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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.

4th Megamarch Of Teacher Strike

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Photo From “Oaxaca Noticias”

The local “Oaxaca Noticias” newspaper estimated 500,000 marchers at the 4th Oaxaca Megamarch…a historic event that included supporters from several neighboring states.

Starting with a motorcycle cavalcade and many automobiles, the fourth mega-march to oust the Governor stretched out along five miles of the nine-mile route from the airport road to Benito Juarez Soccer Stadium. When the first marchers arrived at the stadium many were still at the airport road.

By 11pm my friend and I who had been watching from the Soccer Stadium were exhausted and went home. By that time the street was still full of marchers coming from the airport.

June 14 2006 Police Attack on Teachers

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This is an eye witness narrative written by my friend Patricia Gutierrez from Queretaro who, with her luck and mine, visited me the night of the attack on the teachers in the Zocalo in Oaxaca City on June 14, my birthday…14 days after I arrived in Oaxaca.

Video Of Attack

Last Tuesday, June 6, my newly minted husband, Jose Roberto, and I, decided to go visit my dear friend Zoe Goetz, from Salem, Oregon, who had just moved to the city of Oaxaca, the state capital of Oaxaca, around the 1st. This same city is described in a travel guide as being quaint. Unfortunately like many of its citizens we got another, non-touristy, view of things.

When we arrived, at my friend’s apartment on the 14th, around midnight, we saw some people, teachers specifically, gathered in the Zocalo which is in the heart of this historic city, sitting under tarps and holding signs protesting their education system, salaries, etc. They are also demanding the ouster of their governor, a member of PRI the country’s very corrupt and sole governing body for over 70 years up until 2000 when Pres. Vicente Fox won. In general they blame the governor for their bleak and further deteriorating situation. We had seen something of these protesting teachers (protesting for over 20 days) on the evening news in Queretaro where we live, but from what happened next things had clearly been downplayed in the media. And truth be told I guess we are like most people in that it really doesn’t seem real when you watch these types of events playing out on TV, over and over I might add, in the general comfort of one’s living room, sandwiched in between commercials for Pepsi and the World Cup and Condoms (yeah this is Mexico they’re more honest about their sexuality I guess).

When we woke up the next morning at Eunice’s, Jose and I were suffering with terrible sore throats, burning sinuses and headaches. So we figured a little bit of Vitamin C and aspirin from the local pharmacy would help. Zoe pointed us two blocks up from her apartment, toward the Zocalo. So off we went.

There was a strange odor hanging in the air. Our eyes, noses and throats burned even more. There were barricades made up of lines of people (in other areas we would also see small buses) near where we were stopped. We asked two passers-by about a pharmacy as nothing appeared to be open. We were informed that we would probably find nothing open as the police had swept the area intent upon removing the protesting teachers, and their supporters, at about 4 a.m. with tear gas and bullets dropped from overhead by low-flying helicopters. Several people gathered around us when they realized we were tourists and we were asking questions as to why all of this had occurred?!

We also heard unconfirmed reports from those present, that the police had shot and killed two children and four teachers. When we asked where the bodies were we were told that the police had them hidden in their police station.

There were so many injured from amongst the teachers that the local hospitals said that they could receive no more injured. There was a confirmed report of 50+ injured protesters.

There is a confirmed report of one police officer being injured.

We met many, many articulate, concerned and compassionate individuals. Talk about grace under fire. These folks were the epitome of it. And, like the rest of us, wanting only to be heard and treated with respect.

You can imagine our reaction to all of this. We definitely were a long way from Salem, Oregon, that’s for sure. We became even more alarmed when we realized there was a police helicopter flying very low right above our heads and we turned and saw a man with a broken piece of mirror trying to obstruct their view by shining it on the helicopter while someone else on the ground near by was taking a video of the scene. Jose and I rushed back to the apartment feeling utterly overwhelmed by what we had seen, heard and smelled at the Zocalo.

