Hm. Well, after last post's rant about different things, I had a lot of extra thinking to do, mostly to assuage my melting pot of feelings or whatever. Mexico is treating me very well. Because we run in such tight circles, we tend to see folks from the nonprofits we work with when we go to different events. This is extremely comforting. We also have a better grasp of what's going on, and I think I generally feel like more things are possible, which is a great feeling.
I guess I got a little weirded out after my father left. I am still trying to work through that.
But there's been neat stuff going on! Our Pema reading group meets tonight, there are Almodovar movies (my favorite) at the CASA, and there are a couple of neat things I am going to try to figure out to do with Aaaaali! I am so excited to have a visitor! Friends are fun! :)
Yesterday we went to an all-day meeting that was being held to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a fair trade organic coffee cooperative based here in Oaxaca. It was basically a crash course in fair trade organic coffee cooperatives and I have more questions than I did before we got there and now I know people who can answer them, which is a pretty good place to be. We didn't drink as much coffee as I thought we would. The meeting was held in a town that is famous for black clay pottery, which was mostly boring besides a few spectacular exceptions.
Then, on our way home we stopped at one of the many, many tiny hair salons right outside Abastos (the hell market, which I honestly like) and got our hair cut. The whole experience took maybe 15 minutes and cost about three dollars USD (for both Tony and me). (You just have to be really specific.)
Last night, we were going to go to some Mixe music presentation at the Graphic Arts Institute, but we went at the wrong time and missed it. Instead, we ended up meeting with a friend and her new friend and talking in Carmen Alto, one of the plazas in Oaxaca, this one generally full of hippie traveler jewelry-making kids. I got into a conversation with one of these kids, who was actually from Oaxaca, and it quickly got kind of awkward because, well, he was pretty drunk. He was explaining to me the origin of these dangly earrings he had made by saying "well, you have to understand the history of the conquest of Mexico. The Spanish came with their huge bows and arrows--"
(me) "and their horses!"
(kid) "Yes, and our arts were nothing in the face of their weapons--"
(me) "and of their horses!"
(kid) "Well, now we suffer so much. You people need to understand this."
(me) "Who is you people? What are you implying?!"
Anyway, the whole converation ended in the guy calling me easy and difficult at the same time (but not that kind of easy! as he then clarified), and then I walked away.
Then we came home and I was going to make cookies but realized I was missing some rather important ingredients, so I am making the cookies today. We ended up sitting around and discussing the art projects we're all either working on or thinking about and then we listened to Jeff Buckley, which was a good way to end a ridiculously long day.
Well, if all this stuff is going to get done, I'd better get started!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
hay que correr el riesgo
Well! I just had an awesome mini-vacation with my dad! We didn't do anything particularly interesting or anything, but it was still great. I have found that when I spend time with my family, especially with my parents but of course my brothers too, it has a way of making everything in my life seem so inconsequential, because everything is overshadowed by the love I feel for them and also my desperation to make them happy.
There are things I am not able to write well about. The problem is that they are things that I think about so much, to such overwhelming degrees of obsessiveness and detail and just plain time, that I could never render them down to the "right" level of simplicity. Probably one of these is my feelings for my family, and another one is my frustration with love.
Yes, love, which I have been thinking about a lot lately for a few obvious reasons (it was Valentine's Day, I am kind of lonely, my last relationship fucked me up, so on), is a strange thing. I have, probably like most people, worked myself into the situation of never wanting to love someone again, not really, anyway, because it just seems like too much trouble. (This is such a lofty and vastly untrue statement. Let's just work with it, though, for the purposes of this paragraph.) Even on my good days (which are many--let's face it, I am exceedingly lucky, even if I have never won anything that didn't require some work on my part), I sometimes think a little bit about the way things ended up and it grosses me out. I wish I could be like other people, who pretend there is no past and just look forward, but I cannot shake myself out of the question, "who are we if not the things we have loved and the things we have fought for?" The problem is that from there it's only a skip and a jump to wondering why someone wouldn't just honestly telling you that they will not be fighting for you, and what I decided when I was spending time with my father this week is that, despite the zeal with which I sometimes (often!) put myself through terrible things, I do not want to wonder about that ever again. Which is a thought that makes me smile.
