So, after Mexico City, we came back for two more weeks with our host families and lots of homework. The first week, we had our final in our Spanish conversation class and in the grammar class (both were kinda tough but not too bad). Also we had some essays and journals due in our field seminar classes. The following week was NGO week (where we visited three different NGOs and were required to interview one of the organizations of our choice. With all that to do, the two weeks seemed to fly by faster than I expected.
Even though the two weeks were full of homework and studying, I was able to spend some time with my friends and host family on the weekends. The first Saturday, I woke up early to spend the morning with my host mother (my host father had left for Mexico DF to visit with my host sister Pamela). Around 9.00 in the morning we headed out to the market to do some shopping for the week. It was really neat to watch my host mother interact with the vendors. The lady who sold us the vegetables had some advice for how to prepare certain foods that my host mother was interested in. They seemed to have built up a pretty good relationship because the lady had some fresh vegetables saved for my mother when she got there.
After the fruit and flower stands, we walked to the pork shop. Every part of the pig that you could imagine was there. There was bacon, pork, ham, salomi, pig head, and pig feet. Because I had told my host family about my bad experience with chicken feet, they wanted to show me that all animal feet wasn´t disgusting... so my host mom decided to buy some patitas del puerco (pig feet). They were sitting on a shelf inside the glass window and they looked like they were cut off around where the knee would be. To make them more bag handy, the lady took the three feet that we ordered and sliced them through a saw that you could find in an industrial tech classroom. All the while, I just kept trying not to think that I was going to have to eat them...
Once I secured the dismembered pig feet in our grocery bag, we saw a little boy order a piece of queso del puerco (pig cheese). I should have learned my lesson before, but like an idiot I asked her what it was. Thinking that I like to try everything, she asked me if I would like to eat some. It was a huge jello looking mass of brown with big white chunks of pig fat. The man cut a few slices about the width of turkey at thanksgiving and asked if I wanted any salsa. Despite my host mom saying that the salsa was pretty spicy, I asked for alot because I wanted to hide the taste of the pig fat. Unfortunately, I don´t think there is enough salsa in the whole world to cover the taste and texture of the pig fat. It was absolutely disgusting and I had to fight every urge I had to gag, just to be able to swallow the jello like pig fat.
Luckily, my host mom helped me finish the pig cheese and she bought some sweet bread to eat while we walked around downtown. We walked towards the main center of town and the cathedral Santo Domingo. I still hadn´t seen the inside and my host mother wanted to give me a tour. Unfortunatley, there was a wedding going on inside the church and they had a sign posted on the door that they didn´t want any uninivted guests to enter. The sign, however, did not seem to bother my host mom and we went into the church and sat in the back row. In a skirt and nice shirt, my host mother looked like she could have been invited, however, I was wearing jeans and a tank top and carrying the pig feet in my bag.
I was content to be sitting in the back of the church, watching the ceremony and listening to the music played by the orchestra. After about ten minutes of watching, my host mother asked if I liked the music. I told her that I loved listening to music (especially with violins and organs). I probably should have told her that I hated music because once I told her that I liked the music, she decided that I needed to see the choir. So, with the pig feet in my shoulder bag and the service still in progress, we marched up the side isle towards the front of the church to see the choir in the balcony. About four rows from the front, we stopped and turned around to look at the balcony as I tried to hide the bag of pig feet behing my host mother.
Eventually (after about a minute that felt like hours) we sat down in a side row and waited for the service to end. After the wedding party exited we followed the rest of the crowd out to the plaza where a live band was playing celebration music. There were two huge puppets (one of the bride and the other of the groom) that two people were propping up above their shoulders. The puppets were probably 15 ft tall and flopping around to the music. Also, there were 4 girls dressed in cultural outfits with flower baskets on their heads. It was a really fun and happy reunion after the wedding and we were able to watch the wedding party march down the street like a parade (I hope nobody recognized me as the girl with the pig feet who walked to the front of the church).
