BROKEN WINDOWS

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

So this post is, most of all, a slide presentation.

We’ve been getting back into our routine after weeks of fun and travel with relatives and friends. After our return trip to Chicago for the exhibit opening, my mom and her boyfriend came down as did our friend Amy, her first time in Oaxaca. We went to Chiapas just after Christmas, then returned to Oaxaca for new year’s. I didn’t take too many photos of San Cristóbal de las Casas because I took so many in 2006 (I’ll look through the archives and post a few in a couple of days), but I did take a few in Chamula and here in Oaxaca, where we had a bit of fun, of course!

We had internet at the house for a few weeks, but now it’s gone again. How quickly we became spoiled!

On to the slide show:

After an overnight bus ride, we arrived in beautiful, cool, San Cristóbal de las Casas, a Maya city in the highlands of Chiapas named after the famous Franciscan monk, Bartolome de las Casas, who wrote a two-hundred page “letter” to the King of Spain telling horror stories of the colony and arguing for the human rights of indigenous Mexicans. San Cristóbal is absolutely stunning: narrow, stone roads, colorful buildings, mountain views at every turn. Near the city are two Maya communities famous for their textiles, Chamula and Zinecantan. (I will post some photos of these textiles in a later post.) We hired a cab to take us to both villages.

Our driver had nothing nice to say about Chamula or Chamulans. He said they are “dirty” and “aggressive” and “hostile” and “violent.” He pointed to the cemetery as evidence of how “dirty” they are, and said, repeatedly, how much cleaner Zinecantan is. As we later learned, the village of Chamula is a more protective of their traditions and their village, particularly their church and zócalo, where cab drivers are not allowed to go. They have to drop off and pick up several blocks from the center of town, which may explain our driver’s bias!

Here is the old cemetery of Chamula. Chamula is like Etla in the Oaxaca valley — it is a large geographical area made up of numerous culturally related villages. Chamula is a Maya area and the people speak Tsotzil as their primary language. Often we had difficulty talking to the women in the market because neither of us could speak Spanish fluently. Our friend Amy and my mom took pictures of the center of town. I’ll ask them if I can post some of those pictures in a later post.

In the old cemetery, multiple members of a family are buried in the same plot. To mark each individual, a cross is placed in front of the last. Some plots had six or seven crosses, and these are just the ones that have survived. Given that the crosses are made of wood, no doubt many of them disintegrated over the years.

The church in the center of the cemetery burned down years and years ago. The modern church is in the center of town and photographing it is prohibited. In fact, only one photographer has been allowed to photograph inside, Antonio Torok, a photographer who we’ve met who lives here in San Agustin de Etla near Oaxaca. He documented the Zapatista movement for years and has a wonderful photo of the inside of the church.

The church is fascinating for a number of reasons. First, it is quite beautiful on the outside and the inside, rustic and “homey” rather than the typical Catholic grandness, and painted white with blue trim. Wafts of candle smoke filling the inside. Second, it is home to the syncretic practices of the Chamulans. Inside, there is a highly decorated, unique altar in the front with saints lining the walls on both sides. There are no pews. Instead, worshippers kneel on the ground and line up narrow, colorful candles in front of them, attaching them to the marble floor with melted wax. Next to many of the worshippers are live chickens, which are sacrificed during personal ceremonies. The colors of the candles indicate what sort of disease or problem (and the degree of the problem) the worshipper is praying to be relieved from. Sometimes they are asking on behalf of someone in their family or social circle. The chicken’s throat is cut and the blood is drained and the candles burn out. When we visited, there were at least ten people lighting candles with chickens next to them. I don’t know if they sacrifice other animals too. In the back of the church is a baptismal. An itinerant priest comes once a month or so to perform Catholic ceremonies, such as weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc. Otherwise, the church is tended to by a church committee and volunteers.

Our second trip to Chamula (Amy, mom and I went again on market day) there was a procession throughout town that ended in the church. The men wear these incredible wool vests or pullovers that are ‘hairy’ from the long-haired, merino sheep the Chamulans raise. Some are white and some are black, but all are magnificent (I bought one so I’ll post a photo later). Sheep are sacred to the Chamulans, so they do not eat them. They raise them for their wool and for their milk. This procession was only men, each with either the white vest or black pullover, and each holding a cross. Although the town center was packed with people and cars and vendors, the men walked through with their crosses as if there was no one else around. When they reached the outside of the church grounds, they stood, bowed, spoke, then entered. It was quite dramatic.

