Keeping the Music Brain Alive

Music, baseball and art. These are our extracurricular activities in Oaxaca. Along with our big heavy bags (many filled with books), we brought two instruments (guitar and violin) with us…all the way from the Bay Area, to Colorado and then to Oaxaca City. We have a tip from our real estate agent (the guy who rented this house to us…he’s an American) on a classical/flamenco guitar teacher nearby, but I haven’t called him to set up an appointment.


Our slower life feels too rich, too precious to fill with activity. So, no lessons yet, but I have convinced my kids that they ought to practice three times a week in order to keep their musical brain synapses firing. No joke! I explained to them how the brain works and how practicing any activity keeps that part of the brain alive and that when we don’t use that part of the brain, it rewires/sort of shuts down the pathways, that in the case of acuity in playing their instruments, a bit of practice will result in them “not losing ground” musically.

I think my science is not too far off. Judy B. (my brilliant doctor friend) and Jennifer H. (my brilliant scientist cousin)…you or others can weigh in and tell me if I’m feeding my children a line of bull.

Anyway…it’s working…and isn’t that what really matters? My kids practice three times a week for ½ hour a pop…and without complaining about it. They’re determined to keep their musical brains going.

Speaking of music, my own brain has been re-firing old synapses. I have been playing violin for the past two weeks with the music band at our church in Oaxaca. I’ve played an average of 5 hours per week in practice and performance. That’s about 4.75 more hours a week than I normally play in Berkeley. The band is quite talented. Davíd…a brilliant musician, plays harmonica, flute and sax. Mario is the guitarist…accomplished vocalist as well and little Mario (pictured here) plays the drums. Derek B. would be excited to hear this youngster play. He’s 13-years-old. He keeps the beat well and many of us know how sad it can be in a Mexican church service when the hermanos can’t find a beat together and sing in time. It’s a little bit like torture. So, I’m thankful for little Mario.

And they love me. Especially, the older ladies. A few of them have come up to me after the service and tell me how much they love my violin playing. One woman is convinced that the violin is an instrument of prayer. She was determined that I agree with her, so I did, finishing with the all emcompassing...Gracias a Dios. This is a very gracious culture, so I'm trying not to let any of this go to my head, instead focusing on how much fun it is to play my instrument again.

Uniforms Have Arrived

Last night after baseball practice, we were told to show up at the Uniform Factory. We did so, descending on the place with the rest of the team. We collected the uniforms for the Dragones, made sure sizes, names and numbers were all correct, then took them home. Though Gabe did not have to be dressed and ready until 11:00 AM, he came downstairs this morning wearing his new duds at 7:30 AM. It’s a beautiful thing, a brand new uniform. Here’s Gabe at bat and the team...They’ll never look this clean again. Also, a photo of Gabe and Pedro Luis...his best friend in Oaxaca and Dragones team mate. They warm the bench together sometimes...there's nothing quite as bonding as that.

The Rainy Season

The months of July-November mark the rainy season for Oaxaca. From what we understand, dry months follow. All the green brush, grass and flowers turn to brown. The soil dries out and becomes dusty. The sun beats down hardest in March and April. By the time May and June roll around, dust and heat fill the air. The reservoirs and wells are almost empty and Oaxacans are longing for their rainy season. Though we've seen many rainstorms since arriving, I think we are fortunate to live in Oaxaca during this beautiful season.

Oaxacan Flowers

Some posts need few words. Here are a two of the floral beauties we saw in our Monday afternoon hike around the reservoir above Teotitlán de Valle. Tomorrow…I’ll post a couple more.

Margarita Maza

Benito Juaréz’s struggle to free Mexico from oppressive rule and bring about legal reforms that would serve the people came about as a result of many dedicated individuals and communities. His wife, Margarita Maza, deserves her own post for the sacrifices she made during the time her husband worked toward this end.


When Juaréz moved to Oaxaca City after receiving some education, he was not only thinking of finding work, he was searching for his sister. He found her working as a cook in the household of Italian immigrant and merchant Antonio Maza and his wife, Petra Parada.

Benito also found refuge and warmth in the Maza household. Through the Mazas, Benito found work and social connections that led to further education and introduction into Oaxacan society. Benito was 20 years old when Margarita was born, the Mazas’ youngest child. He bounced the baby on his knee and played with her like an older brother as she matured and while Benito’s career as a lawyer and state legislator blossomed.


By the time Margarita was 17, their mutual affection had also blossomed into love. Benito, a successful attorney at 37, proposed marriage. They were married in the church of San Felipe de Neri, in Oaxaca City, on July 31, 1843. Even today such a match would be unusual, but in the Oaxaca of 1843 it was unheard of. That he, a poor, dark brown Zapotec, and she, a lily-white daughter of a prominent merchant, were even able to associate, much less to marry, is testament to the Mazas’ liberal views.


