Why Mexico? Why Oaxaca?

Note: the easiest way to read this whole blog is to go and click this May 2005 link. It will take a bit to load, then you can easily just scroll down through the whole thing. If you have a spare 10 hours or so.

A quick note: if I sound like a cranky, clueless gringo, well, these posts were mostly written at the end of long days of hard study and being lost and confused. Like so many travel adventures, the fondness and good memories come AFTER the fact...In reality, I loved Oaxaca and highly recommend it as a destination. It is a magic place.



In April 2004, I started thinking -- obsessing, really -- about studying Spanish in Mexico.

Living in California and being monolingual sort of stinks. I knew I could have a lot more fun if I spoke Spanish.

After a miserable 3 years of junior high school French classes with Mr. Pampalon, I had started to study Spanish about 20 years ago at Cal Poly with my one required quarter (9 whole weeks!) of a foreign language.

After that, I took a class every few years, but my progress was slow and I kept learning the same things over and over.

My need to learn Spanish became more urgent when I went to work writing for a newspaper. I would go out on story assignments and run into people who only spoke Spanish. It drove me crazy to not be able to converse with them.

After much thought and discussion with people who had been to Mexico, I decided to go to Oaxaca.

I'm not a big traveler. Having been a low-paid wage slave with 10 days off a year, I have never had the time or money to go very far or for very long. But thanks to my beneficient sweetie, I was finally able to plan a 3-week trip out of the country.

Oaxaca is both a city and a state in southern Mexico - the capital of the state named Oaxaca is Oaxaca. Kinda like New York, New York.

The city has good weather in the summer, when most parts of Mexico are very hot. It is at about 4500 feet in elevation, in a valley between two mountain ranges.

The other thing that attracted me to Oaxaca is that it had an airport. I was too chicken to go to the Mexico City airport alone and then have to find bus transportation across Mexico by myself, relying on my bad Spanish.

I found a small language school Espanol Interactivo, that could make housing arrangements for me to stay with a Oaxacan family. I wanted the full immersion experience.

Here is how I did the research to find the school: I looked at a great website called 123 Teach Me . They have ratings for Spanish and French schools all over the world. Espanol Interactivo wasn't the highest-rated or the cheapest, but it had a website that looked very sweet, so I went with them. See how scientific and rational I can be?

I sent an email to Sra. Luz at Espanol Interactivo and the deed was done - I was signed up for three weeks of Spanish classes, six hours a day.

This is what happened on my first trip out of the country at age 43.

July 18, Sunday - On the Plane

6:35 am
Los Angeles International Airport

The adventure, and the confusion, begins.

It is beginning to dawn on me that I am truly leaving English behind and stepping into a different world, a world of Spanish-speakers. I know that seems obvious, but I can be kind of dense.

I will have to communicate all my needs in this other language for the next three weeks. It's a good thing I pretty much keep my needs to myself.

It began gradually. The signs at the airport were partly in English at first, then as I got deeper into the Aeromexico terminal, more and more of them were in all Spanish.

Now I am filling out forms all in Spanish. I'm a little nervous, a little confused. My tourist form is a hopeless mess of cross-outs, but the customs declaration looks as if an actual adult filled it out.

Panic in the dark
My day began in panic. I can't rely on myself to set an alarm correctly - I am totally incapable of doing it. So I asked for a wakeup call at 4:15 a.m. The competent-looking clerk typed the information into a computer, looking as if they were actually doing something. But apparently not. There was no wake-up call.

Thankfully I am a bad sleeper and a nervous traveler, so, tossing and turning, I woke up and looked at my watch at 4 a.m., fell back asleep and awoke again at 4:35 a.m.

I leapt out of bed with my heart pounding and threw on my traveling clothes - everything that is too bulky or heavy to go into suitcases. I said goodbye to Greg, who was barely awake, and dashed out to the shuttle. My flight was at 6:30 a.m. They say to be there 2 hours early for international flights and I got there about 1 hour and 45 minutes in advance. I was vibrating with nerves and excitement.

I am such a freak about being early. I give myself a heart attack if I am not. It's the way I was raised. I can't help it.


Oaxaca street scene

Too much luggage

I am only writing about this because it is so different than every airport scene I have ever encountered, with shuffling masses proceeding calmly as cows to pasture.

The Aeromexico terminal is a zoo. Lots of noise, people calling out to one another, people being joyful and sad, hanging onto each other, smiling, crying.

It appears that people flying to Mexico from Los Angeles have a lot of luggage. A lot. I saw bags that were larger than a car trunk.

Did I say A LOT? Most people were taking huge boxes of electronics with them - DVD players, boom boxes, TVs.

There were large cardboard boxes wrapped in tape, labeled "fragile" that the baggage screeners, of course, let crash to the floor. Huge suitcases the likes of which I have never seen before, more like the size of old-fashioned trunks (but larger) than modern valises.

Me, I have my big purse and a large gym bag. I am just hoping against hope that the zipper of the cheap gym bag holds together without bursting. I jammed a lot of stuff in there, books especially, and it was looking pretty strained and wimpy and coming-apart-at-the-seams.

It probably weighs 50 lbs, with all the Spanish books I brought - "501 Spanish Verbs Fully Conjugated", "2001 Modismos en Espanol," and a fat dictionary.

LA to Mexico City

12:27 p.m. in the air
So far, so good, I got another customs form to replace the first one and managed not to screw it up so badly this time.

The people sitting next to me are a honeymooning couple. I already knew the groom. He sat next to me in my Marriage and Family class at CSUN last semester.

Out of a class of 160 people, he sat right next to me, and now here he is, next to me again. What are the odds of THAT? It made me want to sing "It's a small, small world."

I hope his Marriage and Family Class prepared him for this.

Paranoia
Of course the guy with the world's worst cold or (I hope) allergies is sitting in the row behind me. I am trying to keep my hypochondria in check. I am always paranoid about getting sick on vacation.

Something about being trapped on an airplane makes it worse, thinking about the air circulating round and round, getting filthier at each turn.

Ok, I had better go back to studying "Essential Spanish Grammar" in hopes of learning something useful before I land in Mexico City.

Mexico City Airport

2:39 p.m. Mexico City airport

I am in Mexico!

The descent into Mexico City was steep and swoopy. My stomach was doing flip-flops. I have never had a flight quite like it before. The plane makes a dive downward through turbulent clouds, then a long curving turn around tall buildings almost obscured by terrible smog.

We got a little shuttle tram from the taxi way to the terminal. It looked like a disembodied train car on stilts. It pulls up to the airplane, everyone packs into this little car, the doors close behind them, then it drives over to the terminal. People were friendly and good-humored despite being squished in pretty tight like a subway car at rush hour.

I had never seen any kind of transporation like it. I guess they don't have enough gates for the number of planes landing at this airport for the planes to pull right up to the terminal.

I had a little confusion with immigration. I couldn't decide whether I needed to go through the process of having my ID checked here or in Oaxaca, and they don't really make it clear on the plane, though they show you a long video in 2 languages. Like a lot of official-type videos, it was so boring and slow-moving that, by the time they got to the crucial part, no one, including me, was watching any more.

I went all the way to my gate, which was a looooong way away, about 3/8 of a mile, before deciding to go back and check one more time in a fit of nervousness. After talking to about 3 different people in my terrible Spanish, I finally figured out I did indeed need to go through immigation.

I went stand in the long and twisting line that had about 200 people in it. I only had an hour and 15 minutes on the ground.
I kept thinking "This can't be right!" and considering skipping out because obviously there had been some mistake. But there hadn't. A huge scary-looking immigration officer that looked like every movie stereotype evil Mexican cop actually joked around with me and calmed me down and told me it would all be okay.

I don't know what would have happened if I would have skipped immigration.

I got out of there with about 30 minutes to spare and ran like OJ Simpson in a car rental commercial back to my gate, finding out it is very un-Mexican to run. No one else does. I got to the gate with plenty of time to spare, since the plane left late. It was just one more excuse today to exercise my adrenal glands.

Last Leg of the flight - Mexico to Oaxaca

3:42 p.m. On the plane to Oaxaca

I couldn't see the northern part of Mexico on the first leg of the flight. They made us shut the window shades to watch the movie "Hidalgo," which kind of irritated me, especially because it looked to be a truly terrible movie.

But this flight I can look out and see the beautiful green of Mexico through the clouds.

Many areas are very rural with no habitation for miles. Other areas are completely deforested.

It was beautiful to see the volcano floating above Mexico City and the huge lake, a lot of which is dried out. I also saw a smaller volcano cone. Parts of the Mexico City, the nation's capital, have neighborhoods with dirt roads. That looks so strange to me, like something that ought to be out in the country, not something right there in the city.


A part of Oaxaca where little houses and businesses are built under an old Spanish aqueduct - "Los Arquitos"

Landing in Oaxaca

Monte Alban with Oaxaca in the background

The guy next to me on the plane into Oaxaca was very friendly and gave me travel advice - visit Monte Alban, the church of some saint (turned out to be Santo Domingo, of course), the tree at Tule, and drink some mezcal, but not too much.

Well, I have been on the ground less than two hours, and I have already had some mezcal - but just one shot. Not too much.

I didn't study about Oaxaca before I came here. I wanted it to be a blank slate and not have preconceptions.

When I went to Kauai, I knew all about it beforehand from a guidebook and felt compelled to do everything they talked about in the guidebook. I couldn't relax because I had all this stuff on my agenda.

So this time I decided to do the opposite and not learn anything. When the guy told me about Monte Alban, I didn't have any idea what he was talking about. I figured it was just some mountain "Monte" being one word I could translate. I didn't know it was one of the biggest, most significant archeological sites in Latin America.

The airport is small, like Santa Barbara, with just one gate.