Zinecantan, on the other hand, is dramatically different than Chamula. The church, which also is not allowed to be photographed, is almost a mix of Chamula and European catholicism. No sacrifices are allowed, and no one burns candles on the floor. But the altar is also fantastically, whimsically decorated and the church is still attended by a priest only once a month or so. The textiles are also dramatically different. While Chamulans wear this lush, hairy wool (and shimmery tops — I’ll post on of those soon too), the men of Zinecantan wear colorful, highly embroidered vests covered in rich flowers. here is a woman weaving:

Yes, the village was “cleaner” than Chamula, but also, perhaps, a little more familiar and therefore not quite as interesting. One of the weaver collectives we visited had a working “typical Maya kitchen” where we enjoyed a couple of tacos and were encouraged to take photos:

Notice the three stones beneath the camal. This is one of the signatures of a Maya kitchen rather than a Zapotec one, in archaeological terms at least. The tortillas were quite delicious and a bit different than those in Oaxaca. Here most of the tortilla makers use white corn which they grind very fine. In this kitchen, the cook used yellow corn ground coarsely. Interestingly, throughout Chiapas we saw numerous commercial tortillerias (I counted five in Chamula alone!), something you never see in Oaxaca. I know of two here, a city of more than 300,000. One is near the 20 de Noviembre market and the other near La Merced. They are never busy. Instead, women walk the streets selling fresh, handmade tortillas. Though Chiapas is close to Oaxaca, the food traditions are quite different. Go to Chiapas for the textiles and Maya culture, and go to Oaxaca for the food. Trust me!

There is so much more to say about Chiapas, including our lovely hotel, Na Bolom, with its museum (the hotel was once the home to Tulane U anthropologist Frans Blom and his wife, photographer Truddy), ethnobotanical garden, and adobe fireplaces in each room (which we used every night — it was chilly!). But then there’s so much to say about Oaxaca too.

Finally, a couple of pictures of stone soup:

This fun little restaurant on the road to Tule is owned and operated by a family from Tuxtepec in the northern part of Oaxaca. They are Chinanteco and it is their tradition that the men make stone soup for the women in their lives to give them a break from the kitchen. And so it is at this restaurant. The man and his son make the soup (and serve it too), a luscious fish soup with vegetables and chile. The broth, raw fish, and vegetables are placed in tecomate bowls (they are made from the dried, gourd-like fruits of a tree). Red-hot river stones are added, instantly bringing the broth to a boil, and therefore cooking the fish and the vegetables. The soup is served boiling hot. You can leave the stones in while you eat, or take them out. Sometimes bits of stone break off (especially those with more granite in them) because of the hot/cold mix, so when you get down to the bottom of the bowl, you have to chew carefully!

The stones themselves are beautiful:

The restaurant, named simply La Sopa de la Piedra,” was recently written up in Oaxaca Times, a local tourist rag, so it’s become much more popular, not just with non-Mexican tourists, but Oaxacans as well. It’s quite busy on the weekends.

My mom and I went with my friend Sara Corenstein, a wonderful textile artist from Monterrey, to the CASA in San Agustin, an art center built in an old textile factory, Francisco Toledo’s paper factory, and to an abandoned textile factory that was featured in Nacho Libre. I’ll post more photos later, but here are a few from the abandoned factory:

here’s my lovely mother in the abandoned factory, with a local dog that followed us in. I’m not sure if he was owned by the factory’s caretaker or not. The factory is a fascinating example of complicated labor politics. The workers managed to gain control of the factory, but then divided up into factions and fought each other over control. They burned each other’s areas of the factory and eventually completely destroyed the entire factory, leaving it in ruins. In the 90s, a Spaniard tried to purchase it from them to open it again (it once employed nearly 500 people), but the groups of workers were still arguing over it, and couldn’t come to a decision about the sale. So, here it is, a complete ruin.

I took these photos with my camera. I’ll post a couple more in a later post:

A pile of old spools.

Nearly one hundred years of failed negotiations, first between workers and the owner, then between the workers themselves. There are papers everywhere, adding to the abandoned nature of the place.

We’ve run out of money, so I have to leave the internet cafe. Here’s a lovely flower I saw blooming on a tree at a working factory later the same day, the paper factory/collective started by the Maestro, Francisco Toledo:

May your day be as bright and beautiful as this flower!

Peace.

