Back Again

It has been a long time and there is certainly a lot to catch up on. We should start back in the first week in June when Kelly and I went to Managua, Nicaragua. While it is a beautiful country with a very vibrant culture it still doesn’t remain the safest place on Earth.

We tried to do a little research before we went and there were very mixed reviews. Once person claimed that it was the “greatest location in Latin America,” quite the claim I would say. The city has fallen into odd shape; after an earthquake in 1972, 90% of the downtown skyline was destroyed and it has yet to be rebuilt. This, as you may imagine makes things very confusing, especially when it comes to where you are or more importantly where you are going.

As an example, this was our contact’s address:

Ron Rivera
De La Vicky una cuadra al lago y
Una cuadra arriba, (ultima casa)# 152
Managua, Nicaragua

Roughly translated: one block from the lake and one block up (last house). Apparently if you get into a cab and say that to the guy he’ll go “oh sure” and you’ll be on your way; luckily we had a driver but I still can’t believe it would work.

We arrived to truly sweltering heat; the kind that really gets you right out of the door. There was a guy covered in clay holding a sign with my name on it. That was the first time there had ever been somebody with a sign with my name on it. The fact that he was covered in clay was a good indicator that he was the guy that would take us on tours of ceramic factories. We were met by our contact, Ron Rivera. This guy, oh this guy.

Ron is the nicest guy in the world, leans a little left for my taste buy he’s been living in Nicaragua for thirty-some years. He is passionate about water filters. Everything he does is filters. His dream is to open one hundred filter factories world wide, right now he has opened 29 in 25 countries. Each of these factories churn out at least five hundred filters a week, some quite a few more. That being said at minimum, in a year, his filters reach 174, 000 families. Hopefully I will be able to start a similar factory here in Oaxaca.

Due to some crime in the area where we were scheduled to stay we altered our accommodations to the on the five star hotel in Nicaragua: the Holiday Inn. Ah, it was a taste of home: heavily bleached floors and a continental breakfast. The hotel was quite nice, quite the upgrade from downtown Managua. Over the few days that we were there we visited various filter factories and talked about what would be required to get things rolling here. Ron was very amiable and showed us a great time in Nicaragua.

The last night that we were in town were came down to the lobby to meet Ron and there were a bunch of people with cameras. The lights were up the dancing girls advertising Movistar mobile phones even made an appearance. When we asked one of the staff what all of this was for they told us that Enrique Iglesias was staying at the hotel because he would be performing the following day. When we finished with dinner, prepared by Ron’s wife, we went to the Pharaohs Casino that was in the Holiday Inn. Sure enough he was there. Smaller than I though he was but he sure commands a room of slightly inebriated Nicaraguans playing slots. Kelly was dying for a picture of him (but secretly so was I) but he had a 12” pile of chips in front of him and he had been playing reasonably-high stakes cards all night and it and they were keeping people away. It’s not like the play Gin Rummy or that I could afford to belly up to the table so we were left unsatisfied. Although we did get free drinks because I brought a blond girl, so I think we broke even.


On the way home we had a long layover that ended up working against us. And another thing: it is already weird to keep Oaxaca time, then all of a sudden I’m keeping Managua time, and then before you know it, I’m keeping Mexico City Time. While the modern conveniences afforded to us should allow us to make the appropriate changes it is often human error that gets us in the end. We thought we were getting to the gate an hour and thirty minutes early early but in fact they were in final boarding. Oh dear. We went to the gate and waved our tickets to no avail. Things in Mexico aren’t so much like they are in The States. Here they’ve managed to evolve to a system where things leave early and everybody is late. I don’t know how it works but it does, unless you are a pair of gringos.

We were informed that they moved up the flight time and that “it’s just the way we do things here.” Well the journey continues: Bienvenidos al Radisson Mexico City Aeropuerto. All of our stuff was in Oaxaca but all the essentials were with us so it wasn’t to bad to spend the night in the second largest city in the world.