Getting off the plane, I felt suddenly like such an international traveler - the hot sticky air hit me, the totally foreign smell, the tropical plants and trees, walking across the tarmac like some adventuresome journalist, not like some schlub from Thousand Oaks who has never been further than Chicago...

The airport has one baggage claim for domestic and one for international. I waited and waited at the domestic, since I had come from Mexico DF I thought my luggage would be domestic. Just as I was about to have a heart attack thinking my luggage was lost, it came to the International claim area.

Customs in Oaxaca is funny. You fill our a form and they stick it into a machine. There is a big stoplight with a button on the bottom like at a street corner crossing. They make you push the button and then a stoplight with either a green word "PASE" lights up and you are free to go, or the red "REVISTA" comes on with a buzzer. I was sweating it a bit, not that I had any contraband - I just always feel guilty in the face of authority.

I got the green light, but the lady in front of me got the red light and the buzzer, so her bags got inspected.

Meeting Dr. R

Dr. Gabriel Rodriguez, my host dad, met me at the airport in his little silver Peugeot, a cute car. He was a small thin man about 5 foot 4, maybe 55 years old, very dark brown and a with a kindly, lined face.

He dragged my bag out for me, which was both gentlemanly and kind of funny since I probably outweigh him by 60 pounds.

We tried to converse as best as we could, though I am having a sinking feeling that I know even less Spanish than I thought I did.

He told me about his family. His wife, Senora Gloria, is a dentist who doesn’t practice anymore. He has 3 kids, two girls, one boy. The girls are a Gaby, a doctor in Mexico DF and a Pati, a college student who is home for the summer. The boy is Cesar, an architect who is married with two young children.

Oaxaca is a trip. It is kind of like San Luis Obispo, with a circle of mountains all around. They are higher than the ones in SLO. It is tropical and humid. I saw lots of banana trees, ficuses, bamboo, green fields.

It is definitely Mexico however. I ain't in California anymore! It is a wacky mishmash of color and dirt and beauty and crappiness.

The first stoplight we came to was green and Gabriel kind of hesitated and I wondered why.

It turns out he had good reason, because the people coming the other way didn't even slow down for the red. He called them "anarchisticos" who "no tienen respeto" (don't have respect). I couldn't believe my eyes.

The buildings are painted in a rainbow of colors. I mean all colors. Turquoise, purple, lemon yellow - ALL colors. I love how lively it looks.

Many are open-fronted, so life is conducted right out in public in a way. You can look right in the doors and see people shopping, getting haircuts, eating.

TOPES
I was impressed by the speed bumps! California speed bumps have nothing on these.

"TOPES" the signs say, or "reductor de velocidad" (speed reducer) and they are not freaking joking.

They are about a foot high, some rounded on top, or like a ramp with a big flat top, then another ramp down. Others, the worst in my opinion, are made of metal, about the size of softballs buried in the road. A lot of them aren't painted, either - I suppose you just have to know your way around and not hit them by accident, because you could really ruin your suspension.


Metal topes under the car's rear wheels - these are some of the worst.

A wedding!

The first thing we did was to to to a wedding! Dr. R asked me if I wanted to go to a "boda" and thinking he meant "bodega" (a place to drink) I said yes. I certainly was dressed more for a bar than for a wedding.

I was off the plane about 10 minutes and we went to this site where people were sitting around at tables under a big tent with no sides.

This band was standing around in a semi-circle on the grass playing this crazy, loud, off-kilter Sinaloan music. A bunch of brass instruments and drums, mostly - really loud snare drums, and those guys were whacking them hard, too.

There were about 200 people there, at a round table at tables of 10 decorated with little bride and groom dolls and bottles of mezcal.

I met Senora Gloria and her daughter Pati, who must be about 20 or so. They are both very trim and chic, and I felt like a big old gringo horse in my sweaty jeans, t-shirt and running shoes.

Pati greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, which I didn't know Mexicans did until then. I thought it was a European thing.

Everyone was lovely to me, though I had no idea what was going on or how to behave and I looked like I belonged at a swap meet, not a wedding. I was feeling completely at sea.

They immediately offered me mezcal and I got a round of applause when I did the shot. (It was only later that I found out I was supposed to sip it. People made fun of me the whole time I was here because of it. They loved to tell the story of the gringa who did the shot of mezcal in one fell swoop).

There was food too: Oaxacan tortillas which are large, crisp and very thin, made of corn flour but the size of a flour tortilla. They served shredded meat, black beans cooked to a paste, and a runny dish of hominy ground coarsely with a smoky sauce. Salsa (green) and very thin runny guacamole on the side.

I ate some of everything but the meat (though everyone encouraged me to try that too, saying I could be a meat-eater while in Oaxaca and go back to being vegetarian when I left).

I felt like I was in a zoo, with everyone watching me as I ate - what I ate, how I ate it and whether I liked it. I was trying to be polite though I had no idea about Oaxacan table manners or what I was eating.

Meanwhile the loud music was rollicking along and people were coming over to the table to socialize. The fairly drunk groom and his shy bride came over to say hello and accepted my mangled "Felicidades" with a huge smile.

I even ate some pineapple, though every tourist guide warns against raw fruit, for God’s sake, unless you wash and disinfect it yourself, because you can get sick from the water they use to wash with. It was like Hawaiian pineapple in Hawaii - gold and sweet with a deep pineapple flavor.

I am probably doomed to las turistas (also known as Montezuma's revenge), but I am taking Pepto-Bismol in large prophylactic doses and hoping for the mezcal to disinfect my guts.

We left early before the dancing began. The Rodriguez family had another party to get to.

Casa Rodriguez

Home at last
The Rodriguez house is on a tightly packed, narrow street with orange and grapefruit street trees. All of the houses are built right up next to one another, mostly without front yards or just tiny patches behind wrought-iron bars.

It appears to be pretty large and nice, though I have never seen another Mexican home, so I really don't have anything to compare it with.

It is two-story. It has a small courtyard entry, a living room, den, dining room, kitchen and maybe 4 bedrooms upstairs. There is another renter here but she is on vacation in Puerto Escondido.

Now I am installed at Casa Los Rodriguez, and they are out at another fiesta. Gloria says they are "fiestoso" which I guess means partyers.


The house

My room
I have my own room on the second floor with a double bed. It has a view of the street. The house across the street is painted bright yellow and orange. That is something you just don't see in Thousand Oaks. I'll bet there isn't a single yellow-and-orange house within TO city limits.

I am kind of settling in and relaxing a little, unpacking my stuff. It is pretty warm upstairs but my room has a ceiling fan.

I can hear amplified talking from some sporting event or festival and quite frequent loud booms of big firecrackers being set off, the kind that my friends used to go to Tiajuana to buy and bring back to the states.

Across the street, two dogs live on the roof. A big yellow shaggy mutt and a cocker spaniel. They walk around wagging their tails a lot and seem to be quite flea-ridden, because they are always scratching.

I have seen a ton of skinny loose dogs running in the streets since I got here and it has only been a couple hours.


The view from my window

A different world
It is really a different world, to quote an old cliche. It seems way less organized and efficient, but very lively and colorful and fun.

Man, the fireworks keep going on and on. And the William Tell Overture has been playing over and over for 2 hours. Que loco!

I, sheerly by accident, happen to have arrived on the day before La Guelaguetza, the biggest cultural festival here in Oaxaca.

The different Indian groups from around the state (the state name is also Oaxaca) all come to town to perform their dances in beautiful costumes, and thousands of tourists come to see it.

July 19, Monday - First Day of School

6 p.m.

I awoke at 5:30 and it was dark. By 6:30 it was pretty much light, but I lazed around in bed until 7, paralyzed at the idea of getting up to face a whole new world, then took a shower and finally went down for breakfast at 8.

I wasn't sure whether the shower would have hot and cold. I don't know what to assume in Mexico. After seeing dogs living on the roof, my whole world is rocked.

It took a while but the water finally got scalding hot. In a typically Sue move, I got shampoo in my eye. That's why I am wearing my glasses, which adds another dimension of surreality and confusion to my already slightly disoriented state. I am used to having better peripheral vision with contact lenses than I do with glasses on.

The bathroom is tiled from floor to ceiling in these brown tiles that have Aztec-looking flowers painted on every other one. The shower is one end of the bathroom, with just a slight 1/2 inch step down, three cancerous-looking terribly rusting metal window frames, and a drain that smells kind of like poop. That is a smell I will get used to while I am here.

The trip to school
Sra. Gloria made me coffee, dry toast with jam, and a very ripe banana and cantalope, sliced up. The fruit has a strong, intense, rich flavor that we don't often find in the States. Like real fruit tastes from the field, not something from Vons.

Sra. Gloria explained very carefully in slow slow Spanish that she would walk me to school today but not tomorrow or any other day. She doesn't have time to babysit me. It takes about 25 minutes from home to school on foot.

She insisted that I write down notes along the way of street names, which was wise because I probably wouldn't have remembered otherwise. I didn't have to refer to my notes on the way home, but writing it down sealed the street names in my memory.

We live on Huerto de los Mangos (Mango Orchard Street) in refraccimiento de los huertos (orchard neighborhood).


Our street

The sidewalks are pretty busted up. We walked out and immediately came to a one-way street. People were driving both ways on it. That was a new one on me and impressed on me the disregard people have for laws here. In my neighborhood, only drunk people or the truly lost drive the wrong way on one-way streets.

There is a big pedestrian walk, a really broad and pleasant raised walkway, that goes by a big WalMart-type store. Unlike home, a lot of people were walking to work or school. Apparently the University Benito Juarez is very near here.


Camino Ciruelos

Then we walked along a huge busy street, bustling with big old smoking buses, VW beetles, and lots of teeny tiny taxis.