So yeah, if I was to really tackle that subject, it would drone on and on for book-length soliloquys of nothingness, because at the end of the day, my experiments show...nothing.
Anyway, I met the guy from some famous band called El Recodo in the botanical garden in Toluca and he was very nice, and some government official asked me to photograph the two of them together and then I guess he was so grateful that he offered me a free trip to the zoo with 77 schoolchildren, which I promptly accepted. So on the bus with the schoolchildren I got to know a guy that worked for the organization that takes these rural kids to places like the zoo and the botanical garden and we got to talking about immigration and slavery and history and Mexican futbol. My father didn't get back from work til three in the morning, and then he jumped awake at 5, stumbled around until he found a phone in the dark, and called my mother to see how she was doing (she'd been sick). Then he went back to sleep.
My father and I spent lots of time together doing unremarkable things, and then this morning he went to the airport and I went to the bus station and that was that.
I spent a lot of the six-hour bus ride looking out the window. I was kind of lucky that this bus was making a stop in Nochixtlan first before heading into Oaxaca city, so I got to do some Mixteca sight-seeing. I was thinking about how hard I bucked against these landscapes, these hot, dry, sometimes almost lunar landscapes, when I first got here. I thought about how much I sometimes still wish to be in foggy wet mountains, either in North Carolina or in Colombia, eating some sweet corn thing and wishing I had a sweater. (I think some of this is nostalgia from forcing my roommates to watch the No Reservations Colombia episode again.) But now, I don't just look at these landscapes as my own experience (oh, yes, what follows is bullshit, but guys, it's also true!), I also think of them as the home that thousands have had to leave, that people living in some grey city in the North daydream about, missing the cactus and the soil-that-is-really-sand and the sun and their loved ones, the way I miss mine, and I am grateful, because even if I am not taking in surroundings that make me feel at home, and frankly I feel sick or at least uncomfortable most of the time, these surroundings are someone else's home that they miss and wish to return to, and this place at least tolerates me, in my scrappy-kid-pretention, and I will always love it for that.
And is it so wrong that I am in such a good mood that I am listening to this?
It is not.
Also, because I have been thinking about it, watch this one:
Cheers!
There are things I am not able to write well about. The problem is that they are things that I think about so much, to such overwhelming degrees of obsessiveness and detail and just plain time, that I could never render them down to the "right" level of simplicity. Probably one of these is my feelings for my family, and another one is my frustration with love.
Yes, love, which I have been thinking about a lot lately for a few obvious reasons (it was Valentine's Day, I am kind of lonely, my last relationship fucked me up, so on), is a strange thing. I have, probably like most people, worked myself into the situation of never wanting to love someone again, not really, anyway, because it just seems like too much trouble. (This is such a lofty and vastly untrue statement. Let's just work with it, though, for the purposes of this paragraph.) Even on my good days (which are many--let's face it, I am exceedingly lucky, even if I have never won anything that didn't require some work on my part), I sometimes think a little bit about the way things ended up and it grosses me out. I wish I could be like other people, who pretend there is no past and just look forward, but I cannot shake myself out of the question, "who are we if not the things we have loved and the things we have fought for?" The problem is that from there it's only a skip and a jump to wondering why someone wouldn't just honestly telling you that they will not be fighting for you, and what I decided when I was spending time with my father this week is that, despite the zeal with which I sometimes (often!) put myself through terrible things, I do not want to wonder about that ever again. Which is a thought that makes me smile.
So yeah, if I was to really tackle that subject, it would drone on and on for book-length soliloquys of nothingness, because at the end of the day, my experiments show...nothing.
Anyway, I met the guy from some famous band called El Recodo in the botanical garden in Toluca and he was very nice, and some government official asked me to photograph the two of them together and then I guess he was so grateful that he offered me a free trip to the zoo with 77 schoolchildren, which I promptly accepted. So on the bus with the schoolchildren I got to know a guy that worked for the organization that takes these rural kids to places like the zoo and the botanical garden and we got to talking about immigration and slavery and history and Mexican futbol. My father didn't get back from work til three in the morning, and then he jumped awake at 5, stumbled around until he found a phone in the dark, and called my mother to see how she was doing (she'd been sick). Then he went back to sleep.