I couldn’t have said it better myself:

The Democratic candidates who are anointed “serious” are like a car with a faulty front-end alignment: Their default setting pulls to the right. They are unshakably locked into a strategy that impels them to give priority to placating those who aren’t inclined to vote for them and then palliate those who are with bromides and doublespeak.

[…]

A friend of mine characterizes this as the “we’ll come back for you” politics, the claim that they can’t champion anything you want because they have to conciliate your enemies right now to get elected, but that, once they win, they’ll be able to attend to the progressive agenda they have to reject now in order to win. This worked out so well with the Clinton Presidency, didn’t it? Remember his argument that he had to sign the hideous 1996 welfare reform bill to be able to come back and “fix” it later? Or NAFTA? Or two repressive and racist crime bills that flooded the prisons? Or the privatizing of Sallie Mae, which set the stage for the student debt crisis? Or ending the federal government’s commitment to direct provision of housing for the poor?

[…]

Elected officials are only as good or as bad as the forces they feel they must respond to. It’s a mistake to expect any more of them than to be vectors of the political pressures they feel working on them. This is a lesson that progressives have forgotten or failed to learn.

[…]

It’s a mistake to focus so much on the election cycle; we didn’t vote ourselves into this mess, and we’re not going to vote ourselves out of it. Electoral politics is an arena for consolidating majorities that have been created on the plane of social movement organizing. […] Not only can that process not be compressed to fit the election cycle; it also doesn’t happen through mass actions. It happens through cultivating one-on-one relationships with people who have standing and influence in their neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, families, and organizations.

[…]

…I’m not arguing that people don’t need to engage in rallies and protests. It is self-defeating, however, to collapse the difference between the activities that make us feel good and the work that is necessary to build the movement. There are no shortcuts or magic bullets. And, if we don’t confront that fact and act accordingly, we’ll be back in this same position, but most likely with options a little worse than these, in 2012, and again and again.

Hat tip to Musings and Migraines for another great link.

So I meant to post this last night, but the time got away from me and by the time I was finished drafting it as an email, it was already after midnight. Oops!

My mom and Howard and our good friend Amy are here for a couple of weeks to celebrate Navidad and el Año Nuevo with us. Christmas Eve we went down to the zocalo with our neighbors (and about fifteen of their friends and family) for dinner and to watch the nighttime Christmas parades. Each parish has a float, a band, a bunch of paraders, and a fireworks master (along with a few banner-holders, candle-holders, and kids with meter-long sparklers) and they parade around the zocalo. The parishes are divided into groups of about four or so and they each parade around three times before returning to their neighborhood churches for more celebration and the midnight mass. Like the comparsas of Dia de los Muertos, the parades are a bit raucous and full of good cheer, but of course instead of little devils the kids are dressed as angels!

Here are a couple of our favorites:

He seems to be giving his blessing! If he’s not the next pope, perhaps he’s the next Lama. He looks confident, that’s for sure! His mom was clearly so proud and happy. She doted on him the entire way.

Here they are again because they’re so so so cute.

The three kings were laughing it up and gossiping every time they passed us. I tried to capture their laughter, but without a flash it was pretty much impossible. Still, I think you can see how much fun they were having.

Here’s a float with Joseph and Mary and the little baby. They did a good job of replicating a retablo, I thought!

The last couple of weeks, there has been spanish moss and authentic green moss for sale in the markets. We wondered what it was used for until we saw this nativity scene in someone’s house (they leave the doors open so everyone on the street can see). There were elaborate nativities all over the city, with some taking up entire rooms. This one was across the street from our apartment. I don’t know how recent the Christmas tree is. I suspect it’s rather new to Oaxaca, but I’m not sure. We saw one nativity with an entire village set up around it, including a sheep roasting over a fire and several bedouin tents! It was impressive, but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me. It will remain only a memory.

As this is Oaxaca, along with the comparsas came cohetes, fireworks that sound like loud bombs. Hector absolutely hates cohetes. We don’t know if they hurt his ears or if they just scare him, but he shivers, pees in the house, and pants like mad while they’re going off. He also anticipates them, so it takes a while for him to settle down even after they’ve stopped. The bombs (as we call them) were going off all day Christmas eve, so by the time we got home after the zocalo parades, little Hector was a complete mess. He calms down considerably when one of us holds him down on the ground. Sonny was nice enough to do this and they both fell asleep within a half hour. I just had to take a picture of them!

