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!

Week 2

We started our language classes this week at UNIVERSAL, I am taking a class called Contemporary Latin American Women: Texts and Voices. There are four other students in my class and we have two teachers - Flor and Mahua. We have class monday through thursday from 8 AM to 10:50 AM for four weeks. The amount of time we spend in the class in four weeks is equal to what we would do in a whole 16 week semester.

We left Thursday to go to Hacienda Santa Cruz and Xochicalco, another ancient ruins site.

We spent Thursday night at the Hacienda after going to Xochicalco.

Xochicalco is amazing. It is very high up and you can see the land and mountains all around at the top of it. These ruins were created by three different groups of Mesoamerican peoples who came together to create one calendar. On the side of one of the biggest pyramids there is actually a carving showing how the three different calendars of three different peoples came together to create one calendar. This is represented by a hand pulling in one calendar, another hand pushing another away and certain numbers represented by bars and circles pushed off to the side and below. I am including this as the first picture because it is a little confusing to explain.

We drove to the Hacienda after this. I didn't really know what kind of place this hacienda thing was going to be. We were driving along a highway when I saw a very old looking building with a wall surrounding it and towers sticking up behind the walls. I made a comment to the peple around me saying how beautiful that was and as I said this our car turned right towards a set of huge wooden doors. We were going in! The doors opened for our car and I was completely caught off guard. There was bougainvilla everywhere and colonial style buildings with fountains, mosaic benches and pristine pools. One of my professors, Antonio, his partner who happens to be the great great great grandson of Benito Juarez owns part of this hacienda which used to be a sugar cane plantation.

We ate dinner in an outside room with a view of the valley and fields beyond. Dinner in Mexico is not at all like dinner in the United States. It is really just a snack. We were served agua pina or pineapple water which is made by blending water, pineapple, and sugar. It is very refreshing. Then they served us things that look like quesadillas but are called synchronizadas. There were ones with ham and oaxaca cheese and I ate the vegetarian ones with I believe manchego cheese and some lemony tasting herb. I ate this with salsa verde. Then they brought out pan dulce and coffee and I ate a lot of pan dulce. We had a bonfire after that and had s'mores! The graham crackers here are very different and so is Hershey's chocolate. But I loved how it was different. The graham crackers weren't as sweet but had more of a nutty flavor.

I went to be early after that because I was tired but me and a few other people decided to get up to walk up a hill to a church to see the sun rise. I woke up around 6 AM and we started to walk up a steep hill across the street from the Hacienda. That was kind of disappointing because the sun didn't rise in front of us above the toy house looking hacienda but behind us halfway hidden by a hill. But it was still beautiful in its own way. Then we met Antonio for a run. He took us to a dirt path that led to a plant nursery. I think we ran about five miles in a valley surrounded by moutains. A man was herding some goats while we were running and we ran with the goats!

The breakfasts that I have been served in Mexico are very different compared with the United States. There are a lot more savory items and vew few sweet items. A very popular dish is chilaquiles which is pretty much a way to use up stale corn tortillas. The corn tortillas are refried and layered in a pot with salsa and cream and cooked till soft. We also had some sort of scrambled eggs with tomatoes as well as beans! I love beans, I eat them at least twice a day here. There was also papaya and cantaloupe as well as yogurt and granola. And I can't forget the fresh squeezed orange juice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhh I get a little too excited about food sometimes.

We had a day of discussions of readings and "bonding" in small groups. We discussed some articles such as Peggy McIntosh's Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: White Privilege and some other ones about identity and power as well as the uses of Tu and Usted in Mexican Spanish.

We had a snack of cucumber and jicama in lemon juice with chili powder on top, so good!

For lunch/comida at 1:30 we were served a lentil soup with plantains in it. Then we had a plate of beans, rice, and grilled cactus with tomatoes and onions. I really like cactus. The Spanish word for cactus is nopal. They served us dessert too that was a gelatin made of a fruit. I am having a hard time here with the desserts because they pretty much consist of gelatins and puddings that are very light. I am seriously craving something heavy and decadent like chococolate cake with ganache and vanilla ice cream! I can't really find that here. I did buy something really good from the bakery though called La Piedra, or rock. It was not airy and light like most pan dulce but dense, which was exactly what I wanted. And it was covered in sugar. I ate it with tea, it was so good!!!!!!!!!!

