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

A Dispatch from Down South

It has been quite a busy week! I've been all over my little corner of Mexico with a few more trips planned in the coming days. We have just finished up with a group from Rice University working in a community called Vicente Gurrero. The evolution of the puebla is an interesting one: it was a squatter village that started around Oaxaca's major landfill; so if you can imagine the health codes are not quite to Del Mar standards. It was an illegal settlement until a few years ago when the state government sanctioned it; now there are close to 3,000 people living there. We were working with the clinic to spread the word about good nutrition. What happened was all of the Aztecs were eating corn and amaranth all the time but the Conquistadors changed all that. It was part of the Aztec tradition to make little figures out of amaranth that represented their gods and eat them in certain ceremonies. When the Spaniards got here they considered the ritual to be Pagan so they ordered the Amaranth fields burned and only allowed corn to be grown. This essentially halved the nutrients that the locals were getting in their diets and has caused malnutrition ever since. Totally reliant on corn, the locals were unable to get complete proteins in their diets without eating meat; which is very expensive. So, we are teaching everybody to reintroduce the native grain into their diets so that their children can get the proper nutrition they need for meaningful development.

The conversations we have had with the locals have been very productive and nearly everybody has purchased at least a kilo of amaranth. All in all, we were able to talk to 350 mothers and it is we think that due to our talks nearly 1,000 people's diets will be greatly improved. However malnutrition is not the only problem in this community. Most of the problems they face are due to living in such close proximity to a huge landfill. That is, many people came to the clinic after having been bitten by rabid dogs or with diarrhea after drinking bad water. The main issue is the fact that the dump is up hill from the community so all of the water they are getting from their wells is essentially poisonous. This, at least in my mind, solidifies the need for a non-polluting water purification system that will allow them to drink from their wells daily without fear of toxins or biological contaminants; but that's another problem that'll need to be addressed by another project. The photo below is evidence of what happened to a public school that was established before the area was officially sanctioned by the state government.

Aside from going to Vicente Gurrero every day this week I have managed to make it out to another "rural" community with another group of interns. This group is working with a Mexcian organization called Museo Communitarios. They are a group of cultural anthropologists that believe that if a community can band together to set up a museum then they are more apt to do other things as a community such as an artisan cooperative or water purification initiative. On Thursday I made my way to a puebla about three hours south of Oaxaca called San Martin Huamelulpan (waam-a-lou-pan). The day we arrived they were having a ribbon-cutting ceremony for their own museum. It was explained to me that I would know many of the people there from my previous trip in 2006. When we arrived, after some getting lost, I remembered many of the people from before but only a few remembered me. The Municipal President of on of the communities we work with put it best: "I remembered a tall gringo but you know, all you gringos look the same."

Once we were in and settled the president of Museos Communitarios said to me that I would be representing ProMexico (the organization that I work for) in the pre-ribbon-cutting ceremony. That was fine with me I thought that I would just have to stand next to him while he snipped the red ribbon. Well that was not exactly how things went down. We all assembled on the semi-indoor basketball court where there was a long table, with a dark red table cloth, that extended the width of the court. Upon the beginning of the ceremony a young girl, like something our of a Diego Rivera painting, walked in with flowers on her back. An out-of-tune brass band played and we were seated at our respective places at the table. I thought it interesting that a gringo such as myself would be seated at a table with the whose-who of rural Oaxaca; the rest of the table consisted of Municipal Presidents of various commuinities, the elected mayors of various others, and community leaders from Huamelulpan. But I figured: "hey, why the hell not, if anything this is just a nice way of asking me to play in their basketball tournament." So I sat and the ceremony proceeded. They spoke about the importance of the museum to their community and how they belived it would eventually lead to more important events within their community. The emcee started to thank all of the people that were helpful in formation of the community organization and instrumental in the construction of the Museum and they stood accordingly. Then it came: "(translated) and a special thanks to our very good friends at ProMexico and their representative Jeem Beealk for being here today." My first thought was: hey, that's better than most of my high school teachers did, but it quickly to turned to "oh crap I'm supposed to stand up."

After the ceremony we moved to the museum for the grand opening. It went as planned, the ribbon was cut, and then it was time for one of my favorite Mexican traditions: the feast. It was actually pretty cool: we ate in the ruins that surrounded the town. The lion's share of the museum was dedicated to an archaeological excavation that had been undertaken by numerous gringos in the early 1990s. So we ate where they ate some 600 years ago, but sadly there was no amaranth. It was a serious feast, I mean to say four courses not including the free mescal they were handing out. It was funny though, because of all I had learned earlier in the week about rural Mexican nutrition I was particularly aware of what we were eating. They tried to serve regional dishes, which included chicken in many heavy sauces. One of the guys I was eating with said to me after two mescals: "I wonder if this is one of my chickens." But rest assured (and this part's for the parents) whenever food gets weird, whenever you can't garauntee you dinner wasn't squaking, chirping, or burrowing earlier in the day, you can always count on good ol' American Coca Cola. Mexico is the world's largest consumer of Coke and it is served at every meal, no matter how far away from running water you are.

