Lil Megora Blogspot

The Cupcaketress Reports

2010-08-18T16:09:00.002-04:00

A little behind-the-scenes from the Lipke-Huckabay wedding fest.

Cupcakes: Critics report from M Martin on Vimeo.

Who's 90?

2010-07-25T15:21:00.002-04:00

My grandpa turned ninety years old on July 16th this year. To celebrate, a few of us cousins got together some favorite memories and best wishes for the old whipper snapper. I collected them here in this audio postcard. Enjoy! (*)

(*) The music at the close is meant for "gettin' down," people. As that is the proper thing to do when celebrating ninety years of life. Don't just sit in your chair and listen, boogey down, would ya?

A little audio test

2010-07-25T14:55:00.002-04:00

I'm trying out Goear.com to see if it's a viable option to post audio to my blog. Though, the more immediate impetus is to find a good place we can publish the great work of all of the students in my youth radio class.

Here's an audio postcard I made as an example for the class. Give a listen... And let me know what you think of the presentation and the quality of the audio.

Recent Travesties and Triumphs in the Kitchen

2010-04-16T17:00:00.005-04:00

FAIL.

The dairy-free, yeast-free amaranth loaf didn't turn out so well. I followed the recipe to a T. So, what up? Anyone have another recipe I could try that's yeast and dairy free, using a whole grain flour...? This one didn't work.

Mooshy middle = back to the drawing board.

SUCCESS!

However, the savory seasoned nuts I made turned out great!. Take your pick between almonds and pecans.

I was considering a pun for my title here, but felt it was too much for you, dear reader.

2010-01-21T21:24:00.008-05:00

Tonight I made vegetable samosas for supper. A tiny pocket of yummy goodness. And whilst chatting with a British chum yesterday (I've been plotting my samosas since then) we discussed the finer points of food wrapped around itself. Samosas, quesadillas, calzones, empanadas, stromboli, runza...(there must be more!)--what do they have in common?

1. No messy clean up--pocketed food is its own plate.
2. Easy portability from plate to mouth (forget the complication of utensils)
3. The novelty that you are cooking a miniature, edible oven (the pocketed food) inside another oven (the conventional kind)--as the veggies, meats or cheeses simmer together inside the outer coat of doughy goodness.

This was my first attempt at samosas. And this recipe from Real Simple was just that, simple. Check it out!

I'm washing that down with some seasonal Christmas beer. That's right...unbuckle those pants.

Thanks, Mom.

2010-01-20T21:20:00.000-05:00

Hey lookey loo, I'm cracking open your soap, Mom. Yay for delayed satisfaction and Christmas gifts.

Legal, Baby!

2009-12-11T23:54:00.000-05:00

It's real, it's real! The Hub Oaxaca is now, officially, an Asociación Civil. We're on the books. We're a non-profit. And that's us, the team, holding the Hub's statutes in our hands. Now the real work begins...Come and check out what we're up to, friends.

What's for supper?

2009-11-15T23:47:00.000-05:00

Veggie pancakes, folks!

2009-11-12T23:35:00.000-05:00

What's this...?
Let's get closer...
Uh oh.

Day of the Dead

2009-11-02T21:45:00.000-05:00

I was trying to think where I was last year around this time--as I can't recall distinctly the flurry of events that has overtaken Oaxaca in the past several days. It is Day of the Dead--a big celebration here in Oaxaca. The part of the city that finds itself inside offices or schools starts to shut down on Wednesday. And the the city that exists in the cobblestone streets, in restaurants, out in small municipalities with dirt roads, just outside the city center, in cemeteries and in the foyers of many a family home starts to come alive. It's high tourist season here. Normally, that drives me inside, away from the crowds of strangers marching around with their cameras and fanny packs. But this year, I want to explore a bit. And so...

After a much-needed early evening nap (it's been that kind of day), I take off with Rafael to explore the Panteón General (the main cemetery inside city limits). All the niches are filled with candlelight. But we're a day early for the main festivities--so the sand sculptures are not yet up. We snake around ancient grave sites teetering above ground level, the earth seeming to push some coffins right up to join us. And then we stumble upon a concert; right there, wedged between some niches and graves. It's Mozart's Requiem--appropriate. People are lounging on top of tombs, leaning against stone Virgin Mary's, or giant crucifixes. Rafael and I nudge our way right next to the choir, squatting in the dust on the edge of a giant tomb. This is unreal.

Next we make our way for San Martín Mexicampam. I've been tantalizing Rafael with stories of the "best Tlayuda in town." He wants to try it out for himself. I'm wondering if the tiny hole-in-the-wall place that Juliette and Felipe introduced me to will be open at midnight on a Thursday. Of course it is! Midnight is prime Tlayuda time, of course! We wrangle ourselves a four top and order up. The service is syrupy slow tonight. We yawn. Rafael puts his head down. But the food comes, steaming hot. I open my Tlayuda like a book, fanning some cold air into it just like Felipe.

Once stuffed, we chug in the Volkswagen up hill toward neighboring Atzompa, where I've heard rumor of amazing decorations and food. Laura and her visiting gang are there. They've already done a lap and are huddled around in a circle drinking hot chocolate when we arrive. Rafael and I share a cup for ourselves, and some pan de muertos. We stroll through the tiny cemetery. It is so adorned with flowers in the bright yellows and pinks so common at this time of year, towering candles and photos that there's hardly room to walk. Someone is filming, a camera posed atop a makeshift crane is parked in the far corner of this place. A band has been hired and is playing, rather loudly, a serenade for our dead friends.

Once chocolate and bread has been downed, it's time to go. It's only 1:30 or so (an early night for many a Día de los Muertos reveler), but our group is ready to depart. We pile (all seven of us) into Rafael's little sedan. It doesn't help that Laura and 3 of her friends are all gringo height (towering at 6' or over). But suffering makes for some very funny jokes. So it's a pretty jolly ride back to town.

I step onto my front stoop at 2 AM. A lovely day, a lovely day with the dead!

I am currently chewing on one of these...

2009-10-13T15:24:00.003-04:00

Cucumber and Goat Cheese Sandwiches

I absolutely recommend that you chew on one, too. Super simple, and super tasty. Thanks for the suggestion from Real Simple's recipe archives.

Provecho!

Why reinvent the wheel? Just resell the old square.

2009-09-28T23:59:00.006-04:00

I have been a lazy blogger. But in some respects, I have not... Eh...? eh...?

I have been blogging over at HarmonyWishes.com for the last few months. And thus, have entered a personal blogging slump on my own site. It's sad. I know. Why do burnt out at 31? I don't know.

Photo Credit HarmonyWishes, inc

So, hey! Why not check out what I've been writing over at HarmonyWishes?

Here's their blog site. And here's one of the latest two blogs I just posted recently. If you're so inclined, wander around on the HW's site. They've got some amazing images to share. And as a further scoop: another blog will go up on Thursday. So check back!

Photo Credit HarmonyWishes, inc

I haven't forgotten you, lovely reader. I have just run out of steam over the last couple months. It might be because I was battling the flu (not the pig-inclined variety--but just as brutal) More to come! I promise.

Mirror, mirror

2009-09-19T16:27:00.005-04:00

I have an extremely vain moth camped out in my bathroom...

"Mmm, is this my good side? No? Every side is good. Oh, does anyone else have eyes as pretty? No. No they don't."

What do you think she's saying to herself?

That Adorable Pandemic

2009-06-11T11:39:00.003-04:00

This is the cutest photo I have yet to see concerning the swine flu. Wouldn't you agree? It almost makes you want to hug a pig.

The World Health Organization has made it official: the swine flu is a pandemic. They've raised the alert level from 5 to 6. They're reporting rising numbers of those affected by the H1N1 strain.

Honestly, I don't know what to think. The last flu epidemic killed about 1,000,000 people back in the late 60s. That's a pretty scary number. And yet, the New York Times reports that every year between 250,000 and 500,000 people die from the flu. So pandemic or not--there are a lot of people affected by even the simple strain virus.

A good friend of mine here in Oaxaca has a co-worker who's child is infected with swine flu. He's still going to work, donning a face mask, of course. My first reaction was, "What is he doing?! Tell him he MUST go home!" And a day later I'd almost utterly forgotten about it. Is our collective memory as a society too short to heed the warnings of a pandemic? Or are we merely reacting appropriately to something we can't really avoid.

Wash your hands. Eat well. Rest well. Get to the doctor if you're feeling ill. What more can we do...? I say, more pictures of cute children wearing face masks, for sure!

*photo taken from the NY Times online.

Cloistered Days of May

2009-05-13T16:56:00.003-04:00

I've been lax in posting since the swine flu descended and my computer died simultaneously. Even now that I've been back and up and running electronically for a few weeks, I've been remiss in sharing news. So here's a quick round up via pictures. Let's consider this a kind of storybook.News came rolling in about the discovery of more and more swine flu cases in México and beyond. But being without a computer made the consumption of that news tricky. For good or bad, I had to acquire my information from a range of sources, friends, neighbors, Oaxaca papers and brief interludes on the internet using friends' computers. First things first, wear a mask, they say. But not two hours later, a follow-up article warns, "masks don't work after 2 hours of continuous wear." And then a day later, "Masks work up until the point you take them off; then they are contaminated." And finally, "Masks don't work." What's a girl to do?
How about stay at home and play ping pong with her neighbors wearing a mask? Seems safe.

Although, it depends on your opponents... (they look devious)When I'd venture out into the street (which was very seldom that first week), it didn't seem like anything was different. Most people were walking around, just as usual. Many of them without masks. But then you happen by the a store window with an odd sale on offer. Or perhaps you'd cross by the Seven Regions Fountain on a main thorough fare and see this:

Even the statues and graffiti art were taking precautions.

The main trouble with a health epidemic in Mexico is that the sources for information are flawed. The print media is largely sensational, slow and not very reliable. The internet, while more up-t0-date, can be filled with alarmists trying to fill the 24-hour news cycle with something, anything. My neighbor suggests this is precisely why we should be generating news on the ground level, amongst neighbors and citizens. Now, I'm all for citizen journalism. I think it's an important and vital tool for sharing information at the local, national and global level. In fact, I'm dedicating a large part of my work here to training those very citizen journalists. And yet, I have to say I had my misgivings about talking to people around Oaxaca during the initial couple of weeks of swine flu fury. My dear Mexican host family called it a hoax. They thought it was the government's way of distracting attention away from other issues. And they weren't alone. The teachers' union--who had planned a strike during the first week of pandemic panic--speculated that it was a ruse to obscure their agenda. But then there was my neighbor's Spanish instructor who had a friend, a nurse, who said there were many more dying in the hospitals than was being reported I have to say I am skeptical of both sides. I have a hard time believing information shared from a friend of a friend of a neighbor. People love to gossip here--and have a different sense of the line between chronicalling and storytelling. They also have a deep (often merited) mistrust of the powers that be. So how do you listen to all that static and pull out the truth from it? I don't know. For me it was weighing what I was reading, with what I was hearing, with what my gutt told me.

And after a week holed up in my house, my gutt told me to get some air. So I made a field trip tp the grocery store for some supplies.I made plans for dinner and chocolate brownie sundaes with friends. Veggie stew and homemade cornbread...Mmm...worth possible infection!
Chocolate makes everything better...even H1N1!

And eventually, I ventured out with Laura and Caitlin to a café. I know! Enclosed, indoor space. Daring!
Here is my first out-of-the-house smoothie. Isn't it pretty. You'll note that I'm writing a long letter to Aubrey at the same time. (Recognize the letter, Aubrey? I hope I didn't rub any pork flu on it...)Mostly, I spent a lot of time reading and writing, and staring at my own feet...

**Note to those following this blog--I backlogged a few entries for April and May. So if you're interested there are some new "old" entries here and here, or you can just scroll down a bit.

Influenza Porcina

2009-05-12T10:40:00.003-04:00

I'm without a computer over the last two and a half weeks. It's in the shop in Puebla. Hopefully, I'll have my lovely Mac back in a few days--and will get to posting on what's been happening on this side of the border. In the meantime, I saw this video on my neighbor Mark's blog--and thought it a more profound and sensitive coverage of the swine flu issue. I encourage you all to take a look. The news has been over saturated by panic-inducing information. So it's worth a gander at something more balanced. You only need watch up to the 9:30 mark.

More soon...

Indoor sky

2009-05-11T17:41:00.000-04:00

The view from the courtyard at Café Nuevo Mundo

Sushi Reward

2009-05-06T17:44:00.001-04:00

Picking up my computer in Puebla was a hassle. A 9-hour round-trip bus ride in order to pick up a laptop is no fun, let's be honest. So, I rewarded myself with a comida of white wine and sushi. It was on the fancy side for my current tight purse strings; I just couldn't resist being somewhere where there's a few more options for food diversity. (And you'll note a letter to Sara as my comida companion!)

Waterpark in the middle of the desert...? Sure!

2009-04-25T14:20:00.006-04:00

It was crucial to make it home from Puebla in time to head out the following day with some pals to a Balneario (which literally translates as spa according to my Spanish-English dictionary; but here means, water park. Yeow!)

Kacki, Laura, Caitlin and I meet up outside the baseball field to hitch a bus towards Yagul. We're anxious for a hike under the morning sun, followed by some water slides. Aren't you?

The hike is a bust, as the guard at the Yagul archaeological site won't cut us a break and let us hike in the surrounding hillside paths without paying the 35 peso entrance fee. "Mi jefe está en el sitio hoy, entonces..." (My boss is here today, so...). No one feels much like paying to hike--so we head back down the 2-kilometer road towards the highway and start trekking to the balneario.

We're some kind of anomaly at this water park--as all heads turn to watch the four gringas walk in. I suppose they don't get many foreigners out this way; the water park seems to be mainly frequented by nearby villagers. Being watched closely because you're a foreigner isn't something new for any of us in Oaxaca. And yet, it's not what you hope will transpire when you're about to stretch your swimsuit over pale, unshaven legs. We feel flumuxed, then agitated, then downright pissed when a local woman approaches us in our swimsuits (she is fully dressed) and asks if we'll pose for a picture. Whatta huh? We uncomfortably giggle and beg off. But she insists, "No, we're all friends here. It's just a picture. Nothing strange or bad." (Someone saying "nothing strange or bad" only makes them sound more sinister, no?) We have to insist, "No. We're sitting here in our swimsuits. That's weird. We don't know you."

The thing that makes water parks in Mexico so fun (much like roller coaster rides) is you can't be totally sure that they are safe. (thrill seekers apply here) Mexico's not the litigious community the States can be. Thus , you can't really trust that a water park will have the customer's safety in mind at all times. This makes their water slides WAY MORE FUN, in my opinion. We squeal without too much embarrassment as the giant slide whips us around, snaking down towards the dangerously shallow water. I'm the only one who will try for a second time the slide that seems to straight drop to a "break pool." It's a thrilling drop--but requires a small loss of skin on the elbows, and you end with you suit wedged inside your butt. Fun!

We snack on Tlayudas and naranjadas, cookies and plums. We lounge poolside, each with a book or magazine. But when the music level soars and hoards more arrive from the surrounding towns--we decide to take off. All eyes follow us out the door. Oh my.

Little did we know that the following day, pig flu would descend...

Caitlin, Laura and Kacki - hitchin' a bus ride home

City of Angels, nope, not LA

2009-04-24T13:05:00.013-04:00

I woke up at 3:40 this morning. Mau and Judith are headed to Taxco by way of Mexico City. I take the chance trip as an opportunity for a free ride to Puebla--where my poor, ailing computer will find a "doctor."

We leave in darkness, the roads and hills peeling away from us as we wind our way north. Small clusters of lights appear off in the distance (a sleeper community) only to disappear the next time I open my eyes. By 6:45 the streaks of purple reach across the sky in the distance. And though everything around us seems dark still, it is a sign that dawn is approaching. When Puebla pulls up around us, cement tenements and ads abound. Traffic becomes.

I'm prepared to just get off on the side of the road--as Mau has explained to me he doesn't navigate Puebla very well, and can't spend an hour getting un-lost. But as the moment approaches for my disembarkation he decides he'll take me into the city a bit, just enough off the highway so that it's easy for me to find a cab. I'm betting the presence of his girlfriend has made him less inclined to leaving roadside. It turns out I'm not that far from the computer shop; seven minutes in a taxi, and only 35 pesos.

Puebla is square and clean. There' graffiti and trash, like any city--but somehow Puebla doesn't seem to be losing the war like Oaxaca. It's more urban; more traffic; more pavement, sure; but, also more organization, it seems. The buses have numbered routes (gasp!). The streets are labeled. And the Centro Histórico is laid out in a grid of ascending numbered streets spreading out from the Zócalo. It's a marvel for tourists. You can actually orient yourself using signs. Miracle!

Monuments and churches are marked with informative plaques. And though both the Ahorros Pharmacy and tourism office people of whom I asked directions were pretty cold--the rest of the folks seem nice. Puebla's not quite as overwhelming or grimey as Mexico City (for which I am very grateful at this early hour, being a stranger in a strange land). Yet, it's not as walkable, nor as cluttered as Oaxaca.

Brightly-painted tiles bric-a-brac the city in small and large places. They border marble floors, they climb walls, they adorn dishes in artisan stalls and restaurants. It this Baroque style? I don't know. I haven't done any reading. I'm a tourist in blunt observation alone today. It reminds of pictures I've seen of Sevilla.
They say Puebla was reluctant to secede from Spain--taking on all of Spain's culture and prejudices into its folds quickly. Perhaps that's why it looks so different.

After dropping my computer off for her diagnostic (computer spa!)--I spend a large part of the morning and afternoon walking the streets of Puebla. After a quick online search using the computers at the tourism office, I find some suggestions for Puebla's specialty foods (thanks, Chowhounders!). So amidst aimless strolling, craning my neck to stare at the superficies of buildings, or ducking my head into sweets shops and artist niches, I eventually land myself at Antojitos de los Portales, across the way from the Teatro Principal, at the suggestion of a very wise Chowhound. There I order a street food specialty in Puebla, the pelona.

"Pelona comes from "pan pelon" ("fraudulent bread"; historically, a bread that incorporated a lower grade of flour), is cut in half, fried and stuffed with beans (scented with avocado leaves), guacamole, and one's choice from a very specific range of possible fillings (pollo deshebrado-often hand-pulled on order, sesos, tinga, hongos etc)." --Chowhound

Mine is filled with beans and tinga de pollo. A heart attack in sandwich form--but tasty! As school has most likely just let out, I watch as group after group of adolescents and teenagers come to play a game of "hey come and check out this fountain; no, closer--SPLASH! Hahahaha."

Eventually, I make my way back to the computer spa. It's the logic board. Shit. They say it will be at least 10 days to order the replacement part from the States--and then install it. Bummer. I can barely imagine what life will be like without my computer.

It's off to CAPU, Puebla's giant bus station to hop a ride home. I brave the strange bus system. (How hard can it be? They've got actually numbered routes here, afterall.) I make it just in time for the 7 o'clock bus back to Oaxaca. The unfortunate part is that the bus is full. The doubly unfortunate part is that I can already tell by the looks of my seat mate that this will be an uncomfortable 4 1/2 hours. He's spread out in a way that makes me opt out of telling him that he's in my window seat--opened soda cans tucked into the backseat pocket, armrest up, bags tucked between his legs, appendages spreading into the aisle seat. He's not asleep. But I can tell he's a snorer. A person knows. I look at my ticket, up at the seat numbers, down at him, back to my ticket and just plop down in the aisle seat. He's burping and gurgling at my right. I sigh, and turn to him, reaching for the armrest tucked between the seatbacks, pulling it down between us, forcing him to readjust his gutt and move over, saying with a charming smile, "I'm going to need this, friend." The in-route movie comes on--oh boy, it's a dubbed version of Rush Hour 3. I have to turn my iPod up to a painful level in order to drown it out. It's a long ride home.

A quick round up of days gone by...

2009-03-22T14:46:00.000-04:00

It's been a time--can you blame me, faithful readers, that I've been remiss in posting? Here's a quick round up of the days gone by...

March 22
Woke up, felt like I needed a change in my life to produce some much-needed momentum. And thus, I painted the ceiling in my office tangerine.

My face, post life-changing-paint-job

March 29
Feeling like we needed a short trip to a place outside our normal haunts, Alejandro and I headed out to CaSa, an old textile factory-turned organic paper workshop and library. Alejandro took the reins of the camera. So here are some rare shots of me doing nothing-remarkable-at-all (Alejandro said my parents would be happy to finally see some pictures of me--instead of just the places I go--on my blog):

Me walking up a stairway of cheese blocks.

Me laughing while overlooking the textile factory.

Me making a tiny "boat" out of a flower and setting it "out to sea" in the reflecting pool.

April 9
Laura, Caitlin, Alejandro and I head to a baseball game. The Oaxaca Guerrero's vs. the Campeche Piratas. The game: so-so. The stadium food and mildly-coordinated cheerleaders: FANTASTIC!

April 11
It was Semana Santa, the week proceeding Easter. Basically, the whole of Mexico shuts down to enjoy a little assassination and ascension of their main man. Since most offices are closed, there's nothing to do but join the fun. Thursday night, a small group of people in my neighbor hood observed the stations of the cross--marching from home to home, each marked by purple flowers and a tiny shrine to Jesus. When I left to go to the gym they were down near the cheese vendor's shop. And an hour later, on my return from spinning class, they had only reached a home four doors down.

Friday's the big day. From what I've observed the death of Christ seems to resonate a lot more with Mexicans than the ascension. Thus, Friday sees a giant parade down the main streets in town. See my pictures and commentary from last year for a detailed account. I even saw this article about an even more elaborate parade in Mexico City.

April 11
On Saturday, Laura, Caitlin and I headed up to a small town called Cuajimaloyas. Some of you might recall Cuajimaloyas from my hiking trip with Vicki last year. When Laura, Caitlin and I decided to abandon our attempts at making it the beach this weekend, we opted for a day trip to the mountains two hours outside of Oaxaca. It seemed a good idea to get a break from the heat, and push our muscles around a bit.

