Gold All Gold

Yesterday, almost as an afterthought, and after a surprise stumble into a Chinese New Year street parade, we saw the opulent gilded 16th century Santa Domingo Church. Construction was started by the Dominican friars in the 1500s and completed 200 years later.

My photos don't do justice to the magnificent opulence of the church's interior. Check out http://www.colonial-mexico.com/Oaxaca/domingo.html for a better sense of the beauty of the place.

We walked yesterday until my legs felt like stumps. Woven in with the unlikely combination of the Santa Domingo church and a Chinese new year parade is a motley assortment of photos taken around Oaxaca yesterday as well as a card I painted for Carlos whose surgery was a success.

It was a surprise to see nuns selling juice in front of the church. Two of my aunts were nuns. They didn't have such an entrepreneurial spirit!

All Natural

Weaving in Teotitlán del Valle east of Oaxaca has been going on since 500 BCE. At first the people used cotton. But in the 1600s, a Dominican bishop brought sheep and treadle looms to the area and the people, the Zapotecans, began to weave rugs, serapes and blankets for warmth and comfort.

Today we watched a demonstration of the rug making process. It's incredibly laborious and painstaking, involving sheep shearing, carding and spinning. This part of the operation is as we would expect. But then to maintain the ancient natural tradition, women go up into the mountains to collect spring water for the dying process. How these peoples from so long ago discovered how to create dye is beyond me. Both men and women weave and begin to learn on small looms at age six.

Red is the most interesting colour because it comes from the cochineal insect that lives in a cactus plant. The material produced by the insect's ingestion is the stuff that the red dye is made from. The weaver in the photo rubbed the dried insect material mixed with water onto the palm of his hand. It's such a rich dark colour. You'll see the weaver in the photo pointing to insects on the cactus plant.

Lighter shades of red are made by adding lemon juice. Blue is made from the indigo plant, green from tree lichen and yellow from boiling wool in Mexican marigold flowers. This is a very quick overview of the procedure. You'll see the rug in the photo on our kitchen wall in Caledon when you come to visit us.

The rug we bought is a Zapotec pattern and took someone a month and a half to weave. It won't fade because a mineral is added to the final product. I hope you'll be able to figure out the weaving process sequence because the photos get jumbled up a bit somehow.

In an Ethnobotonical Garden

I'd never before heard of Ethnobotonology, the study of the complex relationship between cultures and the way they use plants. The science focuses on how plants are used, managed and perceived across human societies. Because of its temperate climate, Oaxaca is the perfect place for scientists to grow, preserve and study the diverse plants we use plants for food, medicine, currency, clothes, dyes, construction, rituals, cosmetics and so forth.

Right smack in the middle of Oaxaca is the large and impressively well managed Ethnobotanical Garden. One of the shrubs there is the indigo plant which was first used in India to make the colour we use in blue jeans today. The colour indigo is made here in Mexico to produce rugs with all natural products. In one of the photos you'll see the organ cactus, so called because it resembles a tall pipe. If you are a plant or tree lover, you might recognize some of the plants. The bark of one tree looks like birch and is of the birch family. If you see one with prickles, it's probably the one nicknamed The Marriage Tree. It's fruit is bitter.

Upcoming -- rug making with sheep wool and natural dyes, making Mezcal and more.

Stunning Contrasts

Stunning Contrasts

One of the students in my class today, a fellow from Seattle said, "If I had the time, I'd live in Oaxaca for six months. I love it because of its culture." I said, "I might, too. But I wouldn't want to live within an American/Canadian community." One of the fascinating aspects of Oaxaca is its diversity -- it has something for everyone: concerts, theatre, tours, music, dance, incredible architecture, the indigenous peoples, the well off and the poverty stricken trying to make a way in life. You can find accommodations in a B&B or hotel, rent an apartment or house or find a home stay as we did.

We walk a lot, meander down streets passing women peeling fruit at their stalls, fathers carrying their young ones, men walking along tapping a large metal pot as any percussionist would -- but with a cup at the ready for donations. At any moment something beyond the mundane appears.

At noon today, we were shopping for fruit when a guy carrying two chairs and a table on his back walked by on the street. My mind's eye saw a porter in Nepal appear over the top of a huge slope with a table and a crate of chickens secured to his head strap.

In the town square mothers and fathers sell their wares until past nine in the evening, their kids running around fending for themselves. Tonight I watched a small boy of about four years, dressed in clean enough clothes, pick up a water bottle that someone had tossed on the ground, throw back his head and finish the contents. Parks are full of lovers because homes are so small.

Last night we attended an organ concert in the Catedral de Oaxaca -- the first of a week long organ festival in churches throughout the city. The sound soared throughout the massive 18th century stone structure. The church was built on the site of an earlier 16th century church destroyed by an earthquake. (We've had small earthquakes during the night since we arrived.)

We've just returned to our home stay from an Russian independent film with Spanish subtitles, "Elena" in the Macedonian Alcala theatre.The film won a prize at Cannes last year. The theatre knocked us off our feet. You'll see photos of it below -- one's showing beautiful gilded columns and box seats -- along with others that paint the stunning contrasts of this remarkable city.