My first glimpse of Downtown

The Preferico

After scampering across the busy street, the Preferico, and trying not to get killed - people don't seem to be concerned about running over pedestrians - we entered downtown Oaxaca, also called the Centro.

The buildings look old. This is a colonial city, settled by the Spaniards in 1500-something. There are about 50 big stone Catholic churches and ex-convents in town.

The sidewalks are narrow, usually big enough for 2 people but not 3, sometimes only about 2 feet wide. The buildings butt right up against the sidewalk. There are no front yards or landscaping, and many streets don't have a single tree.

Unlike at home, there appear to be few large or chain stores or restaurants, just lots of mom & pop businesses. All of the front doors are open to the sidewalk - I guess they roll up or slide out of the way.

Traffic doesn't seem too bad, except for on the main streets. The only big street appears to be the Preferico - all the rest are little narrow one-way streets.

The buses are old school buses or something similar. They have hand-lettered destination signs pasted inside the front windows on red or green fluorescent paper. A bus ride is 3 pesos - about 30 cents. Many of the buses and trucks and taxis have names or slogans across the front window in silver letters - like "Jesus with me" or "Born to love."



Everything was new to me. It looks so different from California that I wanted to soak it all in.

Day one - Espanol Interactivo

My school - Espanol Interactivo




My school is right downtown, about 2 blocks from the Zocalo, or main plaza.
It doesn't look like anything from the outside. Like many of the buildings here, it presents a blank face to the street, but inside is ful of life.

You enter the school through a big wooden door that swings in to plant-lined corridor to an inner courtyard. The walls are decorated with those colorful tin animals artisans make here. The walls are painted yellow halfway up, with a stripe of bright blue, and white the rest of the way. Very pretty.

The courtyard has white wrought iron tables and benches, and there are about 5 small classrooms, each with a wooden table and chairs, a few typical regional wall decorations, not much else.

Senora Luz, the school director, runs things in a pretty casual fashion. I came in and introduced myself. I was nervous about how I would fit into the classes, but on the other hand I was eager to dive in and get started.

I ended up just sitting on a couch for a while, and eventually she decided what group to put me in to learn. I was with Sra. Luz and one other woman, Nicole, a lawyer from San Francisco.

Apparently many of the students return year after year. The atmosphere seems very congenial. I only met about 6 other students, one from Germany, most of the rest from California and Texas, overwhelmingly women, mostly teachers.

I am not sure I understood completely when Sra. Luz was talking to Sra. Gloria, but apparently Sra. Gloria wasn't exactly sure I was coming, and it was only a good thing that I called Dr. Rodriguez' office yesterday, because then they figured out that they were supposed to meet me at the airport. No wonder they had to take me to a wedding with them - they hadn't planned for me because they thought I was coming in August, not July. They mainly thought that because I TOLD Sra. Luz that in an email...silly me, I got the months confused. Attention to dates has never been my strong point.

I am sure glad I called, because I would have had kittens if no one had come to meet me at the airport!! I can't imagine what I would have done if no one had come, since the school is closed on Sundays.

Sra. Luz is very patient with my butchery of the Spanish language. She laughs a lot. At about 11 a.m. announced she was hungry, so she, Nicole and I went next door to "La Flor de Oaxaca," a really great little cafe with traditional Oaxacan foods.

Breakfast - again
I made the mistake of ordering both a Chocolate Oaxaquena and pancakes. Both were huge. The hot chocolate must have been 2 cups and it came with a loaf of soft bread to dunk in it. Then there were 3 huge pancakes. Senora Luz must have thought I was nuts, ordering all that food, but I didn't know what I was in for.

So I finished about 1/2 of one of the pancakes. The food was all very good.

Sra. Luz and Nicole both got tiny quesadillas, deep fried and filled with local fresh cheese and epazote, an herb. Apparently chiles rellenos are very popular too.

We took an hour-long break at 1 p.m. between mangling verb forms.

I took a walk around downtown, checking things out. There were a lot of people out on the streets. There were tons of police behind barricades, carrying long wooden sticks. I heard there was a planned protest of La Guelaguetza. The cops all looked young and bored, a lot of them only about 5 feet tall, not at all menacing.

I gathered up my courage and made my first outing into a store. I bought a bottle of water and a phone card, my first purchases with my new Mexican money, which looks so funny to me and doesn't seem quite real. One peso is worth about 9 cents, so a 100 peso bill is around $9.

My next adventure was going to an Internet cafe. I spent about 20 cents for 15 minutes. Hilarious. I think it was something like $6 for 15 minutes in Hawaii last November.

I e-mailed Greg and the family to let them know I was alive. The internet connection is a bit slow and the computers a little funky (I never could find the @ key...) but I was happy to be able to contact the folks back home.

There are a lots of galleries and artisans down near the Zocalo (the town square), some with beautiful weavings, jewelry and embroidery. It's a pretty touristy area. Before I got here I had imagined a Mexican village from a Western movie - little southwestern buildings like in Santa Fe, New Mexico on dirt streets.

In the Zocalo itself, there are balloon and toy vendors with huge colorful bunches of inflatable toys. There are people selling the usual tourist stuff - t-shirts, knock-off CDs, jewelry, cheap pottery.

Afternoon Class
I had 2 more hours of class. This time my fellow student was Linda, a 50-something woman from Napa who has been in Mexico 4 times and works with ESL students. She doesn't seem be able to learn Spanish very well.

A young man named Joe, kind of a hippie-looking kid, joined us for the class. He had been at La Guelaguetza all day, arriving at 4 a.m. to get a good seat and sitting out there in the sun all day. He seemed remarkably fresh at 3 p.m. I don't think I ever had that much energy, not even when I was 20.

After class I went to a trendy cafe called "Italian Coffee" near the Zocalo for a latte and studied a bit, then made the long trek home, only getting slightly confused once. I do have a pretty good sense of direction.

My first trip to Chedraui
I stopped on the way home at Chedraui, the local version of WalMart about 3 blocks from our house. Dang me.

It was huge and I wandered disoriented a bit by all of the different labels and colors and my lack of peripheral vision (because of wearing my glasses. I had to try and figure everything out in Spanish. They have a taco stand inside and a bulk area that sells mole and chiles from those plastic 5 gallon buckets. Then I went home.

La Fiesta del los Lunes del Cerro

10:50 pm
It is raining. And lightning-ing. And thundering incredibly loud but not too frequently.

Gabriel, Gloria and I just returned from the fiesta de los lunes del cerro. Lunes del cerro means "Mondays of the mountains." It is part of La Guelaguetza celebration. It is a time when people from all the surrounding villages come to Oaxaca city for a big annual fiesta.

They were nice enough to take me out on the town.

We left in the car about 9 p.m. and drove downtown to El Centro. We found a row of booths along the side of a street. The street wasn't wider than other streets or closed - there were just about 30 little booths made of green metal supports with low-hanging tarps over them set up along one wall of the street.

Each booth was manned, or I should say womanned - by two or three tiny women in colorful Indian dress, most of them under 5 feet tall. I am huuuuuge here.

They were behind a counter, in front of which was a bench that would seat two or three people. To one side, a small firebox was topped with a large comal - a terra cotta disk that looked somewhat like a wok, and was really, really hot.



The women patted large circles of masa into tortilla rounds, then gave them a good squishing in a large purple square tortilla press. They then topped them with a salsa made of dried chiles, onions, cilantro, shredded chicken and cheese, then folded them and sealed the edges. It smelled delicious. I couldn't wait to try what they were making.

The one they made for me had mushrooms and squash blossoms and stringy rubbery white cheese called quesillo. (I didn't know it then, but quesillo was to become a constant theme in my life.)

Several glass quart jars of salsa sat atop the counter, both red and green. I chose a nice fiery red.

Yes, I know I have made every gringo eating error in the book in less than 2 days. I have eaten raw fruit, drank agua de pina (pineapple drink) no doubt made with unfiltered water, eaten food made by women outside with their bare hands, not a rubber glove or sink in sight.

I also had atole de chocolate, a typical local thick smooth rich drink made of chocolate and cornstarch, served hot in a clay bowl. It was muy rico (which means delicious, not rich) but a little hot to drink on a tropical night.

Under those tarps with the comales blazing, it was even hotter than out walking around, which was plenty warm and a little humid.

We walked around in hopes of finding a band playing, but they had already called it quits, maybe because it was beginning to rain.

Mexico creaks and groans along like a 50-year-old Ferris wheel. Tonight, on the night of the biggest cultural event in town all year, the biggest and most famous church, Santo Domingo, was sitting there in the dark.


View from Santo Domingo

Gloria said it is usually lit up. Hundreds of people milled around out front, walking around in the dark, vending small items like cough drops, cigarettes and toys, or talking, all out in the shadows.

July 20, Tuesday

7 p.m.
It rained this afternoon. And rained.

My second day of classes - is that all? It feels like so much longer and I don't feel any brighter or more competent en espanol than I did yesterday. I am working hard in class though.

This morning I made my way across town, by myself this time, down the broad walkway on Avenida Ciruelos (Plum Avenue), past the three or four skinny dogs sleeping in the sun on the steps of Chedraui.


On the walk to school


One of the stores I walk by is a big crafts store called "Manualidades." I never thought of crafts as being anything more than a crazy American phenomenon, but I guess it transcends national boundaries.

Today my morning class had 5 students instead of 2. Everyone was at La Guelaguetza yesterday.

Nicole the attorney and I were joined by Halo, a teacher from near San Francisco (must be the child of hippies with that name. It is pronounced "Aloe" in Spanish), Christy, a mom from near San Jose, and Naomi, a college student from Texas via New York.

It's funny how different people have different talents and abilities. Mine seems to be pronunication. Nicole grasps verb forms quickly. Christy was fearless, launching into long stories even though she mangled almost everything in the worst way.

