Random Descriptions of My Travel Adventures

A poster on the street that says basically (bad translation) "to the police Guelaguetza, I'm not going" except someone scratched that last part off. Elaborate stencil on the wall. Arranging the flower baskets the women will wear on their heads while dancing. Sunshine en la boca!

This is a short video of one of the dances at the Mitla Guelaguetza, the bullfighting dance! The women act as the bulls and knock the men, the bullfighters, to the ground. What fun!

This past Sunday some friends and I headed out to the town of Mitla, about 40 minutes outside of Oaxaca, to attend the Guelaguetza. It was a great afternoon, the Guelaguetza was a small celebration, compared to the event in the city of Oaxaca, and this smaller venue made you feel a part of the festivities. Click on the photos to enlarge them. Dancers.... Dancers waiting their turn... The danza de la pluma..... The organizers and dancers handed out drinks, hats, tortillas and dolls made of yarn among other things to the attendees. The first drink we were offered was tepache, fermented pineapple juice, in a cup formed from half of a gourd. These young gentleman are enjoying their beverage. Then a bit later they came around with free mezcal! This is me enjoying my free mezcal in a bamboo shot glass. Notice the look of deviant pleasure on my face...that is what mezcal does to you. Makes you a deviant. Who enjoys things. Notice behind me the man pouring the mezcal out of a green plastic g...

Much has changed since I was here in 2006, the year of the conflict in the city. The official Guelaguetza did not happen that year and most of the festivities and tourism surrounding it did not happen either. This year it is quite a different scene, the streets are filled with tourists, Mexican and foreign alike, and there are too many events to possibly attend. Saturday we stood on the street to watch the parade of dancers show off their traditional costumes and dancing skills, sort of a preview of what is to come at the official Guelaguetza event. Some pictures and video below. As you can see the event was quite popular Spectators of all kinds, including roof dogs. A woman from the Isthmus of Oaxaca. Freaky dude! Masked dancers. Walking home that evening we happened upon a truck unloading some maguey plants for the mezcal tasting fair. Yummy, mezcal...

My time in Oaxaca is coming to an end, at least for this year, I will return home August 12th. Unfortunately all the things I have been putting off, interviews, archival work, other boring research activities, I now have to accomplish in a very short amount of time. Yuck. It is also raining constantly here, or at least that is how it feels. I almost miss Tempe and the sun. Almost. When I return I will be teaching a little so no doubt I will have interesting stories of student mishaps, stay tuned. The guelaguetza (see prior posts) also begins this weekend so I'm hoping to have some great pictures to post from these festivities. Below are some pictures of a Triqui wedding I went to in March, I have been meaning to post these but just haven't gotten around to it until now. I wasn't officially invited to the wedding, rather I went with someone from the Centro who I bumped into on the street. I loved the image of the red huipiles worn by the Triqui women juxtaposed with the trad...

My mom came to Oaxaca for the month of June and during her last full week in Mexico we went to visit a women's weaving cooperative in Teotitlan del Valle, a village outside of the city of Oaxaca known for its tapetes or rugs. During my stay in Oaxaca in the summer of 2006 I went with my study abroad group to Vida Nueva, a women's co-op of weavers and bought a tapete for my mom. Vida Nueva consists of single women, widows, and single mothers who otherwise might not receive a decent price (or live a decent life) for their weaving in the male-controlled tapete business that dominates Teotitlan. After telling her the story of the cooperative and the women who benefit from it, my mother was eager to visit herself and support this group. Luckily I ran into a friend who was taking a group of students to the cooperative and she was kind enough to let us tag along. Pastora Gutierrez is the founder of the coooperative (the woman on the left in the photo below) and has taken the rugs an...

Oaxaca has been getting so much rain in the past few weeks that everything is wonderfully green. I went on two house visits this week, there are still a few to be done. Somehow poverty doesn't look as bad when surrounded by green grass. After leaving the area pictured below on Monday I got completely soaked by the storm you see brewing on the horizon. Tuesday I went to this Colonia on the edge of town and the roads were a mess. Completely muddy and difficult to walk on. Smiles like these help you forget about some of the hardship. This kid was thrilled to have a strange gringa in his house. White girl! With computer! And camera! It was hilarious. He was running around giggling and rolling on the ground. I asked him and his siblings if they wanted to help me take pictures but they were too scared to touch the camera so I just took their photos and then showed them the image. This family was particularly impoverished, they didn't have any electricity, although this kids grin pro...