Back in Brooklyn

Well, I've been back for almost two weeks now, working and thinking about what's next. Here's one final round of pictures. This likely means the end of this blog. But one never knows...

I miss Oaxaca.

Mi última noche

Entonces, mi última noche aquí en Oaxaca ha llegado, y no estoy lista para salir. I haven´t been able to get my laptop to any wi-fi to upload new pictures, so I´ll have to do that from home. César left this morning, and I spent the day walking around town picking up last minute bits and pieces of things, and spending as much time in the sun as possible. I sat for a while with a retired Canadian couple at my hotel discussing, among other things, the state of the American presidential race. This is a subject that seems to inspire considerable interest in everyone I´ve met, Mexicans, Canadians, and Europeans alike (though noticeably less in Europeans). On the whole everyone seems very excited about Barack, and wants to know if I think he will win and if I will vote for him. People keep saying that with Obama we have an opportunity to show the rest of the world that progress can be had in our nation, that we are ready for a black president, and that we are willing to turn over a new leaf in terms of international relations. I am struck by the fact that no one seems to think it would be particularly significant if we elected a woman, and I´m not sure if this is because she is a Clinton and thus old guard, or if the rest of the world is so far beyond the question of female heads of state that they forget that this would be new for us. Perhaps they feel, like many of us, that the problem of race in our nation is more fundamental than the problem of gender.

Everything I do today stands out as my last something in Oaxaca. My last elote, my last payasos, my last chat with a retired Canadian couple, my last time on this street or in that park... It is sad, and I´ve felt kind of like crying all day...

I´m not sure what else to say. Except I´ll see you soon.

I have absconded...

for the coast, where I find that internet access is both scarcer and more expensive. Sand and salt, however, are plentiful, as are mojarras, surfers (at Puerto Escondido), Mexican families (at the western edge of Huatulco, where there are not actually huge resorts, contrary to my imaginings, but are lovely bays with calm water for swimming), and annoying tourist merchandise (everywhere). I´ll be here for another day or so before I head back to Oaxaca to finish out my trip. I am pretending that is not happening. I would rather stay, for now. I am considering going skydiving tomorrow, but I think I will probably not... It is expensive enough that I can tell myself it´s about the money without having to really reflect on whether I want to go (much to my father´s relief, I´m sure)...

If you want anything from Mexico, now´s the time to ask... Post it as a comment and I´ll do my best. Mezcal? Chocolate? Mole? Very cute clothes for people under about 7 years old? Anything else...?

I will update at least once more when I get back to the city, and alas, before I know it I´ll be back in frigid New York...

El Sierra Norte

It is already Wednesday, and I feel quite tardy in reporting on my weekend trip to the Sierra Norte. If you can't manage to read through all this, you can scroll down to the bottom of the post to look at the pics. But of course I think it'll make for entertaining reading, at least for some of you.

My visit was amazing, even though I only got as far as Cuajimaloyas, and then back-tracked (on foot) to Benito Juarez, when I had been hoping to continue on at least to Llano Grande or Latuvi.

Adventure begins on the bus ride, which was sold out when arrived at the 2nd class bus station at about 7:40 on Saturday morning. I was invited to stand or sit on the floor, which seemed manageable for a mere two hour ride (I've stood for longer on the NYC subway, after all). As it turned out, the sold out bus wasn't really all that sold out, and I was able to sit, so I was glad I didn't decide to wait in the bus station for the next bus, which some reported would be at noon, and others reported would be at 3:00. I am sure if I asked more people I could have gotten a dozen other proposed next-bus times.

In any case... the first half of the ride was familiar to me, following the same highway east toward Teotitlan and Tlacolula. About at Tlacolula, the old converted American school bus turns north and proceeds to climb 1500 meters in 15 kilometers, which took a full hour, including a 7 minute stop while the driver got out and seemed to pour cold water on the engine. I met a Dutch woman and a guy from New Zealand on the bus. The Dutch lady had booked a guide for a 3 hour hike in Cuajimaloyas, and invited us to split the cost (which therefore came to roughly $3.90 per person). Upon arrival, breakfast was delicious and cheap (I won the bet about what it would cost, but, not knowing them at all, couldn't bring myself to make them pay for me, even though it was under 3 bucks apiece for more than we could eat). The tortillas in Cuajimaloyas were so so so delicious, way better than in the city. When asked, locals say it is because everything is made by hand rather than machine, and that they use 100% corn. I think they were telling me that there is some other additive or filler used in Oaxaca, but I didn't fully understand.