When we shared all of this with Zoe we realized why she had gotten an odd text message from her landlord earlier that morning advising her to not leave the apartment and not go downtown (to the Zocalo). We clearly never do as we are told. Jose decided that if nothing else he would go back and take pictures of the situation and share these over the Internet. He made Eunice and me stay behind. That lasted about 10 or 15 minutes. Zoe and I decided that we had to go and find him and not leave him out there on his own, and see for ourselves.

Everyone simply shared their story with us. No one demanded anything of us.

Jose asked permission to take the pictures that I am passing along here. We were escorted past the barricades so that we might speak with a spokesperson for the protesters. We met a local human rights worker who had been told all of the same things we had heard. He was trying to collect evidence so that he might further assist them in their cause, and call in support from the federal level. We also met a teacher who was beaten by a police nightstick. He had 2000 pesos stolen by the police. He only makes 3200 pesos every two weeks. It takes about $11.40 in pesos to purchase one U.S. dollar right now. Someone else had an empty canister of tear gas. A young woman said that they had collected shell casings from what appeared to be a large caliber weapon. We encountered a few healthcare workers who were volunteering their time trying to care for the injured protesters.

Since Jose and I arrived here we have watched on the evening news, on a daily basis, some form of civil unrest in various states across this republic. Mostly on a very large scale. When we go grocery shopping or to the movie theater it is customary to see police officers patrolling outside, in the parking lot, and inside of the theater with an AK-47, sub-machine gun and the like.

Here the authorities are scarier than any criminal element that may be lurking about.

At no time did we feel threatened by any of these protesting teachers.

Three Minute Wedding

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On a lovely Sunday, September 4, 2005, Bob and I followed Josh and Amy to a specialty jewelry store in our gentrified Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn to pick up their hand-crafted rings. Amy’s mother, Debbie, works at a Safeway division office in Denver and the office had recently auctioned off small bags of “lost and found” items to it’s employees. Debbie had bid on one small bag…for $60.00…that yielded a diamond in a garish setting that no one thought was real. So Amy’s wedding ring has been set with a nice one karat diamond given to her by her mother. Two smaller diamonds, set on each side of the larger one, were from a pair of earrings that her mother had also given Amy when she sent her off to Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington. Lucky Josh!

The following Friday, September 9, Amy’s parents, Sid and Debbie, her sister Melissa and her husband Pat, and Bob and I, tripped along the slate sidewalks of Brooklyn with Josh and Amy–all of us in casual street clothes—to the courthouse a few blocks away. On the second floor we joined a long line of other variously dressed couples and their little clumps of supporters. Josh and Amy had already filled out the marriage application. It was 2pm and Josh and Amy now had to hand it in along with a $25.00 fee.

Tender interest and kindly officiary have their place at weddings but apparently not at the Brooklyn courthouse where probably upwards of 50 other couples had yet to be shooed through the line before the 3pm cut-off. Suddenly all extraneous members of our group, other than the couple and the witness, were tersely instructed in the spirit of strict bureaucracy to leave the line and sit in an adjoining waiting room. Where is Amy’s mom! She went to the bathroom! Someone go get her!
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So we all dutifully sat and waited on red plastic chairs in the sterile yellow-cream colored room and watched the batches of the to-be-betrothed and their modest parties of three or four or five, clutching flowers and forms and purses and each other. Some seemed like young couples straight from high school or college, a dapper African-American man with a red handkerchief poking out of the pocket of his pin-striped suit, young Hispanic girls dressed to the nines in chiffon and spike heels, a pudgy middle-aged lady in a white blouse…maybe there for the second time…blue blazers, blue jeans here and there, perhaps a flower in the hair…..a cacophony…..

What a hoot! “Isn’t this fun,” Amy giggled! Josh grinned. The rest of us happy that this day had come! Bob and Amy’s mother excitedly taking pictures of all. Amy had scoffed at flowers being hawked by the vendor outside the courthouse doors. But she wore a lovely new black sheer blouse to go with her green slacks for this day.

The clerk calls out the name of each party which then files into the chapel. We all looked at each other weirdly when we heard “Ryan and Amy!” called out. Ryan is actually Josh’s first name but no one ever calls him that. The clerk stops us just outside the door of the chapel. “Where’s your witness?” she asks. As anyone with business on the second floor should know, so far as marrying goes, the witness is the indispensable person…without him/her nothing happens. Which means that three is the critical number. A bride and a groom hanging onto each other and a straggler with a camera in their hand. In our case five other stragglers. Amy’s sister Mellisa is the witness…and Bob is at the ready with his video camera to capture the proceedings as best and quickly he can before the whole thing is over.