Christmas day we had a big dinner with all of our American neighbors, their guests and our friend Jonathan. We all cooked together and ate together. Sonny baked two of his fabulous pecan pies (YUM!!) and my mom, Howard, Amy, and I made a salad, fantastic vegetables, and cole slaw. It was delicious. Afterwards, Jonathan took us to a nameless clandestine cantina on the north side of town. The cantina is run by Enrique and his wife. When we arrived, the women of the posada were still eating and drinking chocolate. The posada is a religious function, a sort of parade of its own, that goes from house to house on holy days and ends at a host house that serves food and chocolate. Gathered along the front part of the little courtyard of the cantina were a dozen women eating dressed hot dogs. Just beyond them were a few little tables and a bar (which in traditional cantinas like this one serves more as a buffet table). Enrique served us mezcal from old Smirnoff bottles and one of the young women gave us each a little plastic bag filled with Christmas cookies and candies. They offered us some of the posada hot dogs, but we were all completely stuffed. Later we were served beers, queso fresco, salsa, and tostadas, which are crisp, baked tortillas. The cantina is really a part of Ernesto’s house, with a public outhouse in the center of the courtyard, potted plants, and a corrugated metal door held shut with a couple of rusted steel bars. Some of the family’s clothes were hanging to dry on the clothesline near our table. Jonathan told us that it is not uncommon for there to be copal incense burning in the front while Ernesto’s devout mother and wife pray just feet away from the cantina tables where customers drink mezcal and beers and tell all matter of stories. It’s just pure, beautiful, Oaxacan complexity in one little house.

Enrique was a lucha libre (wrestling) fighter in his younger days, fighting in cantinas and other underground venues. When he started to tell us stories (Sonny had to ask), his ninety-year old mother came out and took him back to the house. Jonathan commented that Ernesto surely learned lucha libre from his mother, and that we all knew who wore the leotards in the family!

With our votive candles-turned-mezcal glasses raised, we wish you all a wonderful new year of happiness and peace.

…if we let our corporations continue to be our lawmakers:

The Ugly Side of Microlending

No legal obligation to disclose interest rates; the right to charge whatever rate the “banks” (sharks?) want (as high as 120% APR, according to this article); able to charge that APR on the original principle, even after that principle has been paid down; and the targeted, high-tech exploitation of the poor.

Sick.

If only the Minutemen and those other wackos cared about issues like this rather than criminally punishing the poor (immigrants who are often economic refugees), we might actually regulate our own companies (Citigroup, anyone?) and put pressure on their Mexican counterparts to be, I don’t know, humane or something.

But no.

And we call Mexico a “developing” economy? It seems to be a fully developed, fully exploitative economy that is benefiting the rich at the expense of the majority.

Meanwhile, we saw Jonathan last night and we talked about the “Death Star” black hole and he mentioned that it looked like fertilization (and it really does!). This morning he emailed me with a quote from the article that says just that: “‘Although we call it a death star galaxy, in the end it might be a source of new life in the more distant galaxy,’ said Dr Hardcastle.” The Death Star fertilizing its neighboring galaxy a million years ago. What was born from that collision? And when will our very large x-ray get a glimpse of that long ago birth?

I find it interesting that we have ‘news’ about something that happened 1 million years ago, and that the destruction this black hole has caused on a neighboring galaxy is spoken of in the future tense. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and though you’re sure you saw him fall down the chimney last night, it was actually a million years ago. And here we are trying to ’save’ time!

Alan Watts said that when we look through a telescope it is “the universe looking at itself.” Here we are looking through telescopes at images that are farther and farther away, as the universe slips back to avoid our (it’s own) gaze. We are not only navel gazing, we are gazing at our navel as it was a million years ago. If the present moment is made up of the past (and if it also contains the future), then we are made of jet-exploding black holes and their neighboring galaxies, just as we are part of all future explosions and collisions.

Still, there is beauty in that cosmic violence, eh? What a picture from Chandra, our very large x-ray.

Speaking of time collapsing into itself, I got to see an amazing exhibit in San Francisco last weekend when I was there for my dear friend Beth’s wedding. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s History of History at the Asian Art Museum. If, like me, you’re a sucker for podcasts, check out his lecture on the show and on the photographic nature of fossils, etc. Doc, I know you’ll love it!

I really should be writing about Mexico. Sorry.