We hopped the early bus (8 AM) out of town, landing in Cuajimaloyas around 10.

Here's our late breakfast of enfrijoladas.

And here's what I did to it. Megan- 1, Enfrijoladas-0

It occurred to me as I was gripping my handle bars with immense fear, letting out small squeaks every time my back tire fish tailed, that this was my first time truly mountain biking. Down is scary! And while I firmly believe that scary is fun--I was happy when we hit some uphill. "Happy," you question. Yes, happy for uphill chugging. That's how scary the downhill was for me. (Case in point, when going to sleep that night, I drifted off in bed and found myself instantly on a bike in my dreams, where I hit a divot, vered off road, and woke myself by falling out of my bed. I am a powerful dreamer.)

We stopped for water breaks, and lung breaks. I fell twice (biking scars!). We took a spell in the shade of some trees beside a creek to eat apples and cookies. And when we finally made the long loop back to town, we hunkered down in a tiny comedor for some local river trout. Did I mention we found time to watch a basketball tournament between neighboring villages? There was a pretty stark difference between teams; the difference being, some could play well, and others had clearly just learned to dribble the ball. The day was capped by consuming four packages of cookies--there's nothing like eating junk food after exercise--and a dizzying and packed bus ride back into the city.

That seems like a fair summary of all things extracurricular. And what have you been up to?

Tireless and Magical

2009-03-19T21:11:00.003-04:00

I am at home, utterly exhausted and with a deep, smoker's cough (despite the fact I don't smoke). Curse you, Flu! The exhaustion and respiratory challenges make tomorrow seem challenging. However, I thought I'd take a moment to jot down a few notes about how I spent the last three days.

Through a bit of friendly networking, I was recently contracted by a non-profit organization to act as a facilitator/translator for a field project in Oaxaca. The non-profit, WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing), runs a social policy dialogue every year. This year the conversation happened between Mexican researchers, policy makers and civil society on the one hand, and a group of international researchers and activists on the other, on the topic of social policy, informality and poverty. Before the actual dialogue, the program sends the participants mentioned above, along with their accompanying translators, to stay with host families in order to live and experience the lives and conditions of the working poor.

What does that mean? What does that look like? Well, Monday morning I found myself in the midst of a long lecture held at a luxury hotel. Around the table were various economists and academics, a smattering of people like myself who are foreigners doing work in Oaxaca, and several women from very humble homes, working in and around the city, trying to scratch out a living. When the lumbering Power Point presentations finally ended, and we were sectioned off into field groups, the real work began. I was paired with a French-born, West-African raised researcher who now lives and works outside of Boston, an Indian-born economist and now Head of the Comparative Economics Department at Cornell University in NY and a young Mexican woman, living and working at Harvard University for the WIEGO organization. We headed out to Teotitlán de Valle (very close to Yagul, in fact) to live and observe a family of rug makers.

It's hard to summarize all that I saw or thought in the last two days. And I'll admit that I was in the midst of recovering from a fever and cold--so some of it is a bit hazy, as well. Thus, I will share a few of the tidbits, in no specific order.

Our group plods the seven blocks from the hotel to the bus stop just south of the baseball field. Ana Berta is desperately trying to keep her two girls (Daniella-9, Ana Cristina-7) within grasp so they won't run out into the loads of traffic they are unaccustomed to finding in their own village. Kaushik and Françiose struggle with their rolling suitcases and duffel, respectively; I'm wondering if someone armed with a rolling suitcase is prepared to sleep the night on cement floors.
Conversation peters off as the city finally fades behind us, rows of maguey plants and tire shops whiz by.
The López home is a long, rectangular swath of land, cut in two by a partially-finished cement block wall; Orlando and his cousin get along well enough to share a bit of space between their homes--the wall uncompleted so that the women can pass back and forth to gather water from Constantino's side of the property; but signs of family distress reveal themselves, as today two men are shoulder deep in the earth, digging and fortifying a new well squat in the middle of Orlando's home.
The three young girls quickly dart their eyes between the strange visitors, casting their gaze down at the floor if someone takes notice of them. Their chin-length braids are cinched at the bottom with tiny, colorful rubberbands--one of them featuring the upright, jumping, Tigger.
Ana Berta nervously laughs as we ask how we can help with her daily work. The truth is we can't. We're clumsy and awkward at everything she does. And though she is supposed to treat us not as guests, but as helpers (giving the visitors a chance to experience how her work is done), it is hard for her to supplant 34 years of acculturation that instructs her to treat a guest with kid gloves.
Marcelina, Orlando's mother, wide and weathered, waddles back and forth between comal and basket--making large, bright yellow dough into Tlayudas for us to eat. She waddles back and forth between kitchen and loom-waddles back and forth between Castellano and Zapotec.
Gathered around tall, straw baskets we break open dried ears of corn. The kernels are bright yellow, like Marcelina's Tlayudas. We crack them from their husks and toss them into a clean basket. We're preparing the kernels for tomorrow's batch of fresh tortillas. I shuck an ear from the leaves and a burst of fine, white powder covers my hands and forearms. "That one, that one," Marcelina points, "has gone bad." It must go into another pile. The spoiled corn will be fed to the chickens. Nothing goes to waste. The shucked leaves will go to the cattle and goats. The kernel-picked ears go to the donkeys. Pulling the hard, shiny kernels from the ears is near impossible when they're hard like this--and yet there is Ana Berta flying through the task with speed.
It's time to card the wool. We each take the wooden paddles in our hands, the metal teeth facing opposite directions, clumps of red wool held gingerly between. Oh, this is hard. A few swipes and I've already cut myself on the knuckles. Back and forth, we rake the combs over the wool, trying to disentangle the fibers before spinning. My wrists hurt. My fingers sting. My legs are covered in tiny hairs. I sneeze. The tiny stool under my bum isn't big enough to offer much support. How do they do this every day?
The girls hover around whatever we are doing. They giggle as we gracelessly shovel beans and tortilla into our mouths. They toss each other looks as we marvel at the two huge oxen brought back from the pasture that afternoon. We are strange--but interesting. They let us struggle through with Spanish. They let us pull some English words from them. They are the first (except for the tinniest one, Naiyeli) to feel comfortable around us.
We lay three wide mats down on the cement floor in a spare room. We four strangers lie side by side for the night. I spend the bulk of the first evening concentrating on not coughing. I don't want to keep my "bunk mates" awake. So I stiffle the bursts and gasps from my lungs, swallowing, swallowing, swallowing all night long to keep my throat lubricated. I listen to the muffled sounds of Paola, Françiose and Kaushik each taking their turns at snoring. I suppose I'll catch up on sleep later.
It's time to make soup. We separate leaves from chepil stems, tossing the herbs into a pot. The squash sits in water boiling as we saw the kernels from young ears of corn. Ana Berta takes them in a dish out to the kitchen with the earthen floor. She must grind them into a smooth paste on her metate--a long stone base with heavy stone rolling pin. When she wipes the sweat from her brow, embarrased at us watching her work, I ask if I can take a go at it. She hands me the heavy stone rolling pin. I studied her doing it. This time I will make an educated attempt. Oh, this is hard. She instructs me to keep the pin on the stone, not to lift and waste energy. The corn doesn't seem to be emulsifying at all. Kaushnik has a go. Then Françiose, then Paola. We're utter failures--and yet still high five each other. Ana Berta resumes. She's like a dancer--her short arms and squat, little hands gripping the stone. She sways back and forth over the task--her movements never a waste. Each pass is graceful. Each pass turns more kernels into a pale, smooth cream. She sloshes the water from a waiting bucket onto the metate then back into the bucket in one move--cleaning the stone service without losing much liquid. This is her ballet.
Roberto, Orlando's unmarried brother, makes his way out in the late morning with a small army of goats and cattle. Kaushik and I trail in their dust. We each try our hand at Roberto's sling shot-like tool--used to hurl rocks at straying members of the herd. I release too late and end up spooking the tiny cow walking in front of me with the end of the sling. They leave us in their wake, at the edge of a river. The rest of the journey is another 2 hours to a distant grazing field. Kaushik and I opt to return to the house to spend the remainder of the day there--unsure our legs can make it in this heat.
We're gathered around a tableclothed table at the luxury hotel again, with the our group of foreigners and the family. This is such a strange juxtaposition of people and place. The waiters seem flumuxed to have to serve this combination of visitors and humble families. The grandmother notes the service isn't so good--remembering they have forgotten to bring Paola her lunch. Roberto adds, "What a strange combination of foods on this plate." It's beans and bistec steak with a salsa; an oatmeal water to drink; the hotel's efforts at a "traditional" meal, that is also tourist-friendly, seems to fall short. We talk about earlier that day, when Ana Berta, stiffling tears, was asked to stand and speak in front of the group about what she thought of this strange experiment. She'd never spoken in front of people before; it overwhelms. The girls float between the nearby playground and the table. They reach up and touch our faces, testing that we are still there. Françoise, foresaking the translation, stumbles through, linking nouns and verbs awkwardly in Spanish and without fear--the family now experts at deciphering her sentences.

This family is tireless and magical. There is not one moment in which they are not moving and working. They start at 5, stumbling straight out of bed and to the loom to pass the shuttle between threads. They don't stop for breakfast--but hunch over a fire to flip corn disks into crispy Tlayudas. They shuffle to the school. They shuffle back home. They shuffle to the market to sell tortillas, and then again to buy produce. They shuffle to the bus to ride it into town to sell tapestries on the street all day to tourists, tourists who sometimes never come. They shuffle home--and take up the shuttle again, though it is 9 or 10. They spin thread from tufts of wool. They grind colored dyes from plants and berries. They sweep. They wash. They stir. They heft. By the end of the second day my knuckles are split, my lips are chapped, my brow is heavy with exhaustion. And they, they are cheerful--easy to laugh at our simple jokes. A smile breaks across each of their faces as we attempt to play a version of Duck-Duck-Goose with the children and their cousins. The smallest, and shyest talks easily with herself as she rocks back and forth on a hammock slung between two close-set trees.

This has been an exercise in meditation, much of it silent. Each task, and there are a million that fill their day, is a lesson in how to do something well and happily. When Paola futilely asks, "How would you like to spend your day, if you could choose," Roberto jokingly says "Laying around." But the true answer, the one we hear echoed over and over by each of them for the three days we are there is, "What else is there to do but work? What else is there for us? This is what we do. This is who we are."

I am at home, utterly exhausted and with a deep, smoker's cough (despite the fact I don't smoke). The exhaustion and respiratory challenges make tomorrow seem challenging. The reality of this family--and the days stretching before them make my challenges seem silly--and yet somehow, heavier. I feel heavier today. I'm not sure why.

I don't want to forget this happy family and the unselfconscious way they keep their heads down, and move forward, one task at a time. I don't want to forget their combination of joy and tirelessness. I don't want to forget their grace and generosity. But I feel heavier today.

My living room wall is on fire

2009-03-13T08:05:00.001-04:00

Yagul: sun, suguaro, climb, hike

2009-03-09T20:37:00.000-04:00

I am taking part in this 12-week workshop called The Artist's Way. I'm a little past the halfway mark in the journey. The author of the book that charts the course of the workshop instructs that we should find a time to devote a whole day trying something new--giving your creative brain space to soak in new material. So this past Monday I headed out of town toward the archaeological ruins of Yagul. I made a quick movie of my journey--which took me on a long bus ride, despositing me beside the highway for a couple miles' walk to the site. The weather was perfect, if a little hot. I shared the site with a couple of dozing construction workers, and no one else. When the sun was starting to fade to the west, and the wind picked up-- I knew it was time to return to the city. So begging off the ride offered to me from a van load of tourists who were turned away from the entrance (it was closing time) I hiked the 2 kilometers back to the highway and hitched a ride home (I know, I know, Mom & Dad. Don't worry, I don't hitchhike very often). It was an inspiring day!

Vuelta México

2009-03-02T18:22:00.003-05:00

Back...and hard at work!

2009-03-02T14:28:00.010-05:00

How about a quick recap of the month's events for those still linked to my RSS feed (oh you loyal followers)?!

It's been a busy month. While others may have been celebrating dead presidents, or enjoying the Oscars, I was in the midst of a month of meetings. The project I've been working on with my neighbor took more tangible shape in February, as members of The Hub in London came to Oaxaca for several weeks to conduct an analysis of the city as a site for a future Hub. The study was sponsored by Halloran Philanthropies, for which Mark (the neighbor in question) works. My role as node began.

Apparently, I got on a kick introducing people to one another, as in addition to connecting the London "Hubbers" to those I know in town (media people, NGO's, government henchmen), I also started formally setting up meetings between my government contacts in Oaxaca with some pretty stellar private companies that have social missions (like this one). If I can't offer something concrete myself to shape the betterment of Oaxaca--the least I can do is get the right people in the room together to see if they can! There's an exciting convergence of events taking place in Oaxaca right now. Here's a quick two for the list:

1. A small groups that works closely with the government have grand ideas about instilling proper urban planning to the city and state, fomenting sustainable markets in the greater Oaxacan valley, offering dignified employment and education to citizens. They are calling it Plan 2032--in honor of the year Oaxaca will turn 500. It's almost unheard of in México (especially southern México) for there to be any kind of long-term planning, let alone thoughts to sustainability.

2. There's private interest in encouraging social entreprenuers and innovators here in México. Halloran Philanthropies is just one of several organizations that have their eyes towards the emerging markets of Latin America. So the question is can those who are here get connected to those reserves and support?

So it's hard to explain my role in this--and how that fills my day. I guess "meetings & research" is what seems the most concise. You see, media will play a big part in getting people connected, communicating ideas, and trasnmitting and measuring progress. That's where I come in! I'm trying to prepare myself to expand my expertise and experience beyond merely radio. There's a real move in the world now to use narrative in interesting ways to educate, fund raise and inform. That can manifest itself in a number of ways--multi-media slideshows, regular podcasts, media mapping. The sky's the limit!

A têt-a-têt amongst friends.
Can you pick out my feet?

On that note, let me briefly explain a few of the personal projects I'm working on. The first is a youth radio course. It feels like I've had my head buried in this project for years. I was working with a colleague in Tlaxiaco on developing a youth radio course for kids in her village in the Mixteca. But when things got a little challenging, and we had some negative feedback from a local authority, my cohort lost interest. The project stalled--and I was feeling like I was back at zero again. So lots of February has been spent jumpstarting the project again by looking for other potential collaborators. I've met with Unitierra (an alternative education "university"), with the Red de Radios Comunitarios, with people from Casa Chapulin, with Radio Plantón, with volunteers through Amigos de las Américas, with Ojo de Agua (an indigenous media org), with media grad students...the list goes on. I've adapted a radio course curriculum that I wrote last year to fit with various incarnations of the project. I've applied for grants to support the ideas. And I've stared at my computer screen for more hours than I'd like to admit.

The second project is a media mapping idea I've been floating around in my head. Have you guys seen Google Earth? Perhaps you've gone and plugged in your own address so that you can zoom in from space, all the way down to a bird's eye view of your house? Well, Google Earth also offers some pretty amazing software that allows you to plot pinpoints on a map, and attach those pinpoints to media of any kind. I've thought for a while that I'd like to make some audio about the people who live in my own neighborhood--a pretext to knock on their doors with wild abandon, if you will. And then I became aware of some NGO's that are using Google Earth's mapping function to the tell the stories of the work they do. Here are a few I've taken a look at recently: charity:water, open sound new orleans and saving the sierra. The first stage of the work will be simple: map my neighborhood. I'll use Xochimilco as the ground for a pilot of the mapping project. I'm currently looking for a few photographers with whom to collaborate, perhaps a web/animator person, as well. Then we'll be begin telling the stories of my hood using photo essays, audio, mixing them both in slide shows, essays. What we learn from the pilot will serve us to launch a broader project in Oaxaca. One idea is to develop a class in different neighborhoods and communities in Oaxaca. Teach youth and adults alike to do the same in their areas. Another idea is to use the same mapping tools for the future Hub here in Oaxaca. It would be like an interactive database of Hub members. You could do a search under theme/topic and then watch 1-minute audio slide shows of said member. Or once the data was laid out geographically on a map of the city and state, you could hover over pinpoints to "get to know" the groups working in your area. The members themselves could use the media capsules (if they are audio or visual) to repurpose for their own internal use. Make sense? So first do the pilot; then pitch it to the Hub!

In other news, I've been keeping busy creatively. I painted my living room at the close of January, which was a true test in upper body strength. I've taken to playing my ukelele again. A composer friend of mine has been giving me some "lessons" over the last weeks. I can already say that I play with much more facility than when I took up the ukelele 6 years ago and attempted to teach myself over the summer. Now I can pluck and strum with a bit more agility. I have no idea of the chords still--so I can't actually place you a veritable song. But oh boy, could I wow you with some scales and finger picking! And of course, I've continued marking the days with delicious food and good company. I leave you with three recent culinary delights!

A Hub dinner "meeting" Colorful and delicious!

A nostalgic meal: peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich, with bread from the local Italian baker.

And my first crack at making the traditional dish of Entomatadas.

Shocking news from the world of BABIES!

2009-02-03T13:25:00.010-05:00

It's been a while. There was Christmas, a quick trip home, the return to normal life and a monumental effort to "get back into the swing of things." That's my excuse, gentle reader. What can I say?

This will be a short one. Just a quick observation from my travel journal that may, or may not, be worth blogging about...

En route to Chicago I pick up the Duty Free magazine in my seat pocket and page through for kicks. And then I stop, shocked, at an ad for Barbie 4--a fragrance for girls. Here is, and I'm not embellishing this at all, a direct quote from the ad:

"The best selection of fragrances for all those children who wish to form their own personality; to feel and discover a beautiful smell in their tender skin."

Does anyone else find this ad slightly creepy? Why is it okay to talk about the tender skin of children in a perfume ad? But let's say I am babysitting and mention that someone's toddler has tender skin; I would be promptly fired (and probably sent down to police headquarters for questioning), right?

Also, I'm impressed by Mattel's progressive wording in the ad. Note how they leave it gender neutral, in case there are any small boys who like to add notes of "berries & candy apples" to his delicate epidermis.

When did we start marketing perfume to children? I thought babies (and frankly, children are just large babies) were supposed to smell naturally of clouds and giggles? Why must we ad the sticky sweet scent of chemically created liquids? Why? Also, who spends forty bucks so your little one can "form her/his own personality" in one simple spritz? Seems like cutting corners in the child development department.

Side note, when Googling "baby + perfume" a distressing number of alternatives to the Barbie 4 come up. Apparently, there is an actual baby perfume market out there. Shit. I'm not sure if Obama can save us after all...

You have your selection of the kiddie (and kitty) brand branching out to perfume...

As well as the more designer labels having their go at little tyke fragrances...

But note to those new to this burgeoning market: do not confuse baby perfume with Baby Phat perfume. Their ad seems to try to draw the line pretty clearly...

Words, Data and the Big Story

2008-12-20T12:00:00.005-05:00

I've been doing a fair amount of pondering and research about how data can be utilized in different ways to better communicate. There's this vast amount of information available to us in the world. And yet, it's largely "unreadable" to most everyone. My neighbor has long been fascinated by the visualization of data or concepts. Thanks to him I'm adding books with bulky titles to my reading list.

For my part, I'm mostly interested in the story-end of this data. Let's imagine that you could store tons of data in one central warehouse--population size, export numbers, health and wellness statistics, earnings for employees at non-profits, whatever. And as a media maker, you could draw out this data and use different, set mapping tools to communicate it. For example, check out this site. You've probably seen **maps like this before that can easily demonstrate different world trends, like the world map according to population size, or land mass. But imagine if you can plumb different information stats to demonstrate something else. In honor of Christmas time, check out these two maps:

The first one is a map where territory size shows the proportion of worldwide net exports of toys (in USD) that come from that territory. (**net exports are exports, minus imports. When importas are larger than exports the territory is not shown.) And as you might have guessed on your own, the second map is where territory size represents the proportion of worldwide net import of toys (in USD) from that territory. Starts you thinking, right? The maps on their own tell a story. But let's say you want to go one further and create an even more elaborate narrative for these numbers--perhaps with a (gasp) agenda...

This video comes from the very talented crew at Good Magazine. They take the concepts from the maps above, and blow them out into a specific story about Christmas consumption, and the implication behind the places from which we get our goods. They don't exactly tell you what to think about the amount of Christmas imports from China--but they invite the viewer to be conscious that there's a story behind these numbers. You decide what that story means to you.

I don't claim to be any kind of numbers whiz; statistics...what are those? But as someone interested in telling stories about how our world is shaped--numbers, stats, data are all fundamental to my process. And I see it as a responsibility of media makers to help transform that "unreadable" data, into something intelligible and interesting for the larger audience. I'm trying to imagine right now how to train people who are not professionals to use the data to buoy their own storytelling purposes. If you've seen any interesting visualizations of data out there, please send them my way!

And as an extra bonus for you readers who held on during my hiatus, here's a pretty amazing video using words to tell a story:

Things I like, a list

2008-12-16T13:16:00.010-05:00

As the holidays approach, those in the U.S. (and some places around the world) are hunkering down to pour over their family and friends' Christmas lists, Hanukkah lists (Kwanzaa lists?) to pick out "just the right thing." Gift giving isn't as central to the holidays here in México. Most families with grown children don't exchange trinkets at all. And kids, kids can expect one or two minor things under the tree (if there is a tree) on Christmas Eve, at the most. The season seems to be more about meals shared with loved ones, decorating your house, and LONG vacations from work for government employees. It's a refreshing perspective.

So I've got my own suggestion for those of you still tied to your Lists this year. Rather than share with you a slieu of the things that cry out from my greedy shopper bones, I will make you a list of things I enjoy instead. I encourage you all to participate in this kind of list making in 2008 in lieu of a catalog of things you'd like to consume (sorry, waning economy--I don't think a retail surge will save you at this point.)