We walk up two steps where the ash-blond clerk in a plaid jacket and black slacks closes the chapel door. We sit on the one seat…a bench against the wall…while the clerk gently informs the bride and groom that they should step up before the brown wooden podium that serves, one supposes, as Brooklyn’s secular analog to the altar…a 70’s red, orange, yellow and blue plastic “stained-glass” mosaic adorns the wall behind the couple, the podium and the clerk. rings.jpg

The “ceremony” immediately begins which entails a few seconds of legal boilerplate for each-the bride and the groom-followed by a quick call for objections. “Where are the rings? Should we put on our rings now or just wear them after the ceremony,” Amy whispers, sensing the whole thing might be over before they do the ring thing. The clerk reminds them they can kiss now…a sweet one…and we all smile. Suddenly it is over. The clerk hurries us out and our happy couple emerges from the room with smiling faces…a marriage certificate in hand. We head off for the elevators and the clerk calls for the next couple…

Camellia Hotel In Kunming China

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Was really fun to spend time in the Camellia Hotel compound in Kunming, familiar from our 2002 visit to China, and fraternize with all the Western travelers and trade street-stories at the Mieli cafe/bar and Camel Bar up the street.

I picked up a Vietnamese visa at the Camellia. I nearly lost my temper with the hard-headed Chinese clerk who gave me the visa. When I filled out the application I put the date I would be entering Viet Nam-after having gone to Thailand first for two months. In no uncertain terms she kept ordering me to put the current date. In the face of her demand I finally gave in. Then when I went back to pick up the visa I discovered I would only have one month in Viet Nam because the 90 days started now! I told her I wasn’t entering Viet Nam for 2 months. Oh, she said. I could have killed her. But she knew better than I! Typical Chinese, I thought!

Also picked up a three month Thai visa at the Thai Consolate so I wouldn’t have to go out of the country and back in after 30 days. But even there, when I asked about the stamp-out process he insisted there was no legal process…which I found out later is the truth. But they let it happen because it’s brings in revenue. Then flew to Jinghong to meet Bob.

In the Camellia Internet Cafe and Bar I met a wonderful 30ish English woman, Hester, who was also traveling alone. We connected instantly. An artist, she had just broken off a ten year relationship and sold her home. She was on her way back to Lijiang where she was thinking of partnering with some local artists on an art project.

Great Days Great Wall

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E found the website (www.wildwall.com) and the adventure offered intriguing potential…off the beaten track, away from the Chinese tourist groups that follow a guide with a microphone and colored flag held high in the air to designate location. After two short emails to William, arrangements were easily made and in the lobby of our Beijing guesthouse I met with the driver (No English) who carried a placard for “Mr. Bob.” After smiles and incomprehensible introductions his black auto carried us through a three-hour adventure negotiating Beijing traffic…bikes, pedestrians, tractors, donkey carts all navigate the same lanes, avenues, freeways where the basic rule is ” Bigger Has The Right of Way.” As throughout Asia, good brakes, good horn and good luck prevails.

My understanding was that we were to pick up another couple but as we finally exited Beijing for the countryside I began to make an alternative plan if perhaps this was an abduction…the imagination can wonder…

We finally entered mountain terrain and the pavement ended. After another 20 minutes we arrived at a small village surrounded by hills We parked and I carried backpack uphill to a courtyard surrounding a small idyllic farmhouse. There was evidence of other foreigners. William casually came out of the farmhouse and introduced himself. An Aussie couple, attired in the hippest of trek fashion had already arrived and they and I completed our trekking group. Subsequently I appreciated their humor, enthusiasm and good cheer and we shared good times and laughs.

