REVOLT!
Oscar Tanat is the brother of a friend of mine. And you thought Oaxaca was a picturesque little village with simple people! Ha!
Oaxaca
The Ayotzinapa 43
43 empty seats
43 Normalista (education) students have “disappeared” in Guerrero by narco gangs presumably with the knowledge of the government. Mexico is on fire and is calling for the the President to step down which of course would do no good because the impunity of Mexico is endemic.
Monday the teachers closed down the airport in Oaxaca.
Update Jan 24, 2015: According to my friends, the Zocalo is calm. Blockades daily all around Oaxaca.
I’m In My Glory
This past week, Ivan, my temporary Italian roomie, who has been living in Oaxaca many years but split with his girlfriend and lost his apartment cooked Pasta Bolognaise for me, Angie and her mom. Angie is the sister of Lumina, my friend who stayed with me for two weeks, with her British boyfriend, a couple years ago on their way back to Ohio to get married. They live now in the UK.
Then the next night this party wasn’t planned. It was a serendipity coming together at the last minute…all at the same time.
Bala, a biochem research scientist, from India but living in the UK and cycling from Alaska to Patagonia, came to me through Warm Showers, a hospitality web site for bicyclers similar to Couchsurfing.
Anita is a couchsurfer from Italy looking for a course in midwifery. Together with Ivan, these two Italians were a riot. My god, if I only had half the energy of these young people!
Sharon is a retired expat friend here in Oaxaca and enjoyed schooling Bala on the history of resistance in Oaxaca and answering his many questions. Sharon and I met on the plane in June 2006 when both of us were coming here to live.
Ksenia is Russian, (playing chess with Ivan) also coming to me through couchsurfing, was born in polar Siberia but has lived and traveled all over the world. She is one bright, funny, aware powerful woman! Loves Pussy Riot and confirmed all my suspicious about Russia today. But Ksenia, who studied chess (chess is taught in Russian schools) from the time she was a young girl, lost 6 chess games in a row to my Italian roomie who has never read a book on chess! She took it with great good humor!
The conversations ranged from geopolitics and economics to mind expansion with the help of 6 bottles of wine and a little herb! All with the requisite laughing and good humor…even the debates.
Then if that weren’t enough to warm my heart, Bala, cooked basmati rice and two curry dishes…for 7 people again the next night! OMG, what a treat!
Took Bala yesterday to the Tlacalula Sunday Market and found some borego (lamb.) Bala will cook lamb curry and fish curry again for tonight.
I have hope for the world.
Still Lovin Oaxaca
Am I Mexican? No I am Oaxacan!
I took a test on FB to see how Mexican I was. 100% Mexican? I guessed at half of them. Most of these questions have to do with northern Mexico or Mexicans who haven’t been in the country for a generation or more. Not southern Mexico which I think is an entirely different country!
You attend every baile in town…that would be impossible
Cowboy boots? No, very worn leather sandals.
Rush home to watch your favorite novella? Don’t have TV and wouldn’t watch novellas if I had one and neither do my Oaxacan friends. They don’t identify with white-skinned “Mexicans” in fancy homes with time on their hands.
Home cooked carne asada and chile rellenos? Sometimes. What local has all day to cook…go to the nearest Comida Corrida for a 4 course $2 mole. Or most often Memelas and Tlayudas on the street.
I do prefer flan and love the taste of horchata. But Tajate is the drink of choice here. Or Jugos.
There are coronas stored in your fridge? People laugh at Coronas here and think they are for tourists. Only Indio, Victoria or Negra Modelo.
Not corridos or bandas…that’s old fashioned! It’s Cumbia all the way if you want traditional and then Cumbia is originally Columbian!
You get angry when they play salsa music in a Mexican restaurant, and are fluent in Spanish? WTF? Salsa classes all over town. Or Cuban Danzon! Or Zumbia for exercise!
You are an avid supporter of immigration reform, and only go to Taco Bell when you don’t feel like cooking? Proves this is a test about people across the border who have no street food. But I remember Roach Coaches there with darned good food!
You have pictures of the Holy Virgin on your wall and take your Catholic faith serious? No way! Only the old ladies…who are only serious about their own private indigenous rituals.