Later that afternoon, I met with my friend Jennie to make an apple pie for our friend Sarah´s 21st birthday. There were no pie crusts so we had to make it our of graham cracker crust. It ended up being a success and Sarah was very happy to have her apple pie (Jennie had emailed her mom for the recipe). After eating the pie, we went out to a bar as a group and enjoyed some live music under a starry sky. After a bit of time at the bar, we headed out for some salsa dancing. Even though most of us don´t really know what we were doing, we were lucky to find some guys who knew how to make us look like we had a realtive idea. We spent the rest of the night dancing and having fun with friends.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Last Day in DF
For our last day in DF we had a semi free day to do whatever we wanted to do. There was an optional tour of the National Palace with Alvaro (the guy who took us on the tour the first day). I decided to wake up at 8:30 to go to the Palace and see the murals of Diego Rivera. It was totally worth it becuase the murales were amazing (the size of the entire wall) and also the stories that Alvaro told us were pretty awesome as well. The murals started as a project to show Mexico´s history to people who couldn´t read very well (almost like a huge comic book). Unfortunately Diego Rivera (the guy in charge of the project) didn´t get along with all of the presidents so there were many years that he couldn´t work on the murales. In the end, after 40 or so years of working on the murals Diego died and the project ended. But he got up to the Spanish conquest so his murals told the history of the indigenous people. Also there was a massive collage of all the parts of history together that showed up until the mid 1900s.
After the National Palace, a few people decided to continue with Alvaro to the museum of Bellas Artes, but I decided to go to mass in the Santo Domingo Cathedral. It was a tough choice to make but I was glad that I decided to go to the cathedral. We got to see the really political cardinal enter and give a sermon about opression (which is interesting because the politicians that he supports are the ones who have created more opression for many Mexican people) When he entered the cleared everyone out of the aisle and lots of people were taking pictures... It felt like a star was entering because many of the photographers seemed like professional photographers.
After mass, a small group of us went to a museum of photos from the student movement in 68 and also from the opressive government in CHile during the 80s. There was a great documentary about the photographers who documented the government violence against the people during the reign of Pinochet. The movie was very revealing about how the neoliberalism projects that the US imposed on many latin american countries has caused alot of suffering for the people of the countries. It seems to benefit the very weathly but hurt the majority of the citizens. One of the girls in our group goes to the University of Chicago were many of the neoliberal ideas began with Milton Freidman... it was interesting to see her reaction to the film.
Once the film ended we went to a really cool place for lunch with great vegetarian food. We ate on the second floor on a balcony. The view was great and there was a pianist playing jazz in the restaurant... it was a very relaxing lunch after such a busy week. For the night we went to a bar and danced to some reggae music with lots of people from Jamica and the US. When we got back a 2:00 in the morning we were definitely ready to sleep after such a long fun week.
After the National Palace, a few people decided to continue with Alvaro to the museum of Bellas Artes, but I decided to go to mass in the Santo Domingo Cathedral. It was a tough choice to make but I was glad that I decided to go to the cathedral. We got to see the really political cardinal enter and give a sermon about opression (which is interesting because the politicians that he supports are the ones who have created more opression for many Mexican people) When he entered the cleared everyone out of the aisle and lots of people were taking pictures... It felt like a star was entering because many of the photographers seemed like professional photographers.
After mass, a small group of us went to a museum of photos from the student movement in 68 and also from the opressive government in CHile during the 80s. There was a great documentary about the photographers who documented the government violence against the people during the reign of Pinochet. The movie was very revealing about how the neoliberalism projects that the US imposed on many latin american countries has caused alot of suffering for the people of the countries. It seems to benefit the very weathly but hurt the majority of the citizens. One of the girls in our group goes to the University of Chicago were many of the neoliberal ideas began with Milton Freidman... it was interesting to see her reaction to the film.
Once the film ended we went to a really cool place for lunch with great vegetarian food. We ate on the second floor on a balcony. The view was great and there was a pianist playing jazz in the restaurant... it was a very relaxing lunch after such a busy week. For the night we went to a bar and danced to some reggae music with lots of people from Jamica and the US. When we got back a 2:00 in the morning we were definitely ready to sleep after such a long fun week.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
part 3 of Mexico City
After we left our families, we took a few taxis to the center of the city (called the zocalo) If you remember from Oaxaca, they also called the town square the zocalo and we finally learned why it’s called this. The town square in Mexico City had the base of a statue that was going to be constructed in honor of Hernado Cortez (the conquistador of Mexico). But it was never constructed except for the base, and the people referred to it as zocalo which is a word for base. And the name just stuck as the name for town square, so all over Mexico you can find zocalos even though there are no bases…
But, back to what happened in DF, we arrived at the hotels and dropped off our stuff in the rooms. I shared a room with Christian (a girl from LA), Jennie (goes to college with Christian in LA but is from Seattle, Washington) and Sarah (goes to college in Chicago but went to the same high school as Jennie)… a bit complicated but also interesting… After we dropped off our stuff we got a quick tour of the zocalo and surrounding area (so we wouldn’t get lost when we explored on our own). Then we split off into groups for the remainder of our day.