The same liberal views and their iron determination to do something about them scarred the last half of Benito and Margarita’s 26-year marriage. From around 1854, when Benito was driven into exile in New Orleans, civil war, foreign invasion, and assassination attempts forced the family to be nearly always on the move, living in unfamiliar and trying circumstances, hounded and threatened by enemies, and continually lacking money.


One of the most dangerous episodes came in 1858, when Margarita, at the age of 32 had to move her five children and entire household from Oaxaca to Veracruz, where Benito was running the liberal Mexican government-in-exile. Fearing spies and assassins, Margarita took the tortuous, roundabout route over the heart of the Sierra Madre, traveling at night, on foot beside their burro-train, disguising herself in native huipil and sleeping by day in farm houses of friendly Zapotec campesinos.


Later, Benito and Margarita enjoyed two years of peace together, beginning in 1861, after the liberal triumph in the civil War of the Reforms. Their marriage, although severely tried by hardship and separation, was a supremely happy one. Twelve children resulted, seven—six girls and a boy—outlived their parents. Two boys and three girls died when still young. Their love, although profoundly deep, had few pretensions. Benito called her his “old lady.” She called him “Juaréz” and, when asked, replied that “he is very homely but good.”


Their peace together was short-lived. The French invasion forced Benito to travel the country, managing the government in a black carriage, one jump ahead of the French army. Margarita took the family into northern Mexico and finally to New York and Washington, D.C. There, she reached the depths of despair when two of her three sons died. She wrote to Benito: “The loss of my sons is killing me…I prefer death a thousand times more than life…I do not blame persons who kill themselves…If I had been braver I should have done it a year ago.”


Eventually Margarita recovered her equilibrium, buoyed by the birth of her first grandchild, a baby girl, and the admiring attention of American society, including General Ulysses S. Grant and President Andrew Johnson.


On June 19, 1867, after Maximillian was executed, Margarita returned home. She arrived with her party of 14, in Veracruz, showered by bouquets as she walked down the gangplank.


Reunited for 3 happy years with Margarita in Mexico City, Benito worked like a demon to turn his dreams for Mexico into reality. But overwork took its toll and Benito suffered a stroke in October 1870. He recovered partially to discover that Margarita was fatally ill. She died on January 2 1871, of cancer. Although weak, Benito strained with all of his strength to lift her body into the coffin. All of Mexico, both friends and former enemies, joined in grief with their president for their beloved Margarita Maza, who had given as much as any heroine could for both love and country. (Once again credit to Moon’s Oaxaca Handbook and Bruce Wipperman…who must live in Berkeley because in his acknowledgements, he thanks the folks at Café Roma.)

Do You Know Your Mexican History?

True or False

An Austrian Prince, Maximillian ruled Mexico for a time in the 1800s?

Read on to find out…

For hundreds of years, relatives and friends of Hernán Cortés ruled the area around Oaxaca City. Cortés was the successful explorer/conquerer (remember him from grade school history?) who worked for the Spanish Empire. He conquered the Aztecs because the very powerful Aztec King believed that the Europeans were gods. Cortés defeated their army though he was outnumbered by thousands. The Aztecs had been ruling over central Mexico and their influence was evident over the declining Zapotec empire. So, when Cortés started settling areas of Mexico with Spanish implants, the area of Oaxaca was included in that territory. In fact, Cortés loved the state of Oaxaca and wanted it for himself.

Early on, he staked out the Valley of Oaxaca as his personal domain. Time and again during the 1520s he ordered the settlers evacuated from the City (an area called by the indigenous folks, Huaxyacac) , only to find a year of two later that they had returned. During Cortés’s absence on an expedition to Honduras, the settlers petitioned for and received a charter from King Carlos V for their town, which they christened Antequera after the old Roman city in Spain. Determined not to be out maneuvered, Cortés personally went to Spain to plead his case and returned triumphant with the royal title of Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca. This included a grant of hundreds of thousands of acres and rights to the labor of thousands of indigenous subjects in a grand checkerboard domain stretching from the Valley of Mexico to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Cortés’s lands surrounded the settlers’ entire town of Antequera. In desperation, the townspeople petitioned the queen of Spain for land on which to grow vegetables: They were granted a one-league square in 1532, now the core of the modern city of Oaxaca. For hundreds of years, Cortés’s descendants reigned; the townspeople prospered, the church grew fat, and the natives toiled—in corn, cattle, cane, and cochineal (that famous beetle that makes a beautiful red dye…see previous post).

In contrast to its neighbors in the state of Guerrero, conservative Oaxaca was a grudging player in the 1810-1821 War of Independence. But as the subsequent republican tide swept the country, local fervor produced a new state constitution, including a state legislature and governmental departments, such as public instruction and the Institute of Arts and Sciences.

By the 1850s, times had changed. Oaxacans were leading a new national struggle. Benito Juárez (pictured above), a pure Zapotec native Mexican, was rallying liberal forces in the Civil War of the Reforms against the oligarchy that had replaced the colonial rule. Born in Guelatao, a mountain village north of the Valley of Oaxaca, Juárez at age 12 was an orphan sheepherder (reminds me of St. Patrick at this stage in his life). A Catholic priest, struck by the boy’s intelligence, brought him to the city as a servant and taught him Spanish in preparation for the priesthood.