1. Potato chips doubled over on themselves.
Have you seen this? You reach into the bag and find that most chips are in the shape of disks, or triangles, perhaps. There will be the lone renegade in the handful that got folded over itself pre-frying. These chips are more delicious. It's true. The fold creates a perfect pocket with which to hold spices, salt, or dip (if you're dipping). And I love them! When I pull one out of a bag, it makes me happy.

2. An afternoon shower.
I, like most, take my showers in the morning because they revive me for a day filled with work. But on the rare occasion that my schedule permits me sit around in pajamas in my home office (which happens more now than before), I get to take an afternoon shower. When a shower isn't wasted on a half-conscious brain, nor rushed through whilst preparing to go out for the evening--it's somehow more fun.

I know, an evening shower's just not as fun, is it?

3. The window seat on an airplane.
I prefer a view to leg room. I say this knowing that I'm 5'2", so it's easier for me to enjoy. But I'll wager that there are some tall window seat lovers out there! For me, it's more than merely the view. It's also that the window seat affords me the opportunity to rest my head somewhere when needing to sleep; my own personal space, if only on one side; and distance from the drink cart knocking my elbow. Having a window seat on the plane is like hunkering down into your own little rabbit warren for the duration of the flight. (This also applies to the window seat on the N/R/Q trains on the subway in NY.)

4. A crumbly top.
Any pastry that involves a crumbly top is scrumptious. Eating a cinnamon/butter/brown sugar crumbly top with my blueberry pie the other day made me think, "Why don't we just put crumbly tops on everything? It is so good." And why don't we? I'm trying to figure out if a crumbly top perched on a Turkey Club Sandwich would be gross. I think not. Given the right salty ingredients, I think it could only enhance my experience. So, food inventors, get to it!

5. The feel of my sheets in the morning.
Right as I wake up in the morning, the nerve endings on my skin are kind of prickly. It makes everything I touch feel more of whatever it is. Thus, my lovely soft sheets (thanks, Mom!) feel that much more comfortable and smooth. I peddle my feet around the foot of the bed, moving between the warm spot left by my body heat, and the cooler pockets that went untouched throughout the night. It feels awesome, don't you think? And sometimes, it invites me to spend another 15 minutes supine, semi-conscious.

6. This open source map by Ben Fry.

It's so cool!

I kind of like to imagine what it would be like if every house in America had kids and parents gathering around the tree not sharing gifts, but lists with information about each other. I mean, you can't run out of this stuff. With more years, you just discover more things you enjoy in the world, right? And then your family, on top of knowing something about you, would also be a kind of Things-You-Love guardian. You know? Like they would then be on the lookout for those moments you love. They'd reach into a potato chip bag and just instinctively pass you the ones that are doubled over. It would be great!

So what's on your list?

**and for those still tied to buying something this winter, here are some great ideas for how to do that conscientiously.

Published Sound

2008-12-01T16:19:00.003-05:00

A quick update to let you all know that I've just posted a series of my radio pieces to the Public Radio Exchange site. You can listen to some of my past work, from audio tour stops, to feature documentaries there. My most recent update is the series "Llegando de los Pueblos" (Arriving from the Villages)--which is the radio work I've built here in México for my fellowship.

So please go take a look and listen. The México pieces are in Spanish, of course. But I've included English-language transcripts so you can listen and follow along. Don't miss this opportunity to hear my embarrassing gringo accent in Spanish!

Here's the link. Feel free to leave comments/reviews on the site. It helps draw stations and programmers to my work. Thanks!

Postcards from the edge

2008-11-27T10:31:00.003-05:00

I wrote a postcard to myself while on vacation in San Francisco. It just arrived:

"I miss the land of open vowel sounds and rolled R's. The words here in SF are truncated. The sign says, 'shark,' but people here say, 'TIH-burr-unh.' It gets caught in my mouth; it's so strange here."

Also, this is my new boyfriend. I met him at Bishop's Pumpkin Farm.

What if...

2008-11-26T19:45:00.006-05:00

What if gestures and general facial expressions weren't universal? They aren't entirely, I know. Sure, sure, lifting a backwards peace symbol with your hand will illicit no kind of reaction in the States, but when you arrive in the UK, will be greeted with a black eye.

Certainly those little cultural differences exist here in México. Luckily, the kind people at the Fulbright Commission actually demonstrated some of them at our orientation. Like how one can answer "Yes" even if one's mouth is full, because it only involves your index finger:

Or how men generally greet one another by shaking right hands, moving right to embrace with two pats on the back, and then returning to shaking right hands.

Or the one that continually causes me trouble, is "thank you." Think of Vito Corleone raising a hand of thanks to one his Italian brethren, and you're close. In thanks, you raise your hand to eye level, palm facing inward. To me, this always looks like I am swearing at someone. So even though intellectually I know this, raising the back of my hand to a car that has kindly just let me cross the street, I cringe a bit, waiting for them to floor it and trample me.

Oh, then there is what I always thought was the universal symbol for balls. But here, means "lazy." Though, Kelsey Mulyk helped explain why: "The gesture for lazy is a cupped palm facing upwards, like you are holding something heavy. One or both hands can be used in this gesture. This is highly inappropriate because it refers to lifting "huevos" (which is Mexican slang for testicles). Basically the meaning behind this gesture is that the owner's "balls" are so big and heavy that he can't get up!" Ah, I see. So I'm not totally off.

The Fulbright Commission and I must not be the only ones interested in these gesticular dissimilarities--because there are a sizable collection of explanatory YouTube videos and websites; this being my favorite.

But I started thinking, these cultural differences aside, what if facial expressions were not shared in any way? How would you learn another language? How often I find myself using facial expressions and context to glean the meaning of unfamiliar words. What would I do if a confused face in Mexico, actually meant felicity here? Or if an angry face denoted hunger?

HELLOOOOOOoooooo!

2008-10-11T18:18:00.001-04:00

It's been a while, blog friends, if you're still out there. I suppose I should do a little shout out to see if anyone's still listening...

HELLOOOOOOooooooooo!

So, I've gotten lax. But we all knew there would be some changes in me now that I've pushed into my thirties. One of them might be that I'm slower. AH! But let's not delay the passing on of information. Here's a quick two-month round-up:

1) I dug myself a mighty hole of virtual paper to swim in. That's right, internet research! I was pushing hard in the few weeks before mid-October hit to research grants and funding options for a youth radio initiative I'm working on here in Oaxaca. There was a bit of actual paper to swim in, as well, as I was writing up my very first syllabus for a radio class--which was fun to work on, that is when creeping doubt didn't crowd out my creative ideas.

2) There was a bit of shopping going on. When you head for the States only once a year, that comes with a steep price. Yes, the plane ticket. But also, the price of carrying gifts back and forth for loved ones. There's no showing up empty handed when you've been away from "home" for so long. I even had to hunt down a special suitcase to lug the many crafts and delicacies one can only find in Oaxaca. Note to self, when you pack 3 kilos of coffee beans, make sure to wrap them in plastic. The over zealous security guards at the airport may topple your bag, and thus, scatter those fragrant beans all over the inside of your carry-on. Second note to self, especially important when you also pack your bridesmaid's dress in that same carry-on ("Megan, pretty dress. Is that you who smells like...coffee...?) And the load back was no lighter. It's popular to become a little "burro" for your friends back in México.

little burrito

cat burrito

3) I went on a trip. Mexico-Scottsdale-Portland (OR)-San Francisco and back. I tried to post a little video. But until my neophyte tech brain upgrades to a better model--I'll have to wait to post it again. I think it looked just like still pictures. Oy!

So in lieu of a play-by-play, here are some moments:

A quick stop in Arizona sees me sitting in a diner-like breakfast place with Grandma & Grandpa, where the cinnamon buns are pillow-sized, and my tummy cries out for salty and sweet; California Eggs Benedict with a bowl of fruit it is! And you know what my first thought is as I'm driving around on Scottsdale's pristine roadways...? "Where are all the poor people?"
Portland is neither wet, nor cloudy when I touch down. LIES! Or perhaps I have a red phone straight to the weather man upstairs--because we are blessed all week, and the day of the wedding with blissful sunshine. I do score a monkey hair coat from Vicki and Mike that keeps me warm--since I'm ill prepared for cold weather. It seems that each furry green hillside is spitting out some form of waterfall or river. There's no such thing as a water shortage here.

A take a stroll in Noe Valley, the neighborhood just east of Drew and Felicity's hilltop apartment in San Francisco proper. I shuffle around the colorful shops, and plop down eventually in a café for a bagel and a vanilla steamer. The table next to me is talking presidential election. I'm finding it more difficult to tune out English, than it is to do the same with Spanish. Can't a girl read in public in peace?
I'm stunned by what Felicity names the Bay Area's "free to be you and me" philosophy on life which makes it allowable to have 3 different public transit systems in town, separately run, and without a unifying map for tourists. This is not American organization, people!
Felicity makes killer sweet potato stew. Alaska Amber is tasty. Tiger ice cream with hot fudge and homemade brownies is worth crossing the border for.
Kiely is a burst of blonde energy and cries for "babies babies babies!" She leaps from lap to lap, happy and brave to visit with everyone at our small dinner party. I'm so glad Sarah and Eric's little one wasn't past the stage where people other than her parents get to hold her.
Roadtripping with mom down the Columbia River Gorge, stopping to marvel at the size and power of Multnomah falls, that has pushed a bus-sized boulder from the surrounding moss-covered walls.
An afternoon visit to the beach in Alameda. A long trek from Embarcadero to the Ghiradelli chocolate headquarters. An afternoon of thai food with the girls.
"I don't know what I'm doing," seems to work its charm on transit workers in the MUNI system when one is lost, or really just wants a bit of hand holding.
A tiny cape hidden under a larger cape. Brilliant! I love circus jokes.
Um, did I mention my first friend in Glenview got married!
Ah, the Mission District--a tiny Mexico far from Mexico. There's no absence of Spanish here.
My little red sweater gets left somewhere on the streets of San Francisco. I hope you are happy Little Red, whereever you are. If your new owner doesn't treat you right, you know where to call!
A long climb up the back way to Coit Tower, takes me to now almost 80 year-old frescoes (a public works project form the 30s), that seem more relevant than ever.
A visit to the country east of Sacramento with Jenny: pumpkin festivals, hay rides, a cool night wrapped in blankets by an outdoor fire, sipping some tea.
A dash to wine country, taking in the quickly chaning colors of the landscape over shallow glasses of pinot noirs and cabernets.

I feel like I wondered into a redlight district. The two little pieces of ginger on this sign look like they are tangled in a very naughty situation!

And of course, more food, oh, glorious eating: steaming pitas and hummus at Nicholas, stuff red peppers at the Ovink/Sindelar house, purple cabbage soup, Bob's for breakfast, Basil/Mint ice cream from an Indian store, a raspberry white chocolate shake at Ghiradelli's, a long hunt for Giordano's in North Beach--where they pile your cole slaw and fried right onto the sandwich, ginger molasses cookies at Grand Central, Tofu Sate with Peanut Sauce at a hole-in-the-wall in the Bay, Vegetarian Crispy noodles--Vietnamese-style, dinner at Q, complete with battered catfish in a corn/lime salsa and hearty mac 'n cheese, three warm chocolate chip cookies floating atop vanilla bean ice cream (oh how I miss you cookies!), freshly made biscuits drizzled with homegrown honey, buttermilk fried chicken and corndogs that actually taste good, carmel apples, sushi on a conveyor belt, and micro brews for miles! Oh my!
Sit on some square of green just across from Pier 19, watching the day go by. The sun glinting off Alcatraz. The tour of people atop sidekicks. I talk to an Iranian guy with two GIANT German Sheppards about how his electronic store is tanking now with the economic crisis--but his frozen yogurt shop is doing fine. I guess there are some things that people can't, in fact, live without.
Navigating the construction-filled streets of Scottsdale with Holly. Enjoying election results at Meg's. Pouring over old albums of Grandpa squashed into a 1930's car with his family, their luggage lashed to the sides of the car, for there was no trunk.

Oh, friends and family, I miss you! What a treat to get to see so many of you in one fell swoop. You inspire me in the distinct ways you each cobble together your jobs, hobbies and careers, and in the way you love.

4) I'm back almost a month now. We've got a new president on the horizon in the U.S.. That's exciting. The holidays are chomping at our heels. They've already started putting up Christmas decorations in the stores here. Without a holiday between Halloween (Day of the Dead) and Christmas here, they just have to march right on through and start the selling frenzy.

My head's down, and to the grindstone (ouch! bad metaphor). I've got to find funding, or a way to make this work. So I'm trying to keep all the plates spinning at once here. That finds me inside, at my desk, nose to computer most days. My bloodshot eyes tell the tale. But through it all I'm thinking it'll be much easier to be without funding and poor here in Mexico than the same in the States. So...

Thanks for hanging in there, readers. More from this side of the border to come.

The Opposite Of, a guest blog by Matthew Love

2008-09-27T09:23:00.024-04:00

On the heels of my post about loneliness comes a post about the opposite of. Last week Wednesday the first of four friends descended on my lil house in Oaxaxa for a week-long visit. And this Wednesday past all four departed for their respective cities of New York and Denver. It was a glorious set of days, to say it simply. Oaxaca is somewhat quieter and duller now in the wake of their good company. But off of my melancholy, and onto the visit!
As I'm told, some of my dad's friends have commented, "your daughter is a good writer; she can't possibly get it from you." But in this blog you will inevitably come to know what a true artist of the word is, as my good friend Matt (who has provided this post) is a professional; writing is his craft. I hope he will permit me to lessen his post a bit with some pictures added by me (it seems wrong to offer photos where words have imagined for you; but I can't help myself). So, here is Matt:
And here is his post:

In a succession of moments, empirically stacked end-to-end in some recognizable form – oh, the span of a week, say – it’s difficult to summarize one’s experience in any effective way.

Great works of literature like Joyce’s “Ulysses” and Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” make this clear. The closer words come to some sort of understanding about one moment or another, the more the moment slides from the bounds of standard perception, its stitches coming unglued and its seeming solid shape dissipating.

It is in this spirit I humbly offer the following: balls, balls, balls, balls, balls*.

That is: when speaking of the slow, blissful haze of a week spent in the company of good friends with nothing to do but talk, eat and wander to our hearts’ content, perhaps it is best not to say, “we went here and then there, la la la” but rather offer a glimpse of the moment-to-moment experience in snatches of dialogue and bites of perception (almost) at random.

And so:

-- Sitting down in a decidedly un-harried market near Megan’s house, light falling into the space from a wall that is simply missing, teaching my BAG of smoothie to stand upright on a checkered tablecloth while munching simple - and magnificent - memelas (masa/tortilla, frijol, quesillo, red chile – minus asiento, the extra lard) in the cool afternoon.

-- Walking from the Reforma neighborhood into the Xochimilco neighborhood over the aqueduct after another big midday meal, holding leftover sticks from cajeta (essentially a light caramel) popsicles, bodies shifting back and forth along the ridiculously slim sidewalk. As Brian once pointed out, the mutability of the group is as it has always been; each person can talk to any one in the group at just about any given time, so during the trip I think all possible combinations of the five of us were achieved.

-- Ruining a breakfast, which is a metaphor for being one’s self, having fun and in doing so absolutely ruining an experience for people around you. It’s something this group is famous for… in fact, this may be its signature move. No matter the café, hillside, or village it falls into, we are always a bit like a noxious clown car exploding into a spot where the audience did not know it was an audience (but became aware of this fact rather quickly). In this particular case, we ruined an actual breakfast for a crowd of locals in an unnamed, makeshift restaurant that exists only on Sundays**, eating tamales and drinking a drink I’m certain to pine for, for years – champurrado, a thick and comforting beverage of rice, milk, sweet, and cacao – when a radio was suddenly turned on very near our table and quite loudly***. We understood the hint, though I’m not sure as a crowd we’ll ever respond to such a hint very well. P.S. We paid about $3 per person for this meal. And it was… DELICIOUS.

-- Humping the corner of a white, stucco wall directly across from my friend Tim, who was also humping the corner of a white, stucco wall. (Well, okay, in our defense, we were dancing. But will the perception of the historical record support this fact?) I started because he did but I can’t remember exactly what set him off. He does like to hump (ah, dance with) inanimate objects.

-- Leaning over an open basket of crickets to pinch some between my fingers and push them in my mouth. Hm… salty. Crispy. Full of protein. Turns out, I love them. Customs even let me keep them, so I have a bag of tiny insects, red with heat, lemon, garlic, in my kitchen. For some reason, though this makes me a meat-eater, it doesn’t set off my normal vegetarian alarms. I fed them to Brian on his first night -- he ate them but resented me for it later.

-- At night, dancing in a crew at a fiesta to the sounds of a boisterous clarinet band with what felt like an entire community dancing or watching (tall gringos, much less tall flamboyantly dancing gringos, and cute white girls are something of a curiosity here) outside of a church, it’s doors open, everyone expectant for the fireworks – which do come, and feature the first animated vagina I think any of us had ever seen.

Flaming vagina not pictured here.

-- Eating shrimp, flax crackers, flowers, tuna, cake with prickly pear jam, risotto and fresh herbs until quite full or fairly nearly dead… the sun setting, the pond quivering, a small boy dropping a trail of rocks beside our small table. Thank G-D Megan loves food, and carried us to a series of amazing restaurants all over Oaxaca: street food, sweets, market drinks, snacks, dishes with tomato foam or entire four-course meals prepared by Italian chefs at their homes (the meal mentioned above) – we did it all. It is good all of us are clear on one thing: eating well is one of life’s undeniable joys. And so: mole, tortillas, mezcal, and much of each.

-- “Heh, heh.” A well-timed laugh from Tim, who was being quite a good sport, considering the circumstances.

-- Puttering up to the edge of the world into a pond at Hierva el Agua, where minerals have done a thorough job of petrifying a waterfall and making a miniature cliff-side water resort. Gorgeous and baffling. With the entire place to ourselves, we swam in the cold water, begged the sun to come out, took a series of goofy photos before the rain came. This site is also the location of Brian’s first ever porno. (Distribution of video soon to come)

-- Sara taking the enormous steps at the Monte Alban ruins immediately outside of town in Oaxaca. In fact, Sara walked everywhere. Every day. No cane, no nothing. How is it possible that her surgery was only a couple of years ago??? WOOF!

-- Woof (in general). Megan says that in Mexico, dogs say ‘wow wow’ instead of ‘woof’ or even ‘bow wow’. So Americans walking around saying ‘wow’ at everything are essentially barking in amazement. We took this on and said ‘WOOF’ to express awe at every opportunity.

Of course, there is more, more, more but at this, I must cease. I must work in the morning and you, dear internet reader, must use your tired, ADD-addled eyes again at some point in the future. You’ll have to trust me as I say this doesn’t really even scratch the surface. If I were to generalize, this was the thread running through our trip: simple, impractical moments reminding us of our capacity for joy -- how simple they are, how little planning goes into them. And little fuss is kicked up in the simple machinations of living when you’re at rest in the arms of great friends with whom you feel absolutely comfortable. Now, heading back to the activities of our daily lives, it’s important we take that joy and comfort and shuffle it into what we do regularly -- a hard task, to be sure, but what is a juggler without all those balls. Ballsballsballsballs.

* Of course, for those of you paying attention at home, I speak of the unfortunate (possibly apocryphal creation of urban legend) gentleman whose case of Tourette’s Syndrome finds him repeating the word ‘balls’ loudly and repeatedly after hearing the word ‘balls.’ Quoth Tim, “His trigger word is ‘balls,’ and he knows it.”

** Did I mention that Megan is a magical tour guide who knows all of the secret things you want to know about a place highly unfamiliar to you? She loves walks down narrow, cobble streets with small fountains in courtyards, good graffiti, spots for rooftop drinks, interesting architecture and, yeah, it bears repeating: food.

Hanging out in my office...

2008-09-17T12:02:00.003-04:00

Things that make me feel unneccesarily lonely

2008-09-16T21:50:00.007-04:00

1. Putting suntan lotion on (or not, as it were)

I am embarrassingly pale. The shame is made more acute by the fact that I live in Mexico. Imagine me under a palapa, drinking something with an umbrella in it, if you must. That's not exactly what Oaxaca looks like. However, I think my legs have become this shade of blinding white due to two factors: It's rainy season here, and I have a job that requires me to be inside, with my nose to a computer for hours.

Regardless of all these obstacles, I have the desire, at time, to sit outside and take in the sun. How do you reach that darn triangle of back that only another person can access with SPF 30? Oh Coppertone, who knew you would make me feel so dependent on others....?

2. Wrist jewelry

Someone very kindly gave me a lovely silver bracelet for my birthday recently. I love it. I cannot, however, wear it. That is, unless, I find myself a personal dresser. It took me a good 20 minutes to get the clasp shut on this bracelet the other morning. I think I even was sweating in the end. It's now sitting permanently on my wrist--'cause who has time to struggle and sweat for 20 minutes in the morning...?

When I finally hitched the clasp I sat down, and felt a deep sense of melancholy...where oh where is my personal dresser?

3. Furniture from Ikea

Now I don't actually own any Ikea furniture any more. The big chain has yet to make its way to southern Mexico. But I DO recall trekking out to New Jersey a while back and buying a dresser, and some Sweddish meatballs once-upon-a-time. I even lugged the boxed up dresser home on the bus, and then the subway, dangerously hoisting it too close to people's heads on my rush hour train. But then I was stuck. You can't hold two pieces of wood together in an L shape AND screw them together. You just can't.

I called a friend, who graciously offered to help. It's an obvious solution, of course. But I felt so grateful that someone who wasn't bound to me by law, or sleeping with me regularly would spend an hour helping to fix plasterboard to naked wood. I almost married him on the spot out of gratitude!