When we arrived to Oaxaca it felt like home only for Kelly it was a mere pit stop; she’s back up stateside working for a few months before she starts up her fancy schoolin’ once again.

Since she’s been gone it has been a steady stream of work: the group from Stanford has arrived and we are making sure everything is set for them. They will be doing an environmental project at Los Narajos Coffee, a plantation about five hours outside of Oaxaca, between the towns of Pachutla and Huatulco (you know, because that will help you). Before the group arrived yesterday, we spent Sunday visiting the plantation, out and back in the same day. It was ten hours of very windy roads with various military checkpoints that slowed things up, definitely not a place you can commute to. That being the case I will be out on the plantation starting in the middle of next week. The living isn’t easy out there but the people are very hospitable; I’m just not looking forward to the bugs. I am excited for fresh coffee everyday, all they drink around here is Nescafe, and I’ll tell you: I’d rather drink the tap water.

I am back in the city for a few days getting ready to head out west. Mexico is home for at least the next few weeks and then it might be stateside again for me. But until then, that’s all the news from the deep deep south; more as the story develops.

You Can't Get There From Here...

Mexico is the only country I have every been to where everybody is always late but all public transportation leaves early. While you may be wondering how it is that a society can operate in such a way, I'll have to defer to somebody else on that question because I have no freakin' idea.

Today started earlier than I usually like to get up. It was my job today to take an intern from Michigan to a small village of ~450 people called San Miguel Tequistapec (te-kwees-ta-peck). It is the case, 'round these parts, that a pueblo is named for the patron saint of the local church followed by an indigenous name. This was a concession by the conquistadors, having grown tired of wiping out entire populations, so that they would be allowed to build their churches on what we would call tribal land. Spaniards of the time used this combination of names, as well as the mass conversions taking place in all of conquered Latin America, as evidence that the natives were receptive to "civilized life" and "the one true God." The fact of the mater was the tribal jefes had seen their neighbors disappearing quickly and it was Vatican law that no Christian people could be enslaved; hence the mass conversions. That being said, these communities are less the melding of two cultures and more the aftermath of about 300 years of imperial subjugation.

To get to San Miguel Tequistapec (and you have to say the whole name every time because there are like 10,000 San Miguels in Mexico...made that mistake before) you have to take a series of buses. When I went to a planning meeting with the folks at Museos Comunitarios, the organization this specific intern would be working with, it was presented to me that we were to board a single bus bound for Mexico City and that we were to tell the driver that we wanted to get off at the 2nd toll booth near San Miguel Tequistapec. It is a rare feeling for me in Mexico to go into a transportation situation and know exactly what I am doing; when I got up this morning to catch our 7:15 bus I thought that I did.

When we reached the ticket window I asked for two tickets to Mexico City but that we would be getting off early, thinking that there might be a price break.
"No se donde esta Tequistapec" I don't know where Tequistapec is, he said...crap. I asked him where the phantom toll booth is thinking that it might give him at least some idea but he firmly replied that there are hundereds of toll booths in Mexico and the 2nd one was really relative; but in Spanish and he didn't say "relative". I was simultaneously informed by several other patrons of Autobuses Sur that I was holding up the line and that I couldn't take a bus to Hollywood from here. Very helpful people in Oaxaca, very very helpful. After some talking to the driver, who coincidently had a brother-in-law from San Miguel Tequistapec, if ound out that I needed to get to Coíxtlahuaca (co-chit-la-waca); so I got back in line. After waiting again I was informed: "no puedes ir allí de aquí señor," you can't get there from here. The bus was quickly filling and I wasn't in a standing-room-only mood so I went back to the driver asked him how to get there and he informed me that I needed to go to Noíxtlahucan (no-chit-la-wacan); so I bought the tickets and made him break the largest bill that I had with me mainly because I couldn't give him the finger in front of the intern.