We have intermittent wireless at our house now, so I’ll try to post more often. We’ll see about loading photos! I’ve got some stories. Tomorrow my mom comes to visit and this weekend our friend Amy comes too. They’re all staying in our little apartment complex. Fun! Meanwhile, it’s about 20 degrees in Chicago and it’s supposed to be near 90 here by the end of the week. Hector is on the verge of getting chubby because of all our neighbors who love to spoil him with biscuits and little sausage treats, and Sonny is waiting on a key (always the waiting) and going to meeting after meeting to get a place to analyze the literally tons of materials he’s collected. We’ve met some poets and we’ve have a few evenings with our friend Jonathan and his new mezcal. All and all things are going well.

More later.

Peace out, you fellow remnants of Death Stars.

Gore Won!

I’m keeping the Draft Gore sticker on the back of my car for now…

Anyone want to join me?

So one of the reasons I’ve had such a difficult time posting ANYTHING AT ALL on the blog is because of the crappy service we get down here thanks to the richest man in the world,
Carlos Slim, who, though exceptionally rich, is a TERRIBLE businessman.

We’ve thought of getting our own internet service at home, but given the difficulties that every single person we know has had, we’ve decided it wouldn’t be worth it. First, it takes on average THREE MONTHS to have your phone line installed. As the Telmex internet service is all DSL, you have to have a land line first. Second, once you have the phone line installed you have to wait for the internet service. Third, once they install the damn thing, you have to pay $100 installation fee and about $50/month for the internet service (and another $30 or so for the phone line itself). And should I even mention that Telcel’s rates are the highest in our hemisphere? It actually costs the same for me to phone my mom using my Telcel crap phone as it does my T-Mobile phone, nearly $2/minute. Insanity!

But mostly it’s how crappy the internet service is once you get it. We’ve gone to a half a dozen internet sites and all are the same. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, and always a bit unreliable. Grrr.

Enough bitching. Sorry. Today it has rained all day, which is nice, though I’m sitting in this cafe a little wet and therefore a little cranky. I’m off to buy bread, pasta, etc. and then it’s back to work. I’m working on a large piece for the upcoming show at the Roy Boyd Gallery and also trying to work on my Spanish, which hasn’t improved enough because I’ve been sequestered at home working, working, working. But it’s been fun! Honest!!

I will try my best to post pics. At this point I have too many, but that’s okay. That video. Well, who the hell knows.

Peace out.

We had the great pleasure of going to a local rodeo this weekend at the foot of Cerro Danush, the little mountain Sonny hikes up every day for work. Last week was Macquilxochitl’s grand, week-long fiesta in celebration of their patron saint, San Mateo. My mom and her boyfriend were visiting, so on Sunday we went out to the village to have lunch with our friend Procopio and Amalia and afterwards went over the jaripeo, a local bull-riding rodeo. It was hot; the sun was brutal the first hour or so. But the music and the rides made it tolerable. Most of the locals were smart enough to bring umbrellas (or used their traditional rabozos to shield their faces), but silly us, we had to rely on my little tube of sunscreen and our rather pathetic baseball caps. Fun was had regardless.

Please let me know if the video works. I’m new to this whole web video thing. I uploaded a quicktime video that I prepared for the web, though it is still rather large. If you all know how to do this properly, please let me know. Tomorrow I hope to have an hour or so just to post some pics and other little stories. Lovely!

A quick update!

I can’t seem to get the photos uploaded, but here are a few little tidbits about where we are and what we’ve been up to. I’ll write more tomorrow, hopefully.

We’ve been down here a little over two weeks, and we’re starting to get settled in, as is little Hector. The drive down was pretty uneventful, even with Hector in the back seat. We drove down the coast through Veracruz (can’t wait to go back there!), staying a night in Tuxpan and the another in Tehuacan (in Puebla), a charming colonial town with this fabulous old hotel just a block from the zocalo called Hotel Mexico. There were several courtyards filled with orange trees and flowers and a pool with the local mineral water (it’s the town where “Pinafiel” comes from, the mineral water that’s sold all over Mexico). Gorgeous!

S is struggling with the “bienes comunales,” which is sort of a local council for Macquilxochitl, the town where he’s doing his research. They keep asking for one more paper signed by this official or that. So far he’s been able to work just three days. Yikes! S’s advisor calls them “the not so bienes comunales,” which is pretty hilarious. We’re confident it will work out. Apparently this is how it is for everyone. It’s funny, though; there’s a sign at the entrance to Macquilxochitl that says, ‘Bienvenidos a Macquilxochitl / Cuida Tu Vida” (Welcome to Macquilxochitl / Guard your life!”). Granted, it’s probably meant as a “your life has meaning here” or something, but after the dealings with the “bienes,” it’s starting to feel more and more like a threat. Ha ha!

