Hola amigos, this update comes from the city of Oaxaca, state of Oaxaca, country of Mexico. I arrived here a week ago Thursday and I’ll be living “la vida oaxaqueña” until September 17th, when I’ll arrive back in Seattle and be thrown headfirst into my 2nd (and final!) year of school.
My stay got off to kind of a rough start when my host family’s abuelita (grandma) died here at the house the first night I arrived. As of my ride home from the airport, my host family consisted of four generations of women, ranging from 10-101 years old, but by the next morning, before I even met la abuelita, they had shrunk to three generations. It definitely made for a difficult first few days as I was trying to stay out of the way as much as possible to give the family the space they needed to grieve, deal with arrangements, etc – but it was also my first 24 hours here and I had no idea how to get to my school, how to let myself into the house when I got home, etc. Things got back to normal relatively quickly, though, and now I’m having a more normal host family experience. It turns out la abuelita was suffering quite painfully for a long while before her death, so while it was obviously a difficult loss for the family, I think there was also a lot of relief that came with her passing.
The short version of my life story in Oaxaca since then is that, well, it’s pretty calm. I am enrolled in 4 hours/day of private Spanish classes, then I have an hour to run home, eat a tremendous amount of food served to me by my host family, then race back to school for a two-hour workshop on some aspect of Oaxacan culture (last week was Oaxacan cooking; this week I think I’m taking weaving), and finally one hour of “intercambio,” – an hour of conversation with a native speaker who is studying English – ½ in English, ½ in Spanish. I get done with that around 5pm, which leaves me a few hours before dark to either go for a short run around the Parque Juárez (which everyone mysteriously calls “El llano”) or walk aimlessly around the city center buying postcards and looking at all the amazing crafts for sale in the streets. In the evenings, I generally stay in and read for my upcoming thesis work or search through my Oaxacan guidebooks to choose my next adventures. I was feeling pretty isolated last week but at the end of the week and over the weekend I started hanging out some with a woman my age who works at the institute where I’m studying, along with her Oaxacan boyfriend and some of their friends, so that’s helped me to feel like less of a hermit.
So… here’s some interesting stuff about Oaxaca:
Something you may not know about the city of Oaxaca is that it sits at 5,110 feet, nestled into a valley that is really the convergence of three valleys. We are at the tail end of the rainy season here, so the place is spectacularly green and the mountains surrounding the city provide a beautiful backdrop to any outing. The landscape is a far cry from everywhere else I’ve been in Mexico, and despite having been told that this was a mountainous town, the looks of it came as a big shock to me as my plane came in for landing last week.
Perhaps the two most famous things about the state of Oaxaca are its artisanship and its plethora of spectacular pre-hispanic archeological sites. During the week, I’ve been hanging in the city, but on the weekends I’ve been able to get out by signing up with little tours that take you to see these places. Generally, the tours combine an outing to an archeological site with a trip to the nearby “pueblos” (small towns) in which everyone – literally, everyone – makes their living producing a particular handicraft. Last weekend I went to the archeological site Mitla, the rug-weaving town of Teotitlán del Valle, the famous Sunday market in Tlacolula, and the appropriately-named home of the ginormous tule tree, Santa María del Tule. This current weekend’s outings included the birthplace of “barro negro” (shiny black ceramics) San Bartolo Coyotepec, the home of the intricately-painted hand-carved “alebrijes” (little wooden figures) San Martín Tilcajete, and the center of belt- and table-runner-weaving action Santo Tomás Jalieza. I also made it to Monte Albán, perhaps the most well-known archeological site in the area, a hilltop city which reigned for at least 1,200 years, between 500 B.C. and A.D. 750 as the capital of the Zapotecs.
This afternoon’s event might have been my favorite, though, and it took place just about a half-hour walk from my front door, right in the city center. Apparently, August 31st is a special day here; it’s the day when you can bring your animal(s) to the church to be blessed with holy water. I invite you to imagine that scene for a moment, and then take what you imagined and multiply it by about 200. This was an amazing scene – hundreds and hundreds of people with all kinds of animals – little dogs, big dogs, cats, chickens, parrots, guinea pigs, iguanas, turtles, goldfish, even a crab(!!) – all gathered in front of one church, lining up to have the priest splash holy water on the animal in front of a great big shrine to San Ramón Nonato. What makes the Oaxacan version of this tradition unique, (aside from the fact that I think it’s usually celebrated on October 4th, in honor of San Francisco, patron saint of animals), is that here, a very important part of the custom is the dressing-up (either in costume or in holy-water-worthy flowery adornment) of the animals. Yes, it turns out, it is possible to dress up a turtle. Or a gerbil. While I was worried about showing up with my camera like an annoying tourist, it turned out that this event was something like the red carpet walk before the Oscars – whenever people noticed me trying to take a picture, they would immediately stop their conversations and hold up their animals so I could get a better view. Cameras were flashing all over the place, and the pet owners were loving the attention. Not surprisingly, I can’t say the same for most of the animals, most of whom I’m pretty sure would rather have been getting de-flea’d than put through this holy ritual.
“La bendición de los animales” (the animal blessing) was definitely my daily highlight, but overall, I’d say I’m having a lovely time here. Oaxaca is a beautiful city, I’m getting great work on my Spanish, I’m being treated very kindly, and I’m getting a lot of down time to relax and prepare (mentally and physically) for what I know is going to be a really full Fall quarter in school.
Things I miss about home: my loved ones; a semi-predictable digestive process; having more than one friend; having any control over what I eat, when I eat it, and how much if it I eat; and a running routine that doesn’t involve 5-10 laps around the same park every single day (counter-clockwise, apparently the only direction it’s socially acceptable to run here).
Things I already know I’ll miss when I leave Oaxaca: tamales; having time to write blog entries and upload photos; Spanish immersion; walking everywhere I go; every walk to every errand being full of photo-worthy sites; nice strong sunlight, even on rainy days; eating delicious food AND not having to cook any of it; and amazing, bright, tropical flowers around every corner.
Thanks for reading! I had trouble getting my photos to upload onto this page so I put them onto Kodakgallery.com. You can find them here:
Photos from Oaxaca
FYI, you don’t have to sign in to Kodakgallery to view photos. Just ignore any prompts to sign in and click the link to “view photos.”
Have a comment? Post it on the blog! Or, send me an e-mail. I have lots of time to read e-mail.
Abrazos oaxaqueños,
~Kelly
