Leaving CEMAL

Today we are moving in with our host families and out of the home we have been living in for the last 8 weeks. I am nervous but also extremely excited. I have been looking forward to this for a while.

I will be living with a woman named Maria Guadalupe in her 50s. She is an accountant and lives really really close to CEMAL, so I am not going very far away unlike some students who are over a half hour bus ride from CEMAL. It is just Maria and I living together. I have not met her yet but we will be meeting our families at 5 PM for a convivio and awkward get to know you games. Then we will have a light dinner of tamales :) Then I will walk down the street with her to her house and I will live with her for 6 weeks. I don't know what to expect at all other than that I will not have internet access which is going to be pretty weird - but not bad at all. I am glad that I will not be spending over 3 hours a day on tastespotting.com looking up recipes - I need to break the obsession hahaha. So I won't be posting as often or be on facebook or my email as often as I would be if I had internet. I can always just come over to CEMAL and use the computers and U.S. phone line.

So last night I went to a place called Los Arcos. It is a restaurant/bar that is mostly outside, located on the main Zocalo. We went around 9 PM because we knew there was going to be live music and people get up and dance among the tables and the beers are 2 for 1. The restaurant was really busy when we got there, almost every table was full, and this is not a small place. We were sitting really close to the band. I ordered a "Cafe Moka." It was pretty much a little coffee, a lot of milk, and a chunk of Mexican chocolate thrown in. It was quite delicious. I want to bring my mom and Rick here at night because I know they want to go dancing and this was perfect because we were home by 11 PM but it was still really fun and lively and everyone was having a great time.

So something else happened to one of my roommates which I have to share even though I know this might freak some of you guys out. One of my roommates got home last night around 2:30 in the morning and came in to our room. I was awake because I had to go to the bathroom. She had been in a car with a guy she knew who drove her home from a club they were at. They were sitting in his car right outside of the gate to CEMAL. Two guys with guns came and told them to get out of the car. She said that she didn't really know what was going on but the guy she was with just told her to get out of the car quietly and walk away as quickly as possible. That is exactly what they did and his car was stolen by these two guys with guns! Wow, that scares me a bit, but it could happen in any city really. The poverty levels in Mexico are so high that crime is on the rise as a result of a lack of opportunities and jobs. I guess that's all I have to say about that but don't get scared, I just thought it was a crazy story.

Daily Life and Running in Cuernavaca

I am going to discuss running here in Cuernavaca which is quite a challenge.
First of all the elevation is about a mile up, quite a bit higher than Seattle and Wisconsin hahahha. Also, streets are the only place to run as Cuernavaca is a big city. And there are a lot of hills, which are my greatest running mental challenge. Another really big challenge for me, that has has always been a challenge is the heat. It wears me out. When I had Spanish every morning from 8 to 11 I could not run in the mornings when it is cooler but now that I have Spanish only two days of the week from 8 to 11 I have realized that my best time to run is either around 7 AM after drinking a cup of coffee and using the bathroom. Or it is after waking up at 7 or so and eating a small breakfast and then running at 9 or 10. My legs feel so much fresher and I can run in the shade and the sidewalks have not soaked in all of the day's eat yet.

The first week I was here I didn't run at all. Then I just did 30 minutes on the first day and discovered how big the hills really are here. I gradually increased to running 4 or 5 times a week for about 35 to 45 minutes. I did a few longer-ish runs of 65 minutes. Then I decided that I was going to run the Rock n' Roll half marathon in Seattle on June 25th. I am going to keep running 5 to 6 days a week for 30 to 45 minutes until the beginning of April when I have more of a daily plan of what my mileage is going to be.

Besides the physical conditions of running in Cuernavaca, there are some other difficult things. It is not very common to see someone running in the streets for exercise. I have seen a few other people, all men do this on a few occasions, but never women and not white foreign women such as myself. So I stick out like a sore thumb even more so than if I was just walking down the street without running. I get a lot of comments from people as I am running and darting around cars and food stalls and stores and people. These comments range from Buenos Dias to Guera (white girl) to other things that I don't understand or make me a little afraid. Sometimes it is discouraging and I don't want to go out and run just because I want to be alone in my own running world without having to deal with people saying things. But that has been my privilege in the past to be able to do this and I am realizing what it is like for many people who do not have the privilege of leisurely runs in the woods.