My group went to the museum for the ruins of the Templo Mayor the large temple of the Aztecs that was destroyed by the conquistadors. It was really cool to see what archeologists had discovered in the mid 1900s. When the Spanish first arrived at Tenochtitlan (the original Aztec name of what we now know to be Mexico City), they were amazed by how advanced and beautiful the city was.
The Aztecs welcomed the Spanish into their city (partly because they thought Cortez was Quetzalcoatl a god that was supposed to be returning). Over the next few months, the Spanish conspired with all the surrounding nations that were tired of the Aztec Empire. With the help of the diseases the Spanish brought to Mexico and the large force they had organized, they attacked Tenochtitlan and brought down the Aztec Empire. After they had control of the city, they began destroying the buildings and constructing colonial style buildings. The religious temple was destroyed and with the rocks of the old building, the Spanish constructed a cathedral that is still in the center today. They began to use the site of the Templo Mayor as a big landfill, and over the years it was buried under the streets of Mexico City.
In the mid 1900s, a project began to dig up the Templo Mayor and preserve it as a part of important culture for Mexico. So, today in the middle of the center square of Mexico City, there is a huge hole where the bases of the temples have been uncovered. We walked around the ruins and then checked out the museum at the end of the pathway. The museum was pretty cool, especially the full scale model of the Aztec City right before the Conquistadors came. It’s incredible to imagine what the city would have looked like if the conquistadors hadn’t destroyed everything.
Another thing we noticed about the temple bases was that they were relatively level to the ground. Many of the buildings the Spanish built were much heavier than the Aztec buildings (made out of volcanic rock). Because Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) used to be a city build on top of a huge lake, the ground is not very sturdy. For this reason, many of the older Spanish buildings are starting to sink and tilt. I took a picture of a cathedral that is clearly tilting and sinking into the ground.
Because it was the 2nd of October (the 40th anniversary of the massacre at Tres Culturas) there was a huge demonstration/protest in the middle of the zocalo. Our director Jonathan told us that we couldn’t be anywhere that made us look like we were participating in the protest, but we could watch from far away if we wanted. A group of five of us decided to watch the protest from a restaurant on the top of a hotel (about 5 or 6 stories). Of course, the restaurant wanted us to spend at least 100 pesos (10 dollars) on food and drinks. At first we thought that would be hard…but we definitely each spent about 200 pesos after 3 hours of watching the protest.
The view on the balcony (where we were sitting) was amazing. We could see the different student groups marching into the square and we could still see and hear the main meeting. The protest was very well organized. There was a parade of many different student groups marching. Each group had their own signs and some groups had special cheers or coordinated clothing. There were some groups that had drummers and others clapped and chanted while they were entering the plaza. We saw a few buses with big speakers on top, either playing music or just projecting the voices of the protesters. I took tons of pictures so you can see the scope of the protest and how many people were there (tens of thousands). Also, you will be able to see how many armed police officers were there in full anti-riot suits.
As the night went on, it was interesting to watch the development of the protest. About 5/6 of the people were all in the center square listening to the speakers and band. They were peacefully protesting against the oppressive government that had murdered over 200 students in 1968. However, there was also a group of people off in one corner throwing pop bottles and pushing the police. After a few skirmishes between the police and the small group, the leader/speaker of the protest started urging the violent protesters to stop and go home. He was concerned that a few angry people would ruin the purpose of their nonviolent protest. Although the aggressive protesters didn’t immediately turn and go home, the skirmishes died down and everyone (including us) headed home by 10:30.
The next day we went on a tour of the Templo Mayor and Santo Domingo (the cathedral that was built over the previous Aztec religious center). Our guide told us two interesting stories about the bells in the cathedral (they have been involved in many political incidents)
We spent the rest of the afternoon at two different discussions (the one at the NGO for female health and the other at a hotel with an author of one of our books…John Ross). That evening a few people went out, but I went to get ice cream with a group of girls who just wanted to chill a bit… The ice cream was great and I definitely needed a night of relaxing after such a busy week.