After being shown my room, the first of many superb meals was served. Lily was William’s Chinese helper and sous chef…fresh trout in a spicy (picante) sauce. After the meal Schnapps was offered (an acquired taste I guess) and I learned that William was in his late forties, formerly from Liverpool England, but has lived in China for the past 15 years. He has a Chinese spouse and two sons. He is a former long distance runner, who because of his fascination with the Great Wall as a child, later decided to run it’s length. After an initial abortive try he was subsequently able to run most of the wall in the early 1990’s and it has since become his passion. He has authored several books, spear-headed environmental efforts and has become the local expert/personality/guru of all things Great Wall. On our hikes, whenever we were passed by local Chinese hikers he would be recognized and asked to pose for pictures. His affect was such that he always obliged with a smile and some Mandarin conversation.

For the next two days we arose at 5 a.m. and took off in darkness for a 4-6 hour trek that included a significant climb up to the Great Wall and then excursions for varying lengths of time on top of the wall. We were able to stand on the wall and observe the sunrise. Along the way there would be frequent stops for short antidotes or explanations of various aspects of the wall–its history, construction, functions etc.

The Wall was initially started in about 400 BC and continued until the Ming Dynasty (approximately 1600 AD). It was built in sections to protect the Han Chinese from the Northern nomads (Mongolian and Manchu). Initial construction was at points of obvious invasion routes…river valleys…and through the years the Wall was extended up the sides of the valleys and across mountain ranges. It is not one continuous structure but various branches meander and double back. Initial construction was simple but later architectural efforts became more sophisticated.
In c. 220 B.C., under Qin Shi Huang, sections of earlier fortifications were joined together to form a united defence system against invasions from the north. Construction continued up to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), when the Great Wall became the world’s largest military structure. Its historic and strategic importance is matched only by its architectural significance and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The areas we traversed were constructed of large carved stones, kilned bricks and morter which contained rice. As well as security, the Wall was used for storage, shelter and as a highway. It varied in width from two yards to 10 yards. In the area we were in, there has been no restoration and time and erosion have caused crumbling in many parts with an overgrowth of vegetation both on the sides and on top. It would seem that any minor earthquake could produce serious additional damage. William said his ecologic efforts have produced minimal results to date and he has been happy just to see that his efforts have caused fewer Chinese to litter. Ideally it would seem that stabilization against future damage without restoration would be the way to proceed. But the Wall is so long (estimates vary from 7000 to 10,000 kilometers) that total protection is impossible.

On descent: as frequently happens on hikes there is time for thought, reflection and subsequent contentment…and coming off the Great Wall of China in brisk warm autumn days a few magical to mystical moments. On one occasion while walking solo I heard leaves rustling in the trees –only a few colored leaves remained on each tree. Looking up the leaves would twirl on one tree then sequentially on another– like a self-conducted symphony—only in China. When I asked William whether his operation had reached a size sufficient for an assistant he replied, “I think I will see you again.”

Life in a Mongolian Ger

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Terelgj National Park, an hour by car outside of Ulaan Baatar, is a spectacular valley surrounded by high eroded rock formations, pine covered mountains and steppes carpeted with sheep, Mongolian horses and perennial wild flowers. We are immediately taken by the tour company van to the ger (the word “yurt” is of Turkic origin that the Russians use) of an older Mongolian man who welcomes us with delicious yak butter on thin hard bread, two kinds of dried cheese and milk tea. We are told his wife is in Ulaan Baatar visiting a daughter who works for a mining company.

We walk behind a yak pulling a cart with our luggage up the side of a small valley to our ger which will be our home for three days. A ger is a round structure with a wooden lattice framework with long poles extending up toward the apex of the ceiling…all covered with layers of felt. Our ger sits on a cement platform covered with linoleum and carpeting. At the center is a hearth where the fire is considered sacred. The door faces south, men traditionally enter and walk to the west of the fire and the women to the east. At the north, opposite the door is the Khoima where valued objects like an altar for the Buddah and family pictures are kept. We have two beds with regular mattresses, one on each side of the hearth, a candle and small table. The mattresses and camel cloth blankets…”Gold Sheep Brand Wool En Bl Anket” all made in China.

It has snowed the day before and a young woman lights our fire in the evening and again, silently, about five in the morning. Our meals, are beautifully served in a large nearby ger.

