We three Susans always bought T-shirts and stuff with three women on them, but being corn goddesses trumps them all. Though honestly, these blocky-headed broads look as though the weavers were documenting a visitation from The Others, who came in peace bearing corn stalks. Wearing skirts, no less.
Places
10,000 Steps: All in a Day’s Walk in Oaxaca
Last time I went to the states, everyone was wearing one of those little fitness bracelets that counts your steps – the daily goal being 10,000. I’m not sure how in the world you can get in 10,000 steps in a North American day, but here in Oaxaca it’s all in a day’s walk.
Not Your Ordinary Groundhog Day
While some of you were waiting on a groundhog to predict whether there would be six more weeks of winter up in el norte, I was eating tamales with a way cool bunch of women in the tiny mountain town of San Miguel de Valle in the eastern Oaxaca valley.
It was actually a double holiday: Constitution Day as far as the government was concerned, and Día de la Candelaria on the Catholic calendar, celebrating the day that Jesus graduated from swaddling and hit the street in real clothes.
Photo by Kim Groves, En Via
Twelve Feather Dancers and a Virgin
December 12 was a big day in Oaxaca. First of all, it was Virgin of Guadalupe Day – th
e day marking the appearance of the Virgin Mary to indigenous peasant Juan Diego in 1531, a huge deal in this state of 16 different indigenous groups. But it was also one of the few annual presentations of the Danza de la Pluma (Dance of the Feathers) in Teotitlán del Valle.
A Day of the Dead to Die For
I didn’t wear my harem costume this year for Day of the Dead; that would have been 2009 when I was still feeling a little let out of school to be living in Mexico. But that three-week trip to Oaxaca for Día de los Muertos was a life-changer. I knew that if this place were this magic despite a missed flight, a grumpy traveling companion and a bout of the swine flu – it must really be special.
Packing Picks
In the last five years that I’ve traveled in and around Oaxaca – in planes, buses, cars, collectivos and mototaxis, even once in a cattle truck when the bus broke down – I’ve packed a lot of bags. I don’t backpack any more but I like to have what I need without toting too much.
Jumpsuits for travel?
I’m also always amazed at what people wear to travel, and since I almost always have a layover in Mexico City I have ample time to peruse the passengers. I wouldn’t have thought to wear, for instance, a tiger print jumpsuit (never mind the pattern, how do you manage a jumpsuit in an airplane bathroom?) with four-inch stiletto heels. Continue reading
Four Points for Refusal
I was already in my second deep culture shock after only a week back in the U.S., having agreed to pay for a mani-pedi in Dallas roughly what I’d spend on a full week of decent restaurant dinners in Oaxaca. The Vietnamese nail technicians were chattering loudly to one another, working on but otherwise ignoring the three of us clients seated in vibrating massage chairs, feet soaking in sudsy hot water.
Labor Day Culture Shock
I only saw the cut-off to Hugo when I pulled off at Durant to buy Rollos and a bottle of water, when I was nearly run down by an old guy in a monster pick-up with two freckle-faced kids eating ice cream in the front seat. I thought it looked like a quicker way to get to the Indian Nation Turnpike to Henryetta to a family reunion with cousins I hadn’t seen in nearly three decades.
Bokchito
Oaxaca: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
They often mispronounce the name even in the airport, certainly on the northern side of the border. “Boarding for Ox-ack’-uh” will come over the loud speaker and it sounds so wrong I don’t even get up.
It’s “Wah-hah’-ka,” derived from the original Nahuatl name Huaxyacac – which I wouldn’t try to pronounce on a dare. The de Juárez was added later in honor of Benito Juárez, one of only two natives of the state who became president of Mexico. (He was the good one.)
Oaxaca’s exotic moniker is a great metaphor for this fantastic city, capital of the state of the same name: it has a distinctly indigenous flavor, it’s complicated, and just when you think you get it — you really don’t.
Oaxaca’s original name in Nahuatl
Vino Indio for Whatever Ails You
Paco wasn’t expecting us, but then we never call first. Every branch of José’s extensive family tree is just pleasantly surprised whenever we show up, whenever that might be. Someone’s always home to answer the doorbell, which in Tío Julio’s case involves a rope running down the staircase from his second-story apartment that somehow opens the door on the street.
Orizaba
Embracing the Chaos 