BootsnAll Travel Network



Remembering Oaxaca

After living for a year in Oaxaca in 2006-7, I have returned here for a couple months before going on to Central and South America.  Now I…

Remember the Alcala, the ancient cobblestone pedestrian street: the way your feet tip on the edges of the stones…almost unbalancing you as you walk.

Remember eating chile relleno tortas while listening to the marimba band at Cafe Jardin in the Zocalo late at night: sometimes an older couple dancing alone…the two of them…giving in to the rhythm.

Remember church bells ringing at 6:30 in the morning: a town spiritual alarm.

Remember Noche de Luz (Night of Light):  fireworks, calendas, children playing, the National Band; crowds of young people wait to get into ear deafening clubs  till 4am and you don’t sleep.

Remember warm love of friends: Max the aging-before-his-time anarchist over mescal and his housemates Sandy…and her 80 year old husband Budd…the BBC filmmaker who jumped onto the Yeltsin tank and took the picture that went around the world…and my friend Sharon who I met on the plane when we first arrived in Oaxaca. Bardo and Mica and daughter Angelita recovering from foot surgery and her brother Pavel named after some revolutionary Russian.

Remember five peso ice cream: doble please…

Remember familiar Trique vendors in long red dresses with horizontal stipes: Jorge in the Zocalo until 10:30pm when he takes the hour long bus back to his home and family in Mitla.

Remember the familiar beggars: the tiny girl on Alcala plays an accomplished tiny accordian. But avoid the old women with two apartment houses.

Remember colorful angry graffiti on ancient stone walls: the only voice of a repressed people.

Remember the taste of an Amarillo tamale made by an old woman in the market washed down with grey foamy tajate: the Zapotec drink of the gods.

Remember drinking beer with Gerardo: sexy Zapotec hustler here after 10 years on the streets of LA and Las Vegas.

Remember sweet smiles from strangers on the street: hola amiga!   Hasta Luego!

Remember hot Mexican chocolate and a free pan dulce on the street at 7am: the little man running from one side of the cart to the other in a hurry to serve his morning customers.

Remember eating in comida corridas: an omelette swimming in red sauce…sweet cafe olla made sheepherder style.

Remember made-up over-dressed Chilangos from Mexico city: slumming it on Sundays in Oaxaca…holding themselves with stuffy privilege…they gawk at the indigenous dark ones and don’t buy much.

Remember friendly courtyard apartment owners:  checking up on me…in and out. The younger sister speaking English after 4 years as a nanny in LA while leaving her two children here with her ex husband…saving her money and building a new house in which she rents out the extra bedrooms.

Remember to visit Adelina (the maid in the apartment where I lived in 2006 who works 12 hours a day for practically nothing) and living in a one-room tin-roofed shack which barely holds a double bed for her and her bright daughter Fernanda: surprised to see  the six year old at the English Lending Library taking part in story time…seemed so much more grown up now…shiny hair curled and turned under…paying a pittance for her schooling…the little girl I never had.

Remember the long drive to Oaxaca from the Columbia Friendship Crossing near Laredo Texas with my son Greg’s best friend who stayed with me for a month: lingering for hours with friends in the cafes in the Zocalo.

Remember the chapulines (dried grasshoppers): if you eat them here the legend says you will return.

Remember the invitation from a Mexican friend to go to Hautla with him and eat magic mushrooms: you were chicken and never did.

Remember thoughts of moving here…



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2 responses to “Remembering Oaxaca”

  1. Eunice (Zoe) says:

    Oh my gosh! How could I forget chapulines!!

  2. MF says:

    What about CHAPULINES?!?!?!

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