Adiós

Today I’ve been home for as long as I was in Mexico. It’s been plenty of time to contemplate my time there. I can’t say though that I have any sort of closure. When people ask me to tell them about it, it’s as if I’m being asked “How has your life been?” I was in Mexico long enough that it became regular life. Life, as you know, is complicated to put into words.

Pragmatically speaking, I am regularly surprised by the amount and fluency of Spanish that I am retaining. I feel like I can better understand the Mexican culture, especially since reflecting on my experiences there (some of which made no sense to me at the time).

Overall I’m very pleased that I made the choice to study in Oaxaca and that I finished the program. Although there are shallow regrets that I did not study in a more glamorous location such as southern Spain or Buenos Aires,

Regardless, I will forever cherish the memories of the people that I met and befriended in Oaxaca: my host mother Ruth, friends and intercambios Enrique, Mayte and Reina, and MariCarmen, our ever-patient Spanish teacher and mentor. I hope to visit again someday and of course open my home to these people if they ever make it North.

It seems a dream sometimes, as if I never was in Mexico. In fact though, I have weekly dreams where I am battling to come home from Mexico. I suppose some part of me will always be there.

4 days, 4 notes: The Ocean

Yesterday we watched a man get swept to sea. We watched him get saved by the lifeguards. We watched him, after his recovery, sink to the ground with his head in his hands  The same day we saw a little girl, neglected, almost get taken to sea by a freak surge. 

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When I went to the beach, I had ideas of spending time contemplating and relaxing, maybe writing a little. I did do a lot of contemplating and relaxing, but the idea of writing anything in the face of the sea, of time eternal, seems pointless. Bearing witness to the brutal forces of nature renders my desire to record my thoughts as feeble and trivial.

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Puerto Escondido is not a place where you can swim. Not at all. The waves are the largest I've seen in my life. Surfers, and the lifeguards that back them up on jet-skis to keep them from getting swallowed up by the sea, look like specks riding the waves. A surfer standing by told us he had been surfing for five years and he's still not ready for the waves at Puerto.

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A man enters the restaurant smiling gleefully. He and the hostess flirt, her giggles rubbed out by the pounding of the surf. The waterline separates life and death  Puffer fish and sea snakes thrown ashore during the high tide languish and suffer in the hot sun. 

Staying at the Hotel Camarena

We're going to the beach! When we asked Ruth for economical suggestions for a hotel, she jokingly told us to stay at the Hotel Camarena. Camarena however is a spanish portmanteau of the words cama (bed) and arena (sand). I suppose the beach is the most economical place to sleep. But we ignored her advice and we'll actually  be staying at a little hotel on the beach called Hotel Rockaway.

Today was our last day of classes. Tomorrow morning we'll be heading out to Puerto Escondido to spend a few days on the beach. Once we return to Oaxaca, we'll have just a handful of days before we catch our flight home. We return on the 20th, a week from this Saturday. We're both homesick and so excited to see everyone!

Ruth

Well, this is a post I've been meaning to write for awhile. Many folks back home have expressed curiosity about our host mother and host family in general. I was hesitant to write too much until I felt like I understood enough about them.

At the beginning there definitely was a language barrier, but slowly, ever so slowly we began to be able to understand Ruth's stories and even to tell her our own. Now I can say that I feel like I understand 95% of what she says. Of course, we speak with her at every meal.

Any time we have a question Ruth has great advice for us: what the best bus routes are, where to go to buy this or that, what food or vendors we should avoid, how much things should cost, what places are worth visiting. She points out our Spanish errors, teaches us new words and idioms. She's also prone to giving us plenty of unsolicited advice (see Viva los Homebodies). She definitely takes the mother role to heart.

Ruth, our host mother and her mother. Though we see her mother almost daily, she was only ever introduced to us as "my mother", so we just call her 'señora'.

If I'm doing my math right Ruth is in her mid to late fifties. She has told us that she started working in an office of the department of transportation when she was 14. She says this was in an unofficial capacity until she turned 16 and could legally work there (I just said ok and kept listening). It's still not totally clear to me what she did, but I think she was a dispatcher (we had this conversation early on). Whatever she did gave her a deathly fear of cars, roads and driving (she's never had a license and has never driven).

