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Archive for June, 2006

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4th Megamarch Of Teacher Strike

Thursday, June 29th, 2006

meramera0.jpg
Photo From “Oaxaca Noticias”

The local “Oaxaca Noticias” newspaper estimated 500,000 marchers at the 4th Oaxaca Megamarch…a historic event that included supporters from several neighboring states.

Starting with a motorcycle cavalcade and many automobiles, the fourth mega-march to oust the Governor stretched out along five miles of the nine-mile route from the airport road to Benito Juarez Soccer Stadium. When the first marchers arrived at the stadium many were still at the airport road.

By 11pm my friend and I who had been watching from the Soccer Stadium were exhausted and went home. By that time the street was still full of marchers coming from the airport.

Posted in Mexico, Oaxaca, World Watching And Politics | 1 Comment »

One Oaxacan Migrant Family

Monday, June 26th, 2006

Yesterday I went to Tule…a small town of about 15,000 near Oaxaca City. What a charming place. Most of the men are gone up north, my driver said (as a huge brand new black diesel pickup backed up to a vendor’s booth) and come back before Christmas. Yes, I know, I said.

I read that as much as 70% of Oaxaca’s budget is augmented by money from the migrants. The problem is that this takes the pressure off the local political system to make substantive changes in the economy.

I am finding out that some migrants up north are willing to live in crummy conditions so they can save every penny and then come back and build a house and buy a car. Everyone’s dream. On their web site June 17 MSNBC featured an article entitled “Migrant’s Money Goes A Long Way In Mexico. The article goes on…”Last year, Mexican migrants sent home a record $20 billion, making them Mexico’s biggest foreign earner after oil, according Mexico’s Central Bank. In the first four months of this year, the amount was $7 billion, a 25 percent increase over the same period last year. Half of it flows into poor villages like Boye, a corn-growing community of 900 people founded by Otomi Indians long before Europeans came to the Americas. Clementina Arellano grew up with her six brothers in a shack in this dusty town. She now has a home with Roman-style pillars at the doorway and a garden full of flowers and singing birds. How did she transform her fortunes so dramatically? By waiting tables and sweating in a furniture factory for about 10 years in Hickory, N.C., and sending home up to $500 a month.”

I am still emailing a girl I mentored for several years while working with a violence prevention/alternative education program for Latino school drop-outs. Her Mixtec family lives/lived high in the Oaxacan mountains. The girl, I’ll call her Maria, isn’t in the US legally and can’t come back, but she told me in an email that I could go with her family to her village next time they came down. She said they had a huge house that was “big enough for the whole village to fit into” and there would be plenty room for me. I know because I saw a picture of it when I was in her home. In the summers, when other migrant children were attending the Summer Migrant School Program, Maria and her siblings would continue working in the fields to help their parents earn money.

Maria had never been anywhere in town except school and wasn’t socialized vis a vis US culture. She and her cousin were angry…had joined a gang and were getting into fights in school. I used to take them places…would always have a thermos of coffee in the car with me. Now Maria says whenever she smells coffee she thinks of our trips…cute. Most of the Mixtec families from Oaxaca were wonderful and I fell in love with the people.

Maria had two incisors that were growing straight out of her gums. A local dentist was willing to extract them for free (write it off) and give her braces. At her last appointment she sold her jacket to buy him some flowers. I told the receptionist later to make damn sure he knew where the flowers came from.

The parents would leave the children, some just toddlers, on their own for two months every year and return to Oaxaca to work on “their land” so they wouldn’t lose their right to it…since the land is communal and if it isn’t worked a certain amount of time each year, they would lose access to it and would also be ostracized from the community, Maria said.

Maria was in the program for nearly 8 years…from the time she was in the 7th grade until she was a junior in high school and finally went to a live-in alternative high school program. She is now living with a significant other…has a two year old and is in a nursing program at Portland Community College and working. Her primary language is Mixtec. She has done this on her own. She was very artistic and had dreams of being a clothing designer…or maybe just wearing the clothes that designers design. She would draw these jaw-dropping pictures of girls in gorgeous elegant dresses…

I understand why the teachers are striking! Basta!

Posted in Culture, Mexico, Oaxaca, Oregon, Touching Experiences | 1 Comment »

Market In Tlacolula

Monday, June 19th, 2006
oaxacacentralmap.jpg Yesterday my friend Sharon and I hopped a diesel-spewing bus for the hour ride to Tlacolula, southeast of the city, where vendors from multiple little villages around the Oaxaca Valley come on Sundays to ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Markets, Mexico, Oaxaca, Transportation | 1 Comment »

June 14 2006 Police Attack on Teachers

Sunday, June 18th, 2006
This is an eye witness narrative written by my friend Patricia Gutierrez from Queretaro who, with her luck and mine, visited me the night of the attack on the teachers in the Zocalo in Oaxaca City on June 14, my ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Mexico, Oaxaca, Videos, World Watching And Politics | No Comments »

University Contacts In Beijing?

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006
My son Josh Goetz, 33, who has been a chef in Manhattan New York for the last five years has accepted a position opening a new restaurant in the Hilton Hotel in Beijing China. He starts the third week ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Beijing, China | Comments Off on University Contacts In Beijing?

Mexican Cumbia Dancing

Sunday, June 11th, 2006
I had forgotten how much fun it is to dance to Mexican music! I think I am a Mexican trapped in a gringo body! Last Friday, Gerardo and his mom, Socorroo, invited me, a few of her friends, Michael, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Culture, Dancing, Mexico, Music, Oaxaca | No Comments »

A Field Guide To Getting Lost

Monday, June 5th, 2006
My son, Josh, the little weasel, asked me what it felt like to be living alone in Oaxaca. It got me to thinking. Then I picked up a book at Sharon's apartment entitled "A field Guide To Getting Lost," ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Mexico, Oaxaca, Reading, Reflections, Viet Nam | Comments Off on A Field Guide To Getting Lost

El Pochote Market & Cinema

Sunday, June 4th, 2006
North and east from my apartment on Fiallo St., through the Zocolo, under tents and guy-wires, I walked to meet my new friend, Sharon, at an organic market called El Pochote, just north and east of Templo Santo Domingo. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Markets, Mexico, Oaxaca | Comments Off on El Pochote Market & Cinema

Oaxaca City

Friday, June 2nd, 2006
mexico_oaxaca.gif jNdWfJItyaUf9pFqJEvFh0-2006170145612034.gif PICT0192.JPG.jpg After three weeks in Salem sorting through 40 years of junk...one pile for St. Vincent de Paul, one pile for the dump, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Hotels,Hostels & Guesthouses, Mexico, Oaxaca, Oregon, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, USA | No Comments »

Where Is Oaxaca?

Thursday, June 1st, 2006

Posted in Mexico, Oaxaca | No Comments »