Last night in the middle of the night I awoke to obsess about whether I had locked the doors of the Rodriguez' car. I heard some screeching tires and voices outside and began to imagine that someone had stolen the car because the gringa (me) was too stupid to lock the door, being from a rich country where electronic door locks are the norm. (It was all my awful imagination. The screeching tires were neighbors late for the airport, Gloria told me this morning. So as usual I worried for nothing).

8:40 p.m.
I am refreshed by food, beautiful food. Gloria made me a plate of chayotes. It looked like hell, this pale green boiled squash dripping with water on a glass plate, but oh my God they were good. She had mixed them with chiles and topped them with salty cheese, and served them with a red salsa and tortillas. Yum. She is one heck of a good cook.

She made me a very good cappuccino as well. And she does dishes. This IS a vacation in some ways, though I am working harder than I ever do at home.

All the food here is excellent, way beyond anything in the US, especially better than terrible California Mexican food with its runny beans and piles of melted cheddar cheese. I know I will miss it when I leave.

Walking around Oaxaca

The city and life

There are no tall buildings here. Three stories seems to be the maximum. The cathedral of Santo Domingo is the tallest building in town, I think. I know they have earthquakes here, maybe that is the reason. All of the buildings are made of stone or concrete, no wooden buildings at all.

The rhythm of the days is different here. In the morning it starts out slow. There isn't much going on before 9 a.m., then people go to work and the streets and busses are busy, but it still seems like most businesses aren't open. I think Chedraui opens at 10.

There seems to be a slow pause about 2 or 3, then it is busy til around sunset, when everything really comes alive and people are all out in the streets or doing things and the hustle and bustle goes on until midnight or so. Then, in the middle of the night, absolute silence except for the dogs, who are mostly quiet themselves.
____
I walked along today behind a family that was about 4 foot 5 each.
____
I left class about 4 and went to the Internet cafe for 45 minutes. It wouldn't have taken so long, but it was a very slow Internet connection. The computer screen kept flashing and changing colors from blue to magenta -- not a good sign, but at $1 per hour, I couldn't complain.

I walked around a bit, taking photos of the protestors, who are in town for La Guelaguetza. It is exciting to see so much political activity going on.

They are protesting for several reasons. One is that they think that La Guelaguetza is too commercialized. Another is that the dancers at La Guelaguetza don't get paid, even though tons of money is made off the event.

Then others are protesting because political prisoners are locked up in Guadalajara. There was a protest on a flatbed truck of GMO corn - a bunch of corn stalks with signs on them saying "Transgenic corn is death." I took a bunch of photos of the different protests.

They spray-painted big black letters right on the tourist buses saying "Fuera de Oaxaca" which I assume means "Get out of Oaxaca," I think because the tourist buses don't belong to the bus owner's union.



I had to go to the bathroom (that is the story of my life) and went down to Santo Domingo, thinking I could use the museum bathroom.

But there was a protest there too, with a big banner out front - the workers were protesting against the lack of bathrooms at Santo Domingo! I guess they have been broken for a long time and the workers are mad and embarrassed.

Then it began to rain. First a little...I figured I could duck into a cafe, but I was lost and wanted to find my way back to familiar turf. By the time I did that, all the cafes looked closed. No one eats out until 9 or 10 p.m., so the early evening is the quiet time for restaurants.


Elotes sellers on the street


I bought an umbrella at a Chinese store. I never thought of there being Chinese stores in Mexico. There are a lot of things I didn't think of!

Then of course it began to rain sideways, so my umbrella, though pretty and purple, was useless. It was pretty funny. I kept switching it around different ways and kept getting just as wet.

I ended up pausing in several doorways and just watching it come down with some other pedestrians. The rain doesn't cool anything off. I was pretty wet and tired by the time I got home at 6.

July 21, Wednesday - I hit the wall

Wet and tired.

I kind of hit the wall today. It is amazing how tiring it is to think so hard in another language all day. Every single thing is different, everything must be considered carefully, nothing is habit.

I am beginning to feel like I have a bad attitude in general. I had a bad attitude in Thousand Oaks and I have a bad attitude here. I was about ready to buy a plane ticket home at about 4:30 p.m. this afternoon when I was out trudging in the rain.
First, class this morning seemed interminable and hard, and the wooden chairs felt like torture after a couple hours (morning class is 4 hours long).

Lunch
Then there was lunch. I have an hour. I spent a long time looking for some place to eat. I also wanted to buy something to read IN ENGLISH.

I was sick of trying to think in Spanish and needed something to relax my brain with.

I ended up buying $33 worth of books from a rude woman in a bookstore. I don't think she liked gringos.

Even then, only one book, a Oaxaca guidebook, was in English. Almost everything in the store was in Spanish, except a few travel books, one of which was Oliver Sacks' "Oaxaca Journal," which I had read last week and thought was kind of weak and not worth finishing.

The only magazine I could find in English was Runner's World, which I actually considered buying, so desperate was I for something to read in my own language.

Stupid $500 bill
I wanted lunch but only had a $500 bill (about $45). Most small places here don’t have much change, so I couldn't go to a little restaurant.

I went to an outdoor tourist place on the Zocalo. The tables are right out in the open on the square. I wasn't aware what I was getting myself into.


Balloon vendors in the Zocalo

I was immediately set upon and pestered by squads of vendors who surrounded my table.

They were selling everything from fans to jewelry and chiclets - all tiny Indian women and hungry-looking children with huge shiny eyes. I was just feeling so weak and whipped that it was the last thing I needed.

I was almost in tears. And I only had this stupid $500 bill so I couldn't even buy anything from them and get rid of the chiclets kids.

I ended up telling one woman, a really good, persistent saleswoman, to come back after lunch. She bugged me half a dozen times until I got my change after my mediocre sandwich and I could give her $10 for some stupid bead necklaces I wouldn't have paid a buck for in the States, all out of stupidity and shame and guilt.

A lot of those kids looked very sick and hungry, especially one little guy, maybe 8 years old, selling chiclets. He was kind of dazed and listless and terrible-looking. His eyes were too big for his head. I showed him my tourist guide and he of leafed through the pictures, I think pretending to read.

The only thing that made that lunch tolerable was (oh, did I mention the chain smoker at the next table? That added another dimension of pleasantness) the glass of wine I had.

Ah, alcohol with its remarkable healing powers. I have no idea how I could ever quit drinking completely. It's not that I need to drink a lot or even every day. But occasionally, I really, really need just one drink.

My afternoon classes seemed easier. They were definitely shorter, since I arrived considerably late after my ordeal (only I can turn lunch on the Zocalo into an ordeal). I really like Luis, the afternoon teacher, and I think he likes me because I pronounce well and don't mangle the language as badly as Linda, the other student.

Linda is hilarious, really. Luis says "una persona" and she says "uno persono". Luis corrects "persona" and she says, "Yeah, right, persono." It's like she just can't hear the language at all.

Rain rain go away
After class it rained again. I slogged up the street, still tired, almost crying, looking for an ATM. I just felt so worn out. All of the ATMs were behind locked doors and I couldn't figure out how to get to one (it turns out you have to put your card in a slot to unlock the door. If I were more clever or less tired, that would not have been so difficult to figure out). I finally found one where someone was coming out, grabbed the door and went in, much like a robber would, I suppose.

I tried 5 times to work the damn thing and finally figured out that it was like my gas station, where you stick the card in and pull it out fast instead of leaving it in the machine...¡Que chistoso! (What a joke!) I got my 100 pesos and only later did my calculation....All that stress for about $9. Chalk it up to a learning experience.

Cafe Refuge
I finally found a very very nice cafe and had a beautiful caffe latte. The woman who made it was so careful, and it was so pretty...but it tasted just awful. The woman was very sweet, though. She talked my ear off, asking questions about my studies and listening to my bad Spanish. It was an really fine time, sitting there in the warm afternoon, talking to a nice stranger.

The Mezcal Fair

The Mezcal Faire Part One

Then I went out into the rain again with my purple-flowered umbrella. I was in search of my classmates Nicole and Halo, who said they would be meeting at the Feria Nacional de Mezcal (the mezcal tasting) at 5 p.m. I didn't know that they had been in Mexico long enough to adopt the Mexican version of timekeeping...

I walked around for the longest time. I knew the Mezcal Fair was at at this certain park, but all I could find were hundreds of tiny booths selling food and clothing.


Booths in Parque El Llano

Meanwhile it was pouring and all the tarps covering the little booths were filling up with water. They were hanging down like balloons full of water, making it an obstacle course to get through the tiny aisles. You would brush against a tarp and a gallon of water would suddenly pour down all over the place. It made a great adventure.

I bought a woven purse and two little wallets from a weaver lady, because I needed a book bag. It is a gorgeous hand-woven purple thing with a nice zippered pocket and a flap and a long strap.

After about 45 minutes I finally located the entrance to the Fair. It was smack in the middle of all this, accessible only from one direction, and of course there were no signs pointing the way. That would have been too easy!

The fair itself was fenced off. I paid my 10 pesos (90 cents) to enter and walked around looking for the girls.


Mezcal fair ticket

I didn't find them but tasted about 5 mezcals (tiny tastes) before I decided that, if I wanted to make it home, I had better stop drinking so my feet would still work.

There were about 30 mezcal booths and they were each offering up to 10 different types of mezcal.

There regular and aged mezcal, there is the kind with the worm and then there are crema de mezcal - fruit flavors like coconut, passionfruit, and coffee.

They even have some called mezcal de pechuga, which is flavored with a chicken breast. I didn't ask whether it was raw or cooked. I didn't really want to know. It is supposed to be a big delicacy and is enormously expensive, about $100 a bottle.