No meal is complete without some Tapatio sauce? No way…only homemade salsa! They don’t like a lot of chile heat here.
You aren’t afraid to blast “Jefe de Jefes” or “El Paisano” by Los Tigres del Norte? Who is that? Lila Downs is the queen! Clubs all play electronic DJ or covers of Mexico City bands like Zoe and Mana. Or Control Machete!
I am not ashamed, I am 100% Oaxacan! lol Well, maybe 99% 😉 I still like my own fried eggs over medium.
Facebook Is Not The Problem
I love to follow former couchsurfers on Facebook. Paul is one of them.
Everyone is complaining about the same thing and it’s not Facebook. Facebook is not the problem he says. You are.
Paul stayed with me a week in Oaxaca when he was on his way from Utah to Venezuela on his bicycle…his sax in a little wagon behind it. Born in China but raised in Boston, this intelligent and talented guy with dreadlocks is now in a small rural town in Viet Nam where he is establishing a music school for youngsters…The Bamboo School.
My Couchsurfers have added great joy to my life and even more when I get to follow them on Facebook.
All is Transformed
Frank And Kids In The Zocalo
For nearly 15 years Frank sat at the same table every day in front of a coffee shop in the zocalo…often making friends with passersby, vendors…and especially the children. He had a Ph.d in French Lit but lived the life he wanted…poorly and close to the people.
At 5pm he played chess in front of the cathedral. The players loved him and looked up to him. Ivan, his friend and competitor, organized a chess tournament in Frank’s memory in the Zocalo last night with about 30 players receiving a medal and photo. Thank you Ivan! His ashes will be scattered on Sunday the 26. He was an irascible old goat sometimes but had a big big heart that not everyone saw and I miss him terribly.
As an old Marxist, Frank was a non-believer. The last book he was reading when he died was a book about Einstein. Underneath a framed photo that Ivan gave me of Frank, Ivan had this inscribed:
NADA SE CREA NADA SE DESTRUYE TODO SE TRANSFORMA
NOTHING IS CREATED NOTHING IS DESTROYED ALL IS TRANSFORMED
HASTA SIEMPRE FRANK
Frank Died Last Night
He was “just” a friend…an eccentric friend…but a good friend with heart. For years he spent $70 a month living here. He sat at the same table in the same coffee shop in the Zocalo every single day with one cup of coffee…then moving in front of the cathedral to play chess with the best players around. If I was ever lonely or wanted company I knew he would be there.
This is a poem he gave to another friend a year ago around his birthday on September 23rd. He knew.
so wonderful the decline
how sweet the lowering
crumbling asundering
ebbing delightfull
sliding toward stilness
unrevelling simply
secretly tumbling
fading along down
reaching under
slipping ever
Expats Take Care
Well, my friend Jayson Heckler who drove down to Oaxaca from the States to Oaxaca with me in 2010 was the next one. Fell and injured his leg and hip. Doc said to go home and stay down. He did. And died.
Barely over the fatigue of traveling…Earl, my friend and escort (he says I am his “chick”) says to me one thursday night walking away from a progressive jazz jam in a small cafe…no rhythm…no beat! I laugh. He seemed tight all night. Then half a block away he says he’s got to get into a taxi and go home. The driver drops me off at my apartment and takes off with Earl.
The next morning he emails me: “I’m scared. My leg went to sleep.” By that afternoon his hospital room was full of his friends.
Long story short he had some blood clots in his leg. Two days later, after a failed angioplasty at another hospital he has his leg amputated above the knee. His daughter who had flown down from Minneapolis, and a friend who was the translator, spent the night with me in case we got a call from the hospital. Desperate for sleep…three times they called. The third time was to find out if we wanted the leg…
Please, jesus and allah, I never want to be in a Mexican public hospital. But I was encouraged by the way everyone pulled together…each contributing help and coordination. I don’t want to be the next one.
In Oaxaca…Finally!
Ahhhh! No more alarms. No more packing and unpacking! No more late and cancelled flights. And after four months on the road, I’ve got my own coffee pot and old friends in Oaxaca! Life is good!
But I don’t want to do ANYTHING for awhile…or go ANYWHERE! I just want to crash! In my own apartment! In my own bed! As I’ve said before, I am getting too old for this shit!
Laughingnomad 