Final days in Oaxaca

Today I opened my email to a reminder that I have been neglecting to share my latest adventures on the blog. I suppose because now that I have been in Oaxaca for a month it feels less like an adventure and more like regular life. Many days I go to class in the morning, do homework in the afternoon, go to my dance class in the evening and watch some kind of Spanish television, a routine that is not particularly fascinating to read about. However, when I think about it, quite a lot of amazing things have ahppened to me in Oaxaca, including the emergence of two friendships with people who are doing work that has inspired me very much.

My first new friend is Adrian, someone that I met in June at the learning center, but who I did not get to know well until the last couple of weeks. Adrian is the kind of person who always has his hands in several cookie jars, that is to say he is constantly finding or creating new projects, from teaching Spanish to accounting to organic chicken farming, to the newest project which involves the promotion and exportation of pottery made by families of artisans in Oaxaca. Adrian is inspiring in his approach to a new project, because he cares less about the result of the project, (i.e. the possibility of failure), and more about the process of learning and discovery that goes along with it. For example, he has now read every book he could find about pottery in Oaxaca and can differentiate quality of clay, the temperature at which the pottery was fired and how strong the resulting product will be, as well as identify where the pottery comes from according to the style. I have gone with him to several markets all around the valley of Oaxaca looking for the finest products and the people who make them. As a result I have been learning something about potttery, as well as the region surrounding the city. And we have talked a lot about the value of promoting traditional artesanias and supporting the artisans in their work carrying on the traditions that have been passed through families. There is some possibility for future involvement with this project if it doesn't all fall apart, which he is the first to admit happens sometimes. But there's always the possibility of another project, and the possibility of success. What admirable optimism and dedication.

My other new friend I met as my salsa dance partner. We were supposed to perform in an exhibition here in Oaxaca that unfortunately begins Nov. 3. Walter is also from the States, although he lives here now, and we are both going home on the 2 for the election. Walter has an interesting history and an interesting project going on as well. He began coming here 10 years ago while in college and fell in love with the place. He has been coming every year since then, and while he was a graduate student of education at Howard University, he started bringing groups of students here. He started an organization called True Intercambios, and he is working on organizing educational trips for all sorts of groups to come to Oaxaca. Some of his ideas inlvolve learning dance, others would be workshops about diversity, etc. He also has extended the offer to me that if I want to organize some trips down here that we can work together. So now my wheels are turning, and being who I am, I am thinking of trips for dancers and teachers. I have been filling my journal with brainstorms, and hoping that I won't lose motivation due to fear of failure. I guess I am hoping some of Adrian's attitude will rub off on me. I can learn as much as possible along the way and maybe something will work out.

My Spanish teacher gave me a dicho mexicano the other day which is,

No hay peor lucha que la que no se hace...
which basically means there's no worse struggle/fight than the one that was never even attempted.

My thoughts for now. Love to all, y buena suerte!

Daily life in Oaxaca

Hola Amig@s,

I am writing from the little internet cafe across the street from my apartment in the trees of Oaxaca. I am living in a little studio on the second floor that looks out onto some very large avocado and other unidentified fruit trees, and feels a bit like a treehouse. As my friend Jorge pointed out, I could, if I were so inclined, climb out of my window onto a tree branch and in through the window of my neighbor across the courtyard. Although everyone around is very friendly, I am pretty sure that that kind of entry would not be very well received. I have settled into a routine here, which is in someways less exciting than the adventuring that I have been doing in the last couple of months, but also less exhausting. I didn`t completely finish my story of Nicaragua because I didn`t know how to write about it, but the short version is that while I was staying with Alejandra, Eloi, Walter and Santiago 2 members of their family passed away. This was of course a very intense time to be with them, and although it felt a bit akward to be a visitor during their most intimate moments of grief, it also brought me closer to them.

So far here I have been taking classes in the morning, wandering and trying different cafes in the afternoon, and taking dance classes in the evenings. I am a little disappointed because I was invited to be in a salsa exhibition, but the dates are November 3-8, meaning it begins the day after I am scheduled to leave. It would have been really fun to rehearse and learn a routine, etc. but I have very important civic duties I must attend to on the 4th. Speaking of which, last night I got my first glimpse of Sarah Palin, who was not as clueless as she apparently had been in other interviews. In fact she scared me a bit because I can see how she would have great appeal to some people. Last night was the first time that I have seen anything related to the election. i am hoping to catch one of the debates between Obama and McCain.