Good thing I had my relaxing night because Saturday was a day of lots of traveling and activity. We took a bus from the hotel to Tlataloco (or the plaza of Tres Culturas… the place of the student massacre of 1968). It was a strange experience to be there after we had just learned about the massacre and seen the protest two days before. There were still bullet holes in the ground from forty years ago. The plaza is called tres culturas (three cultures) because there are ruins from an ancient indigenous society, a catholic cathedral, and modern buildings from the university all in one plaza. We walked around exploring for a bit then headed out for our next destination.
Our next destination was the basilica of Guadalupe (a mestizo version of the Virgin Mary). The area with the basilica actually has three cathedrals from different periods of Mexican history. The original cathedral was very small and at the top of a hill. The walk up the hill was beautiful (very green with lots of flowers). It’s interesting because there are many places in Mexico where people don’t have enough water, but the church has enough to water their flowers a few times a day. At the top of the hill we could see the city and the heavy smog that coats the horizon. After our mini tour of the area surrounding the basilica, a friend Morgann and I went to buy some flowers for some friends who had recently passed away. I bought some flowers for Judy Weaver and it was the first time that I had an opportunity to say goodbye in a church setting. A friend of Morgann’s had also passed away and she and I spent our remaining time in the church saying goodbye.
After the church, we headed out to Teotihuacán (a place where the ancient pyramids and temples still had not been destroyed). We stopped and ate lunch before we headed into the area with the pyramids. I tried quesadillas filled with cheese and the fungus that grows on corn (suggested by our director). It was actually really good, kind of like mushrooms but with a stronger flavor. We never have this plant in the United States because our chemicals kill the fungus that grows on the corn. Once we were full, we headed out to the pyramids and explored the ancient city. The pyramids were pretty tall and the steps were steep but it was definitely very fun to climb them and see the view from the top.
When we got back to the hotel, we wanted to sleep and relax but a group of us decided to go to a mariachi restaurant. It was in a plaza with tons of mariachi bands waiting to play for tourists. We chose a restaurant with 3 or 4 bands circulating through the room and playing songs at tables for 80 pesos each. It was Morgann’s birthday so we bought a few songs to celebrate her birthday. Two of my friends (Jennie and Christian) play in a mariachi band at college so the band let Jennie play the guitarron (the big cello/base looking guitar).
Once the songs finished, a small group of us left the mariachi restaurant to go salsa dancing. The restaurant was called Mama Rumba and it had a live band and tons of people dancing salsa. The space was really open and people were dancing everywhere (even between the tables). I danced with a guy named Edson from UNAM (the big Mexican University). He wasn’t the best dancer… but neither am I and he was really patient and good at teaching me. After a few hours of dancing we went back to the hotel completely exhausted.
Well, I will keep trying to update the blog… I’m off to Chiapas in two hours so I have to finish packing… hope everything is going well :-)
But, back to what happened in DF, we arrived at the hotels and dropped off our stuff in the rooms. I shared a room with Christian (a girl from LA), Jennie (goes to college with Christian in LA but is from Seattle, Washington) and Sarah (goes to college in Chicago but went to the same high school as Jennie)… a bit complicated but also interesting… After we dropped off our stuff we got a quick tour of the zocalo and surrounding area (so we wouldn’t get lost when we explored on our own). Then we split off into groups for the remainder of our day.
My group went to the museum for the ruins of the Templo Mayor the large temple of the Aztecs that was destroyed by the conquistadors. It was really cool to see what archeologists had discovered in the mid 1900s. When the Spanish first arrived at Tenochtitlan (the original Aztec name of what we now know to be Mexico City), they were amazed by how advanced and beautiful the city was.
- "There are, in all districts of this great city, many temples or houses for their idols. They are all very beautiful buildings .... Amongst these temples there is one , the principal one , whose great size and magnificence no human tongue could describe, for it is so large that within the precincts, which are surrounded by very high wall, a town of some five hundred inhabitants could easily be built. All round inside this wall there are very elegant quarters with very large rooms and corridors where their priests live. There are as many as forty towers, all of which are so high that in the case of the largest there are fifty steps leading up to the main part of it and the most important of these towers is higher than that of the cathedral of Seville" ... Hernán Cortés
The Aztecs welcomed the Spanish into their city (partly because they thought Cortez was Quetzalcoatl a god that was supposed to be returning). Over the next few months, the Spanish conspired with all the surrounding nations that were tired of the Aztec Empire. With the help of the diseases the Spanish brought to Mexico and the large force they had organized, they attacked Tenochtitlan and brought down the Aztec Empire. After they had control of the city, they began destroying the buildings and constructing colonial style buildings. The religious temple was destroyed and with the rocks of the old building, the Spanish constructed a cathedral that is still in the center today. They began to use the site of the Templo Mayor as a big landfill, and over the years it was buried under the streets of Mexico City.