I am also thinking about joining a gym for a month when I have to run for longer amounts of time so that I can run to the gym, run there on the treadmill, and run home. This is what I have found really helps me break up long runs especially when I have to do them by myself.

I usually run by myself too but there are luckily a few people here who do run and sometimes we plan runs together. One of my professors, Antonio Ortega is a runner and a few of us have run with him some Saturday mornings. I love doing this because I have company and I am really missing that about being at school and on the team. It is just hard to motivate myself and it is not as fun sometimes because I don't have someone to talk to and help the time pass.

A week from this Friday we are going to our urban homestays until the second week of May and I am really excited for a change of scenery and people and to live with a family. I will also have some new places to run when I move which I am also looking forward to.

Hello Again

Right now it is 7:30 AM and I cannot sleep in. This is one thing that I have figured out about myself here, when there is sun early in the morning shining into my room, I cannot keep sleeping. I am also sick for the first time since being here. I had some stomach issues and I also have a sore throat and stuffy nose. So I am going to take this time to sit down and write about what has happened since I last blogged because it has been so much! But I even can't just write, I am also watching season 5 of Dexter hahahah.



Puebla



So let's see, I took a weekend trip to Puebla, the 4th largest city in Mexico. It is a city that was not built on top of an indigenous city like many of the cities in Mexico. It was built by the Spanish at the request of Hernan Cortes, who I love so much (wink wink), and he wanted 365 churches built, one for each day. So there are a lot of churches! Puebla is a culinary destination where the specialty is mole. We went to a restaurant in Puebla where we had red mole chicken enchiladas and another specialty, chiles en nogada which is a poblano pepper stuffed with ground meat, nuts, and dried fruit covered in a white almond sauce with pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top. The colors of the dish: red, white, and green are representative of the Mexican flag. I didn't realize how big Puebla was going to be and I felt that I did not have enough time to really explore it in a single day trip so I will have to go back.



I am trying to remember what else went on in this time. Oh yeah!

My best day in Cuernavaca! So this was a week from yesterday, so last Friday. The day before we had finished our Spanish classes and the Spanish school was going to have a barbecue on Friday to celebrate the end. So that day I woke up and went on a run which, if you know me, is quite an accomplishment since I am not a morning runner. But I am trying to turn myself into one here because it is so much cooler in the mornings. Then I had a good breakfast and we had a speaker at 9 AM. The speaker is a history professor who spoke to us about U.S. invasions in Latin America. I want to let you all know reading this that we do not learn the extent of U.S. invasions and their negative effects on other countries in public school. We learn about the positive aspects of the big stick policy, manifest destiny, and the monroe doctrine but not that these policies created dire problems in foreign countries. So I was pretty blown away by this talk and angry at the education system and those in power (as usual). Then we had lab group which is a period of two hours from 11:30 to 1:30 that we have every Friday and one of us leads the group on a topic of our choice. Jordan, a guy in my class led this lab group in which we discussed identity and migration. It was a great discussion. Then it was the barbecue at Universal. I wasn't really sure what to expect from a Mexican barbecue, what food were we going to eat? I arrived and they started passing out margaritas to all of us. We waited at the tables above the pool until the food was ready, chatting and drinking our margaritas. Then we got in line for the food which was incredible! There was fruit salad, grilled pearl onions, cactus and onions, salad, guacamole, tortillas, and grilled meat. I had grilled chicken which was so so so good! I was practically drooling. Then while we were eating, a mariachi band came and played for us. They were pretty amazing too. Then came dessert! Cake! After all of this I went back to my room and got on the internet. I saw that Karl Poetzl had posted a link to watch the MWC track championships at Grinnell so I thought I would try and see if I could watch it from a foreign country and it worked!!!!! So I watched Beloit run, it was awesome but it made me actually really miss Beloit and everyone. So I really enjoyed myself. I can't remember what I did the rest of the day but it was great!



The next morning Sarah and I went running with Antonio, one of our professors. We ran about a mile to get to his house and then we took a taxi to some place called the ciclopista. It is a stretch of about 1000 meters overlooking Cuernavaca, lined with palm trees and flowers. Although the distance was short, I ran it 4 or 5 times and then we took a taxi back to Antonio's house and then ran back to CEMAL to eat breakfast.