I tried passionfruit (maracuya) and some red fruit thing, mango and coffee flavor. Personally I think I like it straight up better, as long as it is good. And there are plenty of very bad mezcals - some duplicate the flavor of gasoline almost exactly.

Then I made the long walk home, stopping at an internet cafe for a moment. I was delighted that the pouring rain stopped - only my feet were soaked - and that I once again successfully found my way back to the cozy home of the Rodriguez family.

July 22, Thursday - Things get better

7:35 pm
Today was much better. I quit freaking out quite so much. Everything seemed a little more manageable for some reason. It was sunny, for one thing.

I go down for breakfast - "almuerzo" in Spanish - and Sra. Gloria has left a plate of fruit (melon and bananas), two dry pieces of toast, and a cup of coffee flavored with cinnamon and mixed with milk, covered with a coaster so it will stay warm. There is a note that says "My desire is that the day go well for you. I am going out to run. We will see each other later." She is really a wonderful person and hostess.

Besides being nice, she is a pretty and fit grandmother. She runs 45 minutes every day at a track near here.

I don't usually see Alexis, the chica in the other room, but when I do, she either seems very sleepy or reluctant to talk. Not shy, because she yaks on the phone all the time and goes out with friends, but she just doesn't want to talk to ME. Dunno why, and it is kind of annoying, because I would love some company and someone to speak a little English with.

I am amazed that anything gets done here. Everything seems so patched together and/or messed up . But the people seem to be very hardworking and have a ton of tiny shops and factories, no chain stores to speak of.

But here is an example: on Calle Gonzales, there is a big pothole filled with chunks of BRICKS. Bricks! I mean, bricks to fill up a pothole, but they wouldn't be on my top ten list of filler material choices.

And I walked by a place where a PVC conduit had been buried about 2 inches underground. The PVC had broken and become exposed, and there were all these electric wires across the sidewalk. You gotta try a little harder than that to bury electrical conduit.


Dancers in a parade before La Guelaguetza

Fun and games in school

Erica, Luis, Me & Luz

Fun and games at school

Today in school, time went by a little more rapidly than usual because we took part of the morning off to play games. We had to give the other students the instructions in Spanish. All 15 or so of us were out on the patio together, and there was a nice feeling of solidarity, with all of us speaking bad Spanish, together.

One of the games was "Telefono Descompuesto" which means "Broken Telephone", the Mexican version of our "Telephone" where you whisper a phrase in someone's ear and they pass it along.

Then the mothers of the houses where the students stay (but not Gloria) brought some food they had made. Tostadas with black beans, crumbly white cheese, cactus salad, shredded chicken.

I ate a little, but I was very eager to go out and try a vegetarian place I had heard about.I went out and got the international Miami Herald (I was under the mistaken assumption that I was buying the International Herald News - oops -- not quite the same thing) in English and took the long hike over there for a nice relaxing lunch.

The food wasn't very good, or hot, unfortunately. I wish it had been better, because I do like to try and stay vegetarian as much as possible.

Lost!
On the way back to school. I got very lost. All of the streets do look very similar.

But then, even crazier, they change names, sometimes every few blocks. I got to class 20 minutes late - poor Luis - he was terribly sick with a cold and I was his only student.

He is great, though. He has a wonderful accent that sounds like water burbling across rocks. He is about a foot shorter than me, slender, wears a lot of soccer-themed clothing.

He has lots of tricks up his sleeve - little games and pictures that we make stories from. It, to me, is more fun and enjoyable than Sra. Luz's classes, where we go around and make up sentences using different verb forms. She is a good teacher, but I appreciate all the effort Luis puts in to making it fun.

July 23, Friday - My brain is full

Skinny sidewalk

9 pm
My brain is filled with so much new information. It seems like seeing and hearing and smelling so much new stuff actually makes it harder for me to learn Spanish, because I swear that my brain fills up. Sometimes there is just no more room!

This morning almost the whole school went on a field trip to Ocotlan.

Luz wanted me to stay at school for class, but I was determined to take a little break and get out of Oaxaca. I was tired of conjugating verbs.

I had heard the market at Ocotlan was amazing and very traditional, so I wanted to go wander around in it and see what interesting things I could find.

It didn't work out that way, though. Luis was the tour leader and did everything at a dead run - he had a lot of stops he wanted to make and left no time to dilly-dally around the marketplace.

I didn't know how we were going to get there. I imagined we might take a hired van out there - Ocotlan is about 20 miles - but we all trooped down the street to a second-class bus terminal and waited for a bus.

Our bus adventure
The terminal would be comparable to a Greyhound station, if a Greyhound station were outside and didn't have any soldiers or crackheads...

The seats for waiting for the bus were all outside under a tin roof, and the fares were painted on the wall. The fare to Ocotlan was 10 pesos - slightly under a buck.


Bus ticket

We went out of the city through fields and hills. Tiny cattle, about 1/3 the size of our big Anguses, grazed beside roads and we saw oxen being used to plow fields.

There were also fields of maguey (agave), which are used to make the ever-popular mezcal. They are also used for tequila, but not here, usually - in Oaxaca it is all about the mezcal. I don’t know what makes the two drinks taste so different.

There is a saying "Para todo mal, Mezcal. Para todo bien, tambien," which means "For everything bad, mezcal. For everything good as well."

Much of the road was lined with shops, tiny open-fronted buildings in all colors selling everything from beer to pottery to tires.

In some places, tiny Indian women walked barefoot along the road in traditional dress, carrying woven basket trays of food on their heads or in their arms.

Many women - not so many men - here wear traditional dress. Handwoven cotton, linen or wool outfits are made in patterns specific to certain regions, so people who see them know immediately where they came from. Some are very subtle, especially the woven huipiles, which are a simple dress that looks like one long piece of material, folded over and stitched along the seams with a hole for the head and simple arm holes.

Others, like the famous San Antonio wedding dresses, are covered in huge, bright bold embroidered flowers on a black or red velvet backing. They are psychedelic and outrageous, like nothing I have ever seen before.

The bus had ancient, seats with the fabric worn and dirty. The windows were covered with graffiti carved in the plexiglas.

Ocotlan by bus

Ocotlan

We got off the bus and went to a cuchilleria - a knife factory. Angel Aguilar, the knife maker, lectured in Spanish and demonstrated how, using ancient techniques, he turns recycled auto parts and plumbing fixtures into knives and swords.


Angel explaining his work

The workmanship is quite beautiful and some of the designs quite exotic. I guess he has been to a bunch of Renaissance Faires in the U.S., demonstrating his work and selling his swords. He has pictures of Governor Arnold with his swords in some of his early movies.

Of course many people ended up buying knives after the demo. They were from $10 to $40. Angel probably cleared about $200 from our little group.

I didn’t buy a knife because I couldn’t think of anything I needed a knife for, or anyone I could give one to.

We made a quick pass through the market and it was amazing. The first part had a row of women selling sacks of corn. There were also live chickens and goats, plenty of produce, plastic ware, baseball caps, all manner of handcrafts. It had that lively fun noisy chaos that is so typical in the markets. There is music blasting and narrow little aisles and crowds of people and smoke from barbecues and comals.


Street outside Ocotlan market

We visited the Catholic church, which, because a famous artist, Rodolfo Morales, has contributed a lot to the town, was beautifully restored. But alas, all Catholic churches look more of less the same to me.


Ocotlan church

I end up getting creeped out by the sad-eyed saint statues and the Jesuses covered in blood.

Then I inevitably get angry at all the gold and decorations, while the poor blind beggars squat out on the front steps, cursing at those who refuse to donate....I got called a “perra” (bitch) by a little old Indian woman, which didn’t inspire me to give her any money.

We went to an ex-convent (Mexico has a ton of these. Apparently during the revolution, the government seized all the church property and for the most part, only gave the churches back if they gave anything back at all. So there are plenty of ex-convents to go around) that has been converted to an art museum thanks to Morales.

Rodolfo Morales, artist

Rodolfo Morales, Ocotlan's famous artist...

They had a bunch of his artwork there. I didn't find it attractive at all but you know I am a philistine anyway. Modern enough to be boring but not so modern to be exciting. It reminded me a little of Marc Chagall, whom I don't care for much, either.

Then we went to Morales' house. He passed away a few years ago, but his house is operated as an art school for children and as a museum.

Inside the gate of the house, I met a tiny tan chihuahua dog who loved me because I scratched him very well.

There was also a parrot in a cage that said "Adios!"

The central courtyard of the huge house was lovely, full of plants, flowers, and climbing vines. A big staircase up to the rooftop studio was lined with pretty yellow and blue geometric patterned stained-glass windows.

Then we went back out through the market at a rapid clip and found the bus stop. I bought two funny, cartoonish very naive paintings by a man named Roberto Benitez, who sold them to me. They are in a style typical of paintings sold to tourists, but they were quite charming, so I contributed to the local economy by spending $30 on them.

The market was an amazing, lively, poor, filthy place. In the plaza, skinny dogs napped in the dirt. People had their wares spread out on the sidewalks. One lady had about 15 feet worth of the local emerald green pottery. I wondered how they all got there - do people pack the stuff in on buses?

The women and men were even smaller than I had seen in Oacaxa, some of them just about 4 feet tall, full-grown.

You can tell that a lot of these people have had very hard lives. One-eyed, crippled, blind, no teeth, deeply lined skin, selling their few bundles of vegetables or almost-worthless corn...

Corn, the staff of life

Everyone here knows about genetically-modified corn from the United States and they are mad about it. I'll bet not one person in 10 in the U.S. can tell you about GMO corn, but here the barista in the coffeehouse talked to me about it for 10 minutes.

Corn is so important here. Most people seem to have tortillas as their staple cereal, and that means corn, not flour, tortillas. A zillion other things are made from corn flour, too, and cornstarch, including beverages.

