The First Post From the Other Side

Well I'm here; I left Tijuana around 1:40 am and arrived in Oaxaca at 8:40 am on February 29th. I quickly made my way over to check out my new digs; A lot of things looked familiar on the quick camioneta ride from the airport but I must say that the city looks a lot better this time around.

My apartment is in an older part of the city just eight blocks or so from the Zocalo called Barrio Xochimilco (zo-chee-milk-o). It is a nice area with a few little shops and street vendors behind the Church of Xochimilco with bells that ring every hour until sundown. My place, although small, is very nice with a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom to myself for the cool price of $271 per month. The video below is a guided walking tour of Casa de Jim.


After I got settled I headed out to my new place of employment and in no time was reminded of the hilarity of Mexican marketing. I tried to hail a cab and none came so I found myself walking to a busier intersection. Just then I heard from a loudspeaker a few blocks away: "10 pesos ($0.79 USD) lobster are you out of your mind!?! That's right folks the cheapest, best quality lobster in Oaxaca, maybe even the world! Come to Don Francisco's tonight and get there early because these lobster are so tasty they're going to be all gone!"

I was unclear where the sound was coming from; it definitely sounded like it was getting closer but I couldn't see any cars with big speakers. Some five minutes later I found where it was coming from: it was a truck with three huge air-raid-alarm speakers pulling a trailer with a camel in it. No joke, it was a one-hump camel. Now I'm not a marketing guru, I do not claim to have ever studied the science, and heck: maybe I'm just not the target audience here; but what does a camel have to do with cheap lobster? I thought it prudent to go check out ol' Don Francisco's but then I thought: I don't want to smell a $0.79 lobster bake.

After I caught the cab I went with one of the guys I work with to check out a free clinic in a town called Puebla de Vicente Gurerro; a 40 min bus ride south of Oaxaca. This is a very small town that sits along the side of the highway. There is a general lack of secondary education, plumbing, and general sanitation. The free clinics provide emergency and preventative care free of charge on the condition that all patients attend classes on basic health and nutrition. The group of interns that is arriving today consists of pre-med students from Rice University that are coming down as part of their alternative spring break to work and help out the clinic and its' staff. They will be helping with general checkups as well as with teaching the nutrition part of the classes. The push in the villages right now is for everybody to eat amaranth (click to see) because it is nutritious and really cheap. They will be doing good work but they are going to be very busy because many people rely on the free clinic therefore the class sizes are going to be quite large, and I'm not sure if the students will know what they mean when they ask: "este es parte del examen? (will this be on the test?)

After we finished at the clinic we caught a collectivo back. A collectivo is a taxi where you pay a flat rate but he can stop for as many people as he can fit. By the time we reached Oaxaca there were four of us in the back and two riding shotgun. When my friend from work, Augustin, told the driver to let us out I did not recognize where we were but I got out anyway.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"We're close i just need to get some gas because my motorcycle died on the way to the bus station." I neglected to say earlier was the reason I was trying to hail a cab when I saw the camel was because he only had one helmet.
"Okay." I said not knowing what were going to put the gas in. We walked and talked on our way to the gas station and then he said "wait stop." He walked over to a pile of trash sitting by the wayside and picked up a mainly-empty bottle of coke and dumped the rest out.
"This'll work." He said and we walked up to the station. He asked the guy to fill it and the attendant looked around to make sure no one was looking and then filled 'er up. We didn't want to walk with it so we caught another cab. When we arrived back at the bus station Augustine told me that I wasn't far from the Zocalo so the walk home shouldn't be too bad.
"Alright." I said and started to walk. It had been some time (August 2006) since I had been in the Zocalo. When I arrived I was surprised to see it bustling with life; people sat at outdoor cafes and street performers played music for tips. Coupled with the dry 75 degrees it was a sunset, it was the perfect evening to be out. I was looking through my old pictures for one of the Zocalo under siege and this is what I found (see if you can tell when each was taken):
So I am happy to say that things are going very well here: the weather is warm, the food is good, and nobody has protested yet; that doesn't start until May.

I'll report in when there's more to say, until then: that is all from the Southern Front.