My father and I spent lots of time together doing unremarkable things, and then this morning he went to the airport and I went to the bus station and that was that.
I spent a lot of the six-hour bus ride looking out the window. I was kind of lucky that this bus was making a stop in Nochixtlan first before heading into Oaxaca city, so I got to do some Mixteca sight-seeing. I was thinking about how hard I bucked against these landscapes, these hot, dry, sometimes almost lunar landscapes, when I first got here. I thought about how much I sometimes still wish to be in foggy wet mountains, either in North Carolina or in Colombia, eating some sweet corn thing and wishing I had a sweater. (I think some of this is nostalgia from forcing my roommates to watch the No Reservations Colombia episode again.) But now, I don't just look at these landscapes as my own experience (oh, yes, what follows is bullshit, but guys, it's also true!), I also think of them as the home that thousands have had to leave, that people living in some grey city in the North daydream about, missing the cactus and the soil-that-is-really-sand and the sun and their loved ones, the way I miss mine, and I am grateful, because even if I am not taking in surroundings that make me feel at home, and frankly I feel sick or at least uncomfortable most of the time, these surroundings are someone else's home that they miss and wish to return to, and this place at least tolerates me, in my scrappy-kid-pretention, and I will always love it for that.
And is it so wrong that I am in such a good mood that I am listening to this?
It is not.
Also, because I have been thinking about it, watch this one:
Cheers!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
February has redeemed itself!
I am quite sick (hence my lack of posts, just a gross cold), but I am about to pack to take an overnight bus to Mexico City! My dad flies in there at noon tomorrow and then we will ride up to Toluca together! I am so psyched. VISITS ARE THE BEST. Even when they are, uh, technically work trips.
Stuff is fine, the time off is really welcome, lots of new photos on the Flickr, more updates after my Toluca adventure!
Stuff is fine, the time off is really welcome, lots of new photos on the Flickr, more updates after my Toluca adventure!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
talvez te asombres
Boy, am I tired.
I'm still on delegation right now and today I got home from a town not too far away from here called Teotitlan del Valle, where there's a women-run weaving cooperative. They weave traditional Zapotec rugs and more modern stuff, but all made on traditional looms with local dyes. They showed us their whole project and all that. It was pretty interesting. I didn't really get any of the downtime that's intended for delegates during these visits, because I was interpreting for the delegates the whole time, which I think is just how these things go sometimes.
What I really did enjoy was how welcoming the families were. "Our" family was very kind and included the woman who had really pushed to form the weaving cooperative. I got to ask lots of questions and spend lots of time with her. Our first afternoon there, she made a really wonderful potato soup with tomato broth. It was just like my mom's soup. Spending time with these strong women and eating their amazing food (and having Pastora, our host, sit on the edge of my bed when I was sick with a migraine) made me feel really cared-for but also made me really homesick.
Just now, I got home and made some white rice. It's funny, the smells that really bring you back home--I made the rice the way my mom makes it, with a bit of onion and some vinegar in it, and the smell brought me right back to cooking with my mom.
Unfortunately, it's not often enough that I reflect on how lucky I am to have this experience: to be welcomed rather frequently into people's homes and shown their gardens, the important herbs in their cooking, and then many times be offered their food. It's amazing. And then to be shown the projects they've concocted with such care: in the past five days I've been offered basil from a rooftop vegetable garden, taught about tree bark that can be used for dyeing wool from a reforestation project, and offered tiny squares of Jell-O from someone's market stall in a corn husk. I didn't take a camera because I thought that would be weird, but it was all really beautiful.
I don't mean these things to brag, it's just that I realize I get so gloomy about Mexico and being far from my family and being lonely and all that, but the things I get to see and live (and, uh, eat) are really pretty amazing.
And, uh, exhausting. Southward, Christian soldiers!
I'm still on delegation right now and today I got home from a town not too far away from here called Teotitlan del Valle, where there's a women-run weaving cooperative. They weave traditional Zapotec rugs and more modern stuff, but all made on traditional looms with local dyes. They showed us their whole project and all that. It was pretty interesting. I didn't really get any of the downtime that's intended for delegates during these visits, because I was interpreting for the delegates the whole time, which I think is just how these things go sometimes.