4. My oven

Something spilled over from my white bean/pesto/ricotta casserole the other and melted into a glue on the bottom of my oven. The next time I was heating something up the whole kitchen filled with smoke. When the oven finally cooled off I found myself opening the tiny white door and starring into it, the casserole goo now a blackened smudge. Someone had to clean this--and it was obvious it should be me. I'm the only one who lives here. And I thought, "huh, I have to clean this oven. Me. I clean ovens now." Which was quickly followed by, "Mexico can be lonely."

Strange.

And now...a roof dog!

**this blog written while listening to Oslo in the Summertime by Of Montreal

Things that make me feel like an adult

2008-09-05T20:28:00.008-04:00

Not necessarily inspired by turning 30, I present the first of a list of Things That Make Me Feel Like an Adult...

1. Dry cleaning.

It's not as if I've just begun dry cleaning some of my more delicate garments; I've been doing it for years. I remember the first time so clearly that I took my things around the corner from my Manhattan apartment to be washed and pressed...I felt awkward and humbled around all the steam and Korean women. I was sure someone would spot me as an impostor, and expel me from the place. And somehow that feeling has not faded over time. I still feel vaguely awkward in a dry cleaner--and like I'm performing the act of some much older woman. Like I'm playing house--but you know, the really boring part of playing house.

2. Buying stamps.

I don't know why--but for some reason I feel like my mom should pay for my stamps. There is absolutely no logic to this. She's raised me, fed me, sent me to school. Why, oh, why should she pay for my stamps? Well, she shouldn't; I know. And perhaps it's because growing up I learned that stamps came from the first drawer of Mom's teek desk and not from the Post Office, that's lead me to this ludicrous notion today. In the few years post college it bothered me so much to pay for stamps (I'm an old fashioned girl in the sense that I still like to send letters) that I would put "Roll of 100 stamps" on my Christmas list just to avoid purchasing them myself. I've since given that up. Which is no help--since sending even the simplest piece of mail here starts at $1 USD. So expensive! As if they don't want you to have penpals here.

3. Traveling alone in the airport.

The airport used to hold this sense of excitement for me as a child. Holly and I were shipped off quite young, on our own, on planes heading West to Arizona for visits with our grandparents over spring break. I loved it. The airport was just teeming with activity, the hello-goodbye stories, the tiny, single-wrapped foods, and the promise of the best views on the planet. Since moving away from home there's been a sharp swell in my visits to airports; I'm suffering from a bit of airport fatigue. Now I find terminals congested and annoying. I don't like being sandwiched into a tiny Tylenol-shaped metal bin, forced to keep myself occupied with whatever I've stored in my carry-on. Now I just want to get where I'm going. I'm not interested in the flight. (Oh boy, I'm just seeing this as a sad metaphor for my adult perspective on life--uh oh.)

But back to the point--since stepping from college, and into the world of "adult life" I have very rarely flown with another person. In fact, I can probably count on one hand the times I have flown accompanied in the last 7 years. There's no one to watch your bag while you go the bathroom. No one with whom to share the quintessential $2 gossip rag purchased before flight. Security is more serious. The food stinks. And all this is suffered alone. It makes me feel older--'cause who would ask a kid to do such things?

4. Buying health insurance.

Oy! This one probably takes the cake. Now, I've had insurance before--a plan not in tandem with either of my parents' companies' HMOs. But for many years, thanks to our kind country's persistence to not help those can ill afford the most basic health care in our country, I have opted to go un-insured. I know, it's dumb. But I was young, healthy, and poor. I researched a myriad of options. I even obtained some temporary insurance from the state of NY after a lengthy struggle with a local provider, which ended in me enlisting the help of my state senators to find a resolution. But when that plan petered out there seemed little other alternative than to just abandon the idea of health insurance altogether. I luckily made it out unscathed.

I probably would have kept on in this way for years, but had the fortune to get insurance through my fellowship. And even though that is done, it is far easier and affordable to get insured while abroad. So I found myself researching plans a few months back. I knew that the rate would go up once I turned 30--so was determined to sign up before that day struck. It felt so uniquely adult to make a decision based on the foresight of potential danger, and the fear of that danger (as in, danger in getting sick, getting hit by a car, getting partially eaten by pirrahnas). It was a strangely easy process. You call. You hand over some information about yourself. You give them your credit card. And it's done!

I hung up stunned. There I was, on the cusp of a new decade, insured, actually insured. I'd decided to take care of myself. That felt good. I felt happy. I mean, have you seen those people in Health Insurance ads--they look REALLY happy. They look like really happy ADULTS. Like they know, they know deep down inside if they wanted to, if they really wanted to--they could just hurl themselves off of a cliff--and a nice, warm partially-funded hospital bed would be waiting for them on the other side.

So what did I do in my new-found adult state...? I called my mom.

Up, that's where I'm headed

2008-08-24T13:10:00.001-04:00

As a rule, ever since I've become an "adult" I gift myself something for my birthday. A good excuse to make an indulgent purchase? Perhaps. This year, I had to wait a couple of weeks for the gift I truly wanted. I think you'll agree that it was worth the wait...

A few months back I met a friend of my neighbor's at a dinner. His name is Sten; and Sten's passion is parapente, or in English, paragliding. It's not often that you meet someone who has a school in the sky, of sorts. So when my birthday rolled around I took the opportunity to call Sten and see if I could celebrate entry into a new decade in the sky. He agreed, it was a great idea.

We drove out southwest of Oaxaca toward Zaachila, a small community about 35-45 minutes from the city. There, we met with four of Sten's parapente pals, and former students (Sten and his buddy have a parapente school here in Oaxaca; I absolutely recommend it for anyone passing through town). We pile our gear into the back of the pick up and drive further up hill towards the take-off site.
We can only drive so far up hill before we have to ditch the car and hike it. I'm lucky, and only have to heft my helmet, water and camera. Whereas the other guys are toting an entire parachute, harness, radios, etc on their backs up windy dirt roads.

Uh huh, totally beautiful. It's almost a prerequisite for parapente, as the weather needs to be mostly, clear with wind to even bother. But I think we were blessed with a particularly gorgeous morning. I tell Sten that I made a call and ordered this sun and blue skies.

Sten, and nothin' but sky...

Sten readies the shoot on the hillside we will leap from. You can see the valley below. I should mention that I'm, of course, riding tandem with Sten; no solo flights just yet. I get a quick lesson about take-off; bend my knees, lean forward, stay with him (since we're harnessed together, it kind of essential), and run my butt off when he yells to do so.

Yo, I look hot!

I'm pretty bundled up, even though the sun is streaming; the temperature drops quite a bit once you are swimming in the clouds. Sten straps me into the harness--I'm riding in front of him. Luis helps lift the chute so the wind will inflate the silk. I feel the heavy tug, and get dragged back a bit, shuffling my feet as instructed. And then Sten yells, "Corre" and I take off running forward, straight off the hillside. But not three steps later, the earth pulls away from my soles, and I find myself bicycling my feet in the air. And then, this...

I have few words for the experience. It's hard to appropriately describe being 6,000 feet above sea level, legs dangling, cold air rushing past your face, riding thermals up into the clouds, Sten's music softly playing from a small radio. I hardly spoke for the hour we played in the sky; I was too overwhelmed with how beautiful. The others played around us, searching out their own pockets of hot air to take them further and higher. Sometimes they were close enough to toss a baseball. Other times they floated far off in the distance.

Sten knocked on my helmet, making sure I hadn't passed out. I told him I just couldn't talk. He seemed to understand exactly. Time came to land when we ran out of available thermals. Sten spotted a piece of field nearby that looked promising. So, my lesson on landing procedure came a few minutes before doing just that. It sounded similar, bend my knees, run once I hit the ground, stay with the chute. Unfortunately, as the ground raced towards us we found zero wind to help put the brakes on, and so we landed with considerable speed. However, the landing zone was well-picked, and mostly soft. The tall weeds came up to my arm pits where we hit done--so running was near impossible--and we both just flopped over instantly. Sten, ticked on my helmet, asking if I was okay, no twisted bones of joints due to impact. I felt great! Inside my helmet, the bumpy landing was more fun than anything else. It was sort of like the way you can throw yourself around in snow or sand without too much concern.

Our parapente makes a huge impression in the weeds. Sten compares it to crop circles supposedly left by aliens in the wheat fields of the States. We work to fold up the chute and re-pack it in the backpack. Sten calls out "Espere!" as he wants to get a shot of me, wading in the weeds with the chute. "A memory of your birthday," he says.

We hike it out of the field and toward the main road. Another key element to landing, is to try to end up somewhere near a highway or drive so that the person in charge of the truck can make it to you for pick-up. Sten tells me about a time he landed just off course of a forest and had to hike for 3 hours to make it to the nearest road. I can't imagine--these packs are huge!

When we make it to the truck, two other flyers are already there waiting (plus, Luis, who was in charge of driving the car from the hillside where we left, back down to the valley where we landed), and a few others who didn't fly today, but saw us in the air and came out for the after "party." Apparently, the best thing to chase a high altitude fly with is a couple of chelas (beers)!

The parapente guys

We retire to a nearby restaurant in towards Zaachila village. Now that the beers and mezcal are open, the parapente horror stories are coming out. It's really a pretty safe pastime, especially compared to things like driving a car, statistically-speaking. I think they avoided talks of this kind before I took off. But now that I'm safely back on ground with a huge smile on my face, the regale me with talks of people caught in storm clouds, or who's feet got tripped up under them on landing. I'm feeling lucky.

Eventually it's time to pack it up. Sten invites me to a casual party out in Etla at his ex-wife's place. I snack on cake, have a beer and chat with some fellow ex-pats. I play frisbee with their hoard of bilingual children, who freely exchange between Spanish and English throughout the game. And finally we watch the sun set over the valley and hillside. It's an unbelievable sky; I ordered well this morning. It's a birthday present to myself to rival all others...

Sad news

2008-08-22T14:25:00.003-04:00

I just got word that my fish died today. I got him with my friend, Frank back in September of 2006. We shared custody. So when it was time for me to leave NYC, Frank took him to his apartment in Queens. He was a beta fish, so they don't have that long of a life expectancy, I know. He really beat the odds, living as long as he did. But still...

Ringing in a new decade

2008-08-11T11:30:00.000-04:00

Welcome to old age.

I have to admit that the eve before my birthday I felt reluctant to leave my 20s behind. It's a curious feeling, since the 20s (at least mine) were filled with angsty self-doubt, plastic furniture and poverty. And yet, something in me felt sad that I would have to move on. As I am drifting off to sleep on August 10th, I rally myself from unconsciousness for a few extra minutes of 29 years old.

But 30 does arrive. Remarkably, it feels pretty much the same. However, I gift myself the day off of work, and To Do lists to celebrate myself.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven [or thirty] years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.

Thank you, Walt. That's a good one for 30.

First on the agenda for me are pancakes. They're not that common here in Oaxaca. But I think birthdays should start and end with cake. So...the hunt ensues. I eventually find myself at Naturel, one of my favorite breakfast spots in Oaxaca, up in Colonia Reforma. Pancakes alone won't suffice. I've got a craving for a bit of salt AND sweet. Since indulging oneself is tantamount to proper birthday etiquette, I order enough food for two: a creamy Oaxacan hot chocolate with milk, a freshly squeezed glass of OJ, pancakes topped with fruit and amaranth AND a quesadilla-type dish filled with ricotta cheese, herbs and topped with fresh guacamole and salsa roja.

I take my time noshing and reading a bit. I follow it up with a leisurely stroll through the tree-lined streets of Reforma, wandering back to my hood and home. My friend Itzel is due any moment. We're taking the afternoon to build a birthday picnic.

I hop into Itzel's 30 year-old white punch buggy, and we zip off to a few markets to pick up the necessary ingredients: charcoal for the grill, fresh veggies, mezcal, tasajo and chorizo links, and some fresh quesillo. The market is filled with interesting characters today. Our cheese vendor turns out to be a secret (or not-so-secret) poet. As he winds our long strand of smokey quesillo into a ball, he recites bawdy limmericks to passerby. And as we're filing out the front door, making our way to the car, a nieve vendor sings to us of our beauty, 'Hola, bonita! Qué tal, chula! No quieren un poco de nieve?" The sweet compliments inspire us to stop and purchase a bit of nieve (snow).

The "guest bedroom" at Itzel's; cozy up in a hammock

We zip along out towards the direction of Etla, to the village where Itzel lives, San Lorenzo Cacaotepec. She shares a beautiful home with her friend Luzbella, on a large piece of property, filled with citrus trees, avocado trees, and delicate cypress reaching up to the sky.

On the agenda is a Mexican barbecue, of sorts. Itzel slices up the nopales (flat cactus leaves), wraps the tasajo and chorizo links in foil, cleans the calabazas (small, wild squash) and green onions. I'm in charge of the salsa; after sautéing the jalapeños and tomatoes in a shallow pan, I grind them up to a fine pulp in the molcajete. Meanwhile, Luzbella gets the coal-fired barbecue going outside. This bbq is a bit different than Dad's Weber at home. It's really an open-mouthed square dish, lined with course chunks of charcoal. We place the calabazas, green onions and foiled-wrapped meats straight into the fire. The other munchies (like fresh tortillas with epazote leaves and quesillo, get sandwiched between metal grates, and held over the fire.

Look at that grinding action!

A small, shin-height table is pulled out onto the lawn. Our meal will overlook the green garden and empty pool out back of the house.

As the meal heats, we take turns making our own concoction of grilled nopales with tortilla and quesillo, or toasted calabazas with red salsa; I even take a bite of the whole white bulb of a green onion. Yum! We toast mezcal, sucking from fresh limes to chase the spicy Mexican liquor made from maguey plants.

As the sun starts to dip towards the horizon, Itzel and I hop back in her car and head for city center. I've got a phone date with Mom, and Itzel's got a coffee date in the Zócalo.

Mom and I share a nice chat. She calls this birthday a milestone--which I'm reluctant to agree with--as that makes me feel some extra pressure to make this one count. In fact, I think my birthday is better seen as an opportunity to take stock of the year, and also to honor what one has accomplished--something I think I often forget to do throughout the other 364 days.

It's dark now. 10 o'clock ticks off, and Alex comes by to take me out to a late dinner. I'm stuffed at this point, for sure. But there's always that extra birthday stomach we keep in reserve once a year. We head to Trastévere, an upscale Italian place not too far from my house. A bottle of wine, seafood ravioli in red Vodka sauce, and some reminiscing about what we were like 10 years ago caps the evening.

Truly it was a lovely birthday.

Pre-Thirty

2008-08-10T23:59:00.001-04:00

This is what 30 looks like
Friends, I've got some news: I turned 30. Yo. As a gift to myself, I took a couple weeks off from the blog to enjoy the new decade. Here's what the celebrating looked like...

My natal day fell on a Monday--not the best day of the week for celebrating. Thus, the Sunday before, I headed out with the Corderos to Teotítlan de Valle. I'd read various reviews of a Zapotec restaurant nestled in a tiny community east of the city--it had gathered praise from both Gourmet Magazine and the local foodies--so it seemed worth a trip. And on your birthday (or the day before your birthday) you can obligate people to drive 35 minutes for food.

Tlamanalli is owned and run by the two Mendoza sisters. There's no menu; you just stroll in, take a seat next to the open air kitchen, and ask what your options are for the day. Then you can watch the dish come to fruition as its prepared in the colorfully-tiled kitchen at the back of the restaurant.
My chicken in a corn-based mole sauce, and Mau

The five of us (Rafael & Azucena, Mau and Alex, and me) feasted on moles, fresh corn tortillas, mezcal, guacamole served in tiny individual green pottery dishes, and flan. Yum!

Unusual, but delicious flan

I got a few little gifts--woohoo! We chatted and laughed--as is our custom when we get together for a meal. I handed my camera over to Alejandro--perhaps a mistake, as evidenced by these random photos of my face.

A simple celebration. A small group of my surrogate family. A good day.

Me holding up the building.
Some architect forgot to design the bottom half of this column.
Good thing I was there to save the day.
A little savin'-the-world on my birthday, no problem.

Random Events - Truly Random

2008-08-10T23:48:00.008-04:00

Back by popular demand are some shots of the local "fauna" in the city--roof dogs. I long for the days when a crosstown hike with Suzanne and Chicu (and their dog, Tubo) would draw out all the pups hiding atop homes in the city. Just one whiff of Tubo's hide would get them scampering to roof's edge to bark their snouts off. Now I have to hunt them down like an intrepid reporter.

Also in addendum to earlier posts, I include another strange Oaxaca street sign. This one seems to say, "Would all crescent wrenches please deposit their Chinese stars in the trash bins?" Seems reasonable.

The other day two strange visitors appeared in my house. The first floated in from nowhere and planted itself in the upper left hand corner of my office. I imagine if I placed a ruler, or small object next to this moth you'd get a better idea of how large it is--but that would require me to get close, and perhaps shake hands with it. I can assure you I cannot palm this monster; he's that BIG. And then an hour later, his friend arrived, just as large. None of my windows or doors were open--so I can only think that these things can clone themselves in under 10 minutes. Equally strange is that the other night I locked one of them in my bathroom--and in the morning...he was gone! So apparently these guys can either swim (toilet exit) or crawl underneath doorways. Is that normal for moths? Someone Google "stealth commando moths" for me, eh? Perhaps they're some sort of omen or harbinger of death. Maybe they represent my 20s dying...

And for my final trick of random weirdness, ladies and gentlemen, I present "The Strangest Airbrushed Picture of Your Baby Ever." I was walking from the Abastos market into town when I passed this frame shop. They had a sample of posed photos in the front display, as well as framing options. And this little number was right out front. Definitely click on that image and get a closer look. I did a double take AND doubled back down the block later to snap a photo; I just couldn't get it out of my head.

Random Events - Shanananah shanananah, hey hey hey, good bye

2008-08-10T23:02:00.007-04:00

My good friends Chicu and Suzanne departed Oaxaca a couple weeks ago--and I'm just recovering from the melancholy aftereffects to get around to blogging about it. I was lucky to squeeze in a couple fun adventures with the two the week before they departed--heading out to Atzompa with Suzanne to buy random green pottery; and a fun non-dinner dinner at their apartment following. However, for their final hoorah--a group of us met up at Biznaga to send them off.

An old radio friend was also in town briefly. Peijk, someone from my early days at The Next Big Thing, and I met up for drinks beforehand. However, once his chums and mine both arrived at 8, we decided to join forces and tables for one big gathering. So let's see, present were, Chicu and Suzanne (the guests of honor, he from the States, she a Canadian), Guillermo and Gustavo (Mexican brothers), Liliana from Colombia and Michael from the UK, my friend Peijk from Denmark, and his three friends, two from Spain and one from France. We were a mini-UN!

Suzanne and jicama stick (or is that kryptonite?)

We gabbed, we munched, we drank Chupacabra beer. Suzanne and Chicu's dog Tubo, neatly tucked underneath the table, licked our toes and ankles--seeing how much he could get away with. The night wore on. Peijk and his gang departed for the ADO station where they would head to the coast on an overnight bus. Reluctant to let Suzanne and Chicu leave, we all stayed on, chatting, lingering as the cold night air drifted in through the open courtyard roof. Eventually, as bus boys hauled drippy trash out past our table, and chairs were upturned into headstands on table tops nearby--we realized it was time to leave. I felt lucky; I knew I would be taking Suzanne, Chicu and Tubo to the airport in a day--so my goodbye need not be tearful, yet.

Guillermo, Gustavo and Chicu - why so giggly, men?

Suzanne and Lili share dog training horror stories

But the day did arrive. I unleashed the Giant Monster Van out onto the streets of Oaxaca again. We hoisted suitcases and dog carriers into the car; it's like it was made for this trip. I can't imagine another car having fit all of that stuff AND us. The three of us chirped away on the sunny ride out to Oaxaca's small landing strip. What I love about Suzanne and Chicu, and this ride was a good example of it, is how effortless and delightful our conversations seem to run. We can talk of books, movies, country customs or dog poop--easily down shifting into something random and sometimes, crass--all the time laughing, at least on my part. Some sentimental part of me wanted the ride out to the airport to be a somber moment--to mark the event, the sad departure. But it's just impossible to not laugh as Suzanne lets Tubo completely crawl up into her lap in the car. Tubo still thinks he's a tiny puppy--when in fact, he is a giant, almost German Shepperd-sized dog.

There you have it. We unload bags. There are hugs. Tubo, tied up to a street sign at the curb, gets a farewell nuzzle, of course. I give a tiny honk of the car horn as I drive away. And they are gone.

You are missed, friends. You are missed.

Random Events - The Visit

2008-08-10T01:51:00.000-04:00

Uncle Sky and Dylan came barreling into town at the close of July. These guys travel in a unique manner all their own--and I love it! I learn so much watching how other people act as tourists. Everyone's got their own style. Some buy into the all-inclusive resorts. Others prefer backpacking and cheap beers. Others rent a car and let fate tell them where to pull over. And some, like Sky and Dylan, find enjoyment in the details.

I met up with them on their first morning in town--where we breakfasted at Itanoní, one of my favorite spots. I introduced them to tetelas (triangle-shaped corn tacos) and the drink to defeat all drinks, limonda con hierbabuena. Then we took a hike around town to give them the layout. And off they went on their own to explore the cloud forests of the Sierra Juárez mountains, and the tumbled ruins of the Zapotecs.

Inspired by Sky's interest in Oaxaca's flora, I snapped a bunch myself. I'm going to let my pictures tell the story...

I like this series of Dylan. It goes from totally unaware that I am snapping his photo to the end smile. It's like witnessing the show and the rehearsal for the show!

We took a trip out to CaSa in Vista Hermosa, San Agustín Etla. Though it was more of an overcast day than when I've visited before--it's still an amazing view.

