Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year

Mike and a friend from school watching Luis weave.
Some of the colors made from cochinilla, limes and anil...
Angela showing us how to use the spinning wheel.
Angela at home.
The view from Angela's house.
I have been having really awful internet problems so haven't posted for a few days. Mikey showed up the day after Christmas as a surprise to me. We went to Teotitlan on Saturday to visit an artesanal house, the weaver there had invited me to the village to show me how to dye wool naturally.She said I could invite some friends so we all went together. As a result, to make a long story short, after my classes end on Friday Mike and I are going to Teotitlan again to stay at the same house for about 3 days so I can really learn the process. I am amazed at the welcoming friendliness of all the people I have met here. Such kindness and open-heartedness. A few pix showing Teotitlan etc, with more to follow after I once again get into an area with electricity. We will go to Puerto Angel from Teotitlan. I am pretty sure there will be internet there but at this point am not sure if I will get back online before a week or so from now. Happy New Year to all.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

la noche de los rabanos

A black Cristo, in a little shrine in el Pochote. Pretty cool.
One of the displays.
First Prize...
A very unusual creation, I think referring to some incident in local history.
More people than I have ever seen at one time in one place...


I am trying to upload some images from el Noche de los Rabanos (Dec 23), a very grand fiesta here but seem to be having some internet difficulties. Not unusual. Will try again.

I have never in my life been around so many people in one location. Definitely more in one spot than in tuscarora on its fattest days. Eva, Preeti y yo went to el zocalo to see what the deal was, and discovered a crowd like that at Central Park on New Year's Eve. Packed.

So the big deal was a festival of campesinos, who grow giant radishes especially for this night. They carve the radishes into incredible scenes, whole villages, people, whatever they can think of. The first prie was awarded , incredibly, right in front of my nose, to a representation of an artesanal village complete with weavers and potters with their wares. All radishes. I understand that there is a grand monetary prize that is highly coveted, but don't know if there is an admission fee. The radish creations are all displayed on tables set up during the day (while the radish villages are being created, on location). I went back the day after, yesterday, and nothing is left. Not a twig. There is no way anyone would be able to tell that 12 hours earlier you couldn't move for the people, that there were food vendors everywhere, firecrackers, a giant tower of spinning fireworks and a huge display of fireworks being shot in the air, balloons everywhere, music... nothing. Amazing. The WORK the people of this country go to to have a little fun blows my mind.

And then last night, Dec 24, was the Big Family Dinner. We all went to the house of my duena's son-in-law's mother, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. It was a normal huge family noisy dinner complete with conversation about politics, the best restaurants and whose girl children are the pickiest dressers. Pretty fun. And the food went on forever. I highly recommend tasting Oaxacanian food, the flavors are as complex as Indian and Thai flavors. There were 3 or 4 meat dishes, 2 fish dishes, a pretty incredible rice dish and an amazing variety of desserts. There is a very large percentage of diabetics in this country...

Still not able to upload pix so will try again later.

Monday, December 22, 2008

en el zocalo

El Zocalo en la tarde.
pull-toys at the zocalo.
El Pochote, a donde camino cada fin de semana por comidas naturales.
mi nueva amiga gracie.
closeup of a huipil; Este blusa es totalmente de brodero, en los dos lados, a mano.

desfiles y mercados

la nacimiento otra vez
una nacimiento en un hotel plaza
an early start with style
beautiful hair thingys and beautiful clothing
waiting to start a desfile...

It is so colorful here. There is almost too much for the eye to appreciate properly. The women were gathering for a small parade, no idea in honor of what but in indigenous clothing. The different styles of embroidery on the blusas and faldas are indicative of different pueblos.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Traditional pinata, very giant.
Flor, mi maestra.
making pinatas...
making pinatas
another view of part of the nacimiento at the zocalo.

The nacimiento at the zocalo is huge, with a walkway and streams and fountains, a 'must-see' for every child in the city. it is lovely, and fun to watch the kids' reactions to all the things tucked into the niches.

babelfish

more graffiti...
Eva and Preeti, my friends from Finland and India.
a shop window at night, selling religious figures.
Un desfile a la Iglesia de santa dolorosa.
Un nacimiento en el zocalo.
here's a translation tool not to use : babelfish I am not sure how it attached to an email to a friend but she sent me a translation. I certainly never said this in any language. I KNOW my Spanish isn't this bad!!

"not that babelfish work by Spanish, not it use. not to as it were with my mail. that rare, no? and I have much happy that I am and not aya in the cold here. it is more or less 70 degrees here now, and vesti only my blouse and trousers and huaraches. it is good here. I want to live fodder here. I do not have now Japanese but when growing, if so that vivi aya by a time. now only arigato gozaimasu and others faceles phrases. not but. The form, you received? he is ok? I speak soon with you."

Other than that, things are going right along. we are almost finished with our pinatas in class for tomorrow night's posada, I plan on taking pix. there are parades everywhere, papeles cortes everywhere and beautiful lights. My camera is acting up, I spend most of my time recharging it. More later...

Sunday, December 14, 2008

SORRY!

I just looked at my posts and discovered that the pix came thru but none of the descriptions.Uh-oh!! But if you look at the pix below (about 20!), from bottom to top the pix are of different things going on around in the park across the street from my house for the feast of the Virgen of Guadalupe...parades, food, carnival, mercado, beautiful children in indigenous clothing, sticky faces, amazing things. And also pix of a couple of artesanal villages I went to this weekend, to a pottery that gave a really interesting demo of traditional black pottery making. The wheel was a shallow bowl turned upside downwith a smaller shallow bowl sitting on top of it. amazing, and all the turning of the wheel was done by the hand pressure on the clay. That guy could really get it going. Really interesting. The colored hand pix are from a traditional alebrijo artesanal village, with pigments made form the bark of the tree used to carve the animal, with lime juice added to make the first color and other things such as talc, honey, ash and poinsetta leaves to make the other colors shown.It was fascinating. I had no idea.
Today I went to the museo Santo domingo, a 500 year old church, and of course was still charging my camera so left it at home but will go back to take pix because in the 3 hours I allowed myself I only covered about a third of what there is to look at. !Mas despues! besos y abrazos... y feliz navidad.