Is Oaxaca Safe in 2008? Yes.

Please don’t hesitate to travel to Oaxaca. It is perfectly safe and easy to get to and get around in. The Zocalo is full of strolling visitors, flowers, music and balloon vendors. The main thoroughfares are open to easy pedestrian strolling. There are no encampments of demonstrators like there were in 2006. Recovery from these tragic and unfortunate events has been slow, and unfortunately public perception around these events has persisted even though the events dissipated long ago. Artisans and artists comment to me about the slowdown in tourism and how their livelihood has suffered. Fewer people from North America and Europe are here to purchase their beautiful handicrafts and artwork. Even with the devalued dollar, your tourist dollar goes far in Oaxaca and the archeology, art, history and cultural experience is unparalleled. Please don’t hesitate to come here because of safety. It remains a non-issue.

Recipe: Tlayuda con Pollo

Today we had comida at El Descanso in Teotitlan del Valle. They make a great Tlayuda (sometimes spelled Clyuda), which is an extra large crispy flour tortilla smothered with great stuff and resembling the thin-crusted pizzas one gets in restaurants in Rome. You eat it open face, cutting it with a knife and fork or tearing off pieces and folding it over just like pizza. It makes a delicious and fast meal. We ordered these and aguas frescas de pepino (cucumber) — a cool beverage of cucumber juice mixed with water, lime juice and sugar. Muy delicioso!

Above, in the foreground, tlayuda con tesajo (seasoned and grilled beef, sliced thin) and in the background, tlayuda con pollo.  The drinks are Agua Fresca Limon (left) and Agua Fresca Pepino (right)

Tlayuda For One:

1- 12″ flour tortilla toasted in the oven or on a stove top griddle

1/2 tomato, sliced thin

1/2 cup Queso Oaxaqueno (Oaxaca string cheese)

1/4 cup black beans, pulverized into a paste

1/4 cup diced onions, sauteed

1/2 avocado, sliced

1/4- 1/2 cup chicken pieces

Red or Green Salsa to taste

Spread the tortilla completely with the black bean paste. Evenly distribute the cheese over the top, then do the same with the chicken pieces, onions, tomato and avocado. Drizzle with salsa. Heat under broiler for 5 minutes or until cheese melts and chicken is lightly browned. One tlayuda will serve one person. Optional additional ingredients: diced peppers, diced pineapple; substitute pork or beef for the chicken.

Oaxaca Summer Packing List

Alert: Rainy Season!  We’re getting lots of rain in Oaxaca now.  Great for planting season but inconvenient for hot-footing it around town, unless you duck in for an afternoon mezcal, beer or coffee mocha   Come prepared.

A grueling travel day is coming to a close. As much as I plan ahead and start way in advance on the packing ordeal, somehow, I can’t seem to complete it before the 11th hour, and that’s exactly when we went to bed (you notice I didn’t say “to sleep”). The alarm was set for 2 a.m. so we could leave the house at 3 a.m. to arrive at the airport by 4 a.m. to be there with enough breathing space for the 2-hour requirement to show up for the international flight. All in all, everything came off without a hitch, including primo space in the park’n ride lot. Continental does not charge for baggage as of this writing. I took the largest suitcase I own and crammed it full of recycled good clothing to give to villagers, as well as the essentials for a Oaxaca Summer Vacation. It’s 84 degrees, clear skies with great pillows of cumulus clouds, breezy and hot. Definitely high desert sunglasses and sunscreen weather — good for dressing light and comfortable. Evenings definitely cool down to high 50’s-low 60’s; a sweater and shawl are definitely needed.

Here’s what’s inside the luggage:

1 pair black rayon slacks, washable and matching black tank top (great for dressier evenings)

1 black cotton jacket, washable

1 sweater (or sweatshirt)

1 pair microfiber hiking pants

1 linen spaghetti strap dress

2 linen skirts with matching long sleeve jackets (for sun protection)

3 tank tops

Hiking boots and 4 pairs of hiking socks

Black mary janes with funky socks (3 pairs)

Straw hat with 4 inch brim

Underwear for 4 days

Nylon raincoat with hood (weighing no more than 6 ounces)

We’re not going to the beach this trip, so I didn’t pack a bathing suit.

Sundries and Toiletries: Tylenol, Purell (to carry at all times), travel size shampoo, lip gloss, sunscreen (SPF 55), deodorant, echineacea, sunglasses, toothbrush, toothpaste, moleskin, cortisone cream, bandaids, antibiotic topical gel (you never know when you might need this), and prescription medication (be sure to get these filled several days in advance).

Tip: Call your cell phone service provider to get extended coverage for Mexico. It’s well worth being able to stay in touch with spouse or traveling companions should you decide to split up and meet later! Calls are costing us 65 cents per minute, so we’re careful.