Upon reaching Noíxtlahucan we learned that we had an nearly two hours to kill so we tried to find a restaurant. When we arrived the first thing we saw was a sizzling cow skull on a very greasy griddle.
"We have the brains, the cheeks, the tripe, and the chorizo." I looked at the intern, who had returned from another trip to Chiapas some three hours before we started on this adventure, and she was so close to a dry heave that I thought it best we leave. We found a place that had good 'ol quesadillas, coffee, and a color tv, and we waited.

On the next leg of the trip the bus blew a tire because that's how they roll down here. But it was surprisingly easy to identify the 2nd toll booth and when we arrived there was somebody there to meet us.
"There was some confusion about the time." He said.
"Si, our bus blew a tire."
"No, I mean they told me you would get here at 8:00." And it was 11:30. I told him that we left at 7:15 so there is no way we could have gotten there by 8:00, furthermore we had called his boss to tell him we would be late.
"I don't have a phone." He said.

I thought it important at this point to find out what time the bus to take us back was since I am leaving for Nicaragua on a 6:30 flight tomorrow morning. He told us that it was at 3:00 so we had 4 hours. By this time it was noon and I did not know if he was just not good with numbers or what the deal was.
"You mean three hours?" I asked.
"What time do you think it is?" He asked back.
"Noon," I said.
"We don't observe horario verano (Mexican daylight savings) here, it's only 11."
"Ah." I said.

San Miguel Tequistapec is a beautiful place with scenic views and salt-of-the-earth people. The town is located around a central plaza with the Church of San Miguel standing prominently in the center. The pueblo was settled late for the region, that is, there are cave drawings nearby that date to the 1520s, which is odd considering cave drawings are most commonly much older than that indicating that the locales were pretty far removed from foreign colonization. It is the case that the church was really the first "modern" building to arise in San Miguel Tequistapec so its construction, while on the backs of natives, reflects European styling and not native tastes. Everybody we spoke to had mixed feelings about the church: while they are a devoutly Catholic people that love God and Jesus they recognize that it was there fallen forefathers that are entombed in its walls. I found this profoundly interesting because it must really tear at them; how can you hate the home of somebody you love so much? However, everybody was in agreement that things were on the upswing: the plaza was being rebuild with local red stone while the stones for the church were all imported. There was a clear sense of pride throughout the community that they were building part of the church for themselves.

We talked about a lot of things while I was there, the Pope (Benedict is definitely not as popular as Juan Pablo II down here), the government, and clean water; all in all I think we accomplished quite a bit. We will be returning there soon to do some additional work with an archaeological museum that has been started there and hopefully to talk more about what we can do to bring clean water to the 450+ living there in an affordable and sustainable way.

We returned to rain in Oaxaca but that's good news because it means that the rest of this year's first tropical depression has cleared Central America. We will visiting a water filter factory similar to the one that I hope to start here so that we can avoid some of the beginners mistakes. Hopefully I will be able to post a few videos when we get are there but we are unsure of the kind of internet access we will have; but if all else fails we'll be back on the 7th.

Those are some of the things were working on down here, more from South Central LA (Latin America) as the story unfolds.

And away they go...

We managed to make it back to Oaxaca without a hitch, it wasn't until we got here that things went a little pear-shaped. When we first arrived we were thrilled to see new furniture and fantastically clean apartment; until we realized there was no hot water.

The problem persisted for a few days, long enough to take the pacific ocean approach: jump into the cold, try not to scream, and get used to it as fast as you can. The first day we asked our landlord, Agustin, what the deal was and he was stumped. He informed us that he just put in new pipes and that of all the times it should be working now was it; that's great, but cold showers aren't. So I called him over this morning so that he could take another look at why ours was the only apartment in the building that didn't have hot water. He looked around for a while and then turned the faucet, it was warm for a second but then it went away. This has been the case the whole time: an instant of false hope -caused by pipes baking in the sun- that is dashed when the water goes cold. So he turned on the cold water and let it run for a while sure enough it started to steam. And then he said: "se invierten los grifos," the faucets are reversed; sweet, we've had hot water the whole time.