Rural Homestay: Amatlan



So Sunday was the day we were embarking upon our rural homestays in a town called Amatlan, about an hour away. I think I have mentioned it in previous blog posts because we went there another time for a day trip. Amatlan is a small town of about 4000 people who claim indigenous roots. It is quite isolated from other places although it is about 20 minutes from Tepotztlan, a larger town.

In Amatlan I stayed with a pretty big family; a mother, her husband and their four sons who are all older than me. THere was also another student from the program with me in the house. They lived on the same plot of land as the husband's sister which is a very common occurrence here. They had chickens, dogs and three puppies!, and horses. They have their own plot of land where they grown their corn that Sarah, my host mom, takes to the molino to grind it and then make into tortillas. We had a lot of stuff going on during the day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (we left wednesday night) but when I came back to the house I would sort of help her with the tortillas, but mostly just sit with her and talk or just "be" which is hard for me because I am so anxious that I have to be doing something all the time to feel productive.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this entire trip. I had a wonderful time but it left me a little sad and heavy hearted. I believe that my western feminist ideals have made me feel this way to some extent and I am imposing my views on these people's lives. But Sarah's life made me sad. I am not sure if I would have felt this way if she would not have said some of the things she did. Every morning I would ask her at breakfast (after she had prepared it for me and waited on me) what she was going to do today. She would always answer with, "the same thing I did yesterday," with a shrug of her shoulders. This meant cooking and cleaning and not much else. Then another time she asked me if I was going to come back and visit her in the future and I said yes. She told me, and once again, this was only one of multiple times that she said this, that we, as in all the students who stay with her, say this and none of them ever come back. She seemed very saddened by this and that made me feel really bad and guilty. A lot of time she would talk about the United States and how she would like to visit but she knew it was really expensive not to mention frickin difficult to get there. I just felt so frustrated by my breadth of opportunity when this woman had to cook and clean everyday. But that is not to say that she wasn't happy and conte with life which I guess is all that really matters but it seemed like she wished she would have had some of these opportunities but knew she never would.

The most rattling part of the whole trip was the immigration testimony panel that we attended. Two men from the village spoke to us, a group of 22 women and 3 men, plus the professors, about their experiences migrating multiple times to the United States. It is one thing to hear statistics about people immigrating to the US without documents, but it is an entirely different thing to hear their stories first hand and to hear the atrocities. THe process of migrating from Mexico to the United States and trying to find a job is a process of dehumanization but they had to migrate or else they were going to starve. THere are literally no jobs in Amatlan or other rural cities and all the jobs in the cities are saturated. I actually cried during this whole experience as did a lot of other people. It was really emotional but completely important to hear.

Then when we left on Wednesday we had to say goodbye to our host families. I knit Sarah a bag that I gave her. Then, something I completely wans't expecting and don't know how to express my gratitude enough -- she gave Lisa and I gifts. One of her sons had bought us necklaces and she had bought each of us a teacup with a flower on it. I just did not know how to react. They had already opened up their home to us and fed us and done everything for us and they were giving us gifts?!!!!!!!!! I just said thank you a million times and hugged them all, I just wanted them to know so badly how thankful I was but I knew I couldn't express it in words. And I seriously do want to go back and visit :)

Now I am going to discuss the food which was so f-ing awesome - excuse my language.
So on Sunday, when we got there it was time for comida. Sarah served us fideo - skinny angel hair like pasta in a tomato broth soup. Then we had black beans and quesadillas with fresh cow's milk cheese. They also gave us little bananas, fresh cucumbers and homemade chili paste to go on the cucumbers.
Then for cena that night we had a cup of milk with instant coffee and blue corn tortillas with crema - sort of like a mix of sour cream and heavy cream - so really good!

The next morning for breakfast we had these fried potato and egg pancakes bathed in a red salsa with fresh blue corn tortillas as well as a cup of fresh cow's milk with instant coffee.
When I came home for lunch on Monday we had my favorite soup I have ever had, it was zuchini or calabasa and nopal or cactus in a cuminy tomatoy broth with beans and corn tortillas.
For cena we had a lime based soup with a chicken leg in it with tortillas.