I pack heavy because I cram in lots of good used clothing (careful not to exceed the 50 lb. limit) that I bring to give away to families in need, and then that frees up space for the trip home when I have room for any special purchases. I also pack plenty of bubble wrap (saves expense on this end) and a roll of packing tape. I usually will purchase a large handwoven basket at the local market, put it inside my suitcase, and then put the bubble-wrapped fragile piece of art inside it for extra protection. For the cover, I use a woven round tray. Everything I have packed this way in the past has arrived home in one piece without the expense of paying for special packing and shipping.

From Mitla to Sumatra: The Art of the Woven Fret

THIS is Oaxaca! The colors and graphics alone of this brochure singularly depict the vibrancy and energy of Oaxaca life and art. The opening exhibit at the new Museo Textil de Oaxaca explores the pattern of the fret or greca as a universal textile design used around the globe, from southern Mexico to Indonesia. There are 130 textiles on exhibit from all over the world. I hope you can read the text written by curator Alejandro de Avila, who received his PhD from University of California at Berkeley. http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/Endangered_Lang_Conf/Avila.html

If not, you’ll just have to come to Oaxaca to see the exhibit for yourself The cover design is from a tapestry woven by Roman Gutierrez of Teotitlan del Valle. He weaves in the Saltillo style, 22 threads per inch. I have been to his studio/workshop and can attest to the fact that his work is masterful. He also has a commitment to cultural sustainability by teaching village young people traditional methods in order to preserve ancient Zapotec weaving and dyeing techniques.

You Can’t Make a Silk Purse Out of a Sow’s Ear

I’m not sure about that! Oaxaqueno artists are VERY creative. In Teotitlan del Valle and throughout the Oaxaca Valley master weavers produce extraordinary art pieces that are created from the mere fibers of sheep wool and cotton plants. Designs are intricately detailed, as you can see below. And, even the smallest piece can take hours to create. The detail of the shoulder bag (below left) is in the saltillo weaving style that employs 22 threads per inch. This piece is a combination of naturally dyed wool and silk weft on a cotton warp.

The red piece below is produced on a backstrap loom in the village of Santo Tomas Jalieza, a village off the main road to Ocotlan. It is a must stop, even if you only have time to spend 30 minutes at the central market. Backstrap weaving is women’s work, something Zapotecs have been doing for over 6,000 years. Look at the fine detail of this all cotton shoulder/book bag. It is s very sturdy weave. Love birds and feathered dancers are common images. Look for pieces that are tightly woven using fine threads. They will cost more but endure longer.

These pieces are in my personal collection.

The bag on the right (above) is a fine tapestry weave created by Josefina Mendoza. I took the piece to Luis and Licha at Casa Santiago on Ave. Benito Juarez in Teotitlan and asked them to add a long leather strap and leather gusset. Their leather craftsmanship is exceptional.

The handbag shown below (left) is a very small over-the-shoulder mini-pouch made on a backstrap loom in Jalieza. It is a much finer “sister” to the one shown above left. You can see the detail of the weaving patterns … 3 designs to the row instead of 2 with a lot of intricacy. The bag with the geometric design next to it is 100% silk, and the center wavy row is embellished with silver threads … yes, real silver. I love these two really small bags … they are perfect for holding ID, coins, bills, and a credit card or two.

Not All Definitions Are the Same

Leilani has been living in Teotitlan del Valle with the Chavez family and volunteering at the public health clinic. She has two weeks remaining of a four-week summer externship program that is part of the UNC Chapel Hill School of Nursing global health education curriculum. Because I work at the university, I was able to help arrange this learning experience for her and what she is learning is hands-on, on-the-ground public health nursing. The take away message: not all definitions are the same when interpreted from different cultural perspectives.

Leilani is experiencing public health intervention and education.  She happens to be there during one of the three times during the year — February, May, September — that vaccination campaigns are underway.  With her co-workers, clinic doctors and nurses, this week Leilani spent three days walking the hillside village of 7,000 people to administer vaccines.  On another day, they drove to the highlands to remote mountain villages to see people. “We are working on keeping everyone vaccinated,” she reports.  So many who need vaccines are children.  Leilani noticed that people are not always eager to be vaccinated and she surmises that they don’t totally understand the benefits. Even with local health care providers doing the explaining, there is a lot of resistance, according to Leilani, who wonders how much people still rely on folk traditions to drive their decisions.  In a relatively prosperous village like Teotitlan which has one of the highest standards of living in Oaxaca because of their national rug-weaving reputation , this is not really surprising. There are other barriers to accepting health care technologies — many of the older, traditional people still only speak Zapotec as their sole language.

In the last week, Leilani helped around the clinic, worked with patients who needed their vital signs, height and weight measured before seeing the health professional for a consultation. She changed out the sheets and medical instruments in the consultation rooms.  Leilani reported that she cleaned the instruments using a mix of bleach and detergent, then wrapped the instruments in paper as instructed. Her supervisor explained that this was to keep them “sterile.”  This was not the definition of “sterile” that she was used to working in the U.S. health care system.  She wondered how the word “sterile” translates differently from one culture to another?