It reminded me of as story my dad used to tell every time that we planned on going to a Spanish-speaking country.
"Remember," he would say, "hot in Spanish is 'calor' so don't turn on the faucet with the 'C' on it." I always thought that this was one of his useless trivia tidbits that he is so famous for and that I have taken to reciting myself. I was further confused when Eva, our resident expert on Latin America and the Caribbean would say:
"Well sure, but cold is 'frio' so you shouldn't have much trouble telling them apart. I have generic faucets, without letters, so who's to say which is the "C" or the "F"? Anyway we're just glad to have the hot water back.

Upon our arrival we made up for some unfinished gringo business: we went and saw the new Indiana Jones. First off, it was so awesome. Second, I think we're now cursed because of it. The entire story takes place in Peru, speaking almost completely to Mayan lore. Oaxaca is a Zapotec civilization, that is, it is pre-columbian, before the Aztecs or the Mayans; the people of Monte Alban are Olmecs. I don't know if it was because the movie was almost as cool as our local ruins or what, but I think we've angered the Gods: not only are we expecting three days of dry lightning (a very bizarre and seemingly apocalyptic event that interrupts cellphone and wireless internet coverage) but yesterday Kelly was really sick. I'm sure the best way to learn to love a foreign locale is to fall victim to its regional illnesses on the first day, but not so much for Kelly; luckily she's much much better today. So, until further notice, we will be desperately trying to convince Montezuma that we are not conquistadors and that he need not exact his revenge on us any further.

In the coming days I will be working to build a school with a group from Jacksonville University and planning for our trip to Los Naranjos coffee plantation at the end of the month. Monday, Kelly has an interview with Maple, a Canadian-run English-Language school a few blocks from our apartment; if all goes as planned she will be gainfully employed very soon as an English teacher.

That is all the news from the deep south, more as it develops.

But It's Been So Long...

I guess I should start by apologizing for my brief vacation from the blogosphere, but alas it was unavoidable. I think what kept me away the most was the fact that I've had very little to report. The past week I've spent doing mainly administrative work for ProMexico but it is all good work. We're working hard to set up manufacturing capacities for out water purification process in conjunction with Potter's for Peace. The system uses clay, impregnated with colloidal silver, mixed 70%/30% with sawdust to make pottery that can be used to clean water. To the right are the instructions on how to use one; its beauty is in its simplicity (click on the picture to make it bigger).

Right now we are working with a collective of coffee growers (some three hours West of Oaxaca) to set things up for a group of volunteers to come help them. I have to say I am not envious of the work that the volunteers will be doing; it's not working the fields but once you see the size of the burlap sacks they use to transport the coffee, you'll be sure that there is going to be some heavy lifting involved. Not all of the work is going to be that hard, luckily, and it looks like it will be a good experience for the group and the community. Oaxaca is known more for its coco than its coffee; in fact I think that this might be the only one.

Away from work though we move to the homestead. Everything here is going well. The little puppy that is here has gotten massive and now constitutes a large yellow loaf instead of his previous small yellow loaf.

The weather here is never bad enough where you would need to move anything indoors. While there are hurricanes less than 100 miles away, Oaxaca is in the center of a valley. The valley is almost like a crater with us dead center. The locals say that the mountains protect the city from the storms. The apartment that I live in is within a compound of other rooms and apartments. Downstairs from where I live there is an outdoor seating area, a semi outdoor kitchen (covered but with no doors), and a semi outdoor living room (same thing). The kitchen is modern with a side-by-side refrigerator that makes ice, an oven with a range, etc. I think you get it.