Tuesday morning we had a light breakfast of freshly squeezed orange juice and a mango because we were going to do something called a Temezcal, or a steam room kind of thing. We ate an almuerzo at 11:30 of something similar to what we had for breakfast on monday but it had green beans cooked in with the potatoes. This was served with beans and tortillas of course.

Lunch/dinner took place pretty late around 5:30 and we had a dinner of a vegetable stew with chicken served with beans and tortillas. That night we attended a religious ceremony held every first of the month and at the end we were served arroz con leche and pan dulce.

Wednesday morning Sarah made an atole of avena con leche or a warm drink of oatmeal, sugar, milk, and cinnamon. I also had a fried egg, black beans, and tortillas. This was such a great breakfast! Then for comida we had a pasta dish with crema and salsa and an ensalada of cauliflower, carrot and nopal. It was so so good!!!!!! Also we had agua de jamaica, or hibiscus water.

We returned on wednesday evening and I was not hungry at all hahaha!

Maquiladora Visit

Last week we went to visit a Maquiladora located in the neighboring municipality of Emiliano Zapata. The maquiladora makes swimsuits for brands such as Trina Turk, Ralph Lauren, Polo, and Victoria's Secret.

When we first walked into the maquila we were greeted by a male supervisor. I looked over his shoulder and saw through a glass window. It appeared almost identical to the images I had seen in movies and photos in classes at school; rows and rows of women with dark skin color working at sewing machines. The male supervisor gave us a tour of the factory and even let one of us take pictures. The pictures are located at the program blog: migrationglobalization.blogspot.com.
We walked around the exterior parts of the factory seeing how the fabrics are first cut, where the shipments leave and come in, and where the swimsuits are stored. We examined many swimsuits including a Polo top that would be exported to the United States for the summer season and cost $65 USD.
An interesting and very important fact about this factory and which is worse in other maquilas is that these women are paid between 50 and 70 pesos per day or about $5 to $7 USD and for working 48 hours per week, monday to friday. They get a total of 45 minutes of break throughout the day. Their worday is from 6 AM to 4:36 PM exactly.
Obviously this was one of the better maquilas made evident by the fact that they even let us come in, give us a tour, and take pictures. This is one of the few that also actually gives the workers the benefits that they deserve under the Mexico constitution. The majority of factories do not give these benefits such as childcare, paid vacations, social security, pregnancy leave, etc.
The whole experience of being in the maquila was somewhat surreal. The skin colors and gender signifying the power dynamics within the factory were so evident that it was overwhelming. The women were working at the sewing machines and had darker skin colors. The men were located on the jobs around the periphery of the factor, on big machines. The supervisor had a lighter skin color than all the rest. Also, on the second floor where the offices are located, there was a giant glass window for observing the workers, like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when the rich girl's dad has all the women workers in his factory try to find the golden ticket.
It was just weird.
We got back from this little journey and had a discussion about what to do about these factories. Of course I argued not to buy new clothes but to buy used and not support the clothing consumer industry. But I'm not going to get into it all right now because it is so complex.
Come back soon, I will be posting some more stuff about my weekend trip to Puebla and Tlamacazapa!

Mariposas Monarcas and Nevado Toluca

This weekend we went to see the monarch butterflies of Michoacan at a national park and the next day we were going to hike the 4th highest volcano in Mexico, Nevado Toluca.

It took 4 hours to drive to the butterfly reserve from Cuernavaca. I tried to sleep on the way but it was impossible because the road was so windy and bumpy. I think about 3 people were throwing up on the way because they got so carsick. Kate, you would have been very very sick.

We had the option of riding a horse or walking the 3 kilometers to where the butterflies currently were. I chose to walk and we walked with a guide up hill through trails in the woods. It was very beautiful and reminded me of Colorado. We finally got to the place where thousands and thousands of butterflies rest. It was pretty amazing to see because you could just look at a tree and not see the tree because it was orange due to the fact that so many butterflies were covering it! There were also a lot of dead butterfly wings and dead butterflies on the ground and supposedly this is how the butterflies tell where to stop the next year due to the presence of these wings.

After seeing the butterflies for a while we walked back down but I pretty much ran because I had to pee so badly. We ate lunch after that the cooks here had made for us and we brought. It was a lunch of three different kinds of empanadas! One of them was spinach and cheese, another of poblano peppers and corn and the other of champinones or mushrooms. My favorite was definitely the poblano peppers one.