So she stayed in that job for 30 years until she qualified for a pension. By then she had 2 kids, Chantal and Luis Alberto. At the time they were in their early teens. Around the same time she separated from her husband and was sitting around going nuts at home, until one of her friends suggested she keep students. So she found an agency and has been hosting students for 9 years now. She had to learn to cook (something she never had time for when she worked). So she took some cooking courses and she's a great cook now. In fact she still takes courses occasionally when she has time.

Ruth and Sid

She has a lot of great stories about her hosting experiences. We got her on tape telling a few. We'll share them when we get home. I feel like listening to her will tell a lot more about her than I can say in a blog post. It's hard to condense someone's identity into words. All I can say is Ruth is kind, indirect, joyful, pushy, witty, anxious, concerned, curious, loves to tell stories, loves to learn, doesn't speak english but knows many unexpected words, like mop and hairspray. She's very fashionable. She likes having nice things but not to the extent of being shallow. She stays on top of the news and always has some event to discuss with us. She loves her dog, Sid. She plays hide-and-seek with him. She's short, maybe not even 5'. I don't know what else to say. She's our Mexican momma.

Cleanliness is next to...god what is that smell?

Oaxaca is a fairly modern city and offers everything you could expect to find in a city of its size in the US. Oaxaca state however is the 2nd poorest of Mexico's 31 states. I'm not sure how much this dictates its water quality in comparison to the water quality of other places in Mexico. I just don't have enough experience with the rest of Mexico to speak with any authority.

However after being in Oaxaca for 3 months I feel I can speak about its water quality generally. First of all the adage to not drink the water is not any sort of exageration. I don't even know one Mexican who drinks the water. There is a different distribution system of drinking water here. There are water trucks that deliver water in 5 gallon containers to homes and in bulk to businesses and public buildings. Our host mother Ruth just texts the water guy whenever we're running low on water.

The whole problem with the water is the pipes. At the water plants here they treat water to similar standards as we have in the US. The thing is, Mexicans had indoor plumbing and large public waterworks when we were all still using outhouses in the US. However, the pipes have not been updated very much. They're old. They leak. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if they didn't run alongside sewage lines (which also leak) and under streets that accept chemicals and oil from the roadways. So everything else in the groundwater, gets into the clean water. People that actually live right beside water treatment facilites drink the water, because it's fine. It hasn't been contaminated yet.

The rest have to buy their drinking water from another source. What really sucks though is that, unless you have an in-line water filtration system in your home, you have to use the contaminated water for washing your hands, washing your clothes and showering. Sometimes we see the film of roadway oil on the top of the toilet water after it's been flushed. So we're washing our clothes in water that could contain oil, chemicals, sewage, etc. What we really don't enjoy thinking about and talking about is that the same water is coming from the showerhead. Luckily I haven't noticed any residues on my body after showering, but I have once smelled sewage strongly while I was showering. Maybe it was sewer gas escaping the trap. Either way it grossed me out so much.

Long story short, we can't wait to get home and shower in clean, even drinkable, water. Moral of the story: thank your lucky stars we backwards Americans didn't start installing large-scale public plumbing until the 19th and 20th centuries.

I make my living on the avenue of the dead

Not really, but some people do.

David and I at Teotihuacan, the 1000 year old ruins outside Mexico City. We were on top of the pyramid of the moon. Behind us is the 10-story pyramid of the sun and the avenue of the dead. 

This past week leading up to Easter is called Semana Santa (Holy Week) in the spanish-speaking catholic world. The week and its activities and celebrations are actually much more important than Easter day itself, which has no celebrations, just the regular Easter Mass. Many people get the week off from school and work. Many go to the beach. We instead went for a tour through the heart of Mexico, visiting Puebla, the Great Pyramid at Cholula, Mexico City and Teotihuacan (above and below).

Haggling with some folks who actually do make their living on the avenue of the dead.

Supposedly this was a good week to travel, as our host mother Ruth told us that the major cities would be very quiet due to everyone vacationing at the beach. Mexico City has 20 million people, so after visiting there during Semana Santa I can only say I can't imagine how busy it is normally.

The National Cathedral on Mexico City's main plaza

View from the terrace of our hostel in Mexico City.