The hike was supremely fun. I am not a big fan of hiking, as to me it closely resembles work. But this hike included lots of opportunities to climb on rocks and through holes and such, and to me this much more closely resembles play. I loved it. My breathing, I think, was slightly labored at over 10,000 feet. My breathing was definitely labored on the 2nd day's hike, which was quite a bit more work with less play to distract me. I could try to blame it on the altitude, but the two 20 year old French kids I was with that day didn't seem the least bit out of breath.

Saturday night I went for a temazcal, which was quite certainly one of the odder experience of my life to date. Temazcal is an ancient purifying ritual, variations of which were used by the Aztecs, the Maya, and other Mesoamerican groups. When I heard that there was an opportunity to get purified, I figured how could I but jump at the chance. I went into it with various fantasies from eternal salvation to curing my cold sore, which by this time was beginning to scab over. $10 seemed a small price to pay. Based on a poster I saw somewhere in Oaxaca, I was expecting some sort of bath and a massage. It turned out, however, to be more like a sauna, and a beating.

I was told to show up at a certain turquoise house and see the 700 year old woman who lived there (estimate my own) at 7pm, and to bring one of the woolen blankets from my cabana. I arrive promptly, wary of taking my clothes off at this hour as the temperature is beginning to drop and is expected to reach nearly freezing overnight (typical for the area and the time of year). The ancient woman invites me in and leads me down a short dirt path and into a room with two bed platforms, sin mattresses. I am told to wait a few minutes, because "it's not quite ready." A younger woman comes into the room, and the two of them bustle about preparing things and bickering over who took the batteries out of the flashlight and where they are, and whether or not other bathers are coming. Eventually, I am handed a sheet and instructed to take off all my clothes. I ask if I might be able to use a bathroom before we start, and am invited to exit the room and squat just outside in the dirt. Which, of course, I do, because really, what choice did I have? But I did feel an awful lot like I was pissing on their house. When I return, the younger of the women then takes off her clothes and crawls into a hole in the wall that had heretofore appeared to be a fireplace. The opening is about 2' x 3'. I am encouraged to follow her in. With considerable trepidation, I crawl through the hole into a space that feels inordinately like a coffin, and which was later quite aptly described by my Oaxaca housemate as an oven. The space is about 6' x 6' (I can barely lie flat at 5'10"), and no more than 3' high. It is also at least about 4000 degrees. I am instructed to lie on my stomach, as the opening is covered from the outside with my woolen blanket. It is pitch black, and so hot I can barely breathe. In response to my vaguely claustrophobic reaction, they agree to leave a ray of dim light wafting in for the first few minutes, and the naked Mexican lady next to me proceeds to beat me with a fistful of branches. They are small branches, and I can't say it exactly hurt, but... The scent of the leaves smells like something I was introduced to earlier on my hike, the name of which escapes me now, a leaf used in teas to treat stomach problems and hangovers. After the leaves, she swaps them for what feels like some sort of woven, reedy fan, and swats at me with this for a while. Images of every imaginable sort of foul play fill my head, along with images of the trillion degree bricks three feet above me collapsing and killing us both. After she is through with my back, we repeat the procedure on my front and then each of my sides, and at some point I can't help but laugh that I am paying to be naked, trapped, and beaten with leaves. This would almost certainly be illegal in the US.

Afterwards, we crawl out of the hole and lie wrapped in blankets in the outer room. I am surprisingly relaxed and sweaty, and although she is on the other side of the room, it feels creepily post-coital. We lie like that for about 20 minutes, with her ancient mother talking to me periodically. When I leave, the cost turns out to be twice what I was told at the office that arranged the purification, and I laugh at myself, feeling completely had. Sure we've all had some at least vaguely masochistic tendencies, but this must be a joke. The old lady instructs me to drape my woolen blanket over my head while I walk home. I wander out into the black Cuajimaloyan night, and nearly fall over a half dozen times trying to find my way back to the cabana. There are 1,000 stars out, and the air is thick with the scent of the fires heating every shack in the town. I don't feel cold until much later.

For other, in some cases quite different, versions of temazcal, I invite you to cut and paste any of the following links.

http://www.tlahui.com/temaz1.html
http://www.oaxacainfo.com/oaxaca/temazcal.htm
http://www.aztecgardens.com/temazcal.html

Area map

See map below for general orientation regarding pueblos. Ignore annoying icons referring to quien sabe.

The roads immediately east of town are very different from those north of town -- for instance, it is about 30 minutes to Tlacolula by bus, but 2 hours to Cuajimaloyas (where I think I will go tomorrow)...