In Oaxaca once Again

Hello friends, I am writing from Oaxaca, where I began my trip. After the last few months of moving quite often I decided that I wanted to be in one place for awhile. I have arranged to stay here in an apartment and take Spanish classes for the next few weeks. It is my second day here, and although everything is familiar and easy to find, I am not completely sure that I have made the right choice. I think the biggest problem is that the apartment is far from the city center, which makes getting around a bit of a chore. I am hoping that once I start classes and get into a routine that I will settle in and enjoy having a home base. I am also going to go tomorrow to the learning center, the place we stayed in the beginning, and perhaps do some volunteering there working with some students on their English. I am open to the possibility of finding some friends that will be around for longer than a few days. I'll let you all know how it goes.

El Pais Bajo Mi Piel

Tonight I am writing from San Cristobal de Las Casas in southern Mexico. I have returned here for a few days of R&R after three days of arduous bus travel from Managua. I am still trying to gather my thoughts about all that has happened in the last few weeks in Nicaragua. My experience in Nicaragua was different from any experience that I have had so far, partly because I got far off the beaten track, stayed with people in their homes for long periods of time, and for extenuating circumstances that will come to light as you read on. Nicaragua was raw, beautiful but tough, with joy and sadness walking hand and hand through each day. It was the first country where I have gotten an intimate look at the face of poverty. Sat on the stump outside the door of a house with no lights, no water, practically no food, and spoke to the people who lived there. I watched a million telenovelas, and learned all of the themesongs along with my friends Maribi and Rebecca, and giggled with them at night under the mosquito net. I bought uniforms and shoes, bags of beans and rice and cooking oil and felt conflicted every day about my own resources in comparison to the people around me and frustration at not being able to do more to help people who were struggling to survive. Above all I was amazed by the generosity that I was shown by the families that I stayed with, who all made sure that I was well-fed and as comfortable as possible in their homes.

In Jalapa I divided my time between two households, the Cardenas-Ramirez family that I wrote about in my last email, and Heydi and her two daughters Maribi and Rebecca, who lived in el campo, a little way outside of the city. In each house I felt that a strong bonding happened. With Heydi, who is my age, we shared our intimate lives, and although our lives have been vastly different due to the circumstances of where we were born and how we were raised, we found common ground anyway. She has experienced many things that I can hardly imagine. She lost her last baby when he was five hours old and showed me his little grave in the garden outside of her house. She is a strong woman, and I loved watching her as we road the crowded bus into town, she would stand in the doorway, the top half of her body outside of the bus (yes it was THAT full), utterly fearless. She liked to tell funny stories at night while we were lying in bed. She and I slept in one bed, the girls in another, all in the same room. One time when Maribi was coming home from here grandparents house she said, 'adios abuela, seeyoutoomorrow', and later the grandma asked Heydi why Maribi thought she had a tumor. In one week I felt like I had integrated into the routine of the house. Heydi and I would wake up, ride the bus to town, visit homes in the neighborhoods where PIEAT was doing work, come home, siesta, visit the neighborhood, cook dinner, watch novelas. At night three young guys from close by would come over to watch tv, because Heydi was one of the only people around who had one. The house always had a communal and welcoming atmosphere. When it was time for me to leave I gave the girls some bracelets that I had bought in Guatemala. Maribi gave me a princess dress from her paperdoll book, it almost broke my heart to accept that gift, but I couldn't think of anyway to convince her to keep it. It was given from a purely generous and loving heart, a little girl who hardly had any toys wanted me to take one of the nicest things that she had as a way to remember her.

Meg and Lyndsay

Surprise birthday cake...

Going out dancing; Santiago wishing on a star

Heydi, Ernesto, Maribi and Rebecca

25th in Jalapa!

Thanks to everyone for their wonderful birthday wishes. It made me smile to feel everyone´s love today! I am in Jalapa, Nicaragua, a small town very close to the border of Nicaragua. Jalapa is a sister city of Boulder, and I ended up here because I have had the opportunity to meet a few women from the community who have come to Boulder as part of a project with Naropa University. I am staying with a family, Eloy the father is a lawyer/agronomist, his wife Alejandra is a teacher/psychologist, their children are Vladimir, Walter and Santiago. The older two children study in Cuba, and Santiago the youngest is 14 and a dear. He has taken it on as his job to back sure that I am very comfortable. He waits in the morning for my to get up and then gets a breakfast ready for me. What a gentleman. I have been visiting some of the neighborhoods and schools where PIEAT, a collective of women dedicated to education and the health and well-being of families, work. I have also been helping them with some translation. Even though I am hard on myself because my grammar still is not perfect, it has been a help to them. They have been trying to coordinate construction plans over long distance with people who don´t speak Spanish very well. Yesterday I went to their meeting and they surprised me with a birthday cake. I was moved almost to tears, because these women hardly know me but have taken me in and demonstrated the most amazing generosity. This family has also inspired me, because the parents have been through a lot in their lives, including involvement during the revolution, and they have taken every opportunity they have been able to find to educate themselves and others. It makes me realize that instead of feeling paralyzed by not knowing exactly what I want to do, I should just follow the thread, and take the opportunities that are right around me. 