We had time to just relax at the hacienda and some people went in the pool. They set up hammocks for us and I sat by the pool and read and took a nap. We left at 6 PM and arrived in Cuernavaca around 7:30 where Don Victor had dinner waiting for us! He is a great cook.

Teotihuacan

I went to Teotihuacan last Sunday with the art professor from UNIVERSAL, the language school that I go to. He was our tour guide.

Teotihuacan is the first ancient ceremonial site in Mesoamerica that was used by various groups of Pre Hispanic peoples.

The major parts of Teotihuacan are the two temples, the temple of the moon and the temple of the sun. There is a very long road over 4 miles long connecting a series of smaller temple after smaller temple and the two bigger temples. It is estimated that only 25 percent of Teotihuacan has been excavated. As you walk among the ruins you see huge hills where ruins are hiding but have not been dug up yet. Maybe a job for Eric! hahaha. I climbed up both pyramids and a lot in between. There are not a lot of trees and foliage around, it is mostly dirt and you can see a lot of mountains all around in the distance.

All of the temples and buldings at Teotihuacan were orignally frescoed, or in other words, covered with plaster and adobe to create a smooth finish. Today however all that can be seen are the rocks that encompassed the original buildings without the stucco on top of it. There are a few places where rebuilding was necessary and a few other places where the orignal stucco can still be seen.

It is not known exactly what group of people built this ceremonial center. It is a site of debate but most people just say that the Teotihuacan people built it; easy enough.

Teotihuacan is a two and a half hour bus ride from Cuernavaca. After visiting the ruins we went to a building where this guy dressed in a poncho and sombrero showed us only a few of the hundred or so uses for a special type of cactus from Mexico that is called like maga or something like that. It was the original parchment paper. You could use the milk from the center of it supposedly as an aphrodisiac. The crazy poncho guy made us try the milk from it by the way. It is also what the fibers of the poncho and blankets they were selling were made of. The end of one of the leaves could be used as a needle and thread. There were a ton of uses. Then the guy gathered us around in a circle, all the while making stereotypical Mexican jokes that I really didn't think were funny at all even though some people were laughing. This is when we tried the nectar of the cactus and also he made us all try some type of tequila that had something special about it. I was pretty confused because he kept calling all of us baby and talking really fast.

Friday and Saturday

On Friday a couple of fun and interesting things happened.

Artesans from the Artesan cooperative came to CEMAL (the house where we live) and set up their wares in the front yard. Many of the artesans are known personally by the CGE (center for global education) staff. We were introduced to each of the artesans and they shared a little about themselves and their history. The prices of their goods are non-negotiable because they have set them at what they think are a fair price for their work. I bought a pair of earrings for 50 pesos and a present for Rick, my stepdad, but I won't say what it is here in case he reads this!

After this I went to the pool at Universal, the language school where we begin classes on Monday.

Then, that night we went to La Comuna, a liberal community activist cafe about a 15 minute walk away from our house on H. Preciado in Colonia San Anton. The cafe is a wonderful wonderful place. The man who gave the talk to us on Mexico the other day is one of the main workers of La Comuna. We arrived before dark at about 6:40 and waited for everyone from our group to arrive. The purpose of this was an intercambio or a get together of people. So, Mexican students that CGE staff knew were invited to come to La Comuna. A guy named Jesus showed up but sat at a different table from me. We were served jamaica, or hibiscus water, which is a pure red/pink color. Then, another guy came and sat down at our table. He introduced himself and everyone at our table began conversing while we waited for our dinner. David, the name of the guy who came to sit down with us is a 26 year old musician getting his master's degree here in Cuernavaca in psychology. He came to La Comuna to play some music for us but he ate dinner with us before he played. We had tortas, or sandwiches. I chose a chicken sandwich. I am not quite sure what was on the sandwich but I know it had sprouts, chicken, avocado, and a lot of other things. I also put some kindly provided hot peppers on my sandwich.