My kitchen has a stove too but I had never used it. The one time I tried it just made the place smell like gas. Clearly something was wrong because the range has an electric starter so I figure the whole thing is gas electric; it is clearly (and awkwardly) plugged into the wall. It happened, that weekend, to be the birthday of one of the people that live in the compound. I hesitate to call it a compound because that makes me think of a cult and those who know me know: that I would never live with a cult unless I was running it. Everybody had some special ethnic dish from their respective backgrounds and I had only a few special birthday recipes: cake, cigars, and probably cards. I worried because most of them don't know how to play gin (one of them is a Communist so I guess that explains why he doesn't, but I have trouble believing the game didn't saturate this far south), even when called by its Spanish name "ginebra." So cards were out and she didn't smoke so I defaulted on cake.

Now listen, I'm not about to give you some long yarn about how I made the perfect cake; we all know that the perfect birthday cake is a train cake and that's mine, I don't want to show up at any of your birthday parties and see a train. I went the way I knew how: find an oven, find a pan, buy some mix, and borrow some eggs. I had it all planned out. Cake mix is not as hard to find as you might think (Sara Lee and Betty Crocker are thriving down here) but you have to know where to look. Soriana is the store, or chain of stores, that bought Gigante, which previously, was the major chain of supermarkets. Of course, the party was on Sunday so I went, on Sunday, to Soriana. Listen, I've been down to the Ralph's on a Sunday, there's no parking; hell, I've been to a Costco on a Sunday (I was dismayed by the parking but loved the samples), but there are like twenty Ralphs' (still with no parking) for maybe 10,000 people. There are 2 Soriana's in Oaxaca for 3.5 million people (2005 estimate).

So it was pretty busy down at the Soriana on a Sunday. It I was in there for a long, long, time and the worst part of all of it: no samples. I battled to the checkout line with cake mix, oil, and eggs, and a six pack of Coca Light in my hand and made it out just in time to find an empty taxi; finally things were turning my way. I got in the cab and he knew the way, the windows were down and finally I could relax. Then I realized that I didn't have a pan. That's the worst when you are kind of dreading doing something and every step you take towards completing that goal just screams: "this is stupid, you should quit."

I didn't go back, I wouldn't. I was sure, and right I was, that there was something I could use in the communal kitchen downstairs. I went to preheat but when I opened the oven it was full of pans. I found my landlord and asked him how to turn it on. He lit the stove and pointed. When I told him the oven specifically, he laughed and said: "that's just where I keep the pans." So now I was stuck with my gassy oven. I looked at it tried the same thing that didn't work before. Then I defaulted to the Internet. I searched for the model specifically and found a forum of expats that were living in Latin America and had been stuck with a Mabe oven (no joke that's the real name). They all said just lift up the bottom panel and light it, there's no pilot you have to light it every time. I have regular matches but I did not have the long matches I would need to fire the old girl up so I again asked the landlord. He came in and took a look at what I was telling him about. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and reached his hand into the oven. I stopped him thinking that he was going to lose and arm over a Betty Crocker cake. He called to his son Saulo who came up. He pointed out our situation and Saulo quickly left and returned with a stick about two feet long. The landlord Agustin lit one end with his lighter, leaned back and lit the stove. I thanked him when he was done and he left me with the stick; "in case you need to use the oven again," he said.

The cake turned out well. The frosting process was kind of a disaster. Just for the record I don't really like frosting, I think that it's too sweet, the cake itself is where the money is. Frosting though, for the baker, is a fickle mistress: on the one hand everybody expects a frosted birthday cake and most people aren't like me (the lessers I call them) and have a serious sweet tooth, on the other hand is just that it gets all over your fingers and hands. Like I said I do not like frosting but it is the bakers burden to lick his or her fingers clean at the end and get a headache from all the sugar in the frosting; these are the rules, I didn't write them.

We did, after all, have an enjoyable birthday party and I look forward to the next time I can light my oven with a stick.

This next week is going to be heavy work before I head home for a few weeks. I leave next Friday morning for Tijuana, and then a quick boarder jump gets me home. We're also starting the Kelly Benedict Graduation Countdown Calendar with just about 27 days to go.

So all is well on the southern front, hope it's even better up north.

