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Just For Fun

Friday, June 15th, 2007

Meri and Mary Rain, volunteers at the Casa de los Amigos where Barbara and I stayed in Mexico City came to visit me this week. They were great fun and kept me company on my birthday as we sat in the zocalo to watch the march and commemoration activities of the June 14, 2006 police attack. Mary Rain, incidentally, is from Oregon and will begin a graduate program in urban planning & community development at Portland State in August. Meri will take a consulting position in San Francisco with the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit providing leading-edge management strategies, tools and talent to help other nonprofits and foundations achieve greater social impact.

After siesta yesterday, we spent the evening with Mica and Bardo and a Zapotec weaver from Xachilla and one of his 10 young sons. Over mescal, beer, tacos and ranchero songs, and many laughs, Meri and Mary Rain inspired them with their fluent Spanish to expound on Uses & Custumbres, village life and Mexican politics. Bardo, baracho by this time, kept getting Meri and Mary Rain (who calls herself Lluvia…Spanish for rain) mixed up so Meri solved the problem this way:

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Anyway, Meri turned me on to this web site:

Guy named Matt dances a goofy dance all over the world.

From “About Matt” on his website:
[read on]

San Andreas Huayapam Fiesta

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006

Last week, with friends, I attended the annual San Andreas Huayapam Fiesta about 25 minutes northeast of Oaxaca City. Very well organized with a lot of people for such a small pueblo. There was a local band that played music during the fireworks that scared the heck out of me and kept me well back from the action. Men ran up and down with with fireworks shooting out of structures built like bulls and castles. Once in awhile small boys would chase after a wheel that would spin off into the crowd.

Then a huge structure was lit with continuous fireworks shooting up and down and up into the night sky. Young men walked around giving out free copas of mescal and cigarettes. Food stands and carnival rides for the kids surrounded the band stands and dance area. I understand that each family was assessed $30 for the fiesta…a very large amount for most people. By the end of the night no one had ended up in jail as is often the case. When the fireworks were finished a great band played for the dance that began at 1am. The band played until 5am with no break.

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]

Sabaidee Pi Mai Lao!

Thursday, April 13th, 2006
Lao New Year (and in Thailand) is a time to encourage young people to absorb the spirit of cleaning their temples, houses, stupas of their ancestors and apparently the bodies of anyone, especially the foreigners they come across. The purpose ... [Continue reading this entry]

Lao “Disco”

Monday, April 3rd, 2006
ySKKSpbtXBjgyhP6z8LuC0-2006217035001655.gif Last night a lively 50 year old woman that teaches kindergarten in Alberta Canada, a young woman from California who is a consultant to a California educational testing company, an even younger woman from ... [Continue reading this entry]

Free-Wheeling Moscow

Saturday, September 18th, 2004
7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif Video 2004-09 Like in the big Central European cities we visited, there are cranes everywhere... old soviet buildings built during the Stalin era are scheduled to be razed and new one modern ones put up. ... [Continue reading this entry]