In the mid 1900s, a project began to dig up the Templo Mayor and preserve it as a part of important culture for Mexico. So, today in the middle of the center square of Mexico City, there is a huge hole where the bases of the temples have been uncovered. We walked around the ruins and then checked out the museum at the end of the pathway. The museum was pretty cool, especially the full scale model of the Aztec City right before the Conquistadors came. It’s incredible to imagine what the city would have looked like if the conquistadors hadn’t destroyed everything.
Another thing we noticed about the temple bases was that they were relatively level to the ground. Many of the buildings the Spanish built were much heavier than the Aztec buildings (made out of volcanic rock). Because Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) used to be a city build on top of a huge lake, the ground is not very sturdy. For this reason, many of the older Spanish buildings are starting to sink and tilt. I took a picture of a cathedral that is clearly tilting and sinking into the ground.
Because it was the 2nd of October (the 40th anniversary of the massacre at Tres Culturas) there was a huge demonstration/protest in the middle of the zocalo. Our director Jonathan told us that we couldn’t be anywhere that made us look like we were participating in the protest, but we could watch from far away if we wanted. A group of five of us decided to watch the protest from a restaurant on the top of a hotel (about 5 or 6 stories). Of course, the restaurant wanted us to spend at least 100 pesos (10 dollars) on food and drinks. At first we thought that would be hard…but we definitely each spent about 200 pesos after 3 hours of watching the protest.
The view on the balcony (where we were sitting) was amazing. We could see the different student groups marching into the square and we could still see and hear the main meeting. The protest was very well organized. There was a parade of many different student groups marching. Each group had their own signs and some groups had special cheers or coordinated clothing. There were some groups that had drummers and others clapped and chanted while they were entering the plaza. We saw a few buses with big speakers on top, either playing music or just projecting the voices of the protesters. I took tons of pictures so you can see the scope of the protest and how many people were there (tens of thousands). Also, you will be able to see how many armed police officers were there in full anti-riot suits.
As the night went on, it was interesting to watch the development of the protest. About 5/6 of the people were all in the center square listening to the speakers and band. They were peacefully protesting against the oppressive government that had murdered over 200 students in 1968. However, there was also a group of people off in one corner throwing pop bottles and pushing the police. After a few skirmishes between the police and the small group, the leader/speaker of the protest started urging the violent protesters to stop and go home. He was concerned that a few angry people would ruin the purpose of their nonviolent protest. Although the aggressive protesters didn’t immediately turn and go home, the skirmishes died down and everyone (including us) headed home by 10:30.
The next day we went on a tour of the Templo Mayor and Santo Domingo (the cathedral that was built over the previous Aztec religious center). Our guide told us two interesting stories about the bells in the cathedral (they have been involved in many political incidents)
- A while back, the bells needed a ringer to climb up in the rafters and ring all of the bells. One day, on of the ringers was doing his job when one of the swinging bells hit him and he fell to his death. The head priest at the time condemned the bell and fixed its clapper so it would be forever mute. But don’t worry too much about the bell because years later another priest pardoned the bell and now it can continue ringing with all the other bells.
- The recently elected Mexican cardinal is a very politically conservative leader in the Catholic Church. One day there was a very liberal protest going on in the main square and the cardinal did not support its message. To make his lack of support more apparent, the cardinal rang all of the bells (and they are very loud). The bells were so loud that the meeting couldn’t continue and the protestors stormed the church in anger…
We spent the rest of the afternoon at two different discussions (the one at the NGO for female health and the other at a hotel with an author of one of our books…John Ross). That evening a few people went out, but I went to get ice cream with a group of girls who just wanted to chill a bit… The ice cream was great and I definitely needed a night of relaxing after such a busy week.
