Oaxaca

Wedding Today In XoXo

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Charly, Mica, Bardo, their kids and I went to a wedding today…a happy thing. Someone related to Mica. A professional couple. The wedding was in the very nice home of a relative…as is often the case the house was in a poor looking neighborhood on the side of a hill…weeds all around. Just the judge sitting at a table with the couple and witnesses standing facing him. Then we ate BBQ Chivo (goat) and drank lots of Tequila. The couple didn’t dance to the live combo…so neither did we.

Today Zocalo & Santo Domingo

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This morning I took the car to the Toyota Service Agency to have the oil changed in the car…after all, I did drive it from Oregon to Oaxaca in southern Mexico…a darn long ways.

This afternoon I joined my landlord Geraldo and his mother Socorro in the Zocalo. The streets leading into the Zocalo are still blocked by police but after determining you are ok, they move aside and let you through. The place is bare save hundreds of riot-control police sitting and lying around…much like the teachers and protesters before. Sitting at a cafe having a beer, Socorro clapped and cheered, along with some others who were also sitting at the cafe…yelling Bravo at every movement of the police. They look quite young…Socorro told one he was a “baby.” He just laughed. Some of the young hip affluent Oaxacan women are eyeing the guys…once in awhile we see couples, a PFP and a local girl, walking about. I just took pictures. They asked me if I was ever frightened while I have been living here…no of course not I answered. Then they asked if the presence of the police bothered me. Of course not, I said. What I didn’t say was that I would be much happier if they weren’t here…they don’t exactly add to the esthetics of the place.

Leaving the Zocalo about 5:00pm, I walked up the hill to Santo Domingo Church where the protesters are now ensconsed. The mood here was somber…a couple musical groups playing soft music. A “garden” of ceramic human sized figures are placed right in front of the church. The hundreds of votive lights glowing in the dark will be beautiful tonight but I am too drained and tired to wait around to see it. Only about half of the teachers have returned to classes.

Day Of The Dead, Black Mole, Hookah Pipes

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Went to my landlord’s home yesterday morning to make black mole…pronounced “molay” a Oaxacan specialty that is always made for the Day Of The Dead and served exactly at 11:00 on November 2 for the spirits of the dead who come back to eat with the family. It’s a relief to be away from the phone and the computer and the Zocalo that seems only to be giving me bad news the last few days.

A life-long friend of Gerardo’s, a newly minted teacher that will be teaching in the Mixtec about four hours away, was already there visiting. He majored in English which was quite good.

Joe, the other tenant in my apartment building who is here teaching English. arrived soon after. My landlord, Gerardo (another Gerardo from the one I have been hanging out with) and his mother Socorro put us all to work. She put a skinless chicken with onion on the stove to boil. Joe was in charge of charring the dried black Ancho & Pasilla Negro seeded chilis on the hot ceramic comal and putting them in water to soak. Then we fried dried French bread chunks, banana slices, garlic, cinnamon bark, some almonds, a cup of raw sesame seeds, a cup of plumped raisins, oregano, thyme, cumin and some pepper corns, cloves and salt in a bit of oil. Then fried some tomatoes and tomatillos. We put all the fried ingredients together with the chilis into a pot and drove to a nearby torilleria where they ground everything together making a thick paste. Then back to the house where we put the paste into another bit of oil in a huge ceramic pot…stirring constantly…watching the paste turn dark. Then Socorro slowly added cups of the broth from the boiling chicken…Joe stirring for about a half hour with a huge wooden spoon. At the last minute Socorro added a bit of wonderful Oaxacan chocolate.
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Car Finally Retrieved

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The car will be ready Saturday at 11…the mechanic said. Then on Sat a call came…there has to be some modification in order to set the domestic alternator. Mechanics don’t work on Sat afternoon so the car will be ready at 11 Monday morning. Eleven came and went. Car will be ready at 1pm. 1pm came and went. A call to the garage indicted that the mechanics went out to lunch and won’t return until 4:30pm. Gerardo, who has been making the calls, chewed them out…all lies…no wonder Mexico has such a bad reputation among Americans he said. They delivered the car…one cell of the battery is “boiling” the mechanic said. Now I suppose I will have to get a new battery before I end up stranded in the mountains somewhere.

To charge the battery, Gerardo and I drove to Huayapam again. We picked up Max at 5pm in the Zocalo. He was tickled to get out of town.

Bardo was not at home. His nephew had had an accident with his mother’s car and rolled it…was at the hospital with cuts and bruises…and Bardo had gone to check on him. Bardo soon returned and we sent out for pastor and asada tacos, grilled onions, limes, hot guacamole sauce and hot green sauce…adding a few tiny very hot green chiles from Bardo’s bush by the outdoor kitchen. After some of Bardo’s freshly roasted and ground pluma organic coffee, we piled Max into the car, which thankfully started up, and delivered him to his apartment.

The last thing we heard was “noon tomorrow in the Zocalo!”