At about 8:30 David sat down in the middle of the restaurant to play his guitar and sing for us. He sang about 10 or more songs from 8:30to 9:30. Anita, one of my professors told us afterwards that he sang a lot of traditional protest songs that were just new when she was in college. He had an incredible voice and was excellent at the guitar, I was enrapture for the whole hour trying to figure out what the words he was singing meant.

We returned a little late because we had to wait for a taxi to get home.

Today, Saturday.

My friends Lisa, Rebecca, Sarah, and I went to the Robert Brady Museum that I mentioned in my last post. I will post some pictures so everyone can see the crazy eclecticness of the museum. This museum used to be the house of Robert Brady, an American art collector and artist from Iowa. When he died he asked that his house be made into a museum. The house and arrangement of art is exactly how he left it. There is art from everywhere around the world in this house. Every surface is covered, some times more often than not bordering on cluttered. I think the bathrooms and the dining room/kitchen were my favorite rooms.

Then then went to eat lunch at a place at La Maga. This is a restaurant that has a buffet for lunch for 82 pesos. The buffet was amazing!!!!!!!!!!! I have never seen a bigger and more complete salad bar in my life. There were three different types of greens, guava, orange, papaya, plantains, sesame seeds, granola, carrots, jicama, radishes, carrots, beets, sprouts, cilantro, peppers, cabbage, everything you can imagine!

Then there was also other food besides salad. There were black beans, two different kinds of chicken in green and red sauces, rice, fried plantains, flautas, chimichangas, potato salad, pasta, two different types of soup, apple salad, cooked cactus, steamed cauliflower, steamed green beans, so so much!!!!!!

After that we went to a book fair/artesan market in a pedestrian walkway that operates every Saturday. Sarah and I had a good conversation with a man named Jesus who made ornate journals out of recycled wood which is chiseled and painted.

Then we started walking back to H. Preciado and on our way stopped at La Bodega, a popular supermarket.

Tonight I am not doing much but maybe babysitting a boy named Coltin who is the son of a woman in my program. One of the pictures I added is of him and me last night.

Then tomorrow we are leaving at 8:30 AM to Teotihuacan!

The Rest of Week 1

Everything is going great here!

Tuesday night was the Latin dance class.
The dance instructor came to the house, her name is Karla Vargas.
We started off with some stuff that was pretty much like Zumba! It was a lot of fun and a good workout.
On Wednesday my group of 9 students went to the house of a couple named Serafin and Lydia.
They were host parents to a girl who is now one of the interns for the Social Work program that is going on at the same time as my program.
We drove to their house and it took about 40 minutes because there was so much traffic.
They lived down the side of a ravine. We had to walk about 400 meters down the side of the ravine to get to their house. The weather was beautiful, about 86 degrees fahrenheit and we sat outside in their backyard.
In Mexico, when you go to visit someone or are listening to a speaker manners and thank yous are much more important than in the United States. One of us had to do an introduction which thanked them for having us and letting us into their home. But this cannot be just a one or two sentence introduction, it must be quite thorough. I volunteered to do the introduction and although I could have done it in English and had it translated, I did it in Spanish. It went a lot better than I thought and I was pretty proud of myself hahaha.

We then asked them questions and told them about our interests. They told us about what it was like moving to Cuernavaca from Guerrero because there were no jobs in Guerrero. They could not find jobs in Cuernavaca either. They have been married for 42 years and have three children. Their son migrated to the United States to find a job in Los Angeles but returned after 6 months because he could not find a job. They told us of the difficulties of poverty and having to work for wealthy families and live in the wealthy family's homes. In one home, Serafin was not allowed to have Lydia there so she would hide in the bathroom all day so that she would not be found out. They are now part of an artesan cooperative here in Cuernavaca that we are visiting tomorrow night for dinner and an intercambio with Mexican university students. Serafin learned how to make things out of silver because he was an apprentice from age 10 in Taxco, a great silver town in Guerrero.