El Mundo del Deportes (Wide World of Sports)

baseball game. I find it very odd how Last night I found myself, much like I did exactly a week before, at the Oaxaca GuerrerosOaxacans love baseball and basketball but pay little attention to soccer. The baseball games are pretty fantastic in Mexico: Coronas are 15 Pesos (~$1.50 usd), they'll bring you Mexican food directly to your seat (they just call it food here), and there is a guy that walks the stands selling donuts; all of this for the bargain basement admission price of 50 pesos. My favorite part buying tickets (besides the fact that they are unbelievably cheap) is that students are 35 pesos, children under 12 are free, and women are half price at every game. Although it may not have been the case previously, there are a good number of women and families at each game; it's not just a bunch of guys whistling at the cheerleaders (there's a healthy amount of that though). For $5 (usd) I was able to sit two rows back from the plate. We were so close in fact that we were sitting next to the guy that does the radar gun on each pitch. The only way you can get closer to the action is to pay ~$7.50 or $8 to get into the cage that is right behind the plate. The only thing about sitting that close is that you have to watch the game through the preventative netting; while I'm glad it's there I know watching like that would drive my father nuts.

When we went a week ago it was while Kelly was still here and the George Washington group was in town. The thing about $5 tickets is that it is -for all intents and purposes- festival seating and trying to land a group of 24 gringos all in the same section is less than easy. I'm trying to blend in at the games the best I can so that people won't act different around us (which is often the case); I still don my Red Sox hat but I have since invested in a Guerreros t-shirt...if only I were a little more tan.

I want to experience Mexican culture the best way I can. Oaxaca, as a tourist state, has a lot of very touristy things to do and you really need to hunt for what the average Oaxacan does. I am really getting into the sports aspect of my stay because the bars are packed when the Mexican National team is playing and soccer is certainly of common interest. Seeing soccer in the city is pretty difficult though; I found out that the Oaxacan soccer team in the Mexican equivalent of division 2 so there is much of a following. On the way home from the baseball game yesterday I asked the cab driver when the next game would be, he told me: "they're every other Saturday at Benito Juarez Stadium, but why would you want to watch a soccer game?" I thought it quite funny that a Oaxacan cab driver was able to sum up the North American sentiment toward the sport in a single line.

As I mentioned previously, the George Washington University group is now back to DC. They were a good group that worked very hard with proper motivation. All in all we managed a lot out by the dump: we completed a running water system to two sinks, four flushing toilets, installed a septic system, painted a classroom (inside and out) and put up a basketball court. We truly believe that all of these things will aid in the development of the community if not only because the school has just become the nicest place in town and you might as well send your kids there. Education is the only thing that will guarantee that these kids are going to make it out of there. They could all have unlimited free health care and it wouldn't matter without teaching them what it is that is making them sick and what they can do to prevent it. This is additionally true with the need for secondary education. It's one thing to be able to read and write, the trash collectors can do that, it is another thing to have a skill that can be applied outside of the dump. The problems with education facing Mexico are not new. It has been the case since the 1960s that federal funding for education has gone predominantly to primary (K-5) education. Compare this to South East Asia and their aggressive market development during the same time period: Asia's economy was in a similar state to that of Mexico and invested the exact same amount of money into their education but instead focused on secondary and higher education. Mexico is/was predominantly agrarian and for that reason focused on primary education so the kids could learn to write but could then come to work on the farm. Asia, lacking most natural resources, focused instead on technological development and the production of an educated workforce. We see now with comparative amounts of direct foreign investment and state funds to education that the Asian model has been decisively more productive. But since we can't change the past we are forced to play that hand we've been dealt; and that includes installing flushing toilets, building crooked basketball hoops, and bringing little bits of the big picture into view.

After we were finished we had all the kids put there hand prints on the side of the bathroom building. We were trying to say, but I can't say that we conveyed it very well, that everybody had a hand in this project. We hope that exposing kids to community projects at a young age will teach them that such events are commonplace and that they will become active in making where they live a better place thereby giving everybody an equal chance at living healthy and productive lives.