People have been raising and breeding their corn for thousands of years and suddenly it is polluted by genetically-modified pollen and they aren't happy about it because once it is polluted, you can't un-pollute it. Some scientists have changed nature forever.

I finally figured out what the guy on the bike who comes around my neighborhood is saying. "AY-LO-TAYS" is elotes, or corn on the cob. I kept trying to hear it as "Paletas" or ice cream bars, but I somehow knew that wasn't it.

He has a bike with a platform built on the front of it. He has a little firebox and a pot of boiling water, and he makes corn on the cob right there on the spot. It is usually topped with mayonnaise, cheese and chile powder, sometimes a little lime juice too. I have not been brave enough to try it yet. That mayo sure as heck isn't under any kind of refrigeration...

So far the Pepto-Bismol is holding. It makes me a little queasy just to take it, but I haven't been sick.

Notes on moles and bakeries

Food, more food

Chiles sometimes disagree with me, and every meal except breakfast has some kind of chiles. I love how they taste but they don't always love me the way I love them

There are molinas, or mills, all over the place that make mole and other kinds of chocolate. You can see the chocolate paste coming out of the hopper at the molina. Drinking chocolate is part chocolate, part cinnamon, and almonds ground together.

The most common brand, Mayordomo, is a chain. I have seen two or three around town. You can smell them from far away...it smells lovely.

There are a lot of tiny bakeries that make sweet breads and cookies and cakes and flans and gelatin desserts...postres.

Almost every street has a bakery.

And almost every street has a little paper goods store, with notebooks and pens. And tiny tiny groceries or miscelaneas - stores that sell miscellaneous, of course! Kind of like 7-11, but they will sell toys or fresh fruit or hair accessories.

Hello Christy, Goodbye Linda

I went to lunch at La Flor de Oaxaca with Christy, a woman from my class. We had ridden the bus together and struck up a conversation.

She is from Oakland, has a longtime boyfriend from Venezuela, and has 2 kids, ages 3 and 6, with him. The kids are here with her because she wants to improve her Spanish and have them practice theirs.

I went back for an hour of class with Linda. We played a game "Tabu" where you have your partner try to guess a word you describe without saying 5 other words related to it - for instance, if the word was "Woody Allen" the card shows that you can’t say "Director" or "Movie" or "Comedian" or "New York" or "Actor." All in Spanish, of course.

Then Linda and I walked over to the Zocalo. It was her last day here, so I said goodbye. That's one thing about the school format - people are always arriving and leaving, so it is hard to get to know anyone really well.

I went for a coffee and chatted with the owner of the place for a while. Well, mostly she chatted, at about a mile a minute, and I tried to understand.

Jardin Etnobotanico de Santo Domingo

The Ethno-Botanic Garden - my new favorite place in Oaxaca

I went over to the ethnobotanic garden behind Santo Domingo. Why it is an ethnobotanic garden and not just a regular botanic garden I do not know.

I got there just in time for a lecture at 6. Well, it would have been just in time, but this is Mexico, after all, so at 5 minutes before 6 it looked like nothing was going on.

So I wandered around the garden by myself (which I later found out was a major rules violation - all visitors must be on guided tours!) for about 15 minutes, looking at all the plants and being a bit baffled because none of them have name plaques like every other botanic garden I have been to.



They had several beautiful plumeria trees in all different colors. I was so excited to see them, because I loved them in Hawaii for their gorgeous smell. But here the flowers had a different, spoiled smell, not sweet and lovely like in Hawaii. They are sure pretty though, like five-pointed stars in white and pink with sunshine yellow centers.

The lecture finally got underway about 6:40, in Spanish. There were about 14 people in attendance, all gringos as far as I could tell.

The subject was plants and insects that provide textile materials and dyes. There are 13 fiber and 36 dye species in Oaxaca, which is far more than any other Mexican or Central American region. Of course, Oaxaca state is so diverse in climate and topography that it doesn't seem that surprising.

I think I understood most of the lecture. It was a slide show, with pictures demonstrating how many of the fibers and dyes are manufactured.

The most amazing dye is cochineal, (keep scrolling down) a red dye that comes from a little "scale" insect that feeds on prickly pear cactus. When it is mashed, it squirts red juice, which can be used to make a red dye that is permanent and stable. When the Spaniards found it, they were overjoyed, because at that time, no good red dye existed.

So they exploited it and made a fortune. That money built Santo Domingo and many of the beautiful old colonial buildings in downtown Oaxaca. Pretty good for a furry little bug.

I walked home, had some tortillas and mole, read for a bit, and went to sleep.

July 24, Saturday - My first Oaxaca weekend

9 p.m.
A long day, but fun, all by myself as usual. I wish I was traveling with Greg. I really do feel rather lonely.

It was a beautiful day for taking in the sights, warm and with a blue sky with big white clouds in the afternoon.

I walked downtown about 11 a.m. and had coffee and a roll at the cutest little bakery/cafe, with tables under vines climbing up the walls and little arched doorways and skylights. It felt like being outside, but it was inside.

The front part is a bakery, and you walk around with a metal tray and a pair of tongs, making your selection, then pay at a counter where they transfer your goods to a bag for to go orders or a little napkin-lined basket to eat there.

I get lost...over and over
The problem in Oaxaca is that, since the streets all look alike to me and change names every few blocks, I have no idea where the bakery was and may never be able to find my way back to it again. Too bad, because it was cheap, friendly and good.

If I can find the Zocalo or Santo Domingo, I can usually find a few other things like school or Parque El Llano, where the Mezcal Faire is.


Oaxaca Street Corner

I am taking a tour of Monte Alban tomorrow and am quite unsure of my ability to find the place where I am to meet my bus, though I bought my ticket there today. I will go early in case I get lost.

I am not being stupid. Everyone gets lost here. I have an excellent sense of direction, but things really do all look the same.

A Gourmet Lunch
I had lunch at the local version of a gourmet place. It looked quite upscale and was decorated like somewhere in Santa Monica, with sharp angles and recessed lighting and muted spruce green and terra cotta colors.

I went there because I was desperately hungry for fresh veggies, which are an unfamiliar concept to most people here, it seems. Perhaps it is because everything fresh must be washed in bottled water and disinfected, so it is quite a pain to prepare. Even salads with fresh lettuce have a pile of cooked broccoli and carrots on them.

I got a big fresh mercifully raw salad and a bowl of "tagliatelle al limone" which was mushy, overcooked pasta. The term "al dente" hasn’t reached here, apparently.

It was all ok, nothing to write home about, but very exotic and fancy, not at all traditional Oaxacan food.

I drank a glass of wine with lunch and was hot for hours - I think the altitude increases the effect of alcohol, so I have to watch it.


Pre-La Guelaguetza parade

Santo Domingo Museum

I went to the museum at the church of Santo Domingo. The museum is in the ex-convent part and is huge. It has the pre-historic artifacts from Monte Alban, and articles from pre-Hispanic and Hispanic history up to the present.

The Mayan stuff on loan from another museum was very interesting. The Mayans weren't from this area - they were further south. They had a bunch of bloodletting tools and incense stands where they burned copal, a tree resin, with human blood. They sound like they were a fun bunch!

The artifacts from Monte Alban were impressive. Fine gold and ivory work, and stone work like I have never seen before - thin translucent onyx cups carved from single pieces of stone.

Tomorrow I will go to Monte Alban to see where it was all excavated from. It is one of the major archeological sites in Latin America and it is only about 15 minutes outside of Oaxaca, something I didn't know until the guy told me right before I landed on the airplane.

The ex-convent building itself was interesting in its peacefulness. The building is quite graceful, with beautiful arched or domed ceilings made of brick. I could just imagine that, if the women who lived there came from the little surrounding Indian villages where they lived in huts and cooked over wood fires, the convent may have seemed like a paradise. Maybe not. We will never know because their stories weren't written down.

There is one great big patio upstairs that was apparently a kitchen in days past. It has lovely arched openings overlooking the city of Oaxaca and the ethnobotanic garden just below.


The patio

I sat on a bench up there for a while and thought "Oh my God! I'm in MEXICO at an ancient Catholic Church..." it all just hit me at once. Little old me. In Mexico. I have never travelled outside the U.S. before.

As so often happens with me and museums, the sitting on the bench was my favorite part. The little rooms of artifacts are kept so dim to preserve the items that I got quite tired and sleepy walking around through them all.

I went to the church, too, which is fantastical and gilded. If you like churches, you should really see it. It has more gold than Fort Knox and zillions of round portraits of saints growing on a huge gilded tree.

Mezcal Faire Part Two
Then I went to Parque El Llano again, because I like the atmosphere there. I took a bunch of photos of all the activity, the tiny food booths, and the mezcal fair.

I wanted to taste some of the fine Oaxacan and Chiapas coffee I had heard about. The friendly woman at that little cafe, "Coffee Beans" had told me that I had to try the Pluma Hidalgo especially.

When I got there, many of the servers either weren't pouring or seemed entirely disinterested. It was pretty late in the day. The few coffees I tried weren't that great. Of course, they were serving black coffee because that is the best way to taste all the flavors, and I really only like it with milk.

I also went to the Feria de Mezcal, determined to try some good aged Mezcals. It turns out that the problem is that, after drinking some of them, I really don't like them a heck of a lot. I tried and tried. I guess strong liquor isn't my game. It is just too alcohol-y for me. I tried about 8 different kinds, but none made me happy the way a fine red wine does.

They made me happy enough, however, to buy some silly Mexican clothes.

A couple large white cotton blouses with embroidered flowers or bugs on them. And a long, fancy red skirt with little pleats - quite a party skirt. I also found a couple of those crazy plastic market bags I love so much.

