hello loves,

i finally have time to document some of my adventure here in oaxaca! as mentioned earlier to some of you, i was a little silly to not bring my laptop… i would have had wireless access at school and at home, but alas, i assumed mexico was more primitive than it is in this area. following are some notable aspects from my trip so far!

mi familia

my family consists of: shelly (mama), francisco javier (papa, air traffic controller at oaxaca airport), paulina (hermana, 26 yrs old, med student), and pedro (hermano, 24 yrs old, law student taking final exams this week). oh, and lets not forget the THREE DOGS (mischka, penelope, and susie – see photo 1) and a cat (lola). i would get the house with dogs up the ying. there is also a girl from madison named linda staying there, but because of our opposite schedules i have yet to meet her! so its just been me and the familia so far, which is wonderful. i can understand the general ideas of what they say, but often get lost on particular words. paulina and pedro know some random english (pedro actually studied in vancouver for three months), but we only can use that for a word or two here and there when i am beyond lost. i love having them in the house because they are young and educated, and since pedro is home more, i often get into conversations with him about the education system, health care, politics, guerrilla warfare, and what-have-you here in mexico. the family is very well-off – we live in fraccionamiento rincon al acueducto, which is a small gated neighborhood with a guard. you really dont need a guard here – it is a city, but it for sure is safer than milwaukee – but it allows them to not lock their doors, etc. – see photo 2. conversations are great because they are very educated and love to talk and talk and answer my questions (especially papa, dont ask him a question unless you want to be stuck at the table still listening to his response after everyone else has gotten up with eyes glazed over), but i think their wealth also separates them from reality. i asked pedro about the poverty and race issues in oaxaca, and he seems to think that there arent any, which is insane. so it continues to be a challenge to get a foot in the door to talk to some people needing services in this city, but come monday my volunteer placement will start and hopefully that will foster some connections.

my bedroom is very spacious and i have my own attached bathroom with shower – see photo 3. last night i came home for the first time after everyone went to bed, and i saw that someone is sleeping on the floor on a mattress in the living room. i had been wondering how the four person family plus two exchange students had fit in 3 bedrooms. i want to find out who sleeps there, because i have a feeling the parents gave up their room or something for me, which is crazy. i have it great because a lot of the other girls have families without siblings or rooms full of mosquitos, but my life is pretty cush.

apuntes culturales

oaxacas plumbing sucks, so you have to throw your toilet paper in the garbage can. i continually forget to do this, and am worried im going to break their toilet or something.  i have to move the garbage can blocking the toilet so that i remember… and sometimes i still forget. its weird. also at public places you sometimes have to pay a few pesos (the equivalent of 20 or 30 cents) to get a few squares of toilet paper and access to a dirty stall with missing toilet seat. its funny.

the keyboard here is different, and i cant figure out how to work the apostrophe. which drives me nuts, because im a proofreader like crazy like whoa.

there is a much different image of women here. i saw a sign advertising for a hostess at a restaurant, and it had specifications for her age and appearance and everything.  men holler and cat call in the streets like its their job. its really not that different than walking past wrigley field during a cubs game, though. the young men are very friendly and it comes in handy that i literally dont have a telephone number here. today a police officer asked me for my number. yikes. (note: it was a local, unarmed officer, not one of the municipal officers i mention below. that would be terrifying.)

i have already met several people here who have spent a few years working in the US and got deported, sometimes with all their kids and family still there and no foreseeable future of them reuniting. its sad.

today we saw trucks and trucks full of municipal police driving around, wearing black covers over their mouths and sunglasses, holding huge guns out in the open in the backs of trucks. it was disturbing… i think we have more crime in the US, but seeing those men like that is scary because if they are corrupt you pretty much have no power against them. (this is the same in the US, there is definitely a police corruption problem… but it is more cloaked than that). it was weird to see huge weapons like that. see photo 4.

my host brother told me that it is perfectly normal here for kids to live at home until whatever age. he thought it was weird that i would ask that – but in the US, its such a stigma, like yiiiiiikes… you live with your parents?! he says you can move out when you get married. i wonder what dating looks like when you are 28 years old and your parents still supervise you! i guess its just different in a culture where children are raised to be very dependent on their parents, and the family functions well and happily this way.

la comida

the food is ridiculously amazing. apparently it has been no problem that i am vegetariana, because mama has served me a different concoction of varying vegetables, fruits, and cheeses every single meal. its so fresh and amazing. my favorite new food has been the quesillo oaxaqueño, which is a cheese specific to oaxaca. its a white, sort of stringy cheese that comes wrapped up in layers and knots, and you peel and cut pieces off to eat. it melts suuuuper softly. heres an idea of my daily meal…

desayuno (breakfast): eaten at normal breakfast time. yogurt with diced mango, quesedilla with salsa, or black beans with tortilla underneath and quesillo melted on top, coffee, fruit juice

almuerzo/comida (lunch): eaten at 2pm for the family, but around normal dinnertime for me because thats when i get home. some crazy soup (either garbanzo, or corn, or spinach, or some combination), potatoes with chile poblano and quesillo, coffee, and sometimes an aguacatito (baby avocado!). today i even ate a cactus with cheese sandwich… which was pretty gross.

cena (dinner): eaten at 9 or 9:30pm. fried bananas with sugar and cream, or diced fruit, or little cakes or sandwiches. really fun with the whole family.

i have been meticulously careful to avoid street food, the water, and ice, and i have not felt sick once! YES!