There isn't much more to report this week; hopefully I'll find the soccer game tonight otherwise I'll only have more about baseball to tell. There is no group this week so we are preparing for the next bunch and trying to forge new alliances with community leaders in and around Oaxaca.

Until next time, stay cool and don't drink the water.

I'm in Ruins

I guess that title demands a little explanation: we visited Monte Alban on Tuesday and I was all but forced to claim it as my own. I love going up there; besides the fact that it's cool to see, it's really hard to wrap your head around how old the place is. It's also a very Mexican experience in that despite the fact that everybody's forefathers probably witnessed a sacrifice or two, you can still buy Oaxaca t-shirts for twenty pesos or three for fifty.

I enjoyed my day off and time with the girl but today it was back to work for me. We are still working with the George Washington University group to renovate a school on the edge of the landfill in Vicente Guerrero. We have been painting two classroom buildings and installing flushing toilets and a septic system where latrines previously were. It has been hard work but I must say: as a veteran of a summer working for Del Mar Building it's way better to be the guy holding the clipboard. In this picture you can see the locals pitching in in the construction process; there was a previously existing ~2,000 gallon septic tank in place that had never been used and had subsequently filled with water after several storms. Of course we didn't have any powered mode of suction so we had to bail it by hand; needless to say that took a while.

Things in Vicente Guerrero are really coming together and the hard work is paying off. We have been working during school hours so there are an abundance of kids that are very interested in what's going on. Mexico frowns on child labor so our main interaction with them has been through playing. We've put together a pretty cool little soccer tournament and have been playing every time we get a chance. During some games I wish I was a professional soccer scout because there is a good chance the next little Pele -or Pelito- will come out of one of these rural villages; if only there was a way I could figure out how to use this charity work to exploit Mexico in some way...

Tomorrow we are going to opening day for Oaxaca's baseball team, the Guerreros. I have never been to a game here but I've heard they are a lot of fun. My favorite parts of Mexican baseball so far are that ladies are half price and apparently the cheerleaders are quick to forget the dances. I'm excited and it should be a good time.

Sadly Kelly leaves on Friday so we are trying to cram as much of the Oaxaca experience into the next couple days. She'll be missed but I know she'll be back soon. We are hoping to make it down to the main market tomorrow so that I can make sure that she tries a few Chapulines (dried, seasoned grasshoppers) before she leaves; like the Oaxacan saying goes: if you eat one you are sure to return. I plan on having photo documentation of the event; so don't worry everybody, you will be able to see what it looks like when she's trying not to throw up.

Until there's more to report I hope that everybody has a Happy Easter and rest assured we'll be soaking up the Oaxacan sun and holding things down from this side of the boarder.

Blog it Like it's Hot

It has been another eventful week in Oaxaca; while nobody is protesting and nothing is burning I'm still going to bed exhausted. I spent Monday and Tuesday of this week in San Miguel de Progresso and Santa Maria Cuquilla, respectively. They were both lovely towns and each had their own good story.

San Miguel was absolutely beautiful; if it weren't for the lack of running water it would be a great place to live. It is nestled into the mountainside and surrounded by breathtaking views. The town's livelihood is predominantly based on their woven goods. It was our job, this time around, to take pictures of the process for a catalog that being made featuring the products of this community. When we arrived they told us that we would be walking most of the day; while normally that wouldn't be a problem, when you are between 8,000-10,000 feet it quickly takes it's toll.

