March
11, 2009
- 10:30 am arrive in Oaxaca
- Hostel
- Downtown Oaxaca
- Museo de Oaxaca
- Danzon
- Café
- Internet
- Hostel
March
12, 2009
- Breakfast
- Templo de la compania
- Museo de Rufino Tamayo
- Museo Grafico
- Artesanias Regionales y Populares
de Oaxaca
- Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de
Oaxaca
- Basilica de la Soledad
- Jardin Etnobotanico
- Dinner
March
13, 2009
- Bus
- Ejutla—Ocotlan
- Museo Rodolfo Morales
- Artesania Aguilar
- Casa Rodolfo Morales
- Bus
- Oaxaca
- Park
- Mass
- Sto Domingo
March
14, 2009
- Mass
- Breakfast
- Park
- Casa Crespo—Oscar
- Museo de Pintores Oaxaquenos
- Parque Chapulines
- Manuel & Gualalupe in Park
- Danzon estudiantil
- Son cubano
- Hostel
March
15, 2009
- Breakfast
- Monte Alban
- Oaxaca
- Lunch with Tom, Nancy, Lee Ann
- Tianguis
- Hostel
- Sto. Domingo
- Mass
- Tlayuda
Oaxaca
I thought San Cristobal de las Casas was the Mexican San Francisco, but
Oaxaca is vying for that place. Or could it be that San Francisco is the
US-Oaxaca. The place has so much art, artistic venues, museums and
music in the plaza (yesterday there was a 40 piece orchestra playing danzon
music while the audience danced. It is foodie paradise. And it is warmer and
not so cold here. It is a magical place.
It has been wonderful to travel through Mexico and Central America. But
to be honest it is getting tiring to pack up and settle into a new city every
few days or so and orient myself. And while I do meet people it is not the same
as friends. Or it could be the headache I have for lack of sleep on the bus
last night.
Ocotlan
Getting there was one story. I asked the bus driver to let me know when
Ocotlan stop was, which is 45 minutes south of Oaxaca. And he forgot. I had to
get another bus (and pay the fare again) to get back to Ocotlan.
It is a neat little village where on Fridays the
village and the localities have there open air market which surrounds the
central plaza, the market and the church. The Zapotecs have been gathering here
from before the arrival of the Spanish so it is a very old market. They sell
everything: produce, meat, poultry, plastics, bread, textiles, shoes, woodwork,
mezcal, and tejote (a drink made with cacao, cacao flowers and pisle--it is
very refreshing). They also make these empanadas: they are large corn tortillas
made fresh. They are filled with yellow mole, chicken, cilantro and Oaxaca
cheese. They are folded over and toasted crisp. Then seasoned with fresh onions
and lime juice.
But Ocotlan is also known for its artesanias, put on the map by Rodolfo
Morales, who with his time and money renovated the former Dominican monastery
into a small museum of the city artesanias. The most famous is from the Aguilar
family who make these colorful clay figurines of daily life, funerals,
marriages, Fridas, mermaids, devils, Virgen Marys and ladies of the night. I
got to visit there studio. The founding mother is now deceased and the work is
carried out by her daughters. I got to talk to Juan, Irene´s son about the
process. Fascinating.
I had a cooking class today. At Casa Crespo, the
owner/cook Oscar showed me how to make a guajillo mole with chicken. We also
made two kinds of salsa, guacamole, a pureed bean soup, fried banana
croquets filled with fresh cheese and topped with salsa,
and 2 kinds of quesadillas. One quesadilla had cheese, a zucchini
flower and epazote (a herb). The other had cheese and grasshoppers. The
Oaxacan cheese was too strong so the grasshoppers were like little, salty
crunchy things.
So later I went to the market to buy. They sold them large, medium and
small. I bought M$35 pesos worth ($USD 2.35) for about a cup. They
are stir-fried with salt and lemon and really don¨t taste like anything
except they are lemony, salty and crunchy. I am bringing a bag home.