actividades turisticas

we have been touristing like crazy, because class and volunteering is for two full weeks starting monday. thursday we had our orientation at the school, and then walked all around oaxaca seeing the city. there are a LOT of markets here… after about an hour i got really sick of seeing all the shopping, but the other chicas seem to like it. friday we went to the market at ocotlan, which is about an hour south of oaxaca. it was fun and i bought an owl made of barra negra, which is a kind of famous pottery which is specific to oaxaca. it was $2. i negotiated for it… which i hated. i want to explore this concept of negotiating prices more, because i think it is the standard system here and maybe not offensive, but i feel VERY western/white/consumer culture when i am trying to squeeze a few extra pesos out of a mexican who makes their living selling junk on the street. it feels very typical American, like “ooh… maybe i can get this for a few cents cheaper” to serve my own interest, which really doesnt make that much of a difference to me in the overall scheme of things, when it might make a difference to the vendor. im struggling with this idea.

last night we went out to a club called elefante to see a salsa exhibition! see photo 5. there were a lot of foreigners there which was weird… hearing english on the street is an instant bond. but the dancing was amazing. i hope i can get in on a few salsa lessons next week and then bust it out on my birthday thursday night! the group of 7 girls i am here with are all getting along really well together. they are fun… ranging in age from 19-30, and varying spanish ability. i have been labeled the token hippie and salsa lover. they love to make fun of me when we see meat stands with huge slabs of muscle hanging out in the open in the streets, and it has been a game to take pictures of me in front of as much meat as possible. see photo 6. they help me to lighten up (i can get a little intense) and we laugh a lot. we are all pretty different, but there is one girl, sarah, who i have a lot in common with. she lives in bayview and works at a bilingual elementary school in riverwest (la escuela fratney) as a secretary. she also has a boyfriend who is a musician. its fun to have her around because when we go out for a margarita and the other girls are out meeting guys, we can talk about the situation of milwaukee public schools and vegan restaurants.

today, saturday, we went to el tule and hierve del agua. el tule is the BIGGEST TREE IN THE WORLD! all i have to say about that is, yeah, that was a pretty big tree. see photo 7. hierve del agua is a site about an hour from the city that has PETRIFIED WATERFALLS. you take this half hour walk on this super treacherous gravel path, passing indigenas plowing with ox and herding their goats and running shack restaurants boasting of barbecued goat and who knows what, and then you end up at this HUGE valley in the mountains with an amazing view, swimming holes, and what looks like frozen waterfalls made of petrified rock. see photo 8. it was amazing, and i was really dumb not to wear sunscreen, because with the altitude, i got burned like a lobster in like half an hour. so now not only am i the whitest thing walking around on the street, i am also the pinkest.

tomorrow we go to monte alban, which is an ancient zapoteca city. that should be cool. then monday – FINALLY – we start class! i will have spanish class at the instituto cultural de oaxaca from 9-1, then volunteer in the afternoons… we find out our placements monday. i am hoping i get something to do with women, because the situation for women is much worse here and i would like to learn about it.

mis reflecciones

overall, its been great so far. im feeling a little anxious to start school and volunteering because i am not a huge tourist shopper person. it is hard for me to understand the markets and street vendors everywhere. i cant help but think that if half of those people had education to go into professional work, service work, or government, that the country would be a lot better off. instead we have ten million stands for little jewelry stuff or touristy junk, all not doing so well. (i should note though, that there is a beautiful artisan culture here, and i am NOT picking on the traditional artists selling barra negra pottery and beautifully woven and dyed rugs and things like that. that is an important part of the culture here.) its hard to see.

on the walk to hierve el agua today, i saw a lot of tiny shacks and people with goat herds and archaic forms of agriculture (plowing with oxen looks insanely hard. see photo 9. we are very blessed that our yoke is easy and our burden is light in many ways). my heart was not softened by this and i am wondering why. in many ways it was just so foreign to see that i dont have a place to put the experience within my realm of understanding. at the same time, im not so sure that technological advance would improve the quality of life for these people that are stuck in a time of backbreaking work and few creature comforts, but live in pure simplicity together.

although its only been four days, it is a good time of reflection to be separated from seeing or hearing the voices of those i love the most. i am able to look back at my life in milwaukee and realize how much i love about it. i wish i could be there to thin the spinach seedlings in my garden, and joke around with betsy, and attend our thursday night meetings. i wish i could talk to mom on the phone when i need advice, and my heart aches for missing having josiahs comfort and encouragement in my life every day. i cant wait to ride my bike again. i even miss being called miss nuu by jacob at work. (yikes.) i am renewed in my gratitude for all of the beautiful people and things that surround me back at home.

i am faithfully waiting for the LORD to call my attention to what i am supposed to be learning here. i have not resounded with anything specific yet, and will continue to ask HIM for compassion. i brought my spanish-english Bible, and josiah sent me with a bunch of envelopes containing a Scripture for each day here, which i translate into spanish and meditate on for the day. i am very grateful for this daily ritual. the LORD feels close to my heart here, so i will rest in HIS presence and be open to what HE will teach me.

please pray that i would have an opportunity to get to know some people personally who are more in touch with the poverty in oaxaca, and that my heart would soften to feel the reality here. my language continues to improve and it is exhilarating to converse so fluidly in spanish, but there are still many times when someone is teaching me something i would be very interested in and the language barrier causes me to lose a lot of the meaning. i hope i can step up my language pronto so that i dont miss any learning opportunities that are spoken in spanish. also please pray that i would be a blessing to my host family, because i am very grateful for the beautiful kindness and hospitality they have shown me and i hope that i am communicating my gratitude and having immaculate manners effectively in spanish.

these photos are in order corresponding with what i talked about, so you can get a visual idea.

thank you all for supporting me and loving me and praying for me from home – and especially for reading this miserably detailed novel! i will likely not have time to be so extensive in my accounts once class starts, but i want to try to document as i go so that stories and stages in my process of learning dont get lost along the way. i miss you all dearly! (les extraño mucho.)

con amor, abrazos, y muchos besos,

kate