First Visitor From the North...Bruce Arrives

The season of visitors begins. Bruce Hansen, our colleague and friend from Berkeley arrived this afternoon. Abby and Gabe made the welcome sign. Hi...Stasia, Kayla! We wish you were here, but hope our postings will help you feel like you're participating somewhat in your dad's time in Oaxaca.

And Have You Gotten Sick on the Water or Food?

A friend recently asked me this...

It is an interesting question and I’m not sure every reader wants to know all the details, so skip over if you're grossed out by this kind of thing…but we've done a bit of research recently...and I won't say anything more about what we saw, where we saw it and why it prompted this research.

Suffice it to say that 100s of millions of people in the world live with and see few or no symptoms of round worm (just one example of what Oaxacans probably host in their digestive tracts). We assume, since we’ve lived sort of like the locals that we do have a variety of freakish microscopic and/or not so microscopic creatures living in us. We’ve eaten meat cooked in a street taqueria (except Abby who is a vegetarian)…we take showers without keeping our mouths taped shut. Moreover, we’ve had various digestive issues move through us (so to speak). Gabe threw up once. The rest of us, just the runs here and there…but overall we’ve been healthy and happy and maybe our intestines are perfect, clear of all alien life forms...but maybe not.

The adults in the family are thinner and the kids could use to be fattened up as well. We'll frequent the Cheese Board when we return to Berkeley and buy the bread we've been pining for all these months...The Bread Garden's sour dough loaf.

But back to worms. Our theory on the matter is this: we will go in for physicals when we return home and do the big kill there. Why bomb the creatures now when they’ll probably move back into the neighborhood, but with more friends and possibly more sinister ones at that?

I call this approach…Don't worry, be happy you're not having to count Weight Watcher points!

Art

Misael Mendez is a contemporary artist in Oaxaca. I love his work and if I had a couple of thousand dollars at my disposal, I'd come home with two of his paintings, at least.

Misael is also the novio of Abby's art teacher, Rosalba Gonzalez. They live and work in the same space. Today, when Abigail was at her art class, Misael passed through the room and saw a monotype that she had created. It's quite abstract, but right away he nailed the image...exactly what Abby had intended.

He said(in Spanish, of course), "That is a dog on a boat in the ocean and the dog is happy. I like that very much."

Is that what you see? If I hadn't told you what it is, would you guess and dog on a boat in the ocean...Go Dog Go!

So what is it with these artist types? What makes them think the way they do? I am reminded of the book, the Little Prince. I remember how the boy draws a picture of a snake after is has swallowed an elephant whole, but most everyone who looks at the drawing cannot see the true image. And actually, it does sort of look like a hat.

One Month and Counting

It is strange to write this, but we have a month left in Oaxaca. On the 9th of January, very early in the morning, we walk on a plane and will eventually step out of airport-land in Denver, onto fresh, cold dirt, or snow, or pavement. Well...you catch my drift.

Today, I post a photo that caught my eye early on. Rod iron fences abound in Oaxaca and many are coiled and bent into artistic forms...if not kitschy designs. This one surrounds a house that doubles as a preschool. If I hadn't seen the movie, Donnie Darko, I'd think it was kind of cute, but because there is a creepy man in a bunny suit in that film, I only think of him when I walk by, which I usually do two or three times per week. Maybe it is because the bunny wears a frown.

Note to grandparents...though I love the film Donnie Darko, for it's weird time-bending redemption, I don't recommend that you see it.

More Swim Photos

I thought I'd indulge the grandparents and include a few more Huatulco photos. Here is 3/4 of the family about to ride on what our kids called the "banana boat". This tube gets pulled around the bay for 5 minutes or so, then the driver of the boat races back toward shore and turns, leaving the occupants of the banana boat at the mercy of certain laws of physics...that is...Abby, Gabe and Jason get tipped into the bay at the end of the ride.

Two other photos...Abby at the start of her 100 meter backstroke and what you see above is Gabe watching her photo finish. She is in the center lane. Her arm is about to go over and touch the wall...barely clinching that gold medal. She won by a hairsbreadth...her only close race.

Huatulco

This past weekend, we traveled to Huatulco with Abby's swim team. Day 1, a 1K race on the beach, day 2, a swim meet at an aquatic center.