El Otro Lado

I am having a lousy day, which is probably proof that it can happen anywhere. Hay un lado oscuro, siempre.

I am tired of getting up at 7:00 every day and being tired all the time.

I have not had a shower in over two days because the water is all screwed up in my house. (Actually, the water is all screwed up all over Oaxaca. There is only public water available two days a week, and if you don´t have your own private cistern and/or a neighborhood well, that´s all you get. Which makes my two days without a shower seem like hardly anything to complain about, but nevertheless, it´s making me cranky.)

I have an enourmous, disgusting cold sore covering half my face, which is something I´m pretty sure I´ve only had once in my life before. It is hurting me quite a lot, and presumably is why I´ve been waking up in the middle of the night with low-grade fevers. Oh, unless those are caused by what I imagine is a spider that is cohabitating with me, who bites me to pieces while I sleep, and who is also making me very cranky.

Today, someone in a store gave me a bill that has a tiny tear in the center of it, the kind of thing that in the States we wouldn´t think twice about. But apparently here they ¨don´t like¨ their bills to have tears. This is the phrase I have heard, ¨We don´t like them like that;¨ hence no one will accept the bill, and how exactly do I argue with them about it? In New York I would just say ¨C´mon, it´s money, you have to take it,¨ but even in New York... if they really didn´t want to take it, what could you do? I am told that I can go to a bank and trade it in for a more aesthetically-pleasing, and hence acceptable bill. (In fairness to the small businessmen and women who have refused it already, I am also told that this ability to exchange torn bills is new. Until very recently, any torn bill was simply the possessor´s loss.)

Today I am a little lonely also, and feeling guilty about being away from work, and childishly resenting some of the representations made to me by my Spanish school prior to my arrival. My ¨friends¨ have all left town in the last couple of days, and the student population of my school has dwindled to 2. The city still seems crowded with tourists to me, but they say it´s nothing compared to what it was 2 years ago, before the uprising, and I guess perhaps my school is struggling a bit, at least this week.

On the other hand, in general, when I talk to strangers, they seem to understand me much better, which I suppose is ultimately why I am here. We´ve come back around to the subjunctive again, and this time I kind of get it.

I just realized that I never followed up about the saintly priest. Suffice it to say that I didn´t end up meeting him. I did have one brief adventure at an orphanage for girls, but more on that some other time. In the meantime, tomorrow afternoon I´m going to visit a preschool to see what it´s like.

I wonder what it would take to get the kids in Hierve El Agua back to school, and whether or not that is a feasible task...

Google News Links

If you haven't already looked, the Google News links along the right side of this page are particularly interesting right now.

Hierve El Agua

Sabado, 26 Enero

The town in which the springs are situated (not sure exactly whether the town is simply called Hierve El Agua, or something else) is notable for having a school, but no teachers. As such, according to my sources, the children have not been to school for two years. The dirt road to Hierve el Agua from Mitla is long and treacherous, full of switchbacks hugging the precipice (18 kilometers, 350 meters up, and 45 minutes via taxi o camioneta). Despite the absence of teachers, we did spot a Coca-Cola delivery truck wending its way along this route. I'm glad we have our priorities straight in terms of our American exports.

http://oaxaca-travel.com/guide/natural.php?lang=us&doc=home&section=natural&atractivo=11.03.02.01&getdoc=true

Random facts

Things I have ingested for the first time since arriving here in Oaxaca: at least 3 types of atole (con chocolate, con panela, y con leche); the most overcooked pasta ever to be overcooked; Oaxaqueno sushi; mole coloradito (tal vez mi preferida ahora).

Things I have not ingested since arriving here: chapulines (dried grasshoppers, available either plain, con chile y limon, o con chocolate); 7 different kinds of mezcal, including one with scorpions in the bottle, and one which is bottled around a rose that grows inside the bottle.

Items that cost more here than in New York: Cup O Noodles; dental floss; a pedicure; music CDs.

Speaking of prices: There has been roughly a 1000% increase in low-end hotel prices since I was here 11 years ago. This increase is only in pesos; in dollars, the increase is typically more like 300-400% (I don't fully understand the math of this, but it seems to be accurate). A couple of nights ago, I stumbled upon the hotel that I stayed in when I was last here. At the time, it was a rambling place called the Hotel Pombo, with strangely enormous rooms for about $10 (US) a night. It has been reinvented as the Hotel Something Very English Sounding That I Can't Recall, with rooms now going for $100-$150 a night. I realized where I was when I saw the building across the street, which I recognized from a photo I still have that I took from our window back then. It was a rather transporting moment, as there is little I have seen here that has felt very familiar from that time. I'm not sure if that's because the city has changed so, or if I have inherited my mother's relentlessly unreliable memory.