Good thing I had my relaxing night because Saturday was a day of lots of traveling and activity. We took a bus from the hotel to Tlataloco (or the plaza of Tres Culturas… the place of the student massacre of 1968). It was a strange experience to be there after we had just learned about the massacre and seen the protest two days before. There were still bullet holes in the ground from forty years ago. The plaza is called tres culturas (three cultures) because there are ruins from an ancient indigenous society, a catholic cathedral, and modern buildings from the university all in one plaza. We walked around exploring for a bit then headed out for our next destination.
Our next destination was the basilica of Guadalupe (a mestizo version of the Virgin Mary). The area with the basilica actually has three cathedrals from different periods of Mexican history. The original cathedral was very small and at the top of a hill. The walk up the hill was beautiful (very green with lots of flowers). It’s interesting because there are many places in Mexico where people don’t have enough water, but the church has enough to water their flowers a few times a day. At the top of the hill we could see the city and the heavy smog that coats the horizon. After our mini tour of the area surrounding the basilica, a friend Morgann and I went to buy some flowers for some friends who had recently passed away. I bought some flowers for Judy Weaver and it was the first time that I had an opportunity to say goodbye in a church setting. A friend of Morgann’s had also passed away and she and I spent our remaining time in the church saying goodbye.
After the church, we headed out to Teotihuacán (a place where the ancient pyramids and temples still had not been destroyed). We stopped and ate lunch before we headed into the area with the pyramids. I tried quesadillas filled with cheese and the fungus that grows on corn (suggested by our director). It was actually really good, kind of like mushrooms but with a stronger flavor. We never have this plant in the United States because our chemicals kill the fungus that grows on the corn. Once we were full, we headed out to the pyramids and explored the ancient city. The pyramids were pretty tall and the steps were steep but it was definitely very fun to climb them and see the view from the top.
When we got back to the hotel, we wanted to sleep and relax but a group of us decided to go to a mariachi restaurant. It was in a plaza with tons of mariachi bands waiting to play for tourists. We chose a restaurant with 3 or 4 bands circulating through the room and playing songs at tables for 80 pesos each. It was Morgann’s birthday so we bought a few songs to celebrate her birthday. Two of my friends (Jennie and Christian) play in a mariachi band at college so the band let Jennie play the guitarron (the big cello/base looking guitar).
Once the songs finished, a small group of us left the mariachi restaurant to go salsa dancing. The restaurant was called Mama Rumba and it had a live band and tons of people dancing salsa. The space was really open and people were dancing everywhere (even between the tables). I danced with a guy named Edson from UNAM (the big Mexican University). He wasn’t the best dancer… but neither am I and he was really patient and good at teaching me. After a few hours of dancing we went back to the hotel completely exhausted.
Well, I will keep trying to update the blog… I’m off to Chiapas in two hours so I have to finish packing… hope everything is going well :-)
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Santo Domingo (Mexico City) continued...
We spent two more days in Santo Domingo with our host families and left for the center on the fourth day of our trip to Mexico City. The second and third day in Santo Domingo flew by so quickly. Our group was always visiting Non governmental organizations, attending cultural shops, or just spending time with our families. I will include some of the highlights of our time in Santo Domingo…
One of the mornings we traveled around the city in small groups. My group went to UNAM, the biggest university in Mexico. It was absolutely huge (and it kind of reminded me of OSU). We went there with one of the mothers from the community and walked around the big greens in the middle of the campus. When we stopped for a break, we met a group of students preparing for a show (they were dancing and practicing on stilts).
On the way back to the community, the mom started talking about which parts of chicken are our favorites to eat. To my surprise she said her favorite part was the patas de pollo (chicken feet). I told her that I thought it sounded interesting and I would have to try it some day… But, I guess it was my lucky day because a lady was selling patas de pollo on the very same street on which we were walking. So, I tried the chicken feet covered in hot sauce and I’ve decided that I was glad to have tried them and I never want to eat them again. There is barely any meat and you have to chew on the foot almost like it is gum… but for some reason I think I like gum a little better…
Later that afternoon we went to a park that had preserved the original landscape of the community. It was incredible to see how uneven the volcanic rock was. There were beautiful flowers growing out of the sharp rocks. People had carved their names in the cacti sprouting from the rocks. Also there were a few animals carved out of the rocks (on snake that was about 30 feet long). It was amazing to imagine how difficult it would have been to build a city ontop of the volcanic rock (especially without many resources). While we were taking pictures, a police officer approached Mojdeh and said we weren’t allowed to be taking pictures without permission. Good thing Mojdeh is very used to these run-ins with the police. She was able to manage the problem and we didn’t have to pay a fine…
We began the next morning with a film about the events of the 2nd of October 1968. It was a situation kind of similar to Kent State (but much more intense). Lots of students were fed up with the oppressive government and were protesting against the government in a square called Tres Culturas. After the mitin (meeting) ended, the government had snipers and helicopters positioned around the square. These forces opened fire on the students who were protesting in the square. For that night and the following days many people (including the people in the surrounding buildings who housed injured students) were “disappeared” or killed by the governmental forces. The militant forces even went to hospitals and abducted people with bullet wounds. The media sources reported 20 deaths, but the number was much closer to 200 and there are still unaccounted people.