Today I woke up, and Alejandra made pancakes that we ate with guava jelly. I was able to get through and talk to my mom for a bit. Then Santiago and Walter and I went to the swimming pool. There is a beautiful and huge swimming pool here that was empty, probably because it costs 30 cordobas (1.50) to get in. So it is a simple day, but a beautiful one and I am enjoying it thoroughly. I have had my moments of wishing I were at home with loved ones, but this is a good place to be far from home. I have been well taken care of.

More when I can. Internet is a bit difficult where I am.

A Revolutionary City...

Leon, Nicaragua is the city where the Nicaraguan Revolution of the late 1970s was born. It is a city of poets and political activists, birthplace of the legendary Ruben Diario, and of another poet (whose name escapes me at the moment), who dressed up as a waiter and assasinated the first dictator Samoza as he dined in a garden restaurant. Visitors to Leon can still sit and drink in that restaurant, now a nightclub open until dawn. Leon is an artistic and intellectual center, full of murals that act as history books and political statements. For example, next to the wall documenting the revolution is a painting of Sandino standing on the head of uncle sam who has the body of a dog. Interesting place to be a US citizen. Not once have I felt any animosity towards myself as an individual, but people will freely express their dislike for the US involvement in Nicaragua, then and now.

Today I took a tour from my hotel, which was quite unorthodox. Titled 'History and Revolution', it is lead by a Dutch guy who came to live in Nicaragua via the most dangerous and violent slums of Guatemala City. He lived for a year and a half working with street children there, and says thanks to that experience and the fact that he listened to the sounds of street war every night for all of those months, he can now distinguish what kind of a gun a gunshot comes from. He can also tell stories of finding limbs of dismembered people lying on his doorstep, among other horrors. In short, he is a person who has seen a lot of pain, violence and suffering firsthand and cares a lot about people knowing the truth about how history has unfolded here, and the state in which people live as a result.

We began at a church in Soraiva, once an indigenous village, now a part of the city of Leon. This church is one of the oldest buildings in Latin America, built by the Spanish, who installed a huge glowing sun, the centerpiece of indigenous worship, above the alter to woo the indigenous people into the church. We then visited a sacred tamarind tree in the middle of that section of the city where the great chief was hanged by the Spanish. Apparently a deal was struck initially where the land under the city of Leon was rented from the Indians. This was followed for 4 years, until the Spansh violated the agreement and hanged the chief. Today that contract is still used for political leverage, although soraiva is technically a part of the city members of the tribe do not pay city taxes and there is a commossion of 18 chiefs that take decisions on behalf of the community. These chiefs also command quite a bit of land and members of the community can request plots of land, which remain in their family for as long as family members actively work the land. If the land is left fallow, the chiefs can reclaim it, or redistribute it.

From this section of the city we traveled to the hills outside where El Fortin, the former fortress and then prison/torture center of the Somoza regime is located, right beside the cities dump. We looked at the dump first. People could be seen climbing, digging and sorting through the mountains of garbage. These people literally live in the dump, finding pieces of scrap metal that can be sold, and scraps of still edible food. It is a tragic site. Moving onto the fort things didn't get much better. He showed us the rooms where hundreds of people were imprisoned together in very small cells, without food. He described the most common torture methods used at this site. He himself has met three of the survivors liberated during the revolution, who shared some of their stories with him.

The revolution began on July, 5 with the storming of the prison in Leon. The prisoners there were released, and then the Guerillas moved up into the hills to free the prisoners at El Fortin. The uprising lasted 14 days. Of course much was to come after, including the US involvement. Our guide felt strongly that in many ways the US is responsible for the fact that Nicaragua has fallen from being the richest Central American country to the poorest. Needless to say, he is no friend of Ronald Reagan. He described the Iran-Contra affair, how the US was supporting Iraq against Iran and also supplying Iran with the weapons they used to fight Iraq. He also said that money for the war was earned by recieving payments from druglords to turn a blind eye to the importation of cocaine into the United States. The war waged on Nicaragua was an illegal war, against a democratically elected government, that has contributed greatly to the present state of the country. This is of course a very different history from what we learn at home. He says commonly people from the United States take issue with the version of history presented on the tour. According to him, history is very rarely pretty, polite or flattering.

One interesting piece of information about the revolutionaries, is that many women were involved and fought on the front lines. Even now in Nicaragua, women hold jobs most commonly held by men. Today the head of police in the country is a woman, as well as the second in command of the army. Interesting since the 'machista' attitude is also still alive and thriving.