The university students here are in the process of electing (yes, electing) the leaders of the various schools within the University. They seem to be putting an awful lot of energy into marching and demonstrating for the candidates they like. It seems that the political turmoil here last year has ignited a spirit of activism. It is not entirely clear to me what difference it makes who is elected president of the law school, the medical school, the school of education. These students are all quite young. It seems that here folks train for professions during the same time that we in the States are undergrads -- there are an awful lot of 21 year old lawyers walking around. But one of them manages the telephone and internet caseta down the street from my house, so I am not entirely clear what it means that she is a lawyer. I was introduced to the nephew of someone I know, all of 20 years old; he was wearing a torn AC/DC tee-shirt, and jeans baggy enough to fit in in Bed-Stuy, and I was to call him licenciado. (Sidebar: AC/DC tee-shirts are a weirdly popular choice, though I don't think I've heard any AC/DC music, not that I would know exactly. Much more commonly heard emanating from the shops around el centro is Total Eclipse of the Heart, equally popular in Spanish and English).

Just photos

Que haces?

Have been asked by more than one person what I am doing...

have been to various mercados, watched a lot of local life, been out to a pueblo or two, watched a funeral procession in Teotitlan, watched soccer in the park, been to el tule to see the big tree, which is exactly that. 2nd biggest tree in the world. brings the town quite a bit of money, as they have landscaped gardens with green grass, which is rare here this time of year (dry dry dry season). we approached the tree... ¨my, that´s a big tree.¨ Then there´s a gate, and a guy collecting 3 pesos for entry. entonces, of course we pay the 3 pesos and then... hmmm... now i´m two feet closer to the big tree. what exactly was the three pesos for? ah, see, so the town of el tule can have green, manicured grass.

At least part of every day, i roam endlessly around the city, which is quite a pleasant place for doing that, and hanging out in various parks. not parks exactly - no grass. i am tan, and my feet are a bit sore.

Y ustedes?

El Mercado de Tlacolula

Domingo, 20 Enero
(I would much prefer to show these as a slide show, but for the moment, I cannot, and in fact have not even gotten them in the order I intended... perhaps soon)

Arrozola

On Thursday afternoon we (as in we from my school) went to Arrozola Xoxo, a pueblo about a half hour outside the city that survives almost exclusively on sales of the intricately painted, brightly colored carved wooden animals that inhabit pretty much every mercado and tourist shop in southern Mexico. Other than me and my schoolmates (totalling 8, including Luis and Fernando, our two teachers), I didn´t see a single other potential source of income that day for those folks. We walked from house to house while Luis, who seems pretty knowledgeable about local culture and politics, described the process. Usually we´d walk in on two or three women painting around a table, with one man outside somewhere carving. ¨Pueden sacar fotos, si quieren,¨Luis would say. It felt uncomfortable, rather like a zoo of wooden animals and live people. I did not want to take fotos. But of course I took a few, not entirely sure why...








Some of these families also sell their art at various mercados around the area, but some are not able to do that, or not without a middleman, who of course takes a disproportionate cut. Later, I asked the woman I´m staying with about whether the children of these folks are able to go to school -- she said that yes, generally they are, and that there is a government program that pays families if their children go to school. Senora Ruth thinks the program works pretty well, and it´s not new. A little like Opportunity NYC, no?

Anyway... In all, the excursion was intersesting, if a little depressing. That´s the disadvantage of visiting developing nations, I suppose. But, I suppose better developing than devolving... Speaking of which, what´s the news about the primaries?

Little update

So, I feel a bit compelled to write simply because I said I would... I am sure the details of my days are of little interest, and I am sorely lacking in sensitive cultural reflections or wild adventures so far. As it is Mexico, many things are a little slow in getting started. There has been a lot of comical wandering around with my housemate looking for things that turn out to be closed (this or that particular restaurant, various offices for biking or other excursions to the Pueblos Mancomunados in Sierra Norte, el cine, etc., etc.). I think yesterday after class we walked nearly 10 miles around town (no exaggerations, for those of you who know that I am prone to that) and our big accomplishment in the end was an ice cream in the zocalo at 9pm. Which, I have to say, just isn't so bad.

I've had two days of classes so far, and they are intense. Three students, one teacher, and four hours of no English. After these eight hours the last two days, I've forgotten that there are any tenses besides the subjunctive.