To Siberia & Lake Baikal

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We boarded a Moscow train at midnight. We are headed across Russia on the trans-siberian train system. However we will be breaking up the trip by getting off in Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk, with a side excursion to Lake Baikal, in Russia and Ulaan Bataar in Mongolia on the way to our final destination…Beijing China.

The next morning one of our cabin-mates, (there are four of us…two racks on each side of the cabin) Vladamir, starts his day with a bottle of beer. Enjoying the changing colors of the trees as we climb and dip through the Urals our cabin mates and we share all our packed lunches with each other and Vladamir, who knows no English shares his vodka with us. Diana, who is a translator in German/Russian for a Moscow law firm) does speak English, tells me there is no Russian like Frank Sinatra…and that she doesn’t like Antonio Banderas because he is “dark.” (We have discovered that anyone “dark” is called “black” and is discriminated against…as are homosexuals…hardly anyone out of the closet here.)

Unknown to each other, they are both traveling to their home town of Yekaterinburg, the third biggest city in Russia, to visit their parents. On the way our rich Moscow train passes through dirt-poor even though picturesque villages and Vladamir gets off at a town famous for it’s glass factory to buy a set of crystal glasses (about a dozen glasses for about $20) and bag of apples from the sellers who are tapping at our window. Regulars know what to buy at each stop-whether a bag of berries picked by bucket in the forest or a baked chicken from a babushka (grandmother). We even saw men hawking huge chandeliers. One man was trying to sell a stuffed bird with a wing span six feet wide!

An ex-pirate by the name of Yermak, who is recognized as the founder of Siberia, crossed the Ural mountains and challenged the fur traders for control of the land. In November 1581 he raised the Russian flag. By 1900 over a million people had made he long march to the squalid and overcrowded gulags of Siberia and the word, Siberia, came to mean a place for criminal and political exiles.

In 1891 Tsar Nicholas III began construction on the railway from Moscow to Vladivostock on the east coast of Russia near the Sea of Japan. The greater part was built without heavy machinery bu by men wit nothing more than wooden shovels. Nevertheless, they could lay up to 2.5 miles of rail in a good day, according to the Trans-Siberian Handbook. Most of the labor force had to be imported as local peasants were already employed on the land and the workers came from as far away as Italy and Turkey but the Chinese coolies were terrified of the Amur tigers with which the area full and the government subsequently turned to the prisoners in the gulags to relieve the shortage of labor.

The trans-Mongolian line (to Beijing) branches off from the main Trans-Siberian route (to Vladivostock) at Zaudinsky and follows the well worn route of the ancient tea caravans that traveled between Beijing and Moscow in the 18th and 19th centures. In those days traders made the 7865km journey in no less than 40 days. Since the railroad began operating in the mid-1950’s the journey now takes about 5.5 days.
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On The Street In St Petersburg

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We hail down a minibus, just like we did in Viet Nam, which takes us across the Neva River to Nevsky pr (like Rodeo Drive in LA which has to have some of the most expensive stores in the world) where we peer into windows…looking for T-shirts..and graffiti. View image Hungry, we walk some steps down to the door of the Propaganda Cafe only because we are illiterate in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet and the restaurant thankfully has a menu in English. We find out later the Propaganda is a chain of expensive cafes all over the city catering to Westerners…a young Brit behind us is on the phone trying to peddle cheap tables to someone who seems skeptical.

We find a Georgian restaurant that night (with a “river” running through it, stained glass windows and walls carved with Georgian motifs) and relish traditional mutton and cabbage stew, stuffed peppers and sweet cheese blinis for dessert. Next to our table are three men, I imagine to be closing a business deal, toasting with vodka and chasers of cranberry juice at every shake of the hand (of course between multiple mobile phone calls).

The ‘Venice of the North’, with its numerous canals and more than 400 bridges, is the result of a vast urban project begun in 1703 under Peter the Great. Later known as Leningrad (in the former USSR), the city is closely associated with the October Revolution. Its architectural heritage reconciles the very different Baroque and pure neoclassical styles, as can be seen in the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, the Marble Palace and the Hermitage. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.