One of the adventures of traveling are the people you
meet.
While in San Cristobal de las Casas, I met
Enoko, a young Basque sound engineer ,who for the last three
years has donated time and energy to a Zapatista community. Through the course
of the conversation, his efforts to liberate his country has linked him to
other communities who have been oppressed. And while the community with which
he works is far from perfect in its democracy, its efforts are to build a
community where material goods are held in common and necessary needs are provided
for. While I have reservations about a socialist system as I have seen it, I
admire his work to build a more equitable world.
Also in San Cristobal, I met Jorge, a American-Mexican
artist/entrepreneur who does some fascinating jewelry, delicate pieces of art using
actual leaves which are plasticized. Some of the work is set with precious
stones. He recruits young artists to help create and design pieces of art. He
was an engaging and welcoming, though opinionated man. He had some interesting
thoughts about Mexico and the US. He assessed Mexico as corrupt and inefficient
and all those who do business here are “wringing Mexico dry and selling it
on the international market. His experience is that packages leaving Mexico
are scanned and when agents see that it contains jewelry, it “disappears.” He
was looking to locate his business to the US where he can find talented, honest
and ambitions young students to train to create art. His assessment of the US as a place to do business is not any better;
the US while the US is efficient it is as corrupt. His cynical
assessment of Mexico as an inefficient, corrupt nation disturbed me, mostly my
sense that there is a great deal of truth to it. His assessment of the US as a
corrupt while efficient country left me thinking. His assessment of his
Japanese, who buy his jewelry, was skewed as he perceived them as disdaining
the non-Japanese.
In Oaxaca’s main plaza, I met a Manuel and Guadalupe,
a married couple, teachers, who gave me the history of the May 2006 teachers’ strike,
which mobilized the city and state to demand from the government accountability
and living wages. In May of 2006, the teachers’ union gave the government a
list of needs and received a “slap in the face.” The teachers responded by
having rallies and demonstrations articulating their position and protesting
the governments’ response by striking and setting up encampments in the Zocalo,
the central square. In June, the government took repressive measures against
the teachers with surveillance and armed helicopter and soldiers armed with
tear gas, batons, and pepper spray. The teachers had been prepared in case of
such a move and mobilized their communications (TV and radio). The people
supported the teachers by giving them refuge and providing them with sticks and
stones to fight back. Young boys carried wheel barrows filled with stones to
hurl at soldiers. The sidewalks and benches were broken to create more stones.
Subcommandante Marcos told the teachers that they had “cojones” because they
fought with nothing more than sticks and stones, while the Zapatistas had guns.
The relato was very moving and inspiring. The strike ended in November 2006 due
to the fact that that strike has gone on for more than six months (no income
for the teachers) and the fact that the leader of the union had disappeared (it
is assumed that he was bribed away) and the second in command was not as capable
and the strike lost steam.
The teachers’ union inspired other Oaxacans that they
could change the social order. And other organizations mobilized to align
themselves with the teachers and showed the people that they could demand
changes.
While in a Son Cubano, a bar in Oaxaca, I also met Daniel, a young man
who works for the army. He was a handsome, talented jack of all trades: an
architect, a mason, a leader, an English speaker and a soldier. He had
been involved in the “control” of Zapatista territory in Chiapas. His
assessment is that the Zapatistas in Chiapas want to separate from Mexico, and
that the US is creating dissention so that it can eventually create a canal
along Tehuanapec isthmus. While I agree that the US doesn’t always have the
interests of the local people in mind, I did have a difficult believing him. After
being in Panama and knowing that what the Panama Canal, which was in the US’s possession,
cost in resources and 25,000 human lives, I doubt the US would want to build a
canal through Mexico’s isthmus. The people you meet make traveling so
interesting.
El
que busca la verdad, corre el riesgo de encontrarla.
--Victor
Manuel