What I really did enjoy was how welcoming the families were. "Our" family was very kind and included the woman who had really pushed to form the weaving cooperative. I got to ask lots of questions and spend lots of time with her. Our first afternoon there, she made a really wonderful potato soup with tomato broth. It was just like my mom's soup. Spending time with these strong women and eating their amazing food (and having Pastora, our host, sit on the edge of my bed when I was sick with a migraine) made me feel really cared-for but also made me really homesick.
Just now, I got home and made some white rice. It's funny, the smells that really bring you back home--I made the rice the way my mom makes it, with a bit of onion and some vinegar in it, and the smell brought me right back to cooking with my mom.
Unfortunately, it's not often enough that I reflect on how lucky I am to have this experience: to be welcomed rather frequently into people's homes and shown their gardens, the important herbs in their cooking, and then many times be offered their food. It's amazing. And then to be shown the projects they've concocted with such care: in the past five days I've been offered basil from a rooftop vegetable garden, taught about tree bark that can be used for dyeing wool from a reforestation project, and offered tiny squares of Jell-O from someone's market stall in a corn husk. I didn't take a camera because I thought that would be weird, but it was all really beautiful.
I don't mean these things to brag, it's just that I realize I get so gloomy about Mexico and being far from my family and being lonely and all that, but the things I get to see and live (and, uh, eat) are really pretty amazing.
And, uh, exhausting. Southward, Christian soldiers!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
if we don't get busted, hope we make it out alive
Today was a silly day. February 2nd is a holiday called La Candelaria, where you apparently get all 12 candles you will use for prayer and such purposes through the year (one per month, duh) blessed. Old ladies also get their porcelain baby Jesus sculptures outfitted in new satiny getups for the occasion. Also, whoever almost ate the plastic baby in the Dia de Reyes loaf must have thrown a tamaleada (party featuring tamales) by today, which means really that all the plastic baby slackers threw tamal parties today. I for one, ate two tamales: one was filled with a black bean paste, and I thought the other one was a rajas one, which means long slices of cooked peppers, but it was actually rajas and some sort of animal. I am pretty sure it was dark chicken meat, but not entirely sure.
To that effect, today I got lost in the bored old lady neighborhood of Oaxaca, where I ended up on my hunt for an X-acto knife. I have been bored lately and I thought a shiny new knife might be just the ticket to un-boring myself. However, X-acto knives are apparently sort of hard to find, and I ended up getting directed into a corner of town (southeast) that I'd never really had a reason to be in before. This part of town was full of stores that sell bored old lady things, like styrofoam balls, wooden dowels, different kinds of scissors, and everything you need to make a custom getup for your baby Jesus. Unfortunately, they had nothing in the way of knives, and I was directed to the Frida Kahlo art supply store.
A thing about stores that sell tiny things in Mexico: you can't touch anything, and most of the time, you can't even see stuff. Most of the time, you just walk up to a counter and say, "do you happen to have tiny knives" or batteries, or a notebook, or whatever tiny thing it is you were looking for, and they will present you with your options, which is to say, they will present you with the one thing they have that sounds the most like the thing you were looking for. No multiple options, no fingering packages and daydreaming until you make up your mind (someone is watching you, so that's creepy, right?), no fun. Shopping is not fun. Which is probably a good thing, if you really think about it (sense of purpose! and whatnot), but it's definitely a different kind of experience. Anyway, I ended up dawdling awkwardly at the art supply store regardless because I couldn't believe that they had an X-acto boxed set (actually a knock-off brand, X-cel) but not just a single knife. (I already have a well-loved X-acto boxed set somewhere among my things in Lenoir.) I showed the lady what I was talking about: you know, just that one, but she shook her head no.
Of course that was total bullshit because I found one buried in a glass case (couldn't touch it, just used my razor-sharp eyesight, naturally) under a bunch of linoleum tools. Victory!
Then, the day slowly wound down with noodles and blanched green beans and bad internet TV.
And then!