After the movie, we went to the Coyoacan Market to spend a little time browsing through the shops and museums nearby. We went to Frida Khalo’s house (famous Mexican artist with a very interesting style). Her house has been transformed into a museum with some pictures and photos of her. All the furniture is set up to show how she lived (she was a very strange woman so seeing her house gave us some perspective to her life). Later in the afternoon, Joshua, Lauren, and I played with our host sister Elsa and talked to our host mother. We then went to a silk screening shop to make a design and silk screen it onto a shirt of bag or whatever we wanted. It was very interesting to see Flavio’s (the guy who taught us) process of silkscreening shirts with very little resources. Later that night, we went to salsa classes and learned a little bit about how to dance. It was pretty difficult to learn because the guys all taught different ways to dance so there was no one way to learn (I probably needed to relax and just dance instead of worrying about the steps)
That night, Joshua helped our host mom make some talmales for the breakfast the following day. All the host mothers and families met the next day to eat tamales and enjoy one last meal with all the students. Earlier in the morning, Lauren and I observed a government run lecheria where the government gives a certain amount of milk to children. Each boy (until 13 years) and girl (until 15 years) gets a certain amount of milk from the government. It was really interesting to see the system of receiving milk. There were lots of rules and the moms had to arrive at a certain time every week or they would lose their privileges to the free milk. (Unfortunately we had to get up super early 6:00 to see the lecheria… but it was very interesting).
After the breakfast with the moms we said our goodbyes and thank yous and headed off to the center of Mexico City for the rest of our adventures… (to be continued)
One of the mornings we traveled around the city in small groups. My group went to UNAM, the biggest university in Mexico. It was absolutely huge (and it kind of reminded me of OSU). We went there with one of the mothers from the community and walked around the big greens in the middle of the campus. When we stopped for a break, we met a group of students preparing for a show (they were dancing and practicing on stilts).
On the way back to the community, the mom started talking about which parts of chicken are our favorites to eat. To my surprise she said her favorite part was the patas de pollo (chicken feet). I told her that I thought it sounded interesting and I would have to try it some day… But, I guess it was my lucky day because a lady was selling patas de pollo on the very same street on which we were walking. So, I tried the chicken feet covered in hot sauce and I’ve decided that I was glad to have tried them and I never want to eat them again. There is barely any meat and you have to chew on the foot almost like it is gum… but for some reason I think I like gum a little better…
Later that afternoon we went to a park that had preserved the original landscape of the community. It was incredible to see how uneven the volcanic rock was. There were beautiful flowers growing out of the sharp rocks. People had carved their names in the cacti sprouting from the rocks. Also there were a few animals carved out of the rocks (on snake that was about 30 feet long). It was amazing to imagine how difficult it would have been to build a city ontop of the volcanic rock (especially without many resources). While we were taking pictures, a police officer approached Mojdeh and said we weren’t allowed to be taking pictures without permission. Good thing Mojdeh is very used to these run-ins with the police. She was able to manage the problem and we didn’t have to pay a fine…
We began the next morning with a film about the events of the 2nd of October 1968. It was a situation kind of similar to Kent State (but much more intense). Lots of students were fed up with the oppressive government and were protesting against the government in a square called Tres Culturas. After the mitin (meeting) ended, the government had snipers and helicopters positioned around the square. These forces opened fire on the students who were protesting in the square. For that night and the following days many people (including the people in the surrounding buildings who housed injured students) were “disappeared” or killed by the governmental forces. The militant forces even went to hospitals and abducted people with bullet wounds. The media sources reported 20 deaths, but the number was much closer to 200 and there are still unaccounted people.