Today, Thursday, we had a talk by a member of the Human Right Commission here in Cuernavaca named Jose. He is a member of the coop that Lydia and Serafin are part of. He spoke a lot about what has happened and what is going on in the country including governmental fraud in the elections and governmental violence against resistors. It was quite informative.

On Saturday we have a free day and some of us are going to the Robert Brady Museum which used to be this man, Robert Brady's house. He was an art collector so there is a lot of famous art in his house include Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. And then on Sunday we are going to Teotihuacan, which are ancient ruins.

So long for now!

Day 4 - Market Basket Survey

Here are some picture of my day today.

The first is a picture of the kitchen where we eat all of our meals.

For breakfast I usually eat a cereal mixture of corn flakes, cheerios, and some really good homemade granola with a banana.

Lunch or comida is the biggest meal of the day and we eat it aroun 1:30 or 2 PM every day.

Around 11 AM we have botanas or snacks.

Then dinner is usually a mixture of leftovers from lunch and a couple of other things, always a salad.

There is always fresh fruit on the tables so you can have some whenever you want. There are guavas, which is what the second picture is. There are also bananas, apples, and oranges. I had never tried a guava before but they are excellent and I couldn't believe I had never tried one.

The last picture you see is of my dinner tonight.

I had a salad that had tomatoes, onions, avocados, carrots, and lettuce with a homemade salad dressing. I put some diced cantaloupe on top of it. Then I had some rice with my favorite dish I have had so far here. It is the green and tan colored mixture. It is green chiles stewed with chicken in some kind of sauce that I am guessing is sort of a roux with a little cheese. It reminded me a lot of green chile enchiladas from New Mexico.

At lunch I pretty much ate this same thing but I ate the green chile chicken stuff with a corn tortilla!!!!!!! I love corn tortillas.

They also always have pan dulce in containers on the counter where they come fresh every morning from a bakery right down the street called Panaderia San Antonio.

Today we did an activity that was called the Market Basket Survey.

We were divided into groups of four and given two items to buy in the central market called El Mercado Lopez Mateos. My group had to purchase 1 kilo of bananas and 1 kilo of eggs.

We also had to price a tooth brush and 3 pens.

The bananas cost us 8 pesos or aabout 67 cents and a kilo is about 8 bananas.

The eggs cost 15 pesos or about $1.25 and a kilo of eggs is about 18 or so eggs, maybe more.

The tooth brush cost 12 pesos or $1 and 3 pens were 9 pesos.

After we got back from the market we did some conversions to figure out how many hours a person making minimum wage in mexico would have to work to earn enough money to buy these items.

It was quite a surprise to me to find out that the minimum wage in Mexico is about 50 pesos per day since people are not paid by the hour like in the United States.

So for example, it would take someone from Mexico earning minum wage 2.4 hours to earn enough money to buy a kilo of eggs.

We did one more conversion which I thought was the most interesting.

We took the number of hours it would take someone from Mexico to earn enough money for the object and multiplied that number by $7.25, the minimum wage in the United States.

This number allows us to see the US cost equivalent or the price that US consumers would have to pay if they had to work the same number of hours as a Mexican worker.

So I am going to give the eggs as an example again.

It takes a Mexican worker 2.4 hours to buy the eggs. Multiply this by 7.25 and you get $17.40.

This is how much the US cost equivalent is.

When you see this cost of $17.40 for 18 eggs, that is very expensive, much more expensive than it seems previous to this activity.

We learned some other important things today like that between 40 and 60 percent of the population of Mexico earns a living working for themselves or as street vendors, taxi drivers, black market sellers, etc. Although Mexico does have a lot of social welfare and good healthcare, most of the population does not receive these benefits because they are the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder and are unable to have a job in which they would receive these benefits.

My white middle class guilt took me over for a bit but I am trying get over it because it is not worth feeling guilty because as one of my professors Anita said, "feeling guilty does not help anyone, or do anything."