There were all sorts of things that captured our fancy; again, the beauty is in the details when out with these guys. The cement-colored thorns on the bark of this tree were pretty riveting. Though, we all agreed it made the tree seem overly standoffish, and defensive.

This is a view from the tippy top of the CaSa museum. Doesn't the sky just reach forever in all directions? How does it do that?

So let's play a game...let's see who can guess what the following things are from the photos. We'll start easy.

What is shown this black and white photo? I feel like it looks like a mountain range on the moon...or icing on a marzipan cake. But really, it's the bark from that tree above, taken sideways.

Okay, next! Can you guess you gues what this picture at the right is? Bars of gold...or chocolate? A game board for "Mexican Chess"? No! It is a staircase. Yep.

Sky and Dylan really made me notice the patterns and shapes all around Oaxaca. It wasn't that they mentioned it--it's more that they showed interest in it--drawing, snapping photos, just noticing. It made me look anew at things I'd passed hundreds of times. And in turn, I made them notice the beauty of food--as I swatted Sky's fork away from his plate and pulled out my camera for a shot of their last meal in town. Tamarin mile with shrimp and white rice. Sky proclaimed, "Too much tamarind!" But his disappointment with his meal didn't stop us from enjoying memelas, cerro viejos and a couple copitas of mezcal!

Random Events - GUELAGUETZA, people!

2008-08-09T12:01:00.010-04:00

I've been recently posting about the weeks around the big Lunes de Cerro celebration here in Oaxaca. Tourists descend, locals come out into the streets in droves. Me? I'd prefer to stay at home until the crowds leave. Don't get me wrong--I'm curious about what's going on in the streets. And I tried to get a taste of the little events around town for the weeks leading up to the two Mondays in July that host the big event. But like New York City at Christmastime, I would rather escape to quieter locales, sinking into my hermetic tendencies. I prefer a Oaxaca with empty streets and a quiet Zócalo. I prefer the early-morning-weekend Oaxaca. She is beautiful!

Regardless, the Lunes de Cerros arrived. The main event is the Guelaguetza--a 3-hour long dance performed in the amphitheater that sits atop the Cerro de Fortín (thus, Lunes de Cerro), overlooking the valleys of Oaxaca. Delegations of dancers arrive from all over the state, each representing a different region--the Isthmus, the Coast, the Mixteca, etcetera. Each delegation is selected by their town. They dress "to the nines" in the traditional costume of their town, recreating traditional customs (weddings, baptismal ceremonies), some of which only remain in practice in the Guelaguetza, itself--no longer finding a quotidian place in the community.

I've been hemming and hawing about whether to attend the dance itself. Smaller representations of the dances take place in outlying communities around Oaxaca. I've heard they are great, town-wide parties--less a tourist event, and more a celebration of a village. But I can't find someone last minute to trek out with me to a village to get a look. And a nighttime venture by myself to a lone community seems tricky. Last minute, however, my friend Beca invites me to the main event in the amphitheater; an agency she works with has offered her free tickets. Woohoo!

As I climb the hillside, following families up the cerro towards the stage, I notice police lining almost the entirety of the roadside. In the past the Guelaguetza has been a source of contention between the state government and the disgruntled and often-oppressed protesters in Oaxaca. Other than the parade in front of my house earlier in the week, I don't see any signs of protest today.

The thrum of the crowd grows as I get closer. I have to push through throngs of people, and food vendors once I arrive at the stage. But somehow, miraculously, I am able to find Beca at the entrance of one of the doors into the arena. The sun is beaming today. Everyone is sweating; there is no avoiding it. Hats, seat cushions and t-shirts are passed out as you enter. The sections are separated by price. The ones furthest from the stage, of course, are cheap (some even free). The closer you get, the more you shelled out. And after the first dance, I realize why you might want to pay to get close. We're in the second section (same as the Governor; I can see him just off to my left. It's weird to be so close to someone who you've read so much about.)

You can see them sweeping the stage
here from all the tossed goodies
And while we can see the stage and dancers perfectly--we are just out of range to receive the myriad of gifts chucked into the crowd. At the close of each dance, the dancers pull baskets onto the stage that are filled with "goodies" from their home village. It's mostly bread, chocolate, fruits and veggies. Sometimes a bunch of fresh, tied herbs will get hurled out. But mostly it's whole produce. So that front section gets the majority of the store. Some oranges, appropriately whipped, make it out to my section--but none close enough for me to grab. Boo. It's not that I actually want to eat a piece of bread touched by tons of people; I just want to be a part of the mayhem. At some point, though, I thank god for our seats--as one group hurls grapefruits into the crowd. Jeez!

My friends Beca, Laura and Caitlin don hats--all of us fanning ourselves. It is a hot one. I came equipped with my white reboza. I'm taking a hint from the old women in the villages I've visited. There's nothing like a light shawl to keep your head covered from the sun--but to also allow the heat to escape from the top of your noggin'. It works like a charm!

I'm familiar with a lot of the dances presented here; they're performed throughout the year in different towns during particular festivals. But it's fun to see the explosion of colors from costumes, and headdresses. It's incredible, the quantity of people mashed into the amphitheater, all hooting and sweating. And it's an unbelievable view of the valley. However, after two hours I'm growing bored. It never ceases to amaze me how impatient I am--or better, how patient Mexican people are. From the beauty contest I witnessed in Tlaxiaco, to the despezcuazada I saw in Mixtepec, I can't get over how patiently a crowd here can sit through repetitive dances, speeches, poems, songs. I think my American brain is too demanding of moment-to-moment action. So sad. My seatmates are getting tired, as well. As the lights of the amphitheater are lit, the sky grows darker and ominous. The wind has picked up--which is a welcome respite from the heat. But it's becoming clear that it is going to rain. I've heard rumors that the two days of the year assured for rain, are the Lunes de Cerro days. ¡Es un hecho!

We're holding out for our two favorite dances--La Danza de las Plumas (Feather Dance) and La Danza de las Piñas (Pinneapple Dance). The are strategically placed in the latter half of the performance. But once the Pluma dancers take the stage a very noticeable storm front is marching in from the north. Gretchen taught me that those "smeary clouds" mean rain. I'm convinced that if it begins to rain there'll be a mad rush for taxis down at the main highway; I suggest we leave early. My friends are in agreement. I think they were actually holding out for me--I kept going on about the Pluma dance. So I snap a few of the Pluma guys, and then make my way, stepping around legs and bags and umbrellas to snake my way out through the crowd to the exit.
Just in time! As we climb down the giant staircase that leads to Fortín, the sky breaks open. Laura and I jump into a bus, waving goodbye to Beca and Caitlin, who will return home. Laura and I are off to the Corderos for their annual Lunes de Cerro party. We're a bit late for the sit-down supper. But I'm positive there's more food to be had...

***sadly you can see the glaring difference between the shots Beca took with her glorious, professional-grade camera and mine with its tiny zoom.

Random Events - 2 Villages, 2 Community Events, 48 hours

2008-08-08T22:56:00.016-04:00

Just so that you don't think it's all fireworks and pancakes over here, I'll include a bit of field work I did out in the Mixteca over the last weeks...

In a recent trip up north to the mountains I needed to get a series of recording "errands" done. The first, is to record the annual Fiesta Patronal in Magdalena Peñasco. I've written about Magdalena before; Araceli, one of my colleagues from the station, is from this village. This time, however, I was hunting down some sound for a potential radio piece in the States. Magdalena is what is called a "sending community" to various towns and cities in the United States. I'm sniffing out a few of her recipient communities in the U.S. to work on a migration piece. A perfect time to record, thus, is when 1) People return home (like for annual parties), and 2) When there's some action going on worthy of recording (like for annual parties).

Chely and I head out in the afternoon and make our way to the Municipal President's office first. It turns out he's participating in the basketball tournament--so we have to wait until he gets off the court. But then he very graciously offers us as much time as we want to sit down and get his take on Magdalena, her make-up, her problems and beauties and of course, her party. The president has actually immigrated himself to the U.S.. He returned this last time only because he was selected by the municipal assembly to fulfill his community service by taking the role of the president for a year. That's a year with no pay, mind you. When they say "community service" they mean it.

After we depart, I coerce Chely into doing a vox pop around the town square with me; let's get a few opinions from others about what they think of the town, its celebration and such. I can't believe I am actually convincing someone else to help me do a man-on-the-street bit; this is my least favorite kind of radio interview. I always feel like I'm ambushing people--especially here where people are so shy and reserved, at first. But I also realize I'm a sore thumb already, what with my white face and my giant microphone. So what have I got to lose? This time, Chely is the one being shy--and SHE actually speaks their dialect, and is from here!

I get a bit of sound from a local band playing. I snap a few shots whilst recording--I'm getting good at that. I learned from my colleague Rene. The trick is avoiding mic noise while snapping the picture. But because Chely is there--she can also get some good perspective shots--and prolly, the first, if only shots of me actually doing what I do here. So there you go, friends--this is what I do.

Once I record a bit of ambient sound, the basketball tourney, passerby--I feel I've got enough to safely tuck away my equipment and enjoy the rest of the party--which will, I am told, stretch well into the night. Rene and Eva join us later as night falls. Someone in the municipal government throws us a pack of tickets to the dance later so we won't have to pay to enter. Little by little, representatives arrive from nearby localities with their community band, flowers and some symbolic offering of food to the Municipal President. Directly in the center of the square a crew of six are setting up the Castillo (oh yea, another one! I'm psyched) The president told me earlier that every year they hope they raise enough money through donations from community members, the amount they have set aside in the Municipal budget, and from Mayordomos (town sponsors) to out do the party from the year before. These parties mean everything to those who live in and around the area.

I am not disappointed. Mau and Alejandro were telling me that the Castillo I was so impressed by near Carmen Alto really wasn't that stunning. And now I see why. This one is unbelievable. Each arm that pinwheels and spins into explosive colors, turns into a car, or helicopter--another a horse, and then an eagle. The corona on top spins and spurts fire and eventually forms the words "Magdalena 2008." It's riveting. And that's only the beginning. Behind us a crowd of over 20 men are dancing with fireworks bulls on their heads. They haven't lit them yet. This is the pre-explosion dance, I suppose. I can't wait.

So, we dance, we fill our bellies with tacos al pastor when energy is low, we dance again. By 2, I'm ready to call it in. Eva and I need to head out in the morning to her village, San Juan Mixtepec for an event. We all pile into Chely's car, Eva, Rene and Chely's sister sandwiched in back. I snap this one of my pals; it looks to me like a paparazzi shot, no?
Day Two comes too early, really. Eva and I hope a collectivo out to Mixtepec. We'd agreed weeks earlier to attend a Municipal event in town. We also though it'd be a good time to chat with the kids at the high school in Santa Cruz, a nearby town, about the youth radio project. When we arrive, the town square is cluttered with women hooded in the typical blue rebozo of this region. Every corner, the foot of every tree, is crowded with someone. The hot sun finds all escaping into any slip of shade that can be found. We find out the event, the inauguration of the building of a new highway, isn't for another hour. I try to encourage Eva to get out her recorder and collect some "saludos" for her weekend call-in show; she always complains to me that she doesn't have enough extra material to play. But she too, is shy about making the rounds. I get it. I totally get it. Whenever I have to do a vox pop, which is rare, I have to have a good talking to with myself about it. So scary. I gently nudge Eva into conversations with women. We try to use their curiosity about why I am here to get them going. I throw out a few words in Mixteco, they all giggle at me--and bam, we're off and running.

Eva & Me--all out of shady spots

Eventually, we notice the event is about to begin--and follow a crowd of cowboy hats a bit outside town center to the event locale. I watch as women gather around to hug the Federal Deputy who has theoretically "made this project possible," and is in town today to preside over the breaking-of-ground. A few speeches are made. There are hand shakes and greetings. And then a giant bulldozer rolls up and scrapes a few feet of dirt in front of us. Done. Let's eat! No really, that's what happened.

Soon men are passing around empty cups, followed by others with a pitcher of tepache--a drink made out of the flesh and rind of a pineapple and then sweetened with brown sugar and cinnamon, or sometimes beer. This is the non-alcoholic variety.

Eva and I head uphill, following the others to the site of the second phase of the event. I'm not really sure where we're off to--or what is happening, but I'm here to help Eva before we sidetrack to Santa Cruz. Someone offers us a ride in their van--so we pile in. Others hitch onto the back of pick-ups, or sit atop flatbeds. We wind up the old highway--I can see why it needs construction--the gravel giving way to giant potholes. We crest a hill and I see the blue and yellow-striped tent that marks the event site. A band is playing Rancheros loudly. Eva tells me she just needs to get a couple interviews with local leaders--and then we can hop a taxi back down towards Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, the event takes shape on its own. Presentations begin--each invited guest takes a turn at the mic, speaking on the project at hand, thanking those involved. This is an undertaking, mind you, because there are around 25-30 invited guests--each speaking for 5-10 minutes. Ugh. Eva muscles her way around, trying to get interviews in when she can. And when we're finally handed bowls of red mole and chicken, I give Eva the look of "please, please, let's get out of here."

Mother nature had her own plans, however. Just then it starts to pour--total torrential downpour. The only cover is under the tent--so the crowd of over a hundred people squeezes in tightly. After waiting for a half hour, Eva and I are both done. The rain hasn't lessened in any way--but we're about two blocks from the main highway where taxis pass by--so we need to get out there to the roadside if we're ever going to get back towards town. Of course, the important guests immediately jumped into waiting suburbans and escaped quickly--leaving the rest of us behind to figure out the tricky math. And here's the math I mean: there's probably close to two hundred people here. About 125 of us got here riding in the back of a truck, on the roof, on a flatbed. So when it's raining, that really cuts down on available seating. Eva and I watch as cars packed with people inside roll by. We're huddled under a small tree--somewhat wet--when we see a 4-door truck loading people in. Eva asks if they're going back to Mixtepec--the driver nods, but says he doesn't have space inside the cab--only in back. We see this tiny older lady making a spot for herself on the trucks flatbed, the driver hauling out a tarp to cover her--and we both jump in. Who cares. Once you're wet, you're wet.

Thus commences a moment that I so wish I had a picture of...it is what I will deem my Fulbright Brochure Moment. It's embarrassing to admit, but this is exactly the kind of moment I day dreamed about before coming to Mexico. It's this romantic idea of myself, seated in the back of a truck, legs dangling off the end; I'm in a far-off village, surrounded by hills and dust and sheep. I've got my headphones around my neck, a backpack on my shoulders, and a deeply satisfied smile on my face. Maybe it's hard to understand why that image is appealing. But to me it taps right into some fantasy of what life as an adventuresome foreign correspondent must be like. Now, mind you, I don't think of myself as a foreign correspondent (nor, do I think I have aspirations to become one, at least not in the traditional sense); I don't really even consider myself that adventuress--especially not when I meet some other expats her, of heck, the many I've met who cross the border over the desert. But there's something independent and heroic about the back-of-the-pick-up ride in a small, dusty town. Something...Anyone else out there have a good day dream image they hold onto?

Well, the actual event is very different from the brochure moment in my head, of course. As is the case a lot of the time, no? But it's no less fun, really. If you could see this picture, instead of the one with me and the sheep and the sun, you'd see three women, huddled under a blue tarp, in the back of a grimy old truck making it's way down muddy roads. Every jut and hole in the road I noticed before is now even more obvious to my butt and aching thighs. And yet, the deeply satisfied smile--it's still plastered on my face, just like in the dream. This is so funny to me. We're mostly soaked, tired, jouncing around in back with this old lady, who is laughing herself--and from what I can tell, swearing in Mixteco. There's a trail of cars behind us, making the dame downhill trek. But I keep waving to the one right behind us. They've clearly got a commentary going about the which of us will fall overboard first; each time we hit a big bump, they laugh at the obvious grimaces marking each of our faces. The tarp slides left; we pull it back over us. The tire we're all crouched on top of skids away--and we hurry to pull it back into place. By the end, once we make it back to Mixtepec, we're wet, and cold and a bit tired. And I think both Eva and I realize there's no visiting Santa Cruz today. We'll just be lucky if we find a collectivo in time to get us back to Tlaxiaco. She's got a show to host in the morning--and I've got a suburban to catch back to Oaxaca.

Oh, my poor butt!

Random Events - what's going on the street

2008-08-07T16:50:00.013-04:00

Oy! I am so behind in my updates...I am looking at some old pictures I took weeks ago that I still have yet to post. So here goes, with little fanfare or explanation...

Anxious to get out of my house, and my editing funk I decided to take a stroll into town and see what was happening. It is Guelaguetza week (or what locals call here Lunes de Cerro). So there were on-going events and activities throughout town to entertain visitors and locals, alike.

I bump into the first right out my house. An impromptu parade of local protesters marches by with bands, giant puppets mocking the corrupt union leaders, and stilts walkers. That's my driveway they're tying their shoes on.

I trail the parade partway into town and stop at the Iglesia de Carmen Alto, where a small dance party is taking place between a brass band, giant puppets and small children. The giant puppet people spend a lot of time twirling and bopping to the rhythmic beat, while kids squeal with delight and terror as they try to get closer and closer to the action. One little girl seemed to have very little fear at all of her giant dance partner, and was filled more with curiosity, it would appear. One guy even brought his tiny dog to enjoy the tunes; can you see it tucked into his bag here?

I stroll and loll around town, checking out what is at offer at food stands that have popped up all up and down García Vigil and the Alcala. Tourists drench the streets--all tightly wrapped in their camera gear. I snap a shot of this non-café café. I wish it was real, with it's second-story view, crawling vines and wrought iron chairs. But it's just a tease; there's no restaurant there at all. But the azure sky sure does look pretty behind it.

There's other things to note around town. With the rainy season comes the growth of all things plant-like. The gardener where I live will trim the weeds and grasses behind my house where I hang my clothes out to dry. Only a short two weeks later they will reach up and grab hold of the clothesline again. Citrus fruits and avocados are practically dropping into your hand as you walk down streets laden with trees.

Later that night I return to García Vigil for the annual party held by the street's main church, Carmen Alto (which literally means, Tall Carmen; there's another church in town called Small Carmen, of course!). The success of the party each year depends on the Mayordomo, or benefactor. The more money he or she dumps into the party, the taller the fireworks castle (el Castillo), the better the light show, the more people turn out to gawk. I'm very content with this year's Castillo, myself. It looks giant to me. Imagine a radio antenna tower lined with small explosives, metal appendages branching out from top to bottom. As each line is lit, a different pinwheel of fireworks lights up and spins until it putters out. Then another, and another. Between each "Act" larger rockets are lit 10 feet off from the Castillo, that race each other in pink and amber lines up above our heads, higher and higher until they burst into sparkles. It's crazy how close I am to the action, maybe 15 feet from ignition control. Another half-time show between Castillo tiers is the torro--these crazy explosive bulls. People of "honor" in the Mayordomo's party place the torro on their head and shoulders, someone lights the fuse and then races around the street with walking fireworks display. The game for spectators is to see how close you can get to the bull without getting blinded. And the bull attempts to get as close as he can to those nearby.

My brothers, Alex and Mau, and Mau's gal Judith are huddled against a nearby building with me, trying to avoid premature blindness as best we can. I know that this display would be utterly untenable in the U.S. due to inevitable litigation for...whatever. But I love it! This is so fun. You're so close to the action, the lights; you feel the thump of every rocket lit in the pit of your stomach. People aren't shy--the hoot and whoop as the torro passes by--or as a rocket bursts all-too-low in the sky, not quite burning out before little fireworks remnants fall and sputter out on the cobblestone street before us.

You know the end is near when the corona (crown) of the Castillo finally lights and whirls in circles at the tippy top of the tower. When it reaches top speed it shoots straight up into the air and tried to make its way to the moon before stretching out sparks and tentacles of color all over the night sky.

Judith, Mau, Alej and I wait for the crowd to disperse, eat a couple tiny pancakes decked in cajeta, and then sit down to share empanadas at one of the many crowded stands. So fun!

Random Events: The water boils, not really

2008-08-03T13:01:00.009-04:00

Hey there, readers. How about another update on an event that took place in the past--but didn't make it to blog out of shear laziness...?On an unusually sunny Sunday morn, my pal Suzanne, Chicu and Tubo (the dog) decide to make another attempt in the Giant Monster Van out towards Tlacolula. This time our goal is not a sleepy town market, but the sulfurous mineral deposits of Hierve el Agua (literally, the water boils, in Spanish. However, a caveat, the water does not actually boil). Hierve el Agua is a small mountain village about an hour outside the city, perched atop green mountains, overlooking on unbelievable landscape. I'd been there years ago with my college abroad group--but it was sparsely attended, and rather cold.

We're heading west out of town, past Tule--the famous Cypress tree--burning up the gas Suzanne had purchased weeks ago. When we finally get to the turn off for Hierve el Agua, the road turns from pavement to dust and rocks. We wind slowly up the side of a mountain, the drop off a mere foot from the outer rim of the GMV's wheels. Suzanne nuzzles into the ruff of Tubo's neck and avoids looking at the view, and sheer downward slope. Chicu keeps mentioning how beautiful it is. And some cynical part of my brain keeps thinking, "Yea, yea, it's gorgeous," in a dry tone. It's not until days later when I load the pictures into my computer that I realize how extremely beautiful it really was.

We have to literally climb and descend an entire mountain to get to the second rise that takes us to Hierve el Agua. I am driving like a pro, people. Oh yea, there's no major problems with the GMV when we're scaling mountains, only when I'm doing something innocuous like filling the tank! It's just $15 pesos to enter the area, run by the local community. I've heard rumors that they've had numerous disputes about how to manage the area amongst themselves, so that on occasion it is closed for no reason. The state's tourism office no longer gives out official information about the area, as they don't have regular contact with the local community that is reliable, apparently.

However, we have no problems today. We park under some shade and unload ourselves and the dog. Small taco stands line up in an L along the gravel parking lot. There are bathrooms and changing spaces. There's a remarkable new structure of buildings standing in a C curve around a newly built infinity pool. The plan is to rent cabins to tourist, and place the taco stands into the buildings around the pool.