Late Saturday Night Out

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Saturday afternoon, Gerardo and I went by collective taxi to Huayapam to take some cds full of Mike’s pictures he had taken of the soccer game to Bardo’s son Pavel. Returning to the city about 9pm we decided to stop by the Cucuracha for mescal…place was pretty empty for Saturday…and no live music. Walking back to my apartment we met Benito, a Zocalo troller (for free beer and food from the extranjeros-foreigners in English). The girl he was with wanted us to go with them to a club with live Mexican music & kereoke during the breaks. A bucket of six beers was 40 pesos or $4. The place was packed…people singing traditional Mexican songs along with the kareoke singer…Gerardo translating for me. A lot of culture in those songs…some putting goose bumps on me. One song was about an angry woman who had decided to put a stop to what I interpreted was the mysogyny from the males…her voice rising to amazing screaming decibles toward the end.

By 4am Gerardo walked me home through the barricades…stopping to talk to the four guards standing around a fire they were feeding with paper garbage…one older…the others young…one holding a long metal rocket launcher to give a signal if any trouble approached.

Sunday was obviously a down day with no activity on my part.

Wouldn’t You Know It…Car Trouble

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Gerardo and I were going to take Max (who in his 70’s uses a cane) to the Abasco Market Friday to find tobacco economico. The car died before we got it out of the courtyard. Needs a new alternator, the garage mechanic said. Damn…after putting over a thousand dollars in the car before coming down here. But it’s a ’92 Toyota. Max said alternators don’t last forever. Just happy the car didn’t die in the Abasco parking lot or I would have had to sleep in it to keep all it’s parts from disappearing!

Sitting in the courtyard waiting for the mechanic to come (2 hours late…this is Mexico after all, we always say) we consumed a considerable amount of beer and mescal while Max regaled us with stories about his long life.

Conversation In The Zocalo

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It is creepy odd…the dirty war at night we don’t see…the bustling life of the Zocalo by day.

Monday was Mike’s last day in Oaxaca. Merilla & Peter, expats from Australia, Mike and Gerardo and I met for coffee at 1:30pm at the Terranova Cafe in the Zocalo. Benito and Jose happened by. Mike mostly entertained the small children who were vending woven wristlets and chiclets…and I was mostly trying to understand the Spanish being spoken at the table.

At 6:30pm, after beer, comida and much conversation, Merilla, Peter, Gerardo and Mike and I retired to the Casa de Mescal for mescal and a cerbeza ultimo. By 9pm we headed home.

Mike left tuesday (this morning) in the dark to catch an 8am plane for Las Vegas. Good-bye house…good-bye friends. Two cents says he will return on November 6 with my son Greg. I truly hope he does. I am ready for down time and Mike can take Greg around.

Funeral & Friends In The Zocalo

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After getting home from the trucha dinner Saturday night, Gerardo had called me. He had just heard on the radio that one of the APPO guards at a barricade had been shot and killed early Saturday morning. 7am this morning (Sunday) I walked to the Zocalo to see what was happening. The family and few friends were gathered around the casket…flowers everywhere. I asked a long-haired Mexican book-seller what was going to happen next. A march, he said…and then the church funeral.

I sat for a couple of hours and watched…not feeling like taking pictures. Then I saw my friend Sharon barrelling through the Zocalo…trying to catch the people marching to the church with the casket. We headed back to the Zocalo for coffee. Then Benito showed up. Then Benito’s law professor. Then a young French woman who is working with local banks to encourage micro-lending. Then Mike appeared after working all morning on his photos in the apartment.

By 1pm Sharon drifted off to read her Spanish-language newspapers, Laura left to catch her bus for Mexico City and Benito, his professor and Mike and I headed off for the Tabula Rasa which wasn’t open yet. Found another cantina, of course. Mike took pictures of the signs on the bano (bathroom) doors…Viejas (old women) and Machos for men! What does that tell you about Mexican men’s attitude toward woman?

By 4:30pm I stumbled home for a siesta leaving Mike to take pictures in the Zocalo. Gerardo called. I begged off. Am getting too old for this! Go find Mike, I told him! Call me later tonight!

And so it continues in Oaxaca

Soccer & Trucha In Huayapam

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After getting in at 3am early Saturday morning, Mike and I returned to Huayapan at 7am Saturday to take Bardo’s son’s soccer team to a tournament…all 12 of them…in my car. You can watch a soccer game just so long. So Bardo and I went back to the house for a light lunch with his wife Mica…leaving Mike to snap a few pictures of the players. Returning to pick up the kids, Mike introduced me to a gracious woman at the soccer field who had studied with Osho in India, (remember the Rajneeshies in Oregon?) who invited me to a weekend meditation retreat!

Back at the house, out came the three liter jug of mescal I had bought from a vendor in the Zocalo. By this time, Gerardo, the tourist guide friend of Bardo’s who had spent 10 years in the states, called me on the phone. I’ll be there in a few minutes, he said.

After a few rounds of mescal, beer and coffee and conversation, we all headed off to the mountains for a fresh trusha (trout) dinner. (Sorry, Charlie, we missed you!) By 8pm we were on our way back to Bardo’s after Mica and I each bought an armload of lilies…and so the days are going.