I just helped Mariela take out the garbage. (She asked for my help.) When we arrived here she and her husband, Carlos, showed us to our room saying, "Nuestra casa es su casa." Our house is your house. The welcome has now taken on new level of meaning. We had to walk a whole block to the spot on the sidewalk where I suppose the bags will be picked up during the night. Despite Carlos' surgery, they asked us to remain here until we fly to Tuxtla if the airline is still in operation on Wednesday.

More pics and musings later. Be well.

Musings from Oaxaca

Happy Valentines Day from Oaxaca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Today I'm collecting my thoughts for almost the first time since we arrived in Mexico two weeks ago. It's been eight years since we've travelled around like this -- carrying backpack, camera and travel guides, sorting out streets, must see places and this time around finding our way exclusively in Spanish.

Last week we had classes six hours a day with homework later. The intensity kind of bagged us out. So we cut back to four hours this week with time to think and saunter around.

In the evenings we walk ten blocks to the main square, the Zocalo -- or even dare to scout out darkish streets to see what folks are up to in the evenings. Mostly, it's difficult to know because houses have locked metal or wood entrance doors that lead into a courtyard or yet another door. Houses edge right up to the sidewalk. Now I'm finally feeling comfortable in my skin. The Oaxacans are constantly celebrating something and it's not unusual to chance upon a group of people dancing in a park or to hear fireworks or pass a long line of folks carrying placards and protesting low wages or lack of jobs.

At first even something as simple as finding things in my backpack was hard because I kept stuffing things in any old place and couldn't find them later. I'm carrying three items -- purse with wallet, camera and backpack -- so three straps around my neck and until a couple of days ago all the straps got jumbled up together so when I wanted to grab my camera, the strap was under my backpack and so forth -- no end of grief until I got myself sorted out with a system. Kind of stupid eh?

At home in Caledon rabbits, deer and birds keep us company. Oaxaca, though is incredibly congested and noisy -- some sidewalks are wide enough for one foot and to get between a wall and a lamp post with a backpack, you have to turn sideways. You take your life in your hands crossing streets because the signals are somewhere up in God's land where you can't see them. I just follow what everyone else is doing, take a big breath, dash and pray. Big culture shock!

Our school is a gem -- has a super curriculum and excellent instructors who have their own iPads for research, and the curricula. When I asked if the school had a library, the fellow who was showing us around said, "There's no need. We have wi fi." But, just like in old times, a woman walks around ringing a bell to signal the beginning and end of classes.

My mind is full of the new and different and I want to soak it all in. A few nights ago, we passed a theatre advertising healing music. So in we went. The stage was covered in white, with flowers and musical instruments. The singer, a Hungarian, dressed in white and beads, who'd spent many years in India and had toured the globe, invited us to shut our eyes and sink into the music. I slept for an hour. When I woke up Bob wasn't beside me. He was pacing at the back of the theatre. He said, "The fellow could have crossed the street for a drink and you wouldn't have known!"

The photos are of our home stay -- the street, the entrance, the kitchen and the back area plant room cum garage and my classroom. We're moving to another this Friday because the owner is having surgery. Our flight to Tuxtla Gutierrez by Aero Tucan is delayed until next Wednesday. But even though we bought our tickets yesterday, I'm wondering what's up since the government shut the company down two weeks ago as its airport landing fees were in arrears.

Despite the bad press, this part of Mexico at least is safe. People are friendly and helpful. It's a tourist area with people visiting from all over the world. A couple of days ago, we sipped coffee with a couple from Nuremberg -- she was born in the district of Baden Wurtenberg close to Lauf where we lived forty years ago. Small world as they say.

But behind the dance, the theatre and fireworks, is a grim reality. Oaxaca is poor. This state's economy is the worst in all of Mexico. In 2000, 28 % (the last census) of active wage earners earned no income at all. I don't understand how you can be a wage earner and not earn anything. The next lowest wage earners took in $2/day. One half of Oaxacans work in agriculture. The money they earn accounts for only one-tenth of the state's yearly economic output. Many live in shanties made of palm and metal outside of town. Many families of five or six are crammed into one or two room dwellings in el centro. The situation hasn't changed much over the last 10 years. We talk about these issues in class. Fascinating and sad.

More later about food, song, dance and lovers here.

It's fun hearing from you!

Hasta pronto --

The Men Who Left

When artist Alejandro Santiago Ramirez http://www.2501migrants.com/home.html returned to his birthplace, San Pedro Teococuilco, a farming community in the Ixtlán district, he was dismayed to discover that 2,500 of the men had left for the States or other parts of Mexico because of chronic poverty and unemployment, leaving behind the women, children and the elderly.

In a dream, Santiago had a vision of re-populating his community. He decided to create 2,500 ceramic figures to represent the absent villagers. Then he added one additional sculpture of himself and called his work "2,501 Migrants."

Bob and I stumbled upon the sculptures one night while out for a walk. I was gobsmacked by this monumental effort. The statues are in front of the Santa Domingo church in Oaxaca now.

From here they'll go to Santiago's home
town and then to a museum -- although I can't imagine a museum having the space -- either inside or outside, for statutes numbering half the population of the town of Deep River in Ontario where our children grew up.

So Intricately Painted

Many Mexicans work with their hands -- especially here in Oaxaca, making paper, rugs ceramics and other art objects.

Yesterday we stopped at this small wooden object enterprise. The men carved. The women painted. It's exacting work with little pay. The women's children played on the mud floor under the tables where they worked.