What an interesting experience! Absolutely, Huatulco is an amazing coastal area. Of the nine Bahia’s (or bays) in Huatulco, we visited two. It was a short trip (much of which was spent on a “first class” bus…I’ll write more about that below). The team, the coach, all the people with whom we traveled were wonderful. There were plenty of jovenes (teens) travelling without families, but a few like us, travelling as families. We were 40 people.

The first Bahia we saw was Santa Cruz, a marina area, plus beach. Abby and many others swam the 1 kilometer race here. The distance wasn’t awful, but standing from shore, it was very far out into the Bay, to the point that you could hardly see the swimmers at the halfway mark. Basically, they swam around an orange buoy and back to shore. Abby swam like a champ, despite the fact that her goggles broke right at the start and she had to borrow someone else’s, a lame start that put her in the back of the pack where everyone was kicking water into her face. Also, she is terrified of heights and deep water (she says they’re similar fears). She almost quit the race because of it, but didn’t and finished with an okay time. I was happy she overcame the fear, a bigger deal in my mind than placing in the top three. (Abby finished sixth...photos show after, before and during...I'm still terrible at arranging photos on this blog program...sorry!)

Later that day, we went to Bahia Maguay, a popular snorkeling destination. Snorkeling was good. Jason and I have seen better reefs in Cozumel and Akumal, but kids don’t remember those so well, so it was fun to witness them seeing that underwater world for the first time, making their own discoveries and feeling confident in the water.

The next day Abby won 4 of her 4 races, though I will say the competition wasn’t too stiff and Abby could have performed better had she felt other swimmers breathing down her back. Still, fun and such a unique experience. Similar and yet very different than how a meet would run in the states. The coaches here are fighting a lot of cultural barriers to get folks to sign their kids (especially daughters) up for a swim team and competing on a world stage becomes an almost staggering proposition.

I read an article about the young woman who trains at the pool where Abby swims…a triathlete named Ruth. She just won won her first world competition (she’s seventeen and she placed first in the junior world women’s triathalon…later competed with elite triathletes of all ages and came in 19th.) Her coach wrote a piece that I found online, on a website called Goswim, interesting rambling writing style…but very compelling story in terms of how everything from Oaxacan diets (kids here eat a lot of packaged junk food and candy) to a prejudice against walking or riding a bike (reveals poverty…so why ride to school or jog, when you have a car…no middle-class person in their right mind would choose that mode of transportation)…Her coach feels that training is more integrated in US, Canada, Europe…places where there is a culture of fitness.

I do know that about ½ of the best high school distance runners in Southern California were Mexicans(back in the 80s when I was running competitively)…they’re natural athletes, many of them, with amazing endurance. Eugenio Cruz was on our team, our fastest senior when I was a sophomore running cross country. He would always joke with us after winning a race, saying, “That was nothing. You should have clocked my time when I was crossing the border…” and then he’d laugh, but there was a glimmer of truth in his eyes. I’ll always remember that line.

As for the bus ride. I don’t know what to say, except that I’ll wake up in a cold sweat for the next four months, imagining I’m on that long and winding road utterly dependent on a bus driver who likes to stop at a fruit stand and buy fruit for his family back home…or stop for coffee…or stop to make a cell phone call…thus, turning an already grueling 7 hour trip into a 10 hour trip. The kids were awesome…did not complain at all. I was miserable…

I emailed these details in a letter to my parents yesterday and my mom wrote back, saying..."In 10 hours, I'm in Copenhagen..." She does that trip a lot, on the way to Sweden to visit my grandmother. Somehow, that comment put so many things in perspective. High-powered American lives compared to the simple lives of most Oaxaquenos. An alternate universe. A place where we have received rest for our souls.

The Christmas House From Hades

There is a lot of noise pollution in Oaxaca. Salespeople frequent our street selling various foods, wares and services. All of them have their particular call. We’ve gotten used to most. Ignacio our water guy brings us water bottles on his tricycle or triciculo(a large three-wheeled bike with a platform for carrying water in his case). He calls agua when he nears the house. Other water guys yell agua too, but their calls are not precisely the same in tone and pitch as Ignacio's. After a couple of months, I can distinguish his call from the other salesmen.


I’ve already written about the trash guys and their cow bell. We hear the bell first, around 5:45 in the morning, as it rounds the corner behind our house. This warns one of us that it’s time to get up and get ready for the truck. Ten minutes later, the bell tolls in the front of the house and we throw our bags of trash in with our other neighbors. Jason gets up Mon, Wed and Fri…I wake to the bell on Sun, Tue and Thu…we sleep in on Saturdays. That’s the cow bell. Our alarm clock.