I find it important at this point to explain my attire in the later posted photos. While I am of course donning the cutting edge in travel/hiking/bug resistant apparel -a la Adventure 16- I am also wearing the largest hat available in Southern Mexico. It's not that it's a huge sombrero but rather it allows for a planetary head size; no Bialick can ever be told that they don't have plenty of brain-space in noggins of our caliber. It happens to be that the only hat that I could find in my size is what only can be classified as a Mexican fedora; it's like a fedora that's a little bit larger but it's made out of that semi-rigid material that the classic cowboy hat is. Now it has long been my stance that it is both health-conscious and stylish to don a wide-brimmed hat but American high-fashion has consistently disagreed with me. Well I'm in Mexico! So take that Vogue! I'll wear the status quo and that's a wide brimmed hat no matter how ridiculous it looks! That being said, the real reason is that my Red Sox hat has consistently allowed for the back of my neck to resemble the 10 peso lobster mentioned in my first post; so long story even longer, I rocked a mexi-fedora my whole time in San Miguel.

Our first job in the weaving process was to catch a sheep, tie it down, and sheer it. Now I have never sheered a sheep in my life, I've milked a goat once at the Del Mar Fair but never dealt with the sheering. It was odd to say the least. The weirdest part was definitely doing it with scissors; I was afraid that I was going to clip some mutton the whole time. But I got through all that with good grip of wool and we were ready for the dying process. For some reason I thought the whole process was a little more complicated but it ends up it's just extraordinarily time consuming. We treated the wool, which involved mainly brushing it into fibers, washing it in the brook, and then we collected it in string form and prepared it for dying. The dying process took quite a while because you have to boil water in order to complete it; during this time one of the farmers insisted that we come to his house and watch a video of his wedding. It seemed like a beautiful ceremony but his player only worked at half speed so everything sounded a little deep.

We finished up in San Miguel after 12 hours there; it was a nice time but we had to walk some 15 km at altitude in ~90 degree heat that we weren't expecting. The next day in Santa Maria Cuquilla was extraordinarily uneventful in the terms of my previous Mexican experiences: everybody was on time and nobody got hurt; what more can you ask for? We made it back to Oaxaca city center at about 5 pm on the second day.

Thursday Kelly came to town; it is good to have here hear and already there is a sense of completeness in my casa-away-from-mi-casa. When she arrived at the airport I decided to use my nearly-native expertise with Oaxacan taxis and catch one of the cheaper ones just on the edge of the airport. While this was a great idea, in theory, I quickly discovered that there was a reason that nobody else was catching a taxi there and no sooner had we gotten in to the cab were we pulled over by the Mexican Federal Police (Federales) and asked to step out of the car. Contrary to popular belief, Federales under President Calderon's new program are very nice people if you are not breaking the law; not so much if you are. While we managed away scott-free the cabby wasn't so lucky: we saw his cab thoroughly searched and a hefty fine levied upon him.

Sadly the next day I had to leave Kelly to her own devices and go to work. The new group that came in today is from George Washington University and will be working in a different part of the landfill town of Vicente Guerrero that I had pictures of in the last post. We will be working in a different part of town this time, closer to the dump of course, but different none-the-less. When I visited this time we were checking out the job site and traveled by three-wheeled moto-taxi; it's a good thing we found one because the school we'll be working with is not easy to reach. I was wearing shorts this time, which was not very functional, since the school was closed and I was told that I would have to climb a barbed-wire fence to get in. I didn't jump the fence and instead elected to wait for the few measurements to be taken in the closed school; this all seemed like the safe route until I looked up and saw an large number of scavenger-buzzards flying overhead. It reminded me of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly when he's wandering through the desert and the vultures come: it's never a good sign. I've never been surrounded by vultures before and I hope never to be again; while I had plenty of water and I knew I could find some shade it's just something that will always be disconcerting.

But happily I made it out of there and back to Oaxaca for another couple of days. I will be returning there to work with the GW group in the coming week but I think it should be a little less worrying. The town is getting ready for Semana Santa (Saint's Week) during the run up to Easter so everybody is getting set for an influx of tourists. We've been busy but we managed to make it out on Friday night for dinner and a little dancing; at least I know that when the going gets tough that this is a great place to live and it's not all dumps and vultures.
If you have some time you should check out Miss Kelly's blog at http://kmbenedict.blogspot.com