We returned safe that same evening and are getting ready for two more excursion next week even deeper into the Mexican unknown. I will spend Monday in San Miguel de Progresso and Tuesday in Santa Maria Cuchilla working to set up new community initiatives that will hopefully lead to new markets in these communities. I am very excited about the work I am doing and am seeing tangible results in almost everything we do.

And when you wonder why it is that I want to live in a place with no running water, non-flushing toilets, and mosquitoes the size of humming birds: I can't leave, I'm huge in Oaxaca.

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.

Leavin' the Homestead

If you read the saga of my ¡Avolar! ticket purchase you'll love to hear Kelly's experience: she used frequent flier miles, bought a ticket, she leaves from LA, she's traveling for free. That, of course, bugs me to no end because of course my pre-flight experience as a multi-cultural-pain-in-the-butt and hers was hassle-free-click-click-print. Hopefully that's how her whole Mexico experience will go.

It will be sad to leave her on Feb. 29th, bu luckily her spring break is only two weeks after that so we won't be apart for long. Kelly is finishing up her senior year at Chapman University in Orange, CA; she wants to be a writer and an elementary school teacher and I could not be more proud of everything she has accomplished and aspires to be. I will be returning home at the end of April for her May graduation; if all goes according to plan she'll come down to the Mexican OC (well more the OX) and teach English while I finish my work with ProWorld through August.

I think this sums up all of the pre-trip hiccups and jitters, more later from the other side.

Looking to Point B, Waiting at Point A...

So it's official, the tickets are purchased, the rooms are rented and I'm ready set sail (so to say) on this grand voyage. I am entering my last week at Adventure 16, the finest outdoor retailer in all the land, and I am getting really excited because we're a mere two weeks away from blast off.

The most eventful part of the pre-trip experience has definitely been trying to find a reasonably price ticket that doesn't require an 8 hour lay-over in Timbuktu-um...I mean Dallas. Luckily I'm going to work for a bunch of gringos that have faced the same problemos so they pointed me in the right direction. Of course cheap doesn't always mean that its the easiest thing to navigate; ¡Avolar! airline (and yes it is a registered trademark with the exclamation marks) has found a way to get me from Tijuana to Oaxaca directly for pesos on the dollar.

I tried to order my tickets online last Monday because all of the prices are in pesos and the exchange rate was particularly favorable that day. Of course the credit card didn't work online so I had to call them. Now I think at this point it's important to make clear that my Spanish is pretty coversational, that is I can speak relatively completely to somebody if they're standing right in front of me but I have a ton of trouble understanding people on the phone. So I was not looking forward to trying to navigate the Mexican airline system if ours is any indication of how the whole thing might go.

I called them up and a recorded woman's voice came on:
"Gracias por llamado a Avolar! For English press 2." My first thought was, "so this is what it's like," but that was quickly replaced by "this just got so much easier." I pressed 2.
"Please holding while we find your call, your call might be recording for happiness guarantee purporses." Ooookay; I would understand if I was calling Air Japan where there were huge structural, phonetic, and inflective cultural differences between the languages, but what you're telling me is that nobody at ¡Avolar! knows anybody that speaks English? nobody has a cousin? not even to proofread the recorded script? I knew then that I was in for it.

A man answered:
"Gracias por llamado ¡Avolar!, me llamo Emanuel, puedo ayudarte?" Or at least I think that's what he said; as previously stated: I'm not so good on the phone.
"Um...hi...yeah...hola, quiero comprar un bolleto para Oaxaca por Tijuana." I'm all jumpy at this point because I haven't really spoken Spanish in a while.
"I speak English sir."
"Sweet."
"So you are going to Oaxaca?"
"Yes from Tijuana on February 28th."
"Okay hold on let me check on that for you, i need to put you on hold."
"Sounds great." Elevator music with a mariachi feel started to play. I was excited to have gotten through this all seemed like it was getting easier. I mean why would I be so worried about buying tickets i've bought them -CLICK and dial tone.
"Oh he hung up!" I called back, pressed 2 and received the same greeting from a different voice.
"Puedo hablar con Emanuel?" May I speak with Emanuel?
"No hay nadie aqui que se llama Emanuel." There's nobody here named Emanuel.
"Crap."

I was about to give up on the good people at ¡Avolar! but gave the website one more shot and it worked.

So like I said, my tickets are purchased, the room is rented, and I'm ready to set sail; it's just...well, I think I'm gonna need a bigger boat.