Her co-workers are friendly, warm and gracious. They tease her about her curly, thick hair and plaster it down with cream to make it more “work appropriate.” They laugh and sit around the kitchen table sharing stories about life in Mexico and the U.S. “I really like going to the village market,” said Leilani. “We usually make a stop there when we’re walking around the village to give vaccinations. I love the dulces, and I want to try some chapulines!”

Oaxaca dulces (sweets) are delicious, and chapulines (spicy, fried and ground grasshoppers) are a taste treat condiment that tops tacos, enchiladas and soups.

Making Progress: Casita Under Construction

This just in!  You can see that some of the walls are nearly topping off at 12 feet high.  Eric took this photo with his iPhone this afternoon.  It rained in Oaxaca today.  The sky is a bit gray and water is pooling in the foreground.  The open side is the soon-to-be north wall of the courtyard which has not yet been enclosed.  The room on the left is the bedroom (incomplete wall) and straight ahead is the arched entry to the kitchen/DR/LR.  A  stairway to the left of the bedroom and inside the courtyard will lead to a rooftop garden patio where we will have a 360-view of the Oaxaca  Valley.    I just read another blog by a woman who is building a house in Puerto Escondido.  She had a crew of 8 and the casita was completed in 11 weeks!  Un milagro!  We’ve been at this since mid-January, with, at most, two people working at a time.  That’s okay.  We’re in no rush                          

Zapotecs: The First Scribes

I am reading “Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history about everyone for the last 13,000 years” by Jared Diamond, which won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize. For anyone interested in the cultural, social and political history about human beings, this is THE book to read. Diamond asks the basic question, why were some societies able to develop the technology and wherewithal to conquer, lead, and dominate? Why did some remain hunter gatherers and others become farmers? Does it have to do with intelligence or something else? Diamond says it is the “something else.” It had to do with, he concludes, the identification of edible wild grains that could be cultivated and grown to sustain large populations. (Large populations being the key to technological prowess because they are able to grow enough food to feed specialists: warriors, ruling class, potters, scribes.) Most of these grains were native to Eurasia (the Fertile Crescent area). Another factor was the breeding of herding animals that could become sources for food and labor. The ancestors of goats, sheep, pigs, horses, and cows came from Eurasia. There were no animals on the North American continent that could be domesticated. The llama/alpaca from the Andes never made it north because of the geographic barriers. It was much easier for food and animals to cross the Eurasia continent on the same east-west axis latitude, than it was for animals and food to take hold on a north-south longitude (Africa and the Americas) where the climate differences can be extreme, limiting where seeds can be sown.  An alpaca would not do well crossing the Sonoran desert!

Diamond talks about whether food cultivation and sedentary farming, language and writing, technology development (stone to metal tools), developed independently in different parts of the world, or were developed in one part and transmitted to others.   The Sumerians of Mesopotamia developed writing in 3,000 B.C.   The other certain instance of independent writing origins in our human history, he says, comes from the Zapotecs in southern Mexico in around 600 B.C. where the earliest preserved script is partially deciphered.  There are about a dozen Mesoamerican scripts that are related to each other and the one that is best understood to date is from the Lowland Maya region.  The Zapotec language today is only an oral language and when it is written, for example, on the tri-lingual (Spanish, Zapotec, English) translations of the history keys at the Mitla, Dainzu and Yagul archeological sites, the Zapotec language is represented as a transliteration of the spoken words.  The Maya and Sumerian writing were organized on similar basic principles using both logograms and phonetic signs.  One might assume that the Zapotec language may have been similar, but it is not yet known.

I write this because it is one more discovery about the Oaxaca region that I find fascinating in the continuing commentary about culture, society, and life.  For a general review of the book, click here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

Weaving With Feathers!

I can’t wait to get back to Oaxaca!  Just a few more weeks until we arrive on June 25.  I want to see our casita construction progress AND I want to see the new textile museum.  Eric reports that this Saturday there will be a “by invitation only” workshop about weaving fibers with feathers for weavers and artists at the museum.  It will be taught by a textile restorer from Mexico City and Veracruz.  Eric was able to get invitations for four artist-weavers from Teotitlan to attend:  Federico Chavez Sosa, Mariano Sosa, Fausto Contreras and Panteleone Ruiz Martinez.  The energy and excitement generated around this new museum is fantastic.  There are student volunteers from the U.S. who are helping Eric construct 200 cardboard looms to use in his introduction to weaving program for Oaxaca school children.  Posters about the museum exhibitions are going up around the city and in Teotitlan to encourage general attendance, and weavers to explore innovative approaches and to use traditional natural dye stuffs. I can only imagine that there will be a surge, momentum and exponential creativity that will come from the Museo Textil that will be momentous for weaving and textile development and preservation in Oaxaca.  One thing is for certain, that everyone who attends the Oaxaca Weaving Workshop:  Dancing on the Loom, will get a special visit to the textile museum, too!

Casita Suenos Grandes Under Construction: Work in Progress