Why Oaxaca?

Sometimes when I'm walking along the streets to school or to the store or to meet other students somewhere for an activity or excursion I get overwhelmed by how noisy and smelly it is here. There's just nowhere to stop, to hide, to seek refuge. Once a person steps onto the street you can not expect peace until you reach your destination (if you're lucky) or until you return home. I finally understand why there are no yards here, why every block is a long wall with doors at each address that open into courtyards. The home is a refuge here, from the insane hustle and bustle of the outside world. After being on the streets, I'm ecstatic to pass through the enormous gate and enter the home behind the massive walls.

Sometimes it's just so uncomfortable here. We've grown used to Berea and its quiet tree-lined streets, its beautiful campus, the small-town atmosphere. This is a city. It reminds me of living in down town Louisville but even busier. And although David and I agree that we've never had Spanish teachers as great as the ones here, the school itself is not ideal. I don't mean it's not a good school. I's just not great. Compared to UNAM in Mexico City, one of the top three universities in the spanish-speaking world, this school is seriously backwoods.

With that background you can understand why a lot of people here ask what brought us to Oaxaca. Likewise many people from home asked us why we were planning on going to Mexico as opposed to some other Spanish speaking country.

After all we had originally considered going to Cuba, Argentina and Spain as well as Mexico. Though we'd both like to visit Cuba someday, it was too difficult to navigate concerning student visas. For awhile we said we had decided on Spain. We watched videos of the wonderful things students at the University of Granada could do in their leisure time. The idea of learning the most-refined version of Spanish at a very, very old and prestigious institution was certainly tempting. We studied the geography, the cities of southern Spain. We read about the culture, listened to the music, searched out first-hand accounts from the blogs of students studying abroad there. Upon further research however we started to lean toward studying in Argentina. The culture is fascinating. The people are beautiful and so is their peculiar sing-songy italian-sounding Spanish. The landscapes of Argentina certainly did much to sell it as well.

However, in the end we chose Mexico. Why?

It's been interesting to listen to how we answer the question, to see how our answers have changed over time and depending on our audience. Before we ever left Kentucky we had certain reasons that now have been pushed to the margins and we had other reasons that we've now chosen to focus on and that have developed the longer we've been here.

The main 3 reasons are...

It's cheaper.
It's closer.
The Mexicans are our neighbors.

These reasons are simple and they ebb and flow depending on our moods and who we're speaking to. Being closer, travel was cheaper, and will be in the future if we wish to return. These are very functional reasons. But ultimately we came because we wanted to know our neighbors. We wanted to know the Spanish that would most ingratiate us with the Mexican folks that we meet in the US. We wanted to learn about their culture, their history.

Another prehispanic artifact from the Rufino Tamayo museum

Oaxaca is not the most glamorous place. Please allow me to be honest. But it has one of the richest cultures in all of the Americas. Its history is deep. Oaxaca, the capital of Mesoamerica, is instilling in me a new sense of the Americas, of what they are, what they were. It's fascinating. I don't think we will be able to return home with the same perspective as when we left.

We wanted to learn who the Mexicans are and in some ways use the experience to learn more about ourselves. Who are we Americans anyway? There are things here that make so much sense. Things that we could benefit from in the US. At the same time, there are things here, things people do, that make no damn sense to me.

I wonder if, when we return, we will see things in this capacity in our own home, in our own land, with the fresh eyes that we see the things here. I'm very excited to see how the US looks when we return.