico City with a ton of luggage and a bunch of people trying to scam him. After a little time on Casa Arnel's computer I called it a night and got ready for the real part of the trip to begin.
The next morning, the 3 of us piled in to a taxi with all our luggage and arrived at "La Universidad de la Tierra". We met Oliver, the guy in charge of the program, and he gave us a whole syllabus which has us going to some ruins, the beach over by the Pacific Ocean, and for a 5 day stay in village. We also met the last member of our group and the only girl, Hannah. After that we finally got down to the part I'd been most worried about, our host family. I was paired up with Will and Hannah and we were told our house mom's name was Margarita. She met us outside with her husband, Hector, and again we piled a shit ton of luggage into a small car. The first thing she said to us as we got into the house was "Mi casa es su casa" and she really meant it. The house is very nice and comfortable and has all the amenities you could ask for. Also Margarita and Hector are two of the kindest, most welcoming people I've met. Pretty much they are fine with just about anything and will do just about anything for you as long as you ask in Spanish. We had some sandwiches and spaghetti for dinner and polished it off with Corona's(except for Hector who preferred some Johnnie Walker) all around as a welcoming present for us.
After that we met back up with Alex and Nathan and did some more exploring of this new part of town and hit up a few bars, finally settling on one named "El Bicho". The first thing we did was give Mezcal , which is the official drink of Oaxaca, a try and were all even brave enough to have the worm with it. The owner of the place was definitely looking for some new regulars as I got a few free margaritas and a mojito while the other guys got a few free beers. Towards the end of the night we grabbed hold of the jukebox and played music from the Doors and about 5 songs from Queen, finally ending the night by leading everyone in Bohemian Rhapsody.
This morning we had an awesome breakfast of tamales, melons, and coffee. We walked over to school and had our first two classes which look like they're going to be pretty good. Because the Spanish class is so small you get a lot of one on one practice and since we're not studying out of a book we really can improve our conversatonal Spanish. Geography incorporates everything from history and politics to agriculture and demographics of Oaxaca so I should be learning a ton this summer.
Last First Observations
1. The city is very safe but we go pretty much everywhere in groups just in case and so it's more fun.
2. Everything is crazy cheap and they have open air markets almost every day where you can by everything from jewelry to bootleg DVDs.
3. The whole atmosphere of family life is way more communal than in the States and you'll have people coming into our house(the door is left wide open during the day) or shouting through the window just to talk or see what's cooking for dinner.
4. We get Breakfast, lunch, and dinner from our host family's so I will be bearing gifts when I come back to the States.
5. My Spanish is getting muy bien and I think I could be fluent by the end of this.
6. We talk a lot about politics and surprisingly I'm in the minority for not being liberal enough.
7. The whole group is awesome and the whole program is looking amazing.
8. I really couldn't ask for a better first 3 days.
Shortly after arriving in Houston and grabbing some food I was still feeling some of the same doubts and realized that once I got on the plane in a few hours there was no turning back. Maybe five minutes after I made it to my connecting gate I noticed another guy with a big bag and who looked decidedly less Mexican than the rest of the people there. It was Will who was the lone UK student in our group. We chilled for a while talking about Lexington and Tucson and why were in the program, then headed over to exchange our dollars to pesos(an awesome experience by the way as you always got a love having 200s and 100s in your wallet). Will is pretty cool, he does a lot of professional sculpting with cast iron and has a nice bike collection. The planes we flew on were tiny and I hit my head on the ceiling on more than one occasion. We landed and got through customs easily enough and made friends with a couple on vacation and some girls from San Diego State on another study abroad in our taxi from the airport.
I settled into Casa Arnel for the first two nights while Will had a reservation at Holiday Inn Express. Casa Arnel was very comfortable but I was momentarily surprised by the lack of soap and free shampoo. After reading for a bit I called a night.