 Because of our travels we actually missed the majority of the Semana Santa activities in Oaxaca (which Oaxaca is famous for). Apparently all of the churches put up elaborate alters to saints or to a specific rendition of the virgin. Visitors file in and out of the many churches (it seems there is one on every corner) to view the alters. Then Saturday there was something called the Procesión de Silencio, where the alters are carried through the streets in silence. Unfortunately we missed it all, but we were here to witness the huge swelling in the number of tourists who began arriving the Sunday preceding Easter. The Zocalo was packed. 

I'd like to say more and put up some more pictures from the trip but we also want to save some things to show people when we get home! Which is two weeks from Saturday! See you all soon!

David doing in a suero (beer with lime juice and spices)

Murals around Oaxaca

Nerd Alert

(Warning: This is a pretty geeky and technical entry, but you may find interest if you are a language nerd like myself.)

Let's say you're at a party and you see two people, one pretty drunk. Maybe he's being very loud. Suppose someone says to him that he needs to lower his voice. Then he turns to his friend and asks if he's being loud.

If the friend says Habla como quieras.
This means 'Talk however you want.' However there is an indication that the friend does not know exactly how he will be acting. There is a degree of uncertainty.

But if the friend says Habla como quieres.
This also means 'Talk however you want.'  However there is an indication that the friend knows how he is going to talk and is suggesting that he is always loud and obnoxious when he is drunk.

What's the difference between the two? Only that 'a' or 'e'  on the root word 'quier'.
This is the use of something called the subjunctive mood. This is something that we have in english also, however we don't use it as widely. Here's an example in english.

You are happy. (indicative mood)
I wish you were happy. (subjunctive mood)

The were in the second sentence is the subjunctive. In English we use the past tense to make the subjunctive. Why the were? We're not talking about the past after all.  It's because it's a situation that suggests desire or a hypothetical situation, ie. I wish I knew spanish fluently, if I did I wouldn't sound like a clown.

But in spanish the subjunctive is used extensively, plus it's conjugated in its own tense, not the past tense as in english. This makes it very difficult for us, because when we talk about any situation that involves emotion or desire or hypothetical situations we have to remember to insert the special tense, not the Spanish past tense.

Further it's used to distinguish degrees of certainty. The 3 sentences below would all be translated in the same way in English. "We will have been here for 4 months when we leave."

Habremos estado aqui 4 meses cuando salgamos.
Habremos estado aqui 4 meses cuando salimos.
Habremos estado aqui 4 meses cuando saldrémos.

Why the different endings of the verb salir (to leave)? The sentence at the top means, we mean to leave but who knows what the universe plans. The one in the middle means we will definitely be leaving.The one on the bottom means we are positively sure and confident that we are leaving, so you'd better not suggest that we're not. You can see where things can get confusing.

Spanish is a bit more explicit in situations, whereas in English you have to read between the lines more. This can get confusing, because the Mexican culture is more indirect than the American culture. This is all a bit paradoxical. Basically it calls for a lot of forethought before you ever even begin to decide what word you are going to use. You need to decide what mood you are going to use.

Semana Santa

Our Semana Santa (Holy Week) Trip. We'll have the next week off from Classes and will be visiting nearby Puebla and Mexico City. We're leaving tomorrow morning and will likely be back in Oaxaca by Thursday. We'll be visiting museums, ruins, historical landmarks and other such things. I hope to post a couple blog entries along the way if we can find internet cafes. 


View Semana Santa in a larger map

No such thing as a free lunch

Since I've been here I've written perhaps 40 or so blog posts, kept track of family and friends through Facebook, emails and Skype, and used a variety of websites and programs to improve my Spanish  I've kept up with news back home and here in Mexico and have been able to stream my favorite music as well as my favorite radios shows from my favorite Louisville station, WFPK. Twenty years ago much of this would've been impossible for a student abroad.

We all have many reasons to be grateful for the internet  it saves so much time and resources. It keeps us all connected. But like most things that offer so much, it comes with a price. The price is not always evident.