So I have figured out that my new favorite food is poblano pepper.

Don Victor, the cook who makes dinner for us here makes the most delicious, rico thing ever which is cooked poblano peppers in cream. I asked him how he prepared it and he told me that you just sautee some onions and garlic in butter, add some cream and the fresh sliced poblanos and simmer/cook them for while. We have had this dish twice and the first time was with chicken it as well, which was also quite divine.

Only 9 of us were going on from the butterfly reserve to the volcano so we left in a different car. There were 14 of us and we were pretty squished. We drove to Toluca, the capital city of the state of Mexico. We were trying to hurry to get there before 6 PM because we wanted to visit the largest stained glass piece of art in the middle of Toluca. We arrived at 5:40 and ran through the rain to the building. It is so beautiful and made of all stained glass artwork that portrays a fight between darkness and light, good and evil. Inside of it is a botanical garden.

Then we went to our hotel called Hotel Colonial right in downtown Toluca. After putting our things away we went to look for a place to eat breakfast the next morning before our hike up the volcano. We found a place listed in my guidebook and decided that it would be good to eat there the next morning. Then we all wanted something sweet, specifically chocolate. So we found a cafe where we sat down around 8 PM. I ordered a hot chocolate which was the traditional Mexican hot chocolate with chile and cinnamon. It was so so so good! They also brought us pan dulce. One of the people I was with, Sarah ordered flaming strawberries and the other ordered cheesecake. The flaming strawberries were quite the spectacle of the restaurant. We couldn't stop laughing the whole time while our very attractive waiter prepared them hahahha.

The next morning we went to the restaurant we scoped out the night before for breakfast, however they were not open when they said they were going to be and we were on a schedule so we decided to go to the only place open which is called Vips. It is pretty much a Mexican Dennys. I thought it was going to be disappointing but it was not. I ordered some eggs and other things, not really knowing what I was going to get. I got an egg over easy on top of a cactus leaf with salsa, queso fresco, poblanos, corn and bread. It was so good! I also got canteloupe. I was satisfied.

We left for the volcano around 9:30 and arrived at 11 AM.

We were a lot closer to the top of the volcano than I wanted because I wanted to hike for a while but we ended up hiking for 3 hours total. The volcano is over 15,000 feet tall, the fourth largest in Mexico. At the top of the volcano are two lakes separated by a large hill. Me and my friend Rebecca walked to the top and then around both lakes and then up to the top of a ridge. It was incredibly and breathtaking and quite cold, which I wans't used to after Cuernavaca being so warm all the time. We left the volcano around 4 PM and returned at 7 PM.

The next day was Valentine's day and I bought a Ghiradelli brownie mix from the Superama and borrowed an egg and oil from the cooks here. I shared them with everyone here and saved some for myself for dessert after dinner. Then I went with Rebecca and Sarah to an abarrote, or convenience store and bought Oreo ice cream. When I got back I ate my brownie with the ice cream. A brownie had never tasted so good. The desserts here just aren't the same.

Palacio Cortes, Diego Rivera Mural

Last week we went to Palacio Cortes which, as you can probably tell by its name, was Hernan Cortes's palace which he built here in Cuernavaca over an indigenous ceremonial site. I dislike Cortes almost more than Ronald Reagan by the way.

It is located on the central square in Cuernavaca called the Zocalo.

It is now a museum which houses a Diego Rivera mural.

The mural is called "A History of Morelos: Conquest and Revolution." The conquest of course refers to when Cortes came in 1519 and the revolution is that which occurred in 1910 with Emiliano Zapata. The mural is really more about the conquest though with just a few references to the revolution thrown in. The bigger portrayal of the conquest is purposeful in that it shows how much of an impact that conquest had on the lives of people today in Mexico.

The mural is amazing and stretches the length of a hallway. It starts on the right end and works its way to the left. It portrays fighting among indigenous peoples and the conquistadores. It portrays sacrifices by the Aztecs, destruction of nature, torturing of indigenous, the Spanish taking gold, jewels, and food from the natives. It shows the Spanish forcing the natives to labor to build Catholic churches upon their ceremonial centers. It shows the horror of the conquest.

I really like Diego River's art.