Tomorrow despues clases, mi maestro is taking me to some place outside of town where a priest ("como un santo") runs some sort of facility for homeless and/or orphaned children. There is the possibility that I will work there doing something a few afternoons a week. I'm very interested to see. The city itself is a lot more affluent than I remember it being 11 years ago (though Oaxaca is still the 2nd poorest state in Mexico). It is also quite a bit dirtier, with many more cars, many more people, and many more Americans.

I would like to have some pictures to put up here, which I suppose means I will have to take some. In the meantime, a piece of a soccer game I watched on Sunday in a park behind my house.

Greetings from downtown Oaxaca

So here I am, on my first night here, wandering around downtown, and I spy a little internet spot, and thought I´d check in for a moment.

Just before this, I was standing by a payphone on a corner and suddenly heard this loud boom, which, were I at work, I would have assumed to be a weird gunshot. It set off car alarms, and sent folks (locals, too) looking all around for what was going on. A few seconds later, firworks were raining down on my head, set off by some guy about 50 feet away from me for no apparent reason. But real fireworks, like Macy´s would set off or something, not some Brooklyn bootleg rooftop stuff. No idea what that was about, but I was never so right underneath fireworks. I´m still picking the blackened remants out of my hair.

The city is as beuatiful as I remember it, though I admittedly can´t see it so well right now, through the haze of my sleepiness and the general night-timeness. I ate a perfect elote, which I really hope doesn´t make me sick.

The woman I´m staying with seems lovely, and her house seems to be quite a complex, with half a dozen American 20 year olds staying there. I am starting to wonder if when a Spanish school in Mexico says that the average age of its students is ¨35,¨that´s because 70% of their students are 20 and 20% of their students are 70. I´ll learn more on Monday, presumably, and not all the 20 year olds in my house are from my school - several are a collection of NYU undergrads doing some short-term volunteer project. They´ll be leaving on Wednesday, but so much for getting away, huh? I am told, on the plus side, that Ruth (who is decidedly un-Jewish) is a fabulous cook.

Okay. There´s the update. I better head home now, in case that elote turns out to have been a bad idea.

And we're off.

It's 5:20 on Saturday morning, and I am reminded that my brother has pointed out that, having told people that this blog exists, I now have to actually post things. I've been up for an hour already, which brings me to a grand total of about 3 hours of sleep (espero que podre dormir en el vuelo).

I depart from Kennedy at 9:00. At least the first part of this trip involves staying with a family in Oaxaca (the city, capital of the state). I know very little about them, other than that I am being retrieved from the airport at 6:00 this evening by "La Senora Ruth." Which makes me wonder if they might be Jews, a possibility of some interest to me. I know also very little (do I detect a theme?) about Mexican Jews. What I do know is that they tend to be inordinately white, wealthy, and overrepresented in government, and I'm not sure how accurate this impression is. Oh, and also that they tend to be northern (i.e. not Oaxaqueno). Someone know more than me that would care to educate?

I expect to have internet access again by Monday morning, 1/14. Until then...

Counting down...

4 days 'til lift-off...

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State of the city, one year post-rioting

According to one Canadian journalist
www.thestar.com/Travel/article/282400

On considering blogging (which would be easier if blogging wasn't such an awful word)

me: i don't want to write some annoying gringa shit about the poor, beautiful people of oaxaca.

i'm just not sure how to write without sounding like that.
or actually being that.
Cesar: i hear you
5 minutes
Cesar: that might be a good first entry -
me: maybe....
might just make me sound even more like that.
Cesar: hey... in case you haven't notice i'm a brown guy
me: yeah?
Cesar: so i imagine you have some thoughts about my peeps and i would love to hear them
me: i wasn't thinking of it like that at all.
Cesar: i just realized
that you might not be thinking of it like that
me: i wasn't even exactly thinking of the oaxaquenos as being much connected or similar to you personally, but maybe you feel differently?
Cesar: i don't. maybe i was just connecting with the MEXICAN id
see
there is so much to write about
me: perhaps.
maybe you'll be a character on my blog.
Cesar: cool
me: but if you're gonna be a character, you'll have to know that sometimes i'm gonna get it wrong.
Cesar: what do you mean?
me: misrepresent you.
Cesar: ok
i see
you can do an e-ethnography
me: well, i wouldn't go that far.
i don't even know what an ethnography is.
Cesar: a narrative
a story
a method
it's great - you're going to be embedded
me: see, you're talking about ethnography...
meanwhile i'm playing with the colors.

me: i'm afraid to write anything so public as a blog.
especially public to people i know.
i'm not sure why.

Where am I anyhow?

Click Oaxaca City Map link for more detail