7-25 Sunday excursion to Monte Alban

8 pm

I am tired and my head hurts a bit. I took a daylong tourist trip - with the emphasis on tourist - to Monte Alban and some other locations in the Oaxaca Valley. I didn't really realize the type of thing I was in for.

First, this morning I called Mom and Dad. They were both in good cheer and pleased to hear from me. I was glad to hear them too! Dad was impressed that my room and board was only $110 a week. Me too, quite frankly - cheaper than living in the U.S. by far.

Then I walked downtown to catch my tour. There was lots of standing around waiting. This was to be a theme of the day.
I was one of the first people there, of course. My disease in life is to be early.

The tour guide, Arturo, told me to come along with him. He took me to a big huge autobus, very modern and nice. I went inside and we chatted a bit. Then he informed me that the bus we were in was going to Tule, not to Monte Alban. I just figured it was my typical bad Spanish misunderstanding, and went to get out of the bus.

The jerk stood in the aisle, and when I went by, rubbed up against my butt - I yelled "Hey!!" but he just acted like nothing had happened.

I spent all day wishing I would have hit him in the head with my elbow.

He wasn't even my tour guide, thank goodness. We had a big 15-passenger van, which we were jammed into like sardines. Our guide Juan Maria spoke Spanish and some English, but most of the people on the tour had Spanish as their first language or our only language in common, so he spoke Spanish.

We left Oaxaca through some pretty terrible neighborhoods that I had never seen before. It was not at all like downtown, or even my neighborhood, which is rich by comparison.

In these neighborhoods, there was even more graffiti everywhere, little narrow dirt streets up steep hillsides, empty lots filled with trash and of course the endless political posters and signs painted on the walls. It seems the poorer the neighborhood, the bigger quantity of the posters.

Monte Alban, as you might expect from the name, is up on a mountain. The van was a bit close - the only other American, Brady, was quite stinky - I guess from backpacking or something - so the Italian girls I was sitting with started waving their hands around and we finally figured out how to open the rear window (we were sitting in the back row), which let the exhaust fumes in, thus my headache.

Despite Monte Alban's fame and popularity, the parking lot is nowhere near big enough and isn't even paved, so people are parked halfway down the mountain and hiking up the narrow road. It is all wickety-wack like everything else here.

There are hat vendors and a nieves (snow-cone) vendor in the parking lot. The first thing you do is go up steep stairs - the handicapped access is a steep dirt road to the left. Then up a steep sidewalk liked with vendors on both sides selling the usual tourist crap - jewelry, pottery, which makes the sidewalk narrow and crowded.

At the visitor center, there is one guy selling tickets to about 50 people standing in a long line. From the same tiny booth, another guy checks bags and backpacks.

The tour wasn't very long or comprehensive or scientific. Just the basics. We were basically in and out in about an hour and a half. I was pretty disappointed because I didn't learn much or have time to see the museum.

The ruins were amazing though. I could have hung out there all day and just soaked up the feeling of being there.

The views of the city were gorgeous, and all the stonework was just unimaginable for something that old (I think Monte Alban was occupied from about 1000 BC to 900 AD).

The civilization was really advanced technologically, way more than Europe at the time.

We all climbed up very steep stairs to the top of a huge pyramid.



I didn't even know if I could make it, but there were little old ladies doing it, so I felt like I had to give it a try or be seen as the big fat gringo wimp that I am. My thighs were burning like crazy when I got up there, but it was worth it to see the view.

I saw some of the same types of sages growing wild that I had had at my house in San Luis Obispo. It was thrilling for me to see them out where they are from, native. Sages are my favorite plants.

There are ancient ball courts that are about 30 feet deep. You walk right by the edge of them, and of course there are no protective handrails. Our guide actually took a misstep and kind of teetered on the edge for a second.

No doubt the fall would maim or kill you. Oh well! If you go over, I guess it is just hasta la vista, turista.

After that we got shuttled from tourist trap to tourist trap. The tour was basically an excuse to take us to various shopping opportunities, which I am sure give kickbacks to the tour company for delivering busloads of tourists to their door.

The first was a little town, Arrazola, where they make alebrijes - fantastical carved animals of copal wood, brightly painted with flowers and spots in psychedelic designs.

They gave us a load of crap about how they were an ancient Indian tradition of making the animals to protect the spirits of children, but I learned later that someone invented them about 30 years ago and tourists love them, so an industry was born.

They are really very cute and clever. They have a playfulness that appeals to people. I didn't buy one. They are fun, but would look so out of place in our house or anyone's house that I know...

Zaachila and Barro Negro Pottery

The second stop was in Zaachila, a little town that had a nice, peaceful Sunday afternoon kind of feeling.

We went to a huge old church. There was a funky little band of about 6 guys out front, wearing matching burgundy colored outfits and playing what sounded like Dixieland jazz.


Zaachila market bathroom ticket - 10 cents

There were feathered headdresses set out like perhaps someone was going to dance, and a bunch of little kids dressed in cute military-style uniforms with brass buttons. We thought they might be going to dance, but it began to rain and everyone scattered.


Zaachila dancer

We drove out to a typical tourist restaurant - it was huge. The seats were benches or tree trunks outside with wooden tables, under palm-leaf palapas. It was raining there too, but we were dry under our roof, and it never gets cold in Oaxaca when it rains.

We ate pretty good but overpriced food. I ordered chiles rellenos and a side of beans - no one bothered telling me that there were already beans with the chiles, so I had a LOT of beans.

I shared them with our Juan Maria, who told us stories about his worst clients (the French, according to him - he says they are standoffish and refuse to speak either Spanish or English. He said he told them they could speak Zapotec, his first language, if they wanted).

We went to the next tourist trap, San Bartolo Coyotepec, the site of the invention of the black "Barro Negro" pottery. It is low-fired and isn't good for holding liquids, but is quite beautiful and inexpensive for the amount of artistry that goes into it.

We stayed there far too long, about an hour, with the kiln smoke practically killing me. I bought 5 or 6 pieces - 2 balls, one pierced with stars and moons, for Laura's yard (she has a collection of balls out on her lawn - bowling balls, a gazing ball, etc., a vase for Greg's brother Ron who does ceramics, a box for Mom's collection, and a vase for us.

Then the ride back in the exhaust van. I came home tired and cranky.

Dr. Rodriguez gave a little massage, which was kind of nice and kind of freaked me out - my landlord massaging my back, I just didn't know if I was quite comfortable with that. I didn't know what to think. I was going back and forth between "is he acting like a doctor or a pervert?" I think I was just being paranoid because of this morning's encounter with the horny bus driver.

7-26 Lunes del Cerro, Zaachila

Lunes del Cerro, which means "Monday of the Mountains"

Another big adventure, and one I was in no way prepared for.

I had a message at the house that we were to arrive an hour early at school so we could go to La Guelaguetza. I just couldn't figure that one out, since the doors to La Guelaguetza in Oaxaca open at 5 a.m. and the stadium fills up quite early and we didn't even have tickets. I couldn’t see how we would get seats.

Well, it turns out that we were indeed going to La Guelaguetza, but not in Oaxaca. We were going out to the smaller and more traditional festival in Zaachila, which is a little town about 10 miles to the east.

We were to be at school an hour early to have class before we went. So we studied for 2 hours, then went to the bus terminal to go on a crowded, hot bus to Zaachila. It cost 4 pesos - about 40 cents.

Zaachila seemed like nothing much was going on. It was really quiet. There was a little market just setting up and an archeological site that was open to the public but the tombs werentt open. At the site, there was a stage set up at the base of a hill with a couple hundred chairs around it. There were a few people selling barbecue, alegrias (candy made of amaranth seeds - kind of like candy corn) and roasted peanuts.

We went back down to the mercado and got lunch. Sabine, the other vegetarian and I got quesadillas filled with squash blossoms and cheese, deep fried, 2 for a buck. They were super tasty and excellent.

The other students ate barbacoa. It was either sheep or goat, I couldn't tell, though I watched the woman peel the meat off the animal's skull - standing there with her fingers through the eyeholes, cleaning that sucker off real good.


Cleaning the skull

They all seemed to enjoy the barbacoa. We ate outside at tables under the shade of blue plastic tarps, the official roofing material of Mexican markets.


My class eating lunch in Zaachila

I even drank a jamaica (hibiscus-flower) water sold by a woman vending from a tray - forgetting when I ordered that it had ice in it, which is what people all warn against. I drank it and prayed for protection from las turistas.

At the market, people were selling things you never see in the US. Yellow cherries, pitahaya (dragon cactus fruit), squash shoots. They were also selling the other usual stuff - masa for tortillas, mole, chiles, carrots, onions, squash blossoms, peanuts.

We paid 1 peso (10 cents) to use the bathroom. You pay and get a little receipt and a woman hands you a few squares of toilet paper.

We all went back to the site, stopping to buy hats along the way. I spent $2 for a handwoven palm hat and invested $4 in some ugly but very necessary wraparound sunglasses, since I had lost mine at Cafe La Antigua the other day.



There were still very few people about, so we staked out a large spot on a hilltop and kicked back to take naps in the sun.

Gradually more and more people poured in, until the whole place was a sea of humanity, clinging to every steep hillside, in the trees, and becoming more and more packed together.



Our space was halved and halved again, until we went from sprawling all over the place to being unable to straighten our legs.


Little girl eating habas, which she shared with me.

Vendors wove through the crowd. Men carried little lunchbox coolers full of paletas (popsicles) and yelled as they climbed through the people "Pa-lay-tas! Pa-lay-tas!"

Other food vendors sold nuts, or habas - dried fava beans topped with lime juice and chile powder. Alegrias were popular, and those vendors also sold nut brittles with peanuts or pumpkin seeds. There were people selling pastries that looked like donuts, nieves (sorbet) and Tecate beer.