We head downhill towards the natural pools of water created by sulfur deposits. One sits right on the edge of a cliff. Unbelievable! Suzanne and Chicu take a dip (I've forgotten to bring my suit). We lament not thinking to bring beer down the hillside with us, as we longingly look at the other Americans sitting with toes in the pool, Negro Modelos on the lips. Next time, next time.

We get a bite to eat, Tlayuda quesadillas with chorizo and a beer makes the afternoon complete. So we load back into the car, a bit damper, but happy, and watch as the mountain village disappears behind a green ridge, the GMV snaking up and back the hillside. A good day.

Random Events - Hillside Graduation

2008-07-26T14:23:00.015-04:00

I should note that all of these "random events" have transpired over the last month. I'm too lazy to try and trace what happened exactly when in order to give you dates or proper chronology. Lethargy is setting in, folks. That's what happens when there's over a month of straight rain. Just ask anyone you know in Portland, OR.

The morning of the day I leave the Mixteca I get roped into traveling out to San Andres Chicahuaxtla. I'm in town center happily eating a sope when Rene from the station walks by. He tells me that he and the boss are heading out there for the clasura (graduation ceremony) of the local school. I need to drop off a CD of a radio piece I made to a woman in the town. I feel like I should take advantage of the free ride out there. I'm also anxious to get Daniel, the boss, to talk to Eva and I about our radio project. I keep asking Eva to make an appointment with Daniel so that we can sit down and pitch our project, ask his advice, get him on board to offer us some air time; she's told me thus far that he hasn't been around at the station to ask...for the entire month. Really? So when Rene and I arrive at the station, I call Eva (it's her day off), and ask her to come quickly to meet with the boss man, he's finally made an appearance.

Thus, the morning finds all four of us crammed into the front of Daniel's truck, heading out the winding road to Chicahuaxtla. There's a ton of construction along the route. I quip that it appears they are digging up dirt from one part of the road and merely moving it to another part. They laugh, adding that that's probably not too far off from the truth.

Forty-five minutes later we roll down the pocked gravel road into Chicahuaxtla. No one's quite sure where the clasura is taking place. I jump out at the Plaza to head over to Epifami's chicken shop to drop her a CD. She's surprised to see me--and embarrassed that I put a picture of her on the cover of the CD case. We make introductions all around--and then get directions to the school graduation.

The truck climbs another hill, breaking through clouds to the lona (bright yellow tent) hunched on the side of a green ridge. Today marks the end of the term for the Primary school--that's grades kindergarten through 6th grade. So a number of officials have been invited to the event to watch the kids present poems, dance, play guitar and sing. It's quite a showing, which shocks me. I'm trying to think if I remember such a large graduation ceremony from my primary school days. I don't think so. The girls and boys are all decked out in traditional garb. This is a Triqui community--so apart from the costumes for the occasion are dozens of women wearing the huipil that is customary here. It takes them up to 6 months to hand weave these beautiful gowns. Each row is a different symbol (the basket, the soldier, the little bird). The older you are, the more white in you huilpil, to reflect the white in your hair. The younger, the more red. The costumes are also quite something to look at. I'm dazzled by the long, trailing braids threaded with colorful ribbon. They are not braids of their real hair, too thick and long. it is actually dark, thick yarn.

The older kids perform a dance representing a wedding (there's a bride, a groom, parents). Each dance representing a different ritual of the wedding ceremony. Some of the younger kids collectively recite a poem, complete with adorable hand gestures to represent cloud, or the rain falling down down.

I snap a shot of the most adorable little pair dancing to a waltz. They are pretty loudly counting out their timing (1-2-3) as they point toes, reaching forward to take the next step. The girl is definitely leading the pair, telling her partner just when he is messing up, snapping him to attention with a strong glare. A group plays a couple local songs with guitar and tambourine. We are told they have only been practicing it for two weeks. An impressive display.

The whole event is taking place in both Spanish and the Triqui language. And it's long, really long. I am continually surprised by how patient Mexican people are. I'm having a hard time imagining Americans watching, raptly, an event transpire over the course of hours without getting restless. I need to get going, however. So after a quick tour of the community radio station (a tiny room complete with one mic, a CD player and mixing board), we all pile back into the truck to make our way back to Tlaxiaco.

I grab a quick pastry at the bakery, my bag and head for the suburban station where I'll pick the most uncomfortable seat in the van to head back into Oaxaca.

Random Events - Wallflowers, the party

2008-07-26T11:28:00.009-04:00

I returned to the Mixteca briefly for a meeting. My youth radio cohort, the director of the station in Tlaxiaco and I had scheduled a meeting with the Municipal President of San Juan Mixtepec to talk about our plans. I arrived late the night before on the last van leaving from Oaxaca for the Mixteca. We're in the midst of the rainy season, as I've mentioned, which makes the road up to the mountains an obstacle course of boulders, rubble and potholes. All of which you can't see in the darkness until you are right on top of them. I suppose you could drive slowly, giving yourself time enough to brake--but not this driver. I was seated next to him with a front seat view of the action. But frankly--mid-way through the voyage, when addition to collapsed bridges and large boulders, fog descended, making it impossible to see further than 2 feet in front of us--I had to close my eyes; I couldn't watch any more. If I was going to die, I wanted it to be a surprise.

A lengthy meeting followed in the morning. The result of which clarified for Eva and I how complicated small village politics can be--and how they thwart even the most altruistic intentions. More on that later...

That evening I headed to a birthday party with Araceli and Eva. It was the strangest birthday celebration I've been to to date. Imagine a large, open courtyard, partly lined with long tables and folding chairs. The other half is dotted with small, ornate tables, crowned in crocheted doilies and small plates of crackers and cheese. The guests, instead of peppered throughout in groups chatting, sat bordering the perimeter of the room, wall-flower-style. And as is customary at most parties here, there was a giant sound system, blasting music for us AND the neighbors to enjoy--as if to say, please, please, nobody talk at all. We ate dinner at 11 PM. And as everyone settled back into their wall seats following dinner, the birthday boy and a professor of his from law school took over the electric synthesizer and mic, respectively, to dazzle us with some song. Awesome.

Despite of all this, or because of it, we had a great time laughing through the whole night. We followed up the birthday party with a few drinks at a local bar. Araceli's boyfriend would be celebrating HIS birthday the following day. So they were determined to wait out the night in a bar until they could celebrate him officially at midnight.

Random Events - City Construction + Rain = Off-road Adventures

2008-07-24T18:37:00.005-04:00

The city is under some major construction right now. It might have something to do with the Guelaguetza, the city's biggest tourist draw. Dancers from all over the state come to present the traditional dance of their region in the hillside amphitheater overlooking the valley. Often times the municipal and state authorities will plan construction renovations for the couple of months proceeding the Guelaguetza to demonstrate some kind of make-the-city-beautiful inclination. This year is no exception. Bus routes have to wind around huge swaths of road that are blocked off for traffic. Quaint neighborhoods are crowded with rubble and bulldozers, making it impossible to get around easily. And of course, it doesn't help that rainy season is officially in full swing now. So all that freshly dug-up dirt is now mushy, globby mud.

Simple errands around down become adventures. Everything piece of clothing I own is covered in rust-colored mud.

And yet the overcast days, while a damper on the spirit, do make the colors of the buildings around town pop. Ambers, aquas, pinks--all glow against the gray sky. It's something, something, to hold onto as we ride out the wet days and nights.

I wish I could demonstrate how heavy the rainfall is here. I've tried to snap pictures--but it really doesn't come out well. Here's my latest attempt--a traffic build-up. All cars on this three-lane road are making a beeline for the lane furthest away from the giant lake growing on the right. Sewer drainage here--not the greatest.

Random Events - Lessons on the Road

2008-07-24T17:22:00.006-04:00

I've been away for a while, friends. Shame on me. Things have happened. Time has rolled on. Here's a quick update, in no particular order, randomly separated into blog posts...

My neighbor has fled town with his two young sons for a 7-week vacation in the States. My neighbor is an American--but has been living in Oaxaca for the last 5 years with his family. In fact, this is the first time his sons have returned to the U.S. in the last two years. I agreed to "house sit" in their absence. The work is pretty minimal; I really shouldn't even call it work. I basically just look in every-so-often to make sure the cat is still alive (he's being fed by someone else), and that the furniture is still there. In exchange, my neighbor has generously offered to loan me his car for the 7-week period.

I balk, at first. I remember the last time I borrowed a friend's car, having to return it with a not-so-slight scrape along the side. I vowed, then, not to borrow a car again until I could afford to properly repair any damage I might inflict. I explain this to my neighbor--but he insists, "No, no, don't worry. It's a junker of a car anyways. And here, it's really just so cheap to fix things."

Obviously, this ends in disaster. I wouldn't be telling this if it was a beautiful story of my driving prowess. So I won't pretend like you don't know where this is going. But in my defense, I should explain this car to you. It is described by my landlord as a monstruo (monster). But I would better describe it as the maroon version of the A-Team van. The inside comes equipped with mood lighting (the car's actual label for it, not mine), and a TV with DVD player. Yo.

My first trip is simple--the movies. Normally I spring for a taxi, or take a 45-minute bus out to the "mall" to catch a flick. But I feel it's a good, sensible field trip to take the van out with two friends to see a film. I arrange mirrors. I navigate the giant thing down my narrow driveway. I negotiate Mexican traffic (which is a beast all in its own right). We make it back unscathed. I feel triumphant. But oh, oh, how the mighty fall.

The next trip is a longer journey. My good friend Suzanne has a visitor in town from Montreal. She's interested in getting a look at a village market. So we plan to trek out one Friday to Tlacolula for their tianguis. Two-thirds of the way out there (it's about a 45-minute drive outside the city), we pull over at a gas station to fill the tank. Once full, and paid for, suddenly the car won't start. We try several times, until finally we put the car in neutral and roll it to a parking space nearby. Flash to two hours later, five "helpers," two jumps and two mechanics later--and the thing still won't start. Mind you, nothing odd has happened to the car thus far. No bumps, no run-ins with other cars, no weird jostling--but the engine doesn't turn over at all. It just doesn't want to start. The two mechanics (who just happen to have driven by and offered to take a look) both agree that I need to tow it to a mechanic's shop; it's an electrical problem, they say. I try my neighbor in the States from my cell phone--just to see if there's something odd about his car that I'm not aware of. He doesn't answer. So what to do?

I can't leave it there. It'll get stolen, or be ticketed. There seems no hope at this point that it will just start. So I call a tow truck, and we make the long and tricky trip back to my place to leave the car. As I've mentioned this car is huge. So the truck--it must be huge, as well. It's a flatbed truck--and the whole process of hoisting onto the "bed," weaving in and out of traffic in the city, and then nudging the thing onto the muddy, hilly terrain of my house--was a nail biting experience. And expensive.

This house sitting deal is putting me in the hole, it turns out.

Want to know the sick, funny end to the story? When we finally nose the car into a parking place back at my house, the son of my landlords asks if he can fiddle with the key to give the engine a listen. And instantly, I mean instantly, it starts. Turns out, an alarm was engaged that disconnects the engine from the battery. Probably something good to know about a car--but not in the "car tour" I received a week ago from my neighbor. Later, that same neighbor sends me an email to respond to my nervous voicemail, checking in about the car. I explain the alarm, the tow, etc. He explains he's never heard of the alarm, nor had that happened to him. A pricey lesson for a non-car-owner.

Flash to a week later, a work up the courage to take the beast out again--this time a short trip again. I don't want to press my luck. But after spending the money to tow this thing--I'm considering like a rental. And I want to get my money's worth. Plus, my friend sunk $50 into filling the tank. So I want her to get her money's worth, too. The trip goes off just fine. And thus, I take the car out a few more times for local trips to the supermarket that's way out, the movies, a village market.

Fate would have it when you are finally feeling a bit comfortable again, you get slapped down. Last night I took the beast out for the first time in a week to get some groceries. It's been raining like crazy. So having a car to do a few errands is helpful. As I pull into the drive, the main gate that leads to my house is closed. It's nighttime--so this is pretty standard. I jump down to open the doors and encounter my landlord's son departing with his lady. And as I'm heading back to the car to get in, the driver-side door starts to shut. No. Oh, god. No. No. No.

I reach for it as it's closing, all this in slow motion. My hands grasping, reaching. This is like an action movie, in which a key, which defuses the bomb, starts sliding down the roof, and everyone makes a move to rescue it from the eventual fall. But as the tips of my fingers reach the handle and try to hook around the latch, the whole handle breaks off into my hand. No. Oh, god. No. No. No.

You see, this car does not open on the driver's side. When you unlock it, you have to enter from the shotgun door. The car also, when running, automatically locks all the doors of the car. So while the driver side door is unlocked--it is impossible to open. And every other door is locked. The car is running. The lights are on. And this monster is sitting there--blocking the entire drive, my neighbor unable to leave. Shit.

We try screwdrivers, hangers, attempting to push the window down, pushing and pulling at every door. Nothing works. My landlord calls their friend who is a locksmith. He'll come over--but it'll be $70. God! Could "borrowing" this car cost me more money, please??!!! I run up to ask the sub-letters in my neighbor's place to see if they have his number and can let me borrow their phone (my cell is locked in the car with my purse and all of my groceries). And in the midst of dialing the States, my landlord's son gets the driver-side door open. Thank, God.

I'm done here. I'm done with this borrowing-car-business. It's bunk--especially when the car is somewhat dysfunctional. Who knows if my neighbor will return and demand payment for the broken door handle (which is totally useless anyways, since he enters from the shotgun side door anyways), or the bits of pant chip scrapings around the door where the son attempted to open the door. I'll pay, of course. It was my choice to take it out. It was my responsibility to return it in tact. But man...Cars suck. And I am done with them until I am rich.

Help a sister out...

2008-07-08T11:22:00.003-04:00

Who's in need of some good karma? You? I knew you were.

My radio doc school in Maine has offered to donate four backpacks of equipment to a youth radio project I'm working on in a village called San Juan Mixtepec. It's the same town where I attended the annual party just weeks ago. The radio gear is a huge gift for these guys, as we're starting with nothing. My colleague, Eva, and I are donating our time to teach the classes, some villagers are donating space and a computer, and local stations are donating time for us to broadcast. All the incidentals, like power cords, paper and the like--fall to us to cover in the end. As we are not yet an official non-profit, or what here is called an Asociación Civil, we are not set up yet with the ability to seek funding from foundations (that's a future step).

So, here's where we need help: I need to send the equipment from Maine to a few people in the States who are traveling to Mexico, and can kind of mule-in the recorders and mics (it's a bit tricky here to get electronics in the country--they're not very free speech friendly!) Very honestly, I don't have the money to just fund the shipping myself, sadly (imagine a very meager U.S. government stipend quickly dripping away). I'm turning to YOU. If a swath of people donate something nominal ($5-10) then I'm sure I could get all of this equipment shipped safely and quickly. Those who have a few spare dollars, and would be willing to help out, below is a donate button which will lead you to a secure page to make that donation using a credit card, or transferring funds from a bank account.

Needless-to-say, this equipment will be a big asset to our program. And for a village, and a set of kids, who have little--it will make a very big impact.

Tap water and horses--they both kill

2008-06-25T15:09:00.014-04:00

I awake nestled in wool blankets, surrounded by powdered dish soap and soda. It's dawn and a construction crew has arrived to install a laminate roof to the house where I am staying. Don't they know this party time??? What's this get-up-early-and-work business?

Eva and her sister-in-law start making a bit of breakfast. And as they do, I realize that it will kill me. They cook using water from the tap in this house. In fact, last time I was here they were drinking straight from it, too. Perhaps the water this far out is a bit cleaner than what's in the city. But as I go out back and start to wash some dishes to help out--I look down into a small well where you draw the dish water from and it's dark gray. This can't be good. I try to think if there's a way I can excuse myself and run into town for a snack. I supposed I could just explain that while the water in the food won't touch them at all--it will wreak havoc on my innards. But instead, I pour drops of Nutri-biotic (a grapefruit extract I use to kill germs on my veggies and fruit at home) into my Nalgene bottle and start downing the water as a preemptive strike. Turns out, nothing happens. Maybe it's because they boiled the soup for like an hour over a high flame. I think they do it for taste--but it has a two-fold consequence. Or else I have a stomach of IRON. Whew! American nerves calmed.

Eva and I decide to take a walk--as the day's festivities won't get rolling until the later afternoon. We end up at a local high school called the CBTA. We talked ages ago about collaborating with CBTA's director to get our youth radio project up and running. But some sort of political struggle was happening within the school--so we backed away. But as we crest the hill leading up to the school I ask Eva if we shouldn't just stop in and see if we can have a casual chat with the director; take advantage of the time we're there, eh? She waffles back-and-forth until I finally physically push her towards the school's administration office. It turns out the director is quite interested. He's got lots of ideas about how to integrate into their program. He even gathers two or three classes together in one room so we can pitch the idea to the students. We'll meet in a week to collect questionnaires from the students.

We decide to take our luck for a roll and head out to Santa Cruz, a nearby rancho that has it's own community station. I've heard from others that it is connected to the high school there. It's worth taking a gander and talking to those who maintain it. At the least we may be able to garner some airtime on their station for the kids' projects. We hop in a taxi--it's a quick 20-minute drive north deeper into the mountains. We struggle a bit in town trying to locate the place--but eventually head uphill to a small two-room cement structure with a tiny antenna. We hear music coming from inside--but no one answers the door. Eva hoists me up into the window so I can peer in. No one. Looks like it's just pre-recorded music. THESE people know it's party day! Thus, we head back in the same taxi to Mixtepec.

It's time for the horse races. I don't know what to imagine here. I'm keeping my imagination at bay since yesterday's chicken slaughter was so surprising. We jump out at a neighborhood on the Northwest side of town, Colonia de las Rosas. A long white road stretches out before us--flatter than any I've seen in Mixtepec. Groups of people are huddled against one-story houses and storefronts--trying to escape the blazing rays of the sun. Some have scaled to rooftops for a better view. We pass the race starting line where men are feverishly constructing the starting gates from which the horses will catapult. All over town horses are tucked behind trucks or amidst corn fields, lassoed to trees, awaiting the upcoming race. I suggest to Eva that we pick winners and bet to make the race more interesting.

We end up taking shelter against a building, sitting with some friends of Eva's--two couples, a few grandmothers and two young kids--one with some pretty impressive geographical knowledge. He practices his English a bit with me. Me: You speak some English, then? Him: Yes. Me: Uh. So have you spent some time in the U.S.? Him: Yes.

Okay...

Finally the gates have been dug and set. Twice as many people now line the narrow road. Two horses begin their warm-up, jogging up and down in front of us. The jockeys instead of sitting atop lightweight saddles are actually strapped to the horse, their legs lashed around the horse's midsection. Only one of them wears a helmet. Yikes! A few police troll the sidelines, instructing people to back up more behind the thin twine cord that has been set up to delineate racetrack from "bleachers." And without much pomp and circumstance the horses throw themselves from the gate. A wave of yelps ripples through the crowd as the horses pass by. I'm trying to get my camera up for a pic--the wind knocked from me as they zip pass so close. A clod of dirt flies up from a hoof and thwacks me on the chin. Woah. So exciting! This is nothing like Arlington's staid racetrack back home in Chicago.

The crowd settles again as we wait for the next duo of horses to warm-up and get into place. A friend of Eva's and a cameraman, waltzes by and shoots the breeze. He excuses himself to get down to the end of the road to film the next round. And again, without much of an announcement the next to steeds break from the starting gate and leap into action. I can't even get my hands up for a picture. And then, all of a sudden the crowd around me pushes more at the cord holding them back to see the end of the race--necks craned north. A friend across the road yells to his wife and she takes off running down the road towards the finish line. Something's not right. There's been an accident. The woman who took off, turns out, is a doctor. About 3/4 of the crowd follows down the road. They all must see what has happened.
It turns out that cameraman, the one who just moments before had been talking with Eva, was standing inside the racetrack confines trying to get just the right shot. He was just too close inside. One of the horses ran straight into him. What could he have been thinking? I can't imagine. Apparently, the jockey tried to break, but there just wasn't enough time--and the horse threw the cameraman aside like a piece of trash, cracking his forehead open in the front. It then fell, taking the jockey with him. It seems to take forever for the ambulance to finally pull down the road. It's so sad. And even though there are still a dozen other horses still tied to trees and trucks waiting to have their go at the track--the event can't go on. It's not so much of an official decision--the crowd just doesn't have a heart in it any more. Everyone drags their feet, heading back towards town center, all mumbling and whispering about the race, and the two poor men now racing towards Tlaxiaco's hospital in an ambulance.

The event clearly changes the remainder of the day for everyone who was there to witness it. Eva and I make our down towards the river's edge and see that the second despescuazada is already in motion. She gets up close to record some sound. I just can't take it today. Another 40 chickens down.

We head towards the Municipio to catch another band playing. Masked revelers jut and stomp to the rhythms. The "dance floor" is ringed by observers. Someone standing behind me asks Eva to introduce us. He's from Mixtepec, but has been working in Miami, Florida for years. His English is pretty good. He tells me he's just down for the festival--but will head back up north once it's over. He also tells me he likes the color of my skin. I look down at my sunburnt shoulders and think he's joking. Uh huh.

This guy's yellow cape above says "Show only for the ladies"

We grab a quick taco--tasajo--not chicken, I'll have you know. Then there's a search for a collectivo to get us back to Tlaxiaco. Eva's got a piece to finish for air tomorrow--and I need to head back to Oaxaca. We eventually discover her brother in the road--he and his wife are heading back. So we squeeze four to the front seat and start off--the hustle of street vendors, the screech of roller coasters, scurrying stray dogs snaking underfoot for scraps, the Lucha Libre just gathering its crowd in the Plaza, and of course the thump thump of a bass--all falling away as we head up hill and out of town.