There have been many situations where I had an  invitation or the opportunity to do something new or at least get out of the house, but I decided against it because it's easier to stay in a comfortable space where I can stream any aspect of the English speaking world that I want. There have times when it's easier to watch something on Netflix in English than to go watch a telenovela (soap opera) with Ruth. Let's face it: there have been many times. Also, it seems my Spanish acquisition is starting to plateau. So, I want to spend more time this last month focusing on my Spanish, spending more time with my language exchange partners  reading more in Spanish, watching only Spanish TV and films, going out to events more, etc.

What's bringing this up now is the realization that we have so little time left here. Today we have one month left in Mexico. Also five new students are moving in tomorrow and supposedly none of them have computers because its a rule in their program. What a great idea! Sometimes I wish I'd left mine at home too. So, I've decided to stop using my computer except for homework. I may try not to use my own computer  at all and instead only use those in the computer lab at the school. This may turn out to be more difficult than it sounds. Wish me luck.

If I stayed home I wouldn't get to see things like this...

Provecho!

I must admit this is from another website. But once I read it I realized I could not have said it better myself...

"One of the things that I really like about Mexican culture is the custom of saying provecho to other diners as you leave a restaurant. Provecho means bon appetit or “enjoy your meal”.

Usually as you get up to leave your table you say provecho to the people at the table nearest yours, but sometimes you hear people saying it as they pass more than one table.

When I’m in a restaurant I have a tendency to forget that I’m in a room full of people. My table and my companions and my food become my temporary little world. And I think that many Americans are just like me. There’s a sense in the U.S. that people want to be left alone when they are eating in a restaurant. So the last thing you are going to do when you are dining out there is to talk to the people at the next table.

But in Mexico that spell of isolation is broken. You ARE in a room full of people. And it’s acknowledged in a polite and particularly kind way. I like that." (hiddencancun.com)

This is totally true and can at times be startling. Once when David and I were leaving a small mom and pop restaurant with perhaps 6 tables in a town outside of Oaxaca, I said Adiós to the hostess and was surprised by seemingly everyone in the restaurant responding with Adiós!. I now realize I should have said Provecho!

Panorama from the roof of the ex-convent at Cuilapam

Mexico's second president, Vincente Guerrero was shot and killed by a firing squad in the yard below.

History Shmistory!

A craft that is prolifically produced here in Oaxaca, is the alebrije (ah-lay-bree-hay). They are animals carved from the softwood of the copal tree. They are then intricately painted.

David and I were lucky enough to visit the home and workshop of a family who have been producing alebrijes 'forever´. They live in a small town just outside of Oaxaca city called Arrazola. The whole town is and has been dedicated to alebrijes since time immemorial.

Something interesting we've learned is that here in Oaxaca many towns share the characteristic of being dedicated to a specific craft. Some only make rugs and weaving, some alebrijes, some red ceramics, some green ceramics. There is one small town that is solely dedicated to creating signature ceramics from its black clay. This may further explain the tianguises (outdoor markets). They travel between different towns depending on the day of the week. I suppose if everyone in  your town is dedicated to only one type of product, it makes it more convenient to have a mixed market that comes to town every week.

While we were in Arrazola, we watched one of the shopowners, a quiet and gentle man, carve a fish alebrije from the branch of a copal tree, right in front of our eyes. He was slow and methodical with his spanish. He was easy to understand. He explained his craft and asked us some questions about the US. While we watched and enjoyed the cool of the concrete walls of his home, some kids ran through the yard. Afterwards we bought a couple of unpainted alebrijes and then painted them there in the workshop.

We could see the mountaintop ruins of Monte Alban from the patio of the family's home. It's hard to forget Mexico's history. It's always in your face, whether it's the ancients pyramids of Monte Alban on the horizon or an indigenous woman selling roasted corn cobs on the sidewalk in front of a designer shoe store.

In the US, when we want to emphasize the irrelevance of something we say "Forget about it. It's history." History is treated differently here. It's so relevant to understanding the world here today. History is tied up in all the many ethnicities, religions and languages here. If you don't understand the history you can't understand the present.

Why I am against tourism

Traveling vs. Tourism

Tourism is one of those words often easily overlooked. Many of us want to travel the world, but end up touring it instead. The idea of enriching your life, your experience, through travel is, for the majority, a lame excuse to seek the novel in life. It is easier for those in the 1^st world to travel and feel like we have pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones, than it is to push ourselves out of our comfort zones at home. It is a luxury of first-world existence.