Instead, Benito became a lawyer. He hung out his shingle in Oaxaca, as a defender of the poor. He then became state legislator, governor, chief justice, and finally the president of Mexico. In his honor, the city’s official name was again changed—to Oaxaca de Juárez—in 1872.

In 1861, after winning the 3-year civil war, Juárez’s Reformista forces had their victory snatched away. France, taking advantage of the preoccupation of the US with its own civil war, invaded Mexico and installed an Austrian Hapsburg prince as Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.
It took Juárez 5 years to prevail against old Max and his conservative Mexican backers.

Although Maximilian and Juárez paradoxically shared many of the same liberal ideas, Juárez had Maximilian executed after his defeat and capture in 1867…(that’s the way they took care of those royal twits back in the old days) Juárez bathed Mexico in enlightenment as he promulgated his Laws of the Reform (which remain essentially in force). Although the country rewarded him with reelection, he died of exhaustion in 1871.

Credit for most of this…goes to the Moon Handbook on Oaxaca, author Bruce Whipperman.

Land Ownership Makes All the Difference

The Valley of Oaxaca spreads out in three directions, made up of sub-valleys—the Valley of Tlacolula, the Valley of Ocotlán, and the Valley of Etla—each extend, respectively, about 30 miles east, south, and northeast of Oaxaca City. Most of the inhabitants in the Valley are indigenous Zapotec-speaking people. We have learned in some of our reading about land reform and ownership. For the Zapotecs, the opportunity to own and control their own land has made all the difference for their prosperity. I’ll try to explain.

Brief history: During the mid-1800s, Mexico’s Laws of the Reform forced the sale of nearly all church lands throughout the country. In most parts of Mexico, rich Mexicans and foreigners bought up much of these holdings, but in Oaxaca, isolated in Mexico’s far southern region, there were few rich buyers, so the land was bought at very low prices by the locals, most of them Zapotec farmers.

Moreover, after the revolution of 1910-1917, progressive federal land-reform law and policies awarded many millions of acres of land to campesino (farming) communities, notably to Oaxaca Valley towns.

The Signs of Health, Wealth and Control Within the Community: The signs of this wealth could be clearly seen in the villages we visited yesterday, Santa María deTule and Teotítlan de Valle.

Santa María deTule is a charming village at the edge of Oaxaca City built around a 2000-year-old Cyprus tree. We spent 45 minutes yesterday morning walking around this giant, mouths agape. It is an amazing tree and so grand, I could not get photo at any distance. The tree would not fit into my camera frame. The giant stands in a courtyard where gardens and pathways crisscross and the local and colorful catholic cathedral stands in its shadow. The dynamic of the huge tree and the local cathedral caused me to think about the cities in Europe and elsewhere that built the church in the center of town to be taller than all the other buildings as a symbol of God’s sovereignty and lordship. I suspect that when the cathedral was built in the 1700s, it was in fact, taller than the tree. That is no longer true. God made the tree and keeps growing it. Did God, in fact make the church, and does the church still grow? Interesting parable.

Teotítlan de Valle means “Place of the Gods” in Nahuatl; before that, it was know, appropriately, as Xa Quire (shah KEE ray) or “Foot of the Mountain” by the Zapotecs who settled it, archaeologists estimate, at least 2,000 years ago. From the age of artifacts uncovered beneath both the present town and at nearby sites, experts estimate that approximately 1,000 people were living in Teotilán by A. D. 400.

Present day Teotitlán people are relatively well off, not only from sales of their renowned tapetes (woven rugs, etc.), but from their rich communal landholdings. Besides a sizable swath of valley bottom farmland and pasture, which every Teotitlán family is entitled to use, the community owns a dam and reservoir and a small kingdom of approximately 100,000 acres of sylvan mountain forest and meadow, spreading for about 20 miles along the Valley of Oaxaca’s lush northeastern foothills (I copied this last part from the travel guide…sorry. Does anyone know what a “sylvan forest” is?)

We visited the town, saw the incredible tapetes and hiked around the dam and reservoir. I took so many photos, I cannot possibly include them all, but for all you knitters out there, you might be intrigued to find out that the wool is dyed with all natural dyes (example, their blue comes from the indigo plant which grows in the valley, yellow from the marigold flower, and the red, their most famous color, comes from a beetle that is indigenous to the area.) This red is the most vibrant red in nature that has been found. My mother dyed wool with natural dyes when I was young. I remember specifically how difficult it was to find a good and vibrant shade of red. The rugs are gorgeous. We are having one made for us and will pick it up in a month. The product is not cheap, but the quality is amazing. Anyone who visits Oaxaca should make a point of visiting these two wonderful pueblos…the travel guide says as much. We agree!