Meanwhile, I’ve been studying spanish with this fantastic spanish teacher, Luz, at the Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca. She’s intellectual and challenging. She had our class read the first part of a novel by Elena Garro called “Los Recuerdos del Porvenir”. Garro was the wife of Octavio Paz, so you can imagine how difficult things were for her. her novel is filled with details of Mexican history, culture, and it’s infused with the idea that there is only one time, this one, where the past, present and future are fused together into one giant mess. She’s still more known as his wife than as a writer in her own right. I’ve only read four chapters, but I’m really enjoying it. Of course, I don’t think I’d have understood half of it without Luz’s help.

I got some very excellent, extremely suprising news two days ago. I won the Poetry Society of America’s National Chapbook Fellowship. The judge was Harryette Mullen, a really interesting experimental poet. The prize is $1000 (not bad), the publication of the chapbook (about 30 pages) and a reading with the judges in New York in February. There are two winners each year, each one chosen by a different judge. The other judge for this year was Mark Strand, whose work is not experimental at all, which means that the two chapbooks will be quite different. Great! Anyway, I was completely shocked because I submitted the manuscript nearly a year ago and, well, I don’t win things generally, so I didn’t give it much thought after this past March or so. I just assumed they’d already notified whoever had won. Crazy!! I will let you all know about it when it’s more in the works. The manuscript was a collection of the “Dream of Water” poems I have been working on the past year or so. I’m quite excited to work on more of them; hopefully I’ll have enough for a full-length book by the end of the year.

We’re loving Oaxaca. I don’t know if I would want to live here forever, but it’s been great so far. We’re living down in the southeastern part of the Centro, near the periferico and close to the university. We’re in a little town home that has a lovely (truly lovely) courtyard with grass, trees, flowering bushes, and plants of all kinds. There are several other town houses, some single apartments, and the house where the owners live. They let Hector roam about with their two dogs. There is an older American couple, Enid and Jack, living in one of the town homes who have lived there for six years. Jack is an architect and he had an addition built onto their town house (though they rent it still — odd). They’re quite nice and Enid is involved with the community pretty heavily. She used to run a ballet school in in the states and down here she’s done a bit of dance and also she hosts these dim sum benefits for local causes. Apparently she’s a wonderful cook! Hopefully we’ll get invited sometime:).

I love cooking with all fresh ingredients and I love how colorful the buildings are. We’ve been getting around by bus a lot, which is also fun just because they’re so chaotic. There are no city buses, only private jitney buses. They chose their own routes (but not their own fares, thankfully — all rides are $3.50, or about 30 cents). We’re never quite sure if we’re going to get where we want to go! We live just a block from this giant store called Chadraui, which is sort of a Wal-Mart with food. (We call it “La Tienda del Diablo #2;” Wal-Mart is #1, of course!) We’re also just down the road from La Merced market, a food market where vendors sell every kind of fruit and vegetable, bread, honey, nuts, meat, etc. Mostly, though, I try to buy what I can at the organic marketat El Pochote, a charming park on the northwest side of town designed by Francisco Toledo, a world-renowned artist who is a social activist and incredible cultural organize here in Oaxaca. The market is open Friday and Saturdays. There aren’t many fresh food vendors, but there are some wonderful taco makers. There is also a woman who sells fresh juices, including passion fruit (without sugar and all fruit!!!) and tejate (a local chocolate drink). There are also two coffee vendors who sell organic coffee grown by a local women’s collective and an organic chocolate vendor (you can buy to make at home or drink there). You can also buy organic totopos in the style of Juchitan and we have, once so far, managed to cajole one of the food vendors to sell us fresh tortillas.

We don’t have internet at our house and I’ve had very little time to check email, etc. since we’ve been down here, and only this rare opportunity to use my own computer. Right now we’re sitting in this little internet place across from Santo Domingo, a church whose monastery was converted into a museum and beautiful ethnobotanical garden thanks to Toledo and his politicking. Last night we walked around looking for a little street food snack and came upon a birthday party in the middle of the street complete with brass band, these crazy firework things that shoot bottle rockets in all different directions, and a couple of papier mache giant puppets. It was sort of like a spontaneous Mardi Gras, without the cheap plastic beads.

I’m hoping to write more tomorrow, and post a few pictures. I need to find a faster connection. !Hasta pronto!