There are a few representations of Zapata and the Revolution of 1910 which you can see in one of the pictures of the man and the woman opposite each other on one of the beams in the hallway.

Week 3, Part 1: Las Grutas and Amatlan

It just seems like we are doing one thing after another here!

It makes the days fly by.

Las Grutas

On Saturday, about half our group took a side trip to Taxco, a town famous for its abundance of silver and silver mines. Me and two of my companeras went to Las Grutas, which are huge caves located in a national park an hour and a half away from Cuernavaca. We took a bus for 47 pesos to Las Grutas that left at 8 AM. We arrived around 9:30 AM. We bought our tickets for 63 pesos and waited in line until the caves opened at 10. We were part of a big group of people. The caves are huge! We walked 2 km into the cave which took about an hour because we stopped frequently so the guide, speaking only in Spanish could tell us about the stalagmites and stalagtites. After the caves we went down to el Rio de las Bocas which is located under the caves. No one was down there and it was very peaceful and serene with some huge magestic trees. I kind of felt like I was in Avatar! hahahah, that's for you Steve Heinz! Getting back was pretty difficult though. We thought we were going to be able to buy a bus ticket to return at Las Grutas but we were wrong. We probably spoke with 5 people asking them how to get back to Cuernavaca. Most of them told us that the bus might stop at Las Grutas on its way back towards Cuernavaca or it might not. Then we had some pushy taxi drivers try to get us in their taxis, telling us that they could take us for 100 pesos to the nearest bus station where we could buy a ticket back to Cuernavaca. I was getting a little frustrated at the entire situation and didn't know what to do so we took a moment to decide and we decided to take a taxi for 100 pesos or 33 pesos each to the bus stop. This worked out fine and the bus ticket back to Cuernavaca was 30 pesos.

Okay so skipping Sunday which was a relaxing day in which me and two of my other companeras watched Grey's Anatomy! I felt like I was with Sahara and Kate! It was awesome. I also washed my clothes by hand which I actually really like doing it is relaxing and monotonous, although I know I have the privilege of doing just my own laundry and not anyone else's.

Monday - Amatlan

We left as a group of 24 students to Amatlan, a small town located an hour from Cuernavaca at 9 AM. This is where one of our professors and her partner live.

We arrived at the home where, Nacho, the partner of our professor, Lisanne, was born. We sat outside in a circle and Nacho began to speak. Nacho is indigenous, Nahuatl. He grew up very poor but worked his way through university in Mexico city to become a veterinarian. The history of the conquest is extremely important in Mexico, particularly to indigenous peoples, as it should be. The conquest forever changed their lives in a detrimental, extremely negative way. Culturicide and genocide were committed by the Spaniards who attempted to Christianize the indigenous who were seen as less than human. As Juan de Sepulveda of Spain said in 1530, "They are as inferior to Spaniards as children to adults, women to men, the cruel and inhuman to the gentle, . . . finally, I might almost say, as monkey to human beings." Indigenous peoples were tortured and burned alive. They were forced to build churches and palaces on top of ancient ceremonial centers. They were forced to give up everything that they valued and mattered to them. These things such as nature and duality of the gods and life meant nothing to the Spaniards who only wanted their gold and labor.

So, many times when an indigenous speaker gives a talk, they start with ancient times because this is where it all started, where things changed for the worst. One cannot start from 50 or so years ago because it does not make sense without understanding the conquest. Most schools in Mexico only teach history from the conquest on, pretending as if there were no indigenous peoples and cultures prior to Spain "discovering" the new world. This is like learning that Christopher Columbus was a benevolent explorer when really he came to the new world to Christianize "barbarous indians."

A big fight still being fought today is over the land of Mexico. This is what the revolution of 1910 was about in which Emiliano Zapata led peasant farmers in a revolt against the government. Cuernavaca is the birthplaces of Emiliano Zapata and is therefore called the cradle of the revolution. There are two phrases of the revolution and one is "Land and Liberty" the other is "the land belongs to those who work it with their own hands."

So, obviously the Spanish took away the land of the Indigenous people, even though Indigenous peoples do not believe in land ownership. The revolution of 1910 ended in the constitution which in Article 27 declared that ejido land would be returned to the peasant farmers, mostly mestizos, but the true owners for they were to work the land with their own hands. This was a great victory for the people although not everyone benefited from it.