The company that replaces gas canisters plays a recorded jingle…They announce themselves over a loud mic as the truck passes, Gas de Oaxaca, kilos exactos…Interesting how they advertise. The company wants you to know right off hand that they will not rip you off! They give you a tank with the exact number of kilos promised. We’ve gotten a few good laughs out of the Gas de Oaxaca diddy…you can imagine how we have used the material for jokes. These trucks are all over the place and mostly we’ve learned to tune them out, though recently, when Jason hiked to the top of one of Oaxaca’s surrounding hills, he looked over the city, nature surrounding him and he realized…he could still hear the Gas de Oaxaca truck, echoing up from the valley.


Not as frequent, but also loud and distinct is the tamales lady, the donut guy (he comes around 11 PM every night, his call is seductive…donuts, he says, you need donuts) and neighborhood religious processions, usually Catholic. Last week, our neighbor across the street hosted a statue of Mary at her house. This is a particularly popular relic…Mary wearing a sort of golden Christmas-tree like dress. The host family set up chairs and microphones and speakers. For about four hours, they blasted into the neighborhood religious music (from CDs) and the live mass associated with this representation of Mary that was being displayed in my neighbor’s yard. I think it was an attempt at evangelization. I may be going out on a limb with this statement, but I don’t think it would go over well in a typical US neighborhood.


So, why so much noise? Houses in Oaxaca are concrete construction and stucco. The streets are concrete. In our neighborhood, the houses are built right to the street’s edge. There are no front yards. Sounds reverberate, they echo, they travel, whether intentional or accidental, right through the window of la casa (which is always open in this climate) and into the occupant’s ears. Using proclamation to sell goods is smart, and aside from the donut guy and the trash bell, all this noise pollution takes place during the day.


That is, until our backyard neighbor (he lives on the same street behind our house where Ana Marie’s taqueria resides) decided to add music to his Christmas light display. About three nights ago, the lights went up on a variety of houses, some very elaborate. One particular household set up speakers in their yard and began blasting Christmas music at about 9 PM. It played all night. I thought that was a fluke, that someone had forgotten to turn off the music (and lights…they also blink all night…see photo), but I believe now that this celebrative act will take place from now until Navidad. I’m not sure how I will maintain my sanity.


This music is possibly the worst Christmas compilation I’ve ever heard. No lullaby-like Silent Night…the stuff is plinky and punchy, with a strong polka beat, electric keyboard fare. Each song lasts about 45 seconds and leads right into the next. It takes the entire program about ½ hour to cycle through. Do the math! I have done the calculation, late at night while staring up at the ceiling. I potentially listen to the same songs about 12-14 times every night….more math, if the music plays every night until the 24th, this will equal 400 torturous rounds.


While awake, in addition to doing math problems, I have plotted crazy things, like how to avenge my loss of sleep. I don’t know about you, but I get a little crazy in situations like this, so don’t be alarmed by these terrible midnight fantasies. One idea I had…disperse sugar around the house to attract colonies of ants into their yard. Or how about donning a black cape, sneaking over to cut the wires of the evil speakers. Other cheery options, hiding rotten eggs in the yard, stabbing a threatening note to the door with a bowie knife…I suppose I could walk over and ask them to please turn their music off by midnight, but what if the person at the door tilts his head, laughs and says, “You silly gringa, this is our country. We don’t live by your rules. We do what we want”? which is true. One of the charms of this place…less rigidity, fewer rules…Ah the dilemma.


In the end, this issue may break me. I have tried to adjust to all things Mexican, finding tranquility in learning and accepting differences. Last night, after lying awake in my room for about 2 hours, I slept the final hour of the morning in the front of the house on our sofa, until the cow bell roused me from my groggy state.


I have gotten used to most of the night noises around our house, cars and motorcycles without mufflers racing down the street, cracking concussions from fireworks, usually happening around holidays, and all manner of dog activities that reach our ears in the wee hours (except for one yappy dog who seems to be left outside only once a month…I can never sleep on those nights). I confess, I’m a bit of an insomniac (aren’t all writers?) in some seasons more than others and maybe, this will be one of those seasons.