The next morning I headed down for some breakfast from my hostess Liliana, and grabbed some pancakes, bacon, and coffee from the Gringo menu. After a few minutes at the table, Alex one of the UA students came down and we made a little small talk before he started telling me all about his trips to Brazil, Chile, and Nicaragua, while I told a few stories from my week in Spain. We headed down to el Zocalo, which is the big town square in the city, where we decided to grab some lunch and a beer. I was wondering what was up as Alex asked me a couple of times if I knew some random white people or tourists walking by, but the second or third time he pointed out Will, and Alex's keen eye for Gringos paid off.
We hung around a bit longer and explored some more of the city before we came back to Zocalo to see the biggest protest I've ever seen in my life. It was 3 years to the day that there were riots in the city after the teacher's union, which has over 1 million members in Mexico, came to protest for increased wages. It was really loud and you had people all over with APPO shirts and holding pictures of Stalin, Marx and Guevara. The newspaper said the next day that there were nearly a million people at the "megamarch". As a foreigner I totally respect how much energy, effort, and passion they put into it, but its kinda sad that a lot of these people they are glorifying completely betrayed any ideals they once stood for.
We met the fourth member of the group, a dude named Nathan, at Casa Arnel that night and he told us the hellish story of his 8 hour trip by bus from Mexico City with a ton of luggage and a bunch of people trying to scam him. After a little time on Casa Arnel's computer I called it a night and got ready for the real part of the trip to begin.
The next morning, the 3 of us piled in to a taxi with all our luggage and arrived at "La Universidad de la Tierra". We met Oliver, the guy in charge of the program, and he gave us a whole syllabus which has us going to some ruins, the beach over by the Pacific Ocean, and for a 5 day stay in village. We also met the last member of our group and the only girl, Hannah. After that we finally got down to the part I'd been most worried about, our host family. I was paired up with Will and Hannah and we were told our house mom's name was Margarita. She met us outside with her husband, Hector, and again we piled a shit ton of luggage into a small car. The first thing she said to us as we got into the house was "Mi casa es su casa" and she really meant it. The house is very nice and comfortable and has all the amenities you could ask for. Also Margarita and Hector are two of the kindest, most welcoming people I've met. Pretty much they are fine with just about anything and will do just about anything for you as long as you ask in Spanish. We had some sandwiches and spaghetti for dinner and polished it off with Corona's(except for Hector who preferred some Johnnie Walker) all around as a welcoming present for us.
After that we met back up with Alex and Nathan and did some more exploring of this new part of town and hit up a few bars, finally settling on one named "El Bicho". The first thing we did was give Mezcal , which is the official drink of Oaxaca, a try and were all even brave enough to have the worm with it. The owner of the place was definitely looking for some new regulars as I got a few free margaritas and a mojito while the other guys got a few free beers. Towards the end of the night we grabbed hold of the jukebox and played music from the Doors and about 5 songs from Queen, finally ending the night by leading everyone in Bohemian Rhapsody.
This morning we had an awesome breakfast of tamales, melons, and coffee. We walked over to school and had our first two classes which look like they're going to be pretty good. Because the Spanish class is so small you get a lot of one on one practice and since we're not studying out of a book we really can improve our conversatonal Spanish. Geography incorporates everything from history and politics to agriculture and demographics of Oaxaca so I should be learning a ton this summer.
Last First Observations
1. The city is very safe but we go pretty much everywhere in groups just in case and so it's more fun.
2. Everything is crazy cheap and they have open air markets almost every day where you can by everything from jewelry to bootleg DVDs.
3. The whole atmosphere of family life is way more communal than in the States and you'll have people coming into our house(the door is left wide open during the day) or shouting through the window just to talk or see what's cooking for dinner.
4. We get Breakfast, lunch, and dinner from our host family's so I will be bearing gifts when I come back to the States.
5. My Spanish is getting muy bien and I think I could be fluent by the end of this.
6. We talk a lot about politics and surprisingly I'm in the minority for not being liberal enough.
7. The whole group is awesome and the whole program is looking amazing.
8. I really couldn't ask for a better first 3 days.
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