Frida/pitty the cat gets to go outside into the courtyard at night because that is when the useless grandma store (unclear what they sell there) is closed, so there is no risk of her ending up on the rough streets of the OAX. She usually comes in and out as she pleases and then we ring a bell, present her with some kibbles and everyone goes on their merry way to slumber, but when Tony tried to call her in tonight, she didn't answer. Everyone ended up participating in The Search, including our landlord-family. Finally, we went upstairs to the dogshit terrace to see if she was up there, and the landlord somehow spotted her a few roofs over. Eventually, we lured her back with food, and I guess she hadn't wanted to come back because she was scared of Barky Schnauzer and his huge dumb friend the Silent Retriever--I had to carry her through while she hissed ("Ain't fucking with me now, huh?" is what I think she was saying in Cat). The landlord, Gil, kept suggesting that perhaps she was en celo and I let Tony explain that she did not have the organos reproductivos anymore. Then, his wife, Maida, revealed to us that Frida had been exploring her hunting instincts, having somehow kidnapped their daughter's hamster and tried to devour it. Fortunately, Maida caught her in the act, so she spit it back out. The vet says that beyond the shock, the hamster is fine. I wonder how this connects to the pieces of toilet paper pitty seems to have killed and left in my room. Perhaps she thinks we deserve a higher quality of gift. I think I wish she'd dedicate her time to more useful endeavors, like making surprised faces or playing the piano, that I might one day post her on YouTube and become famous.
I mean. What?
All in all, not a failure. Happy belated baby Jesus outfit/candle blessing day!
To that effect, today I got lost in the bored old lady neighborhood of Oaxaca, where I ended up on my hunt for an X-acto knife. I have been bored lately and I thought a shiny new knife might be just the ticket to un-boring myself. However, X-acto knives are apparently sort of hard to find, and I ended up getting directed into a corner of town (southeast) that I'd never really had a reason to be in before. This part of town was full of stores that sell bored old lady things, like styrofoam balls, wooden dowels, different kinds of scissors, and everything you need to make a custom getup for your baby Jesus. Unfortunately, they had nothing in the way of knives, and I was directed to the Frida Kahlo art supply store.
A thing about stores that sell tiny things in Mexico: you can't touch anything, and most of the time, you can't even see stuff. Most of the time, you just walk up to a counter and say, "do you happen to have tiny knives" or batteries, or a notebook, or whatever tiny thing it is you were looking for, and they will present you with your options, which is to say, they will present you with the one thing they have that sounds the most like the thing you were looking for. No multiple options, no fingering packages and daydreaming until you make up your mind (someone is watching you, so that's creepy, right?), no fun. Shopping is not fun. Which is probably a good thing, if you really think about it (sense of purpose! and whatnot), but it's definitely a different kind of experience. Anyway, I ended up dawdling awkwardly at the art supply store regardless because I couldn't believe that they had an X-acto boxed set (actually a knock-off brand, X-cel) but not just a single knife. (I already have a well-loved X-acto boxed set somewhere among my things in Lenoir.) I showed the lady what I was talking about: you know, just that one, but she shook her head no.
Of course that was total bullshit because I found one buried in a glass case (couldn't touch it, just used my razor-sharp eyesight, naturally) under a bunch of linoleum tools. Victory!
Then, the day slowly wound down with noodles and blanched green beans and bad internet TV.
And then!
Frida/pitty the cat gets to go outside into the courtyard at night because that is when the useless grandma store (unclear what they sell there) is closed, so there is no risk of her ending up on the rough streets of the OAX. She usually comes in and out as she pleases and then we ring a bell, present her with some kibbles and everyone goes on their merry way to slumber, but when Tony tried to call her in tonight, she didn't answer. Everyone ended up participating in The Search, including our landlord-family. Finally, we went upstairs to the dogshit terrace to see if she was up there, and the landlord somehow spotted her a few roofs over. Eventually, we lured her back with food, and I guess she hadn't wanted to come back because she was scared of Barky Schnauzer and his huge dumb friend the Silent Retriever--I had to carry her through while she hissed ("Ain't fucking with me now, huh?" is what I think she was saying in Cat). The landlord, Gil, kept suggesting that perhaps she was en celo and I let Tony explain that she did not have the organos reproductivos anymore. Then, his wife, Maida, revealed to us that Frida had been exploring her hunting instincts, having somehow kidnapped their daughter's hamster and tried to devour it. Fortunately, Maida caught her in the act, so she spit it back out. The vet says that beyond the shock, the hamster is fine. I wonder how this connects to the pieces of toilet paper pitty seems to have killed and left in my room. Perhaps she thinks we deserve a higher quality of gift. I think I wish she'd dedicate her time to more useful endeavors, like making surprised faces or playing the piano, that I might one day post her on YouTube and become famous.