There were also people selling umbrellas and little plastic binoculars, a popular item.

People bought food and shared it with their neighbors. The people next to me gave me some of everything they bought. Sra. Luz told me that it is very rude here not to offer some of whatever you are eating to someone who doesn't have food.

There were people handing around bottles of mezcal and herbs said to cure hangovers.

The basis of the celebration is sharing. It was a way for people from different areas to get together and give away items typical of their regions to their neighbors, and to show off their music, costumes and dances.

The sun was fortunately usually behind the clouds, because when it came out it was intensely baking hot.

La Guelaguetza, Zaachila part 2

La Guelaguetza begins

The program was supposed to start at 2. Of course that didn't happen, but no one seemed to mind. The whole scene was merry and fun.

It began about 3. First, someone started setting off a bunch of firecrackers, then there was a long introduction, then the queen of La Guelaguetza and her court promenaded on stage, then finally the dancers came out.

Each of the 7 regions of Oaxaca was represented. Each has its own costume, dance, and typical products.

The first group of women who came out had floral arrangements on their heads that looked kind of like mini Rose Floats, in the shape of harps or crosses.

Others, the chinitas, had multicolored satin ribbons streaming from their costumes, very beautiful. Some songs seemed to be kind of ribald, because the audience would howl with laughter at the lyrics. They were all inside jokes that us gringos didn't understand.

After the dancers perform, they toss items from their region to the audience. Some regions throw bags of coffee beans or squash seeds, woven palm hats or fans, or oranges. But one region is known for its pineapples, so they tossed pineapples out - whole, spiky pineapples. Crazy! Heads up!



The whole thing was unlike anything I have ever experienced.

For one, in the US there is no way they would let thousands of people trample all over an archeological site. People would file lawsuits to prevent it.

And there was only one entrance, about 8 feet wide, with two ways to get to it - up a set of steep rocky stairs, or by climbing a wooden ramp propped up on some boards, set at about a 30 degree angle. The fire department in the U.S. would have shut it down. If not them, the health department.

But it was all part of the fun. And everyone seemed to be able to get in ok - tiny old grandmas propped up between people, little kids, it was all ok.

It was too crowded for us to get to the bathrooms on the site. We waited until we left and went to a dirt parking lot across the street. We paid 2 pesos each to use a hole topped by a toilet seat, surrounded by corrugated metal with a roof about 5 feet high ("No sitting, no standing," I yelled out the door to my fellow students, laughing) and a piece of black plastic for a door.

At times I was tempted to freak out at the intensity of the crowd, the fact that I was trapped there for about 5 hours in the heat and sitting on the ground, and the insanely loud and discordant music...but it was the experience of a lifetime. It was so real and honest and unmanufactured. I am glad I hung in.

When we left and were standing in line for the bathroom (hole), one girl from our group just lost it. She was cooked by the sun and mad as hell that the school hadn't really informed us about what was happening that day.

So she started cursing and practically spitting and it made me laugh my head off.

I feel like we students generally try to be good visitors and prop up our hosts' self-image. We tell them how beautiful it is here, how friendly the people are, how good the weather is, how great the food is - which are all true.

But we spare telling them what a mess a lot of things are or how much better we have it (endless hot water! sewers that don't smell up the city! traffic lights that you can see from both directions! smooth roads! honest cops!) in the U.S. so many ways.

So it was funny to hear someone be totally honest for a few minutes.


The land of no waste - flattened stock for metal cans is made into a door in Zaachila

Tuesday July 27 - What time is dinner?

8:15 pm
Waiting for dinner, which is usually at 8. The family of course doesn't eat at 8. They eat dinner between 9:30 and 10:30 pm, a light meal of rolls and hot chocolate or something. I can'f figure this Oaxacan schedule out.

People seem to be up early. They breakfast between 6 and 10 a.m., depending on their schedule. Lunch is at 3. Then kids eat between 6 and 8 p.m., and adults later. This is what my teacher Luz told me. When do they sleep, if they eat at 10:30 pm? It seems like the Rodriguezes are up until 1 a lot of the time.

The whole thing just doesn't make sense to me. I am much more understanding of the American breakfast, lunch dinner thing, but I guess that is because I am an American, or Estado Unidenso, as they say here.

School was unremarkable today, except that the wooden chairs seemed especially brutal after sitting on the hard ground all day yesterday.

I am beginning to find my way around the city a little better. The first week I couldntt remember from street to street where I was. Now I can actually find some things instead of just bumping into them at random.

And I'm not so fearful crossing streets. It still seems crazy not to be able to see the streetlights from every direction, but that's just the way it goes here and I have to get used to it. You have to look both ways and make sure no one is coming, because if they are, they sure as heck aren't going to slow down for you.

One of the great puzzlements to me is how nice Oaxacans are to me in person and how malicious they seem while driving.

The signs say "Primer los peatones" (pedestrians first) but that never happens. People zing into left hand turns with people crossing the street without even a second thought. Out of the way!

People here are really relaxed with all the dysfunction. Maybe it is because they are so relaxed that everything is more or less a mess. Maybe some good old American outrage would serve them...stuff might get done.

For instance, at La Guelaguetza in Oaxaca city, it is widely known that they routinely sell more tickets than they have seats, so half the audience ends up standing. Can you imagine a Dodgers game where that happened? There would be RIOTING, I'm not kidding. The first time and every time it happened. It certainly wouldn't happen year after year with no one saying anything.

So there is a trade-off. Relaxation versus mess. I don't know which I like better.

After school I did the usual - found an internet cafe, went to Cafe La Antigua to study, then walked around. The Feria de Mezcal is over, so the festivities in Parque El Llano are over, which is too bad, because it was a fun place to visit.

I walked up to an old aqueduct, a very picturesque area. The old aqueduct was built on top of a bunch of arches, and now people have built buildings underneath the arches, including a tiny restaurant.

My first taxi
I had so much stuff in my bag and was so tired by the time I got done walking around that I caught my first taxi in Oaxaca - $3 to get me back to Chedraui.

The taxista, like all Oaxacans, was very friendly and asked a lot of questions and listened to my bad Spanish very patiently.

Senora Gloria is the nicest woman. She makes me dinner and then sits with me so I won't be alone, following along with what I say and correcting all my mistakes. We spend most of the time trying to figure out what the heck the other is saying.

Various members of the family drop in all the time, especially Cesar and his wife and 2 kids. It is really great to see. It makes me wish my family lived closer together and got together more. It seems like their family life is very rich and happy.

July 28 - Clothing Issues

10 pm

My poor wrecked feet. My stupid sandals were hurting my feet so bad, so I bought these new ones at a store owned by a gringa up by Santo Domingo.

I hated my old shoes so bad I didntt even want them anymore (the soles were pretty worn out). I just told her to dispose of them (she said she would leave them out for someone to find), and bought these comfy new ones with wide elastic straps. Then I walked home with them on and the bumpy elastic sanded all the skin off my little toes. My feet were bleeding like crazy. Yikes.

Now I have zero pairs of comfortable sandals, 1 pair of flip flops that also tend to give blisters if I wear them for a long time, a pair of really ugly tennis shoes, and a pair of tennis shoes that look sort of like bowling shoes. Nothing to wear with a dress.

My fashion problem is complicated by my laundry problem.

After almost 2 sweaty weeks, my clothes are all dirty.

Tomorrow I could wear 1) a slightly stinky dress 2) a pair of long shorts - not much done here or 3) a long skirt.

If it is 1 or 3, what shoes do I wear? The bowling shoes? I could wear flipflops downtown and buy ANOTHER pair of new shoes tomorrow. It is a little ridiculous. What was I thinking when I packed my shoes?

The laundry is closed when I leave for school and closed when I get home. I guess I could ask Gloria to take it over for me...but you know how I like to be independent.

Cooking and school together

Cooking and School...cooking school!

We cooked in school today, which was a lot of fun.

First we went to the market and bought the things we needed, practicing our verbs for spend, save, have left, etc.

We got masa for tortillas, huitlacoche (a corn fungus like a mushroom that is quite a delicacy), squash blossoms, epazote (an herb), quesillo (a long belt of cheese wrapped into a ball), chiles, tomatillos (called miltomates here), onions and cilantro.

I was out of my mind with happiness to see fresh huitlacoche. I had only seen it before in cans and always wanted to try it.

I also bought a pitahaya (a cactus fruit, very beautiful - bright pink on the outside and crispy snow white inside with little round black seeds).

We came back to school and made quesadillas in the kitchen. We cooked the squash blossoms and the huitlacoche (separately), shredded the cheese, and made tortillas with a big wooden press. We put some filling on the fresh tortillas, folded them over, and pressed the edges together.


Making tortillas for quesadillas

Luz heated a large terra cotta comal on all four gas burners til it was scorching hot. It was covered with cal, or lime, to keep the tortillas from sticking. We baked the quesadillas on top of it.


Luz cooking on the comal


The we had a lunch of quesadillas and pitahaya, sharing with our fellow students.

It is all women in my class, a nice group.

It seems most of the people in the class are teachers.

One, Mari, is a UN "bureaucrat" who speaks English, Japanese, Italian and French already. I walked home with her tonight. She is very interesting, has lived in New York, Japan, Switzerland and California, and has travelled all over the world.

Guelma is a retired teacher, a bit of a tough old bird, southern from Louisiana and Texas. Widowed and loves to tell stories. We have afternoon class together, just her and I and Erica, and it is hard for me to get a word in edgewise because she has such fun stuff to say.

Christy is the mother of 2, a 6-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, both pretty bratty because Christy never seems to discipline them. She has them here because her husband is Venezuelan and the kids speak Spanish, and she wants to be able to keep up with them.