Party, pueblo-style

2008-06-24T10:00:00.035-04:00

Today, I awake in Oaxaca, ready to set off for the Mixteca. Unlike most trips to the region, I do not pack my recording gear--not even my computer. This is not a trip for work, no. This is a trip to party, pueblo-style.

View from my place in Tlaxiaco

Around 10:30 I hoist the duffel on my back and make my way in a taxi to the suburban terminal downtown. The taxi driver cannot change my 100-peso bill. This city is truly in crisis--no one has change. I mean yes, yes--let's fix poverty and education--but first, could we get some change into the hands of store owners, please? You try to drop your big bills at restaurants or pharmacies. But sometimes you're still left holding a hundred bucks (which is only $10 USD, mind you) with nowhere to spend it. I have to race inside the suburban terminal, pay for my ticket with the hundred, then rush back out to the street to pay the taxista.

I score the front seat in the van; I can already tell this is going to be a good trip. We wind and snake our way back and forth up North and then West off the main highway. The hillside turns from green to yellow grain to red earth, back to green again. I forgo my book and iPod to simply sit and stare out the window. Since the rain has begun the vista is strikingly different. Where once there were neat, long dirt rows--seeds waiting to sprout--there now climb corn stalks green and slender, stretching to skyline.

I land in Tlaxiaco. It's mid-week, so the streets are fairly quiet; the bustle that builds towards Tianguis throughout the week hasn't found its momentum yet. I drop a few things at my little rental place, and then head out for yet another road trip. The collectivo to Mixtepec isn't yet full. I steal a couple of minutes to dash to the Plaza for a quick ice cream cone before we depart. Gotta get all the food groups in for Party Week. We pile 7 into a 4-door pick-up and head out the back gravel road towards Mixtepec. I strike up a conversation with the young guy next to me. He turns out to be a filmmaker. He's just produced a documentary about San Juan Mixtepec, in fact. So I get a kind invite to the next showing in Oaxaca City.

As we descend into town there's a notable difference in the landscape. Green fields and rolling hills are dotted by bright yellow tents (lonas). These are Mayordomías--spots where families host on-going breakfast, lunch and dinner for their neighborhoods. Town bands cycle between the tented sites playing traditional chilenas for diners, as well as escorting local dancers and neighborhood "princessas" to activities in town.

Okay, the rest of this story will be in a kind of stream-of-consciousness format because I spend the remainder of the day oscillating between taking in the event and searching for my radio colleague, Eva. We thought it would be easy to find each other in town. But a mixture of her very late arrival, and a giant throng of people, made it surprisingly difficult.

Normally lazy dirt roads are crowded with stalls and people today. Hundreds of small women, wrapped in blue shawls bob through the activity. Not only have ciudadanos from neighboring ranchos flocked to Mixtepec for the party, but many who live and work in the States have made the long journey home to celebrate. And of course, every kind of vendor imaginable has followed the crowd to these dusty roads. The people must be fed! My ears fills with the consonant sound of Mixteco, or the softer nasal whistle of Spanish. I swivel my head around every time I hear English--which is pretty frequent.

The main road to the Municipio is jammed full with small amusement park rides. A tiny dragon roller coaster screeches and roars, towering over a band of traditional dancers shuffling to a chilena. Soda and hot dogs vendors sit next to old men with clay jarras offering tepache. Old and new juxtaposed. The main Plaza is blocked off by tall blue fences. Tomorrow my friend Anderson is sponsoring a Lucha Libre fight; they've cordoned off the area, I suppose, for that reason.

I bump into my Fulbright adviser who is escorting a group visiting through San Diego State University, in Oaxaca to take an intensive Mixteco language course. Juan Julian is happily buzzed on mezcal, hugging a small palm chotchkey to his chest, recently purchased. As I meet the rest of the group, we bob our way around town, following the crowd towards the river. The riverbank is peopled densely; two long lines form of dancers facing one another; men on one side, women on the other. Each is dressed in some version of traditional garb: women with long braids, twined with ribbons, dark skirts stretching to the dirt, shawls wrapping their shoulders; the men vary, some in button down white shirts, and jeans, others bedecked in ponchos and neck scarves--but all crowned with cowboy hats. Each dancer (and they range from teenaged to ancient) carries a chicken in his/her arms. The neck and feet are trussed in colorful ribbons. They are surprisingly calm, sitting there, jutting up and down as the dancers rotate around each other for an hour, an hour! It occurs to me that Mexican people are infinitely more patient than Americans. I can't think of a single American custom in which a crowd of people will sit calmly, or even excitedly, and watch something repeat over and over again for an hour. And yet, that's exactly what we're doing on this riverbank. I'm a bit dazed.

Men meander through the crowd offering little cups of home bred mezcal, tepache and tequila. Perhaps that's what anesthetizes the crowd. I spot a few guys clutching their beers, taking a fall into the mud; they started early! Almost every other person is holding a camera. There'll be no shortage of footage for those who could not make it to the party. Every second is being documented.

Eventually it's time. The main event is here. We're all dancing, and watching--the throng growing by the minute. People climbing up on the bridge nearby to pop a squat with a good vantage point. It's time for the despescuazada. I have no idea, truthfully, if that's how you spell it. I just barely learned to pronounce it before the week was out. This is the oldest, and perhaps most distinct, tradition of Mixtepec's town party--the mass public beheading of almost 80 chickens.

Pobre Gallo

Ok, I want to be clear and fair here. I want to describe what I saw. But I also don't want to tinge too much of this account with horrified foreigner judgment. I feel like this is the kind of tradition that may be difficult for any outsider to hear about--and appreciate, or comprehend. And perhaps this is what some, some who have never visited Mexico, imagine when they think of a far-off place. I don't know. I have definitely seen chickens killed before here--either for sustenance, or for religious purposes. But humanely, to be sure. This is a different story. This event traces its roots, according to many I spoke with, back to the time when Spaniards colonized the countryside. It is their tradition, actually. It's meaning is the reenactment, or representation of the beheading of John the Baptist. This is, after all, SAN JUAN Mixtepec...San Juan, Saint John...you get it. And June 24th is John the Baptist's birthday.

How that reenactment manifests itself here is that people from all over town donate their chickens, and some turkeys and ducks, to the festivity--dancing them into quiet tranquility. The two lines of dancers part, and three or four of the birds are strung up over the crowd by their feet. Enter the men on horseback. There are about 6--all volunteers. They ride down the riverbank and jockey to get underneath the dangling birds, reaching up from their saddles and grabbing ahold of colorful ribbons and feathers, possibly getting a grip on their necks, and then, and then pulling with all their might. It's a difficult task to wrench the head off of a chicken in this manner. It's not the quick snap you would imagine. It's long and arduous. There's squawking, screaming even, the flap of panicked wings. The men elbow each other, nudging their horses for a better spot. They stretch and pull and yank. I can't help but scrunch my face into a pained expression as I watch a neck stretched to a foot in length. This is when I accept my first little glass of mezcal. I need it.

But as I scan the crowd, I don't see anyone with the wrinkled horror that sits on my face. They're all there, lining the muddy banks, many with cameras. No one is really cheering, either. There's no bloodthirsty cry from the throng. They're just sort of calmly craning their necks, watching the event, and event that has transpired like this for decades in their town. They just want to be there, to be a part of the tradition, I think.

It goes on like this for some time. There's about 40 birds to be sacrificed today. Each one takes a while. In between batches the men on horseback ride downriver, the winners tossing the chicken heads behind them into the air. Some are spotted in blood, others covered from head to waist with it, tufts of feathers wreathing their heads. It is considered an honor the more stained you become. And he who pulls the most heads from bodies is awarded a prize. No one I talk to can agree on what the prize is; some say money, others say a big bowl of chicken soup (no kidding).

When I can take no more, I make my way uphill to track down Eva. Along the way I bump into Señora Bautista, a woman I've met in town before on my many trips to record stories.

The river bank post-despescuazada

She won't let me past without first accompanying her for a beer. I say no, no. She says, yes, yes. We waltz around like this until I relent. So there I find myself hunched on a tiny stool in a bodega, drinking a beer with this old woman. And can I tell you--this woman can chug a beer. She says "otra!" But I waggle my finger "no" insistently. We part so I can hunt for Eva.

Where I was supposed to stay the night.
Notice the windows are all boarded up. Uh oh.

I'm going to confess my least favorite thing about being here--and it's not the mass slaughter, you may be surprised. I stick out...a LOT. When I was walking around with the group from San Diego it wasn't a big deal--we were a pack of whities. But by this point they have departed back to Oaxaca and I am wandering around alone. Night has fallen--the crowd has multiplied. And it seems to me that it's like 65% men. I feel a bit on guard from the imbalance. I can't ignore the whispered "Güera, güera!" in my direction. I don't think I'm unsafe; I mean, there's TONS of people about. But I can't track down the aunt of a friend who is supposed to give me a place to stay tonight. And the last collectivos back to Tlaxiaco have departed. So without Eva, I'm a bit stranded. People are kind. Many come up to me and inquire who I am, where I'm from, why I'm here. They invite me for a soda or a taco--asking me to set my backpack down to enjoy some conversation. I even bump into a few guys that I met from earlier trips. They're hunched over plastic tables, clutching a cerveza, set for the night. A few try out their English on me. A guy in a mask (lots of people dress up in costume) calls out to me in English, "Hey! Where are you going, güera! I want to get to KNOW you!" I answer in Spanish, "Sorry, I don't speak English." Thus, he repeats the same in Mixteco, which makes me laugh.

Eventually, and thankfully, I find Eva on the main road, accompanying her mom and cousins. Whew! We laugh that she couldn't track down the one white person in all this crowd. Her cousin, a 12 year-old visiting for his first time from New Jersey, prods us to take our turn on this pirate ride. It's one of those boats that swings back and forth like a pendulum, each time a bit higher. I like rides. I'm game. But as we lock ourselves into the seat--and the ride operator does not at all check the latch-I think, "I'm not totally sure this is safe." I mean, Mexico isn't the litigious world that America is. So there's not that real or false sense of security one gets from knowing that if the ride were faulty the company would be penalized severely. So as the pirate ship climbs higher and higher, as I slide and bump around inside the metal seat, I let a slew of expletives and giggles slip from my teeth.

The party continues all night long. Bands take the stage. Dancing ensues. I hear most of it, the bass thump thump and the treble trill from the hillside where Eva lives. We're both kind of exhausted. I find myself nestling under blankets on a beat-up mattress in the storeroom of Eva's family home. The night air is chill now. I think of the lonely pig I passed on a back road earlier who was lassoed to a tree, sitting knee deep in mud. During the sun's high point of the day, it seemed an ideal place to be. But now that I can see my breath, I worry for that surely cold, forlorn fellow. Ni modos, it's time to sleep.

I leave the lights and action behind me. Time for bed!

What else? There IS else.

2008-06-15T15:56:00.000-04:00

Life is filled with other, somewhat insignificant moments. And frankly, I'd rather share them with you than the various stages of my Fulbright project. How many of us can really tolerate the minutiae of sound design? Hmmm?

In my continuing effort to document the sky here--let's add this to the album. A photographer just told me that early morning and late afternoon (around 6, just before the clouds open up and flood the city) are the best times to snap photos. The light is like no other. Likewise, a filmmaker friend said that October/November are the best months for light. Though I would wager that this June morning could challenge any November dawn.

Some mornings there is time for a stroll down to Sanchez Pascuas for a quick licuado from my friends Lupita and Jorge. I have my favorites, make no mistake. But this particular day I branch out for a smoothy of orange, apple, lemon and beet. Mmmm, beets, turns the pee pink. What a delight (or a horror if you don't know it's from the beets)!

Some mornings I'm lucky to have an invite from friends for Sunday brunch. As I await outside their apartment I spot this little treasure left behind in the sidewalk.

That's a bag of bread, friends. The other day when I was musing with a neighbor about how I would make it financially viable to remain in Oaxaca past my grant period, she patted me on the shoulder and said, "You'll never starve here, Megan." So, I may be homeless, but never starve. Cool. This bag of bread seems to confirm that point. There's food just SPROUTING from the sidewalks here.

To pick up the brunch fare we take a walk along the empty streets towards Suzanne and Chicu's favorite Sunday market, Merced.
Look at these Oaxacan treasures. Some same deterioration; others say beauty! Weekend mornings are the best for trekking round the city. The markets are full. But the streets are quiet and vast. A Oaxaca without a swarming population. So lovely!

Other days there's time to take a break to make something slowly. There's an art to slow cooking. Shit, there's even a movement. Jeannie, my NY roommate used to joke that I am a four-burners-going kind of gal. Today's no exception as I prep white beans for a tomato-based stew, garbanzo beans for future use and a veggie stock for all-around use.

And finally, here is the first in a series I am trying to prepare on Roof Dogs. I'll have to collect a bunch to properly tell the story of this far-too-common breed of pooch.

**Listening to The Spoon as I type this.

What's the Deal?

2008-05-30T14:19:00.000-04:00

My faithful and handsome readers--I am sorry to have left you so unattended in these last weeks. It's been work. It's been the sad parting of friends. It's been my own malaise. But I'm back! I hope you're back. So let's get rolling...

First, what you missed:

Two dear friends of mine departed from Oaxaca for good.
Josh is a fellow Fulbright Fellow working on a poetry project. Lynn is his side kick in life, as well as a poet and artist in her own right.

It was extremely sad to see them go. So much so that after their departure, I slipped into a deep state of melancholy. "I am alone," I said to myself--or you know, said to my other friends..."I am alone here." To which they answered, "What the f*ck, Megan? I'm sitting right here." Ah yes.

Here are some shots from their last night in town. We'd try to do it right.

Tubo gettin' some love.

The gang, star gazin' while I try to get a cab

Chicu and Suzanne (an American, a Canadian, both poets. How do you get these two crazy cats together? You get them to fall in luv, of course! Doesn't that sound like some blockbuster romantic comedy starring...let's say starring Sarah Polley as Suzanne and this guy as Chicu?)

Josh and Lynn with Junko, at a performance piece that night in the old train station depot.

Dudes

More dudes (Gustavo and Josh)

Goodbye, guys!

These images brought to you by Lynn. She has an amazing eye. Check out her flickr account here.

Vacation Nirvana

2008-05-27T18:46:00.050-04:00

Time for a couple days outside the city and her traffic, noise and general busyness. Vicki did a bit of research before arriving in Mexico and found the Pueblos Mancomunados--an organization of 7 communities nestled in the Sierra Juárez mountains north of the city. I'd traveled to the region a couple of times before, and heard some good reports about camping in the region--but hadn't yet visited this particular set of villages. Both of us game for something new, we made reservations earlier in the week at the PM's offices in the city. We rise and head for the second class bus terminal at 7 AM. Around ten-to-eight the clunky, blue-and-white, school-bus-like vehicle pulls into the terminal. We lug ourselves and our backpacks into the first two seats (great view of the drive!). We've packed the necessities, and a few extras to keep our tummies full and our brains amused.

It's about an hour drive out of town towards Tlacolula, where we veer north onto winding mountain roads that take us up up further into the green. Another 1 1/2 of twists will eventually deposit us into the small community of Cuajimoloyas (don't even ask me to give you the pronunciation, as I am just able to spit the name out myself). The drive is pretty. We pass through a few small towns along the way, the bus filling with those returning from market, carrying their purchases, or some even with farm tools. One guy boards, dumping his pick ax at Vicki's feet and stomping towards the back to find a seat. We pass flora and fauna, random goats and oxen munching at the grass hem along the gravel highway. We're even blessed with a rare treat as we jostle slowly around a bend--three donkeys huddled in the middle of the road, one a male, desperately trying to hump an unwilling friend. Vicki and my eyes bug out at the action through the front window. The bus driver doesn't even break his stride, shifting from one gear to the next, barreling through this impromptu love rendezvous. We're silent for a moment, and then, "Damn, Megan. I just didn't have enough time to get my camera out for that one!" But she does snap this handsome painting of Jesus plastered to the ceiling above our heads. Jesus is a soap star, apparently, from this rendering.

I tell the driver to let us out at the main information office once we enter Cuajimoloyas. A few minutes later, a representative from the eco-tourism group shows up and unlocks the office to attend to the small group of visitors that has arrived on the morning bus. We proffer up our reservation ticket, she signs us in, and then introduces us to our guide for the day, Evencio.

Evencio's a nice little fellow, around 40-something, I would guess. Dressed in simple khakis, a polo and a cap and armed with a walkie-talkie, he leads us directly out of town and up a path. The hike starts right away! We meander down a pebbled lane that crosses past farms and cabins, heading deeper into the woods surrounding the town. Along the 3-hour hike he guides our attention to various flora and fauna of the region, kindly answering the myriad of questions with which we pepper him along the route. He points to the long line of maguey cactus plants lining the lane along which we are trekking. Here they are used in lieu of barbed wire fences where possible (which makes one wonder if Frost was Mexican would his poem have continued, "Good maguey make for good neighbors...?" These big guys are huge. We comment that they're bigger, even, than Vicki's favorite guy Mike, who stands at a tall 6'5". This particular type of maguey are not used to make mezcal or tequilla like other varieties. But, Evencio tells us, the louter layers are cut off and sold at market for those who make barbacoa (the large leaves used to insulate the flavors and heat of the fire).

We stroll further, fields of low-lying green leaves, crowned with white blossoms spreading out in neat lines around us. These are potato fields. Vicki and I are both surprised. We've never seen potato fields before, and are shocked at how pretty the resulting crop in mid-growth appears. This is the main product cultivated in the fields at this altitude. It's also what most often sits atop dinner plates in the community. We see a few small cornfields, but Evencio informs us, not until recently, with the change in climate, has corn been viable.

We eventually pull off the main road and dip onto a winding, narrow path. My feet sensing the soft give of pine needles underfoot; we all pick up our pace a bit. In between stories, or information--we all slip into that mesmerizing rhythm of hiking--where your ears fills only with the sound of your feet on ground and the quickening tempo of your breath. Little-by-little we've been ascending the hillside, winding back and forth. We stop for a moment to catch our breath, Evencio dips a jícara into a cold stream for a drink. He points out a tree where the bark has been shorn away by an ax.
People use the wax found inside this tree as an ointment for arthritis or other maladies of the joints. We stop near a bushy green plant, thin leaves with a potent odor. This is poleo, he tells us. I recognize this from the markets in Oaxaca. It's also called drunkard's herb--because when boiled into a tea, it's the perfect remedy for a hangover. It appears there are an abundance of cures and remedies hidden within the forest's depths. A bark here reduces fever; a plan over there strengthens teeth. We're walking in a veritable outdoor pharmacy!

The hike takes on a considerable incline--we're clearly headed for the top of this mountain. The trail now is narrow, peppered with a plant that induces comezón (itching)--so we have to watch where we place our hands for balance. We finally round the bend to the point called Cañon de Coyote--a narrow pass, nestled between two large boulders. Just before this pass was where the old trail used to end before the eco-tourism project began. They later trimmed away the foliage that wedged in between the rocks to make way for a longer hike. Before guided tours began, only a small family of coyotes climbed this route, making their way to a nearby den.

We wind around the boulder and make for another tricky summit--a narrow rock face called the Monte Caballo because those who are nervous about the climb usually straddle the rock and scoot up, Evencio says. The peak is near. It's two enormous boulders with a myriad of hand and foot holds. We hoist ourselves up, careful not to grab where camouflaged cacti lay low. Vicki and I scramble up to the very top; we want the best view from this lookout called El Calavario. Envencio won't follow; he says the very top scares him too much. He chuckles and mentions we are without fear. I think both Vic and I agree, it's scary--but the view is worth it.

We take in the air--so fresh and crisp this high up; it has a gentle hint of the pine scent that flavors this whole mountainside. Our heads are at the level of two enormous trees opposite from the boulders where we sit. They circle slowly, dancing together in the wind. A high trill cuts through the breeze. A whistle like none either Vicki or I has heard before. Envencio tells us that's the bird that wakes him every morning. Certainly a more beautiful way to lumber into consciousness than an alarm clock, I say. He tells me he gets up every morning with a smile; and falls asleep with that same grin to the sound of the moon bird. (which reminds me of this great Nina Simone song called "Feeling Good;" the lyrics go: Sleep in peace when day is done, that's what I mean...I'm feeling good.) Seems to me Evencio's got it down right!

Look, all three of us in one shot!

Vicki and I share a couple of plums we packed with us. Plums atop a rocky crag are the best! As the sweet juice and tart flavor of the skin fades on our tongues, we're reluctant to leave this peak. But we know we've got another one to summit before the afternoon is out. So eventually, we bear claw our way down and follow our guide through a wider path towards the next lookout point called Piedra Colorada. This climb is much simpler; even Evencio follows us to the flat top--where sitting and enjoying the view is made easy. I'm pacified by the persistent hum of the breeze against branches and leaves. It sounds almost like the ocean rolling in over the mountainside. Vicki notes the total absence of traffic sounds--telling me there are beautiful places to climb in Portland, but sometimes even there the sounds of the city arrive.

After a spell at the top of this lookout, we amble down to ground level and follow Evencio past two grazing horses, towards a path that will take us pack towards town. Have you ever noticed the smell of shade. It has a smell all it's own. And this forest is filled with the damp, thick, profoundly oxygenated air that fills a shady spot. I love it!