While I admit that it is worth getting to know other cultures than your own, much of the time it is not worth the harm of travel. Tourism, besides being environmentally taxing, can at best, render local economies reliant on and subject to the whims of the market demand, and at worst, destroy preexisting local economies.

Obviously there is a balance to be had. I think we are overreaching that balance. I believe there are alternatives to the culturally dictated methods of cultural enrichment. Different cultures can be found in our own backyard. Get to know the poor, the oppressed in your own city and state. Get to know the people who live differently from you. Make friends with someone rich. Visit someone dying. Mentor someone. Our own nation is such a diverse place, replete with diverse cultural experiences. 

Visiting 500 year old ex-convents doth not a cultured person make. (No the irony of this article, written on Mexican soil, does not escape me.)

However, we Americans not just like but must believe that we are all the same, everyone is equal. The rich downplay their wealth, claim to be 'upper middle class'. The poor likewise play up their station. Everyone works to seem 'common'. Our language reflects that. When people use five dollar words, we ask them to speak English please. Lord forbid we sound intelligent. Others may think that we think we're better than them (one of the greatest fears of Americans). This serves to make Americans appear to be very united, very similar. But this in fact serves to drive us apart.

We have enough to learn at home that we deserve to focus our efforts on knowing our own place before exploring the world. I believe travel can teach one a lot about one's own place. I believe it is beneficial to see the world through another culture's eyes. Other cultures can be found here however. And many people take it well beyond the limit. Some travel to consume the world, to check it off their list, just to say they have done it. This is not the point.

One of my very favorite songs of all time

This doesn't really pertain to Oaxaca, but I just love this song so much I'd like to share it. 

Mercedes Sosa is a very famous Argentinian artist, whose music David and I have fallen in love with over the past 6 months or so. Here is perhaps her most well known song, although she had a prolific career of some 50 years. If you like this and you poke around for more work of hers, you will not be disappointed. 

Not so Far after all...

Circle indicating all points as far from Louisville as is Oaxaca (1602 miles). It's distorted because the map is 2-D. If the same were drawn on a globe it would be a perfect circle.

50 Days in...

Mexicans do the darnedest things. I just can't figure them out.

We just reached the halfway point of our stay here in Mexico. I'm not sure exactly what to say. It's been a joy at times and a challenge at others. We're definitely enjoying the weather (although we miss the wintertime coziness). Everything is still working out with our host family (although we miss everyone back home dearly). We at times get overwhelmed with the culture here, which can be deceptively similar to our own but then pull the rug out from under us. We sometimes get overwhelmed with the languages. Some days it flows so easily. Other days, for reasons unknown, it spits and sputters off of the tongue so that I feel like I'm back at the beginning.

There are so many little things that require so much more attention and thought than they require at home where we know all the answers. The more I've learned about the Mexicans, the more I look into things, and the more hesitations I have with them. Sometimes, they seem just like us. Sometimes they do things out of left field that I just can't make out.

We've read a lot on Mexican history and culture. However I still feel like I'm missing out on so much. I'm sure that so much goes right by me. Luckily I started two new courses: US-Mexico History and Relations: and Indigenous Religion and the Development of Catholicism. (Their semester works different than ours. So we had 2 classes the first half of the semester and now we have 2 new ones until the end.) With these courses, I'm sure I'll come away with a much greater understanding than what I have now. Until now we've been working on bringing our language up to fluency. Now that we can at least understand and be understood, we can begin to look a little deeper.

Wish us luck! Thank you all for your support and love. We miss everyone so much and to be quite honest, I've never looked forward to a plane ride like I look forward to the one that will take us home in April! I feel like I should have more to say at this milestone, but mostly I'm just getting into the swing of existing here. If anyone's curious about anything or has any questions for us, let us know and we'll write on them.

FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS DAVID!!!

Here are some pictures of David having a good time in Mexico. We're both sorry we're not home for his birthday, but we're still having a good time here!!!

At our school

At Monte Alban

Relaxing on the terrace at the house

Another from Monte Alban. We tried to recreate the shot of Elizabeth that Ed took there.

Inside Santo Domingo

Painting an alebrije

Goodbye February

Hope you all fared well during February. It's always a tough one in the northern climes. We wish you all an early spring!