Then, with the presidency of Carlos Salinas in the 1990s and the initiation of NAFTA, parts of Article 27 of the constitution were changed so that ejido land, land that could not be bought or sold, could now be privatized. At first I was confused at what this meant and why it was bad that it would be privatized. But here it is: when ejido land could not be bought or sold but solely worked by the people, even if there was a bad crop season or drought, they would not feel like they needed to sell their land, it would always be there. However, now peasant farmers feel that they must sell their land when there are economic downturns or droughts or similar things. Then they sell their land which is bought by multinational corporations who then use the peasant farmers for cheap labor.

So Nacho spoke about this and the effect that it has had on the people of Mexico. It combined with many other factors including colonialization and the conquest have created so much poverty in Mexico.

So then Nacho took us on a walk to a sacred ceremonial site in the woods. We were going to do an introduction to a traditional Nahuatl ceremony. I did not know what to expect at all.

We walked for about 20 minutes and then arrived at a place where two huge rocks/boulders met, forming a narrow passage between them. It was an area of dirt and trees and rocks. These rocks are sacred rocks, they are in the North, the direction of the dead. On one of the rocks were some pictographs dating back to over 5000 years ago approximately (there are varying dates). The pictograph we could see was a human/animal looking head with a stick body, stick arms and stick legs. The feet were equilateral crosses, signifying something much different from the crucifix in Christianity. The equilateral cross signified the four directions, signifies duality and balance.

We created a circle of about 40 people because some other people who were also with an Indigenous guide came as well. Nacho and the other indigenous guide led the ceremony. We placed offerings in the middle of the circle as well. I placed the journal that Sahara made for me for Christmas which I have been using every day and has become something very special to me. I placed the journal there because it reminds me of Sahara, and it is the only journal that I have ever actually wanted, desired to write in of my own volition. And when I have had a journal I tend to write superficial musings but in this journal I am real. So after we placed our offerings we held up our hands into the middle of the circle and shook them to create good energy and open our hearts. We then faced North, only turning in a clockwise direction to get there. We raised our hands up again and shook them. Nacho blew on a caracola, or conch shell and after he stopped blowing, the sound resonated for a few seconds and were were left in silence with out hands and arms still raised. We repeated this with all 4 directions, N, S, E, W.

After this we sat down on the ground and Nacho began to speak. He spoke about a lot of things such as race and how it has been constructed as a tool by those in power to divide the people, to keep them from demanding what is right. He also spoke about corn. I never understood the importance of corn in Mexico or indigenous life. Even when I went to the grocery store on Sunday the longest line was at the tortilleria. Corn is more than food, it is life. Corn here is red, white, black, and yellow. These colors represent the four directions. Nacho placed corn in the middle of the circle as an offering and the corn needed to have 40 kernels in each line and 10 lines total for a grand total of 400 kernels; this in line with an ancient myth.

While Nacho spoke I was able to be in the moment, something I have tremendous trouble with. I am always thinking about the next step, the next day. I am never still or at peace in my mind and I know it may sound hokey but I was at peace while he spoke. I never thought of myself as Latina, always as white. I had a conversation with one of my professors and I think I do consider myself Latina. I am not only white and I think to deny my Latina side is to deny a past of not only my family but of my indigenous past too, of the fact that I do come from a group of people who endured. I must acknowledge my privilege but also my condemned past and these can coexist. It is not either or. It is not just the way I am perceived by others in the now, as a guerra, a white girl. So in this moment that lasted quite a while I thought about things painful to me such as my father. I have to think about it to break the silence that has surrounded him for so long. Because if I do not I remain silent, I am oppressed. I internalize this silence and turn it against myself through anxious obsessive behaviors that do not allow me to fully live.

So yeah, I never thought I would be saying this stuff but I am and I glad for it and I am very thankful for Nacho.

At the end of the ceremony we each hugged every other person in the circle. I had never hugged so many people in my life!!!! I really liked it actually, it made me smile.

We went back to Nacho's childhood house and had lunch. Two wonderful women cooks made us sopes which are fried corn tortillas with cheese. Then you put various toppings on them such as salsa verde, salsa roja, frijoles, and cebollas or onions. We were also served agua de jamaica or hibiscus water. It was excellent!