After the movie, we went to the Coyoacan Market to spend a little time browsing through the shops and museums nearby. We went to Frida Khalo’s house (famous Mexican artist with a very interesting style). Her house has been transformed into a museum with some pictures and photos of her. All the furniture is set up to show how she lived (she was a very strange woman so seeing her house gave us some perspective to her life). Later in the afternoon, Joshua, Lauren, and I played with our host sister Elsa and talked to our host mother. We then went to a silk screening shop to make a design and silk screen it onto a shirt of bag or whatever we wanted. It was very interesting to see Flavio’s (the guy who taught us) process of silkscreening shirts with very little resources. Later that night, we went to salsa classes and learned a little bit about how to dance. It was pretty difficult to learn because the guys all taught different ways to dance so there was no one way to learn (I probably needed to relax and just dance instead of worrying about the steps)
That night, Joshua helped our host mom make some talmales for the breakfast the following day. All the host mothers and families met the next day to eat tamales and enjoy one last meal with all the students. Earlier in the morning, Lauren and I observed a government run lecheria where the government gives a certain amount of milk to children. Each boy (until 13 years) and girl (until 15 years) gets a certain amount of milk from the government. It was really interesting to see the system of receiving milk. There were lots of rules and the moms had to arrive at a certain time every week or they would lose their privileges to the free milk. (Unfortunately we had to get up super early 6:00 to see the lecheria… but it was very interesting).
After the breakfast with the moms we said our goodbyes and thank yous and headed off to the center of Mexico City for the rest of our adventures… (to be continued)
Friday, October 10, 2008
Beginning of Mexico City!!!
Hello everyone!! I’m sorry it’s been such a long time. These pasts few weeks have been absolutely crazy here in
Finally, after six hours we arrived at the bus station in
Mojdeh was waiting at the station to greet us and transport us to
- In 1971, all these impoverished families moved onto this desolated land. The land was desolated because there was barley any soil, only volcanic rock. Over the course of the next few years, the community worked together to carve streets out of the volcanic rock, carry buckets of potable water to the people and build houses. The majority of the organization of the community was done by the women of the community. They even built a community center called the Escuelita (little school) where people can learn about a variety of things including salsa, cooking, and sustainability.
- It may seem strange that an entire community can move onto a piece of land without paying for it. However, in
- So, the Spanish sent viceroys to
With all this knowledge about the community, I already had a picture in my mind what the community would probably look like. When the taxis arrived, I was surprised to see that the community looked like many of the other Mexican communities I had seen. Most of the houses were made out of gray cement but many were painted bright colors. The road was well paved and there were many shops with arcade games, clothes, or food. Although in the 1970s they began as rickety makeshift houses made of anything the community could find, they were now cement sturdy houses.
Instead of only having one student per host family, three or four students lived in each house. When we arrived at the community, we went straight to our house for a late comida at 4:30 (I was starving even after my sandwich on the bus). Lauren, Joshua, and I were living with Magda, Jesus, their three daughters (Elsa, Evon, Maria) and their puppy Camila (I was very happy to have a puppy again). The first meal was great (a sort of vegetable soup with a half of an ear of corn in it and some tortillas). We didn’t have much time to get introduced because we had activities with the group later that day.
Everyone lived about one block from the Escuelita, and we met up at the Escuelita after our lunch. The school was alive would tons of people from the community going to classes and just hanging around. One of the founders of the school came to meet up with us and explained about the process in which the school was created. It was hard to pay attention because all of the activity around us was more interesting than the speaker. Upstairs there was a dance class for little girls and they were peaking out over the rails and waving at our group. And on the behind the staircase, a huge mural representing the Spanish conquest filled the entire wall.
That night we returned to our houses exhausted from the traveling and ready for some warm food. (In
Around 11:30, Lauren and I went up the staircase that wrapped along the outside wall of the house, to our makeshift bedroom. It was like a typical bedroom with bunk beds and a dresser, but instead of interior walls, there were sheets that hang from the ceiling to create a room. The layout of the house was interesting… the downstairs section was one big room with a kitchen, living room, and dining room all in one. There was a small bathroom attached to the main room. Outside there was a big patio with storage, one car, and clothes lines. The metal stair case wrapped around the patio and up to the top story where there were two rooms with cement walls and our makeshift room. In some ways it reminded me of a big cement tree house.
Well, it’s Friday night, and we are going out to some salsa clubs in
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