We finally lift out of the forest and the path wanders up to a series of small cabins that sit perched above town center. Wow! The best view in the house is saved for visitors. Our little cabin number 3 isn't quite ready yet; some women in town are cleaning out the room, exchanging old sheets for fresh ones (side note: today I lunched with two friends, Josh and Lynn--who had just gotten back from a trip to Cuajimoloyas, too--only a day before Vicki and I were there. Turns out we actually slept in their same cabin! Strange small world. Apparently they left two beers in the room, Vic. Did you drink those?) I should mention here a bit of what we learned from Evencio about how the eco-tourism project works. Apparently, a while back the state government approached the small community about a tourism project. However, after a little deliberation, the town decided it didn't want to participate; they never thought it would work. But after months of continuing to mull it over, a small group started convincing everyone that giving it a try wouldn't hurt. So, seven local communities, each run by its own assembly, combined to offer hikes, lodgings, guides and extras to visitors from near and far. They started by building two cabins. And then, when that worked and brought in money, the invested in six more. And just last year they built another eight deeper in the woods. The traffic of tourism brings money to local shops and restaurants, as well as offering employment to for guides and those working in administration of the project. We learned that many of the guides, and those who clean the cabins, start their work as their year of social service (every community member owes a year of free labor to the community every so often). But after the year is up, they can start to earn a wage if there are no other to rotate in and take over. During high-tourism season it is the same--many more guides are needed (it's a requirement for any long hike)--and so they pay the extra guides. The money from the tours and lodging goes all back to the assembly, which uses it for public works around town, like the piping of water into homes, or the maintenance of roads. But what tourism also does is acts as an incentive for the community to keep their village clean, clear of garbage, and safe. And of course, the consequence of that is that the community lives better--and perhaps even with more pride in their hometown.

To kill time while our room is prepared we decide to venture into town to one of the few comedores (small, family-owned restaurants). We climb to the second floor of a green building. There's no menu here--only a few tables, a small kitchen manned by two stout women. We're offered three choices--we both choose the breaded chicken. The meal begins first, of course, with garbanzo bean soup. The chicken arrives, breaded and so tender. It's friends, black beans and white rice crowded onto the plate, too. Vicki and I both coo over the flavor of the rice. We pop open two sodas; someone arrives with a plate of warmed tortillas and we dig in. We're hungry after the long trek. As you can see from the picture at right, we totally defeated that lunch. Take that! Not a morsel left to spare.

Evencio shows up as we're still sprawled in our plastic chairs, drumming our large bellies with sticky fingers. He's found two others to help put us through the Tirolesa. We signed up for the tirolesa back in Oaxaca days ago. It's a high ropes course. We were anxious earlier to get it out of the way today, so as to get an early start in the morning tomorrow. But now that we're stuffed to the gills, we have a hard time believing they'll have a harness strong enough to hold us. Or more likely, we're both slightly afraid we might puke. But there's a van waiting below--and three guys ready to go. So what can we do? We go!

The high ropes course is just up back from the cabins. There's a series of high-wire obstacles before you arrive to the final platform. There you hook on and descend the 75 yards, over a field, to a dude waiting on the other side atop a platform that is wrapped in Styrofoam. Not comforting at all. We get there and are pleased to see a few other people are going to try this as well; it seemed a bit uncomfortable to us both that these three guys would just watch us two girls fumble and squeal along this course.

They help us into our gear, and then start preparing their ropes and pulleys and such. Vicki and I scramble to sneak pictures of each other in these sexy harnesses. I'm pretty sure this will be a big fashion statement by the time Vicki gets home to Portland. I have to say, I was excited leading up to this. I like high ropes courses--or at least I have the other couple of times I've done it. Vicki, on the other hand, had never given it a whirl. When we trek up hill to the first obstacle, our "helper" explains how we hook both of our safety lines onto the overhanging cable before beginning. Then he just signals me to climb the ladder and get going. He doesn't go up with me. He doesn't have a lengthy safety exercise. "Just go! Adelante!" At first, I can't even see how to get from the top rung of the ladder onto the first platform. It's too far. Man, this is not going well already. I sort hoist my stomach up onto the thing and then drag the rest of my body up behind me. Oh, dude. This is high. And scary. I sort of mumble as much to Vicki as she snaps photos from below. I'm laughing in the picture at left, not because I'm lumbering around like an awkward bear (though I am), but because this is the physical manifestation of pure, unadulterated fear. Look at that platform! It's like two boards hammered together! Now I don't want to belittle this high ropes course. In retrospect, I think it was perfectly safe. I just wasn't prepared for how scared I would be. Once I managed to get on my feet, and latch my safety lines securely, I made my way across a moving, narrow beam. Did you get that? It MOVED--I mean really moved! And as it swerved and wobbled, I squealed and laughed. Next up was a series of small wooden steps, kind of like monkey bars for the feet. Frankly, they were too far apart for two gals that tower at 5'2" and 5'3" apiece. I waited on the final platform as Vicki climbed up the ladder for her turn. She was much more studied in her approach, learning from my wobbledy go at it. Yet, still she laughed and yelped a bit--both of us truly shocked by how frightening this turned out to be. Our helper awaited us on the final platform before the big plunge on the zip line. I ask if he's ever done this before and what he thinks. He hasn't. "No time," he says. I can't believe it. He's scared too! Vicki gets a couple good shots before each of her ventures above ground. She snaps one of me before I take off across the field. That's reluctance in those eyes.

As I'm headed down, my speed picks up quite a bit. I pass a narrow opening between two tall pines (yikes! will I fit with all this breaded chicken inside me?!). I'm coming up to the place where they put on the break. I try to prepare myself for a jolt. But honestly, and this is more frightening, there is no jolt. I don't really slow that much. I'm coming pretty darn fast straight into the final platform, where a guy awaits...and a large tree trunk. Miraculously I do not die. The guy kind of hugs me into zero mph. I scurry down the ladder, so I can be ready with my camera to await Vicki's descent. I'm sorry to say that I decided last minute to take a video instead of a photo. So I don't have anything to post here. Once I get the vid up on YouTube I can post it. But really, it's not the best view. What it is good for, is a good recording of Vicki screaming all the way down. She looks a bit shaken, eh? We DID it! And we didn't vomit!

We watch a few others come down the zip line; it's really a harrowing site--it doesn't seem like they'll stop. But these guys are pros. They've done this so many times. Evencio tells me he's even tried out the course. Before they were about to receive their first visitors (about 70 in a tour group) Evencio gave it a whirl to make sure it functioned. That's truly brave.

We schluff off our harnesses, get our bags from the van, and head up hill to the cabins. We're ready to take a load off. Number 3 is ready and waiting for us. And it's so cute! We can't believe how inexpensive this clean little room is, complete with hot water, private bath, towels, fire place and two fully blanketed bunk beds. We finally drop our backpacks down, and quickly decide to change into our nighttime gear--even though it's nowhere near night time. We just need fresh socks and comfy pants, is all.

Now that the adrenalin from tirolesa has worn off, we're both realizing it's quite cold. I mean, REALLY cold. I can't see my breath. But for a place without heat, or even sealed windows, we're feeling a bit on the frigid side. We both huddle under the blankets and put our hoodies to good use. And what's left to do, but start a fierce game of Phase 10--an easy-to-pack card game. Now, I'll give it to Vicki that she's never played this game before. I'll also admit that I was somehow touched by the luck-of-the-mountains this night. Because frankly, I dominated all ten phases. And I never knew how competitive Vicki is at games until I saw her lose Phase 10. By the way, V, final scores: Bicki-360, Megan-145 (low score wins) Hurts so bad, baby! (Please don't think me rude. That girl is a serious trash talker during cards.)

In order to shake off the cold, and Vicki's big loss, we don our "city pants" again and head out for a stroll. We need to find out a bit of information on how we begin tomorrow's hike; we also need chocolate. We find the eco-tour gang all huddled together in the office watching TV, trying to stay warm, as well. We pick up a bit of information, the key to our room (it was just open before) and head in search of snacks across the street. We stroll about town, to take it all in--which takes only 15 minutes. Small, modest homes, many with aluminum roofs, lines each street. At town center is a 2-story municipal building painted aqua, with its basketball court out front. We're dazzled by the plethora of flowers standing in plastic jugs in each open garden. I'm so impressed with the little wooden street signs around each corner (I mean, there aren't even that many streets. But I've never seen a small pueblo laid out so well before). They even have tied to almost every corner a small bucket with "basura" written on the side (garbage). Apparently, they have another group of fellows who fulfill their year-long community service by keeping vigil that no one litters. (Unheard of in Oaxaca City). Someone tells us that a few years back the guy who heads up the garbage watch suggested that they raise the ticket for littering from 50 pesos to 500--it being the only way to truly deter the "crime." And it worked! Another women's organization is in charge of emptying the trash bins. For the work they do, they receive federal aide to assist them in sending their kids to school. Kind of a win-win for the community--clean streets and educated kids!

We eventually return to the cabin to gorge on kinder chocolate, vanilla cookies and Doritos incognito (that's the name of the flavor). And yet again ensues a fierce game of cards--this time it's Spit. Okay. I won't gloat. I will just say I won. But at what cost, you may ask? Well, I had to go to bed that night fearing a bit for my life.

Here is Vicki with her game face on.

Here is Vicki with her I'm-going-to-kill-you-in-your-sleep face on.

Luckily, I made it through the night. And I think I can attest for us both and say we slept like logs. We slept like logs, that is, until about 7:30 AM, when some crazy public annoucement was being piped through a speaker system at full volume throughout the town, complete with accompanying music. I don't know about you--but 7:30 AM is not Mambo time for me. We use the early alarm to hip hop on cold tiles into the bathroom to pee. V let's out a loud yelp as but meets cold toilet seat. We huddle back under covers and laugh and grouse about this rude awakening. Luckily after a steady 30 minutes, though, the music finally ceases; the man stops yelling unintelligibly about something happening Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. So what do we do? We go back to sleep for another two hours. So much for an early start!

We we finally do wipe sleep from our eyes, brush our teeth and pack up--we head down to the information office--skipping breakfast, choosing Cliff bars over a sit-down meal; we want to get on the move. Our hike today will take us from Cuajimoloyas, to its neighboring community of Llano Grande. We're aiming to make it to Llano Grande in time to catch the 1 PM bus back into Oaxaca City. We refill our water bottles, scarf down a protein bar, and head out with our new guide, Michael.

I'm very fond of the second day's hike. There's no towering view, or harrowing climbs. The path merely twist and winds through meadows, pine forests and wild flowers. We criss cross over the main highway a few times. We pass by a cute little fish shack, where fresh trout is served daily. They catch the fish further downhill and then transport them to a large fresh water tank in front of the restaurant. Your meal will be killed moments after you order it.

Michael shows us the some of the felled trees in the area that have been infected by the beetle plague; Vicki speculates if this is the same plague affecting Colorado and much of the West in the States. Here they are very strict in controlling the problem--truly valuing the hills and forests that paper their region. Each community has members that are responsible to troll the woods looking for infected trees. Any tree with signs of plague is cut down, stripped of its bark (which if it contain beetles in worm form is left to dry out (the beetles dying from lack of energy sustenance from the tree) and then sent on to mills in the area for building material. The ones that have beetles that have the ability to fly, are chopped up instantly, and the bark is burned. It must work because the hillside, instead of being filled with brown, dead trees, is an array of green, with only small patches of brown.

As we trek up and down hill I notice that this altitude makes it tough to breath easily. Or I'm extremely out-of-shape. A couple of times Michael stops, hearing my loud inhale and exhale, knowing I need a break. He tells us a few local yarns about treasure in a haunted cave--and a kid who shot a wild puma. But mostly, we hike in quiet--enjoying the almost tobacco-smell of the earth beneath our feet, and the sun peeping through pine glades.

We pull out finally into Llano Grande. Even though the town name means Large Plain--this place is tiny in comparison to Cuajimoloyas. Their sign says inhabitants: 50. Wow. So when Michael asks if we want to see a little bit more of town center--we say yes! We walk about 50 meters down the road closer to the smattering of house we saw from a distance, and there we are, town center! We hike it back up to a roadside store to pop a squat on a bench and wait for the bus. It's 1 PM on the dot, so the wait shouldn't be long. However, on purchasing a couple bags of chips we find that the bus has already passed--a bit earlier than usual. Shit! The next bus isn't for another 4 hours. No! So there's nothing left to do but wait. We may luck out, says Michael, and a collective taxi will pass before then. So Michael stretches out in the sun to nap, while Vicki and I rip into some carrots and plums. Nothing like a juicy plum after a hike!

Eventually a collectivo does pass--but it only has room for one. We tell Michael to go, no need for him to babysit us. Vicki and I break out some cards and oscillate between playing and snacking, careful to watch the road for any oncoming taxis. Everything seems to be moving in the opposite direction. Everything going towards Oaxaca is either full or a lumber truck. We wait. The sun dips behind the trees and I hustle into my sweatshirt. We wait. The sun stretches out and shines; so I take my sweatshirt off. We wait. We watch the local kids get out of school and amble home. We watch a line of three lumber trucks come to a halt in front of us, each driver hopping out to grab a quick soda or snack at the shop. The kids of the owners scurry back-and-forth over the rocky yard in front of us on their bikes. A young girl, about 10, can't stop starring at Vicki. We wait.

We're almost certain we're going to have to wait all the way until 5 because nothing else is coming. But just then, an empty collectivo ambles by and pulls over. I ask what he charges to take us into Oaxaca City center. He doesn't know. He's never taken anyone all the way from Llano Grande to Oaxaca before. So he charges us the same as the bus, 25 pesos a piece. We're lucky and make the whole route through the mountains without picking up another passenger. So we can stretch out in back, starring out the window at the passing vista. I didn't realize how far up we were on our ascent-as the bus windows didn't allow for much perspective. On the way down, though, the altitude is clear--as my ears are popping, and the wind outside my passenger window turns from crisp and cool to warm and sticky.

As we pull into Tlacolula, three people hop in; we're a full car. As we glide closer into the city the sky opens and the rain spills over. Eventually it's raining too hard to even have the window open a crack to let the steam out, and the cool air in. We hop out at the baseball stadium. Luckily we came equipped with raincoats--which we desperately need since we're caught in a downpour with very little coverage under storefronts and trees nearby. We hike it across the busy intersection and quickly find a metro bus that will take us close to my house. Luck's on our side--because as we hop out the back of the bus in front of the hospital near my apartment, the rain lets up, and we can walk, hood-free the rest of the way.

We take time to shower, chill, shake off the creaky legs and joints from being smooshed in a car. But hunger overtakes us. And we're determined to give Vicki one last great meal before she leaves town in the morning. We head into town to La Olla, one of my favorites. It serves traditional Oaxaca fare with style in a cozy little restaurant. It's not very full when we arrive. And clearly this restaurant/gallery space/bed and breakfast is a mecca for foreigners--because almost every full table is occupied by tourists. Our stomachs order for us, instead of our brains or pocket books. It's like grocery shopping when you're hungry, says Vicki. Dangerous. We start with some guacamole and homemade totopos. We share a caramelized pear salad with leafy greens and balsamic vinegar. Yum! But we're just getting started here. Then the main dish comes. I order a Tlayuda (a large, thick corn tortilla) smothered in red mole sauce and topped with sautéed chicken, tomatoes, onions, avocado and melted quesillo. Double yum! Vicki goes for the meat. She's got a need for iron. She gets the most tender and savory steak, accompanied with blacks beans, plantains and sautéed nopal cactus and onions. Triple yum! We finish off, even though there is no room--but we must--with dessert. Vicki opts for a thick chocolate cake topped with almonds, while I order the flan.

Ugh. Heavy, heavy stomachs lead the way out the door, at last. We stroll up Reforma street and then over to get a look at Santo Domingo at night all lit up. It's Monday. The streets are so quiet it's almost eerie. I love Oaxaca like this--so peaceful!

Vicki defeated by her entrée. She just can't finish.

V packs. I clean up a bit. She gets to work on her guest blog (make sure to check it out!). The night winds down. I head to bed first--my brain just plain giving out. We rise in the morning, and huddle in my bed, lingering to chat before we begin the final morning--both, I think, reluctant to see the vacation end. I see Vicki off in a cab to the airport. I feel a bit reluctant to let her go in our final hug. It's been ages since we had so much time in one sitting together. And I wonder if it will be the last--now that she'll be getting married in the Fall. What a present--what a great, big, wonderful gift to get her all to myself for this last week.

Well, back to work; back to the grind!

The visit, a breakdown

2008-05-27T13:26:00.014-04:00

Vicki has just departed in a taxi, high-tailin' it to the airport for the first of a few flights she must ride to make her way over the clouds and mountains to her home city of Portland. Here's sending her warm wishes for a safe and speedy journey. Bye, Vicki!

We had such a fantastic visit that I thought I'd lay out some of the many highlight moments from our adventures (which incidentally, allowed me to take a few days off from editing tape and project planning work, woohoo! And the writing of this blog is also serving the same purpose, ha!)

Vicki arrived in the early evening. Azucena and I zoomed to the airport to pick her up. We took a quick zip up the Cerro de Fortín to show Vicki a grand vista of the city--where she insisted on snapping a self-portrait, rather than let us take one of her. Her half-a-head is so cute!

She had a long day of travel behind her. So the remainder of the evening was devoted to getting her settled in and the gab gab gabbing of good friends who haven't seen each other in far too long. The next day was a leisurely one--with a stroll around town to orient the new tourist. We saw the usual, Santo Domingo, the Alcalá, Camino Real, the Zócalo filled with teachers on strike. Ok, so the last one isn't as common. Vicki had the distinct pleasure to see a bit of Oaxaca during a union strike. Awesome. Fortunately, the strike had just begun--so Vicki observed that it seemed like more of a party in the town plaza (vendors setting up food stands and artisans out with their crafts) than a demand for higher wages. I even bought a really nice wooden salad bowl on the cheap. Thanks criminally underpaid teachers!

The following day found the valiant Vicki heading off on her own into town. She was kind enough to allow me a bit of the morning to get some radio work done while she strolled and tested out a few museums. Though, we trekked into a nearby market for freshly spun smoothies before she set out. The girl needs to get fortified to brave the Spanish-speaking streets on her own! (Note to readers: Vicki is an experienced adventurer and traveler--but speaks not a lick of Spanish. So she was armed with a guide book, a smile and years of French. She survived!) Here's a quick pic from her solo trek of the Botanical Gardens from the vantage of Santo Domingo's museum.

When the sun passed the mid-point int he sky, we met up in town for a leisurely bite at Biznaga, where Vicki proclaimed, "This is the best tortilla I've ever eaten." Mission accomplished. We also journeyed to make reservations in town for a later trip up into the mountains, and a visit to an archaeological site.

Afternoons here are made for chilling, hanging about in a hammock and reading through the two gossip mags that were brought to you from the States. So that's precisely what we did. And even though Vicki and I continually talked about how we needed to go to bed at a reasonable hour to maximize the morning--we could never quite convince ourselves to stymie the conversation to do just that.

Thus, a somewhat weary Vic woke up the next morning to make her way to Monte Albán. No alarm is necessary, as Vicki noted, because the trucks the troll the streets, delivering gas, potable water and Popsicles start VERY early to make their rounds, and honk their horns. On her return from the mountain top of Zapotec pyramids and green hills, we made our way over to Colonia Reforma to Itanoní for a taste of local fare, thoughtfully made and fresh as anything going.

You've already seen the revelry of Vicki on her first taste on my earlier post. I'll add here that I got to try the other signature drink they have at Itanoní, the lemonade with parsley. At first go, it's a bit like drinking a salad. But with the compliment of a squash blossom quesadilla--it was divine! Afterwards, we strolled further north up to the Fuente de Siete Regiones, and then down Calzada Porfirio Diáz for a quick paleta at Popeye. Vicki got a sweet and fruity pinneapple paleta, while I chose my favorite, cajeta. A long winding walk home found us both a little overheated (the temps turned hot!) and a tired. So another night of enjoying the porch, my new porch hammock and stories ensued.

The next morning we rose late (at last!) and headed up to my neighborhood market for some fare. Here you can get a look at what I do generally every day in order to feed myself. This is my favorite friendly fruit and veggie vendor at the market. I'm asking how much for a medio kilo of plums...70 cents! Woah. Sold. Then we retired to my dining room nook to enjoy a bit of fresh baked goods and fruit.

By the time we both showered and cleaned up, the morning was already on its way out. I did a bit of work (a bit!). Vicki got in a bit of reading. Before we knew it, it was time to depart for the Corderos. We'd been invited for lunch. First, we headed over to Mercado de Hidalgo to pick up some flowers (Vicki's idea to present to our hosts). And we strolled past a bakery to purchase a tiny tres leches/cajeta cake. In usual Cordero-style, the whole family was around in good spirits. Rafael got to practice a bit of his French, something he hasn't studied in years--but always professes to be great at. We'll have to check in with Vicki to see what the verdict is. It was a real mesh of languages, though, because both Azucena and Rafael (the parents of the Cordero clan, and my former host family when I studied here in college--for those of you who are new readers) have been studying English for the last few months. So they stumbled through some greetings with Vicki, their new English test subject. Azucena pulled out all the stops--laying out a spread of very typical Oaxacan fare for Vicki to try: memelas with asciento, guacamole and chapulines (grasshoppers!), arrachera enchilado, mantequilla de puerco and her favorite, chorizo (Don't tell Mike, her boyfriend. He's been sworn to keep her from eating it). Here's a shot of Vicki bravely chomping into some chapulines. They have a saying here in Oaxaca, "Once you try chapulines, you can't help but return." Hooray, return visit! Vicki also got a sip of Rafael's famous Cuba Libres--he's really a master of mixing the drink; he also buys some top notch rum. Here's a quote from my friend, "I think this may be the best rum and coke I've ever had, ever."

This may be blurry--but that's a bowl of ground up
grasshoppers, and that's Vicki eating them on a tortilla.

Alejandro, Vicki and I then hopped into the family truck and headed to the Pochote. There was a free showing of the Darjeeling Limited at the art cinema. When it got out, we found ourselves with a bit of energy and thirst--so we headed up to Hotel Victoria (that's right, Vicki has her own hotel here--so why is she sleeping on my couch?) for a cocktail and a great view. The breeze accompanied us home, where we packed up. Next stop, the mountains of Sierra Juárez north of the city. The trip north is so great it gets its own post. To be continued...