I mean. What?
All in all, not a failure. Happy belated baby Jesus outfit/candle blessing day!
Monday, February 1, 2010
sigh
I am really sorry if you are a person who reads this blog, because the following post is a downer. You might want to skip it. I'm just saying. It's pretty self-indulgent.
Today started out being a good day, with trips to small towns and churches and "probably" the biggest tree in Latin America. I realized, because the day was so calm and pleasant, how much weird anxiety is just wired into my life.
And then I got home and it sank back in and now I'm cranky about it. If you have no place to run to, when you are so far from what you know that you were probably just running in the first place, and the things you have to count on aren't things you can trust, what the hell are you supposed to do? I feel like a little island sometimes. Maybe like a little island with a nuclear power plant on it. I know this is bad, this is harmful. I am sometimes worried about how hard it is for me to not be an ugly person in this situation.
Anyway. Rant over. The tiny church at the big tree, the Tule, was quite pretty, and surrounded by tourists. On the other hand, surprisingly, the church at Tlacolula, which shuts down its central streets for a huge Sunday market, didn't seem to be getting too much tourist attention, but was basically one of the prettiest churches I've ever seen (and I've seen A LOT of churches).
I also helped Tony make some bread that turned out pretty well. Bread is fun, it is the science-y-est of baking projects. You can tell the things that made a difference every time, and it's fun to predict how things will be different if you change a few measurements or ingredients or temperatures around next time.
I'm pretty unmotivated about the things I like right now. I've been forcing myself to take pictures because I know that eventually I'll want them, and besides my cheer-up efforts definitely have put me in the way of some really beautiful things, but I'm grumpy about it. I'm grumpy about cooking and about making art lately, too. It just feels like it's in vain or something. I'm trying really hard to pretend I care about that stuff anyway, I'm not sure why. At least work is still awesome. The delegates arrive on the fifth, and I'm excited to work with them!
This will be fiiiine.
Today started out being a good day, with trips to small towns and churches and "probably" the biggest tree in Latin America. I realized, because the day was so calm and pleasant, how much weird anxiety is just wired into my life.
And then I got home and it sank back in and now I'm cranky about it. If you have no place to run to, when you are so far from what you know that you were probably just running in the first place, and the things you have to count on aren't things you can trust, what the hell are you supposed to do? I feel like a little island sometimes. Maybe like a little island with a nuclear power plant on it. I know this is bad, this is harmful. I am sometimes worried about how hard it is for me to not be an ugly person in this situation.
Anyway. Rant over. The tiny church at the big tree, the Tule, was quite pretty, and surrounded by tourists. On the other hand, surprisingly, the church at Tlacolula, which shuts down its central streets for a huge Sunday market, didn't seem to be getting too much tourist attention, but was basically one of the prettiest churches I've ever seen (and I've seen A LOT of churches).
I also helped Tony make some bread that turned out pretty well. Bread is fun, it is the science-y-est of baking projects. You can tell the things that made a difference every time, and it's fun to predict how things will be different if you change a few measurements or ingredients or temperatures around next time.
I'm pretty unmotivated about the things I like right now. I've been forcing myself to take pictures because I know that eventually I'll want them, and besides my cheer-up efforts definitely have put me in the way of some really beautiful things, but I'm grumpy about it. I'm grumpy about cooking and about making art lately, too. It just feels like it's in vain or something. I'm trying really hard to pretend I care about that stuff anyway, I'm not sure why. At least work is still awesome. The delegates arrive on the fifth, and I'm excited to work with them!
This will be fiiiine.
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