I would rather engage in direct action than feel guilty.

Day 2 and 3 - Scavenger Hunt and Orientation

On Sunday we went on a scavenger hunt around Cuernavaca that took about 2 and half hours.

We had to go the cathedra, a restaurant, a bus stop, a garden called Jardin Borda and something else I cannot remember. I have decided that so far one of my favorite places I have been is the courtyard of the cathedral where I saw la boda or the wedding.

Today we had a morning of orientation where we met all of the staff who work at the house and spoke with them in small groups and did a lot of activities. This included about 35 people.

Then mis companeros y yo went back into town to the Zocalo which is the center of town near the Palace of Cortes. We walked around for a good two hours and I bought some notebooks in a store where I used my Spanish successfully. Two notebooks cost 26 pesos, or a little over 2 american dollars. We walked arond the artesan market and down a lot of streets where I recorded the name of some good looking restaurnts. It is really cool because a lot of the restaurants in Cuernavaca have live entertainment, mostly music at nighttime.

We got back and had dinner and I went running! Only for 30 minutes but it was still hard because of the elevation and it is very hilly here.

Tomorrow I have a Latin Dance class at night time.

Friday we are going to a cafe called La Comuna for dinner to have an "intercambio" with Mexican Univesity students.

Then on Sunday I am going on an excursion to Teotihaucanan where there are pyramids. It is about a 4 hours drive from Cuernavaca.

Cuernavaca Mexico, Day 1

Hello!

I have arrived in Cuernavaca.

My flight got into Mexico City at 4 PM central time.

I had to wait in the airport for 5 and half hours before I was going to be picked up but I made the best of it. I read the book The Hunger Games which is an excellent book by the way. I ate dinner at a restaurant called Wings which used to be called Baron Rojo.

I had an interesting encounter with a man who took my bag for me and led me off in the direction he thought I needed to go but I didn't and then I tipped him a lot of money because I felt bad when I gave him 20 pesos because he said that wasn't enough.

I met the two interns at the airport and we went and got two other girls who were arriving on Friday as well. We drove to Cuernavaca starting at around 10:30 PM and got to the house in Cuernavaca at midnight. The traffic was kind of bad because a lot of people go from Mexico City to Cuernavaca on the weekends to vacation. When we were on out way you could see the whole of Mexico City from above in the mountains where the highway was. It was the biggest city I have ever seen and made all the more beautiful with its glowing lights highlighting the terrain in the dark.

The next morning, me and one of my roommates, Deidre slept in and then we went with another girl, Ashley to walk into the thick of Cuernavaca.

We found the supermarket and walked towards the plaza where we entered the courtyard of La Catedral. There was a wedding about to begin at the cathedral and we watched as many people dressed quite fancifully, almost like they were going to Prom, arrived and walked into the church or chatted at the door.

The first thing I noticed about Mexico City was that there was extreme wealth right alongside dire poverty. As we drove I noticed expensive department store right next to a shack of a house.

This was similar to what I observed in the courtyard of the cathedral. All of the people dressed up for this grand wedding had light skin colors, some with skin as light as my own. The people hanging out in the courtyard who were not part of the wedding party had much darker skin. As the people who were part of the wedding arrived, they walked through the entrance of the courtyard and down a long path leading directly to the entrance of the cathedral. As they walked in their fancy dresses and high heels and suits, the darker skinned people watched. It seemed that the lighter skinned people were putting on a show, like they wanted people to look at them, to see them dressed in wealth. It made me feel pretty sick actually because I don't want to be like that. I don't want people to notice my lighter skin tone and different manner of dress. I wish I could just fit right in. That is the biggest challenge I think I am going to face is dealing with this.

After going into Cuernavaca we went back to the house and ate lunch and I took a nap.

Then we waited for everyone else to arrive and ate dinner.

I had pico de gallo, pinto beans, bread, and vegetable soup. It was very good.

Also, they have dry toilets here which are interesting to use.

Here are a few photos I took of where I am staying and the view from the house.