Oaxaca City
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
After three weeks in Salem sorting through 40 years of junk…one pile for St. Vincent de Paul, one pile for the dump, one pile to sell at the Assistance League and the rest in boxes to be stored in the basement until the house is rented out again…I took off for Oaxaca Mexico leaving Bob with the house.
Inhabited over a period of 1,500 years by a succession of peoples – Olmecs, Zapotecs and Mixtecs – the terraces, dams, canals, pyramids and artificial mounds of Monte Albán were literally carved out of the mountain and are the symbols of a sacred topography. The nearby city of Oaxaca, which is built on a grid pattern, is a good example of Spanish colonial town planning. The solidity and volume of the city’s buildings show that they were adapted to the earthquake-prone region in which these architectural gems were constructed. Oaxaca City is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Monsoon season here for the next couple months…hot and humid but not as bad as Thailand…rains buckets several times a day then sun comes out.
Houston airport is huge and I nearly missed my plane connection. No problem getting off the plane here…small plane from Houston configured with two rows on one side and one row on the other). 32 pesos or about $3.00 into the city from the airport on the shuttle.
Oaxaca City, pronounced “wahaca,” is generally referred to as Oaxaca and that is the way addresses read…Oaxaca, Oaxaca Mexico. The Zocolo (central plaza) and the streets for blocks around it are closed from traffic due to a teacher’s Oaxaca State union strike. 
Teachers are here from every region. They are camped out in pop tents and under plastic tarps…just sitting with piles of belongings and food. There is a big inequality of teacher’s pay…they get anywhere from 50 pesos to 600 pesos a day. (about ten pesos to dollar). Here is one brushing her teeth. 
But Gerardo (apartment manager) said many of the teachers are under- educated and the strike is bad for the city. Someone said the unions are very powerful here…teachers are forced by the unions to sit in the streets or they won’t get union benefits. Teachers still receive full pay even though they are striking. Kids are the losers. The government apparently isn’t listening. Heard last night that they took over the airport and all the planes are grounded. So guess I got in just in time.
The city is charming…two story buildings…some very colorful. Outsides often are drab but inside the outer gates the interiors are beautiful. The whole of the Centro is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.
My apartment is a two story building with four apartments inside an outer building. I have a key to the outer “portal” and key to an upstairs apartment. When we arrived the carpenters were literally installing the kitchen cupboards…shavings and dirt and tools everywhere. Good thing I stayed in the hostel the first night. The 5-bed hostel room was clean and lovely (Paulina Youth Hostel) but hot as hell and stuffy…apartment much better. Free breakfast was great. So Gerardo took me to his house where his mom fixed coffee. They have had over 200 guests in the last ten years…showed me a picture of the principal of an elementary school in Beaverton who stayed with them for several weeks while studying Spanish. His mom has a cooking school on a patio outside the kitchen. Patio walls painted indigo blue and yellow. Then Gerardo took me to a supermarket to get ingredients for his mom. Then he took me with him to tour the Ethno Botanical Garden. After the tour I ran into a woman about my age, Sharon, who sat across from me on the plane. She has just moved here from Connecticut. She had earlier worked for the City of San Francisco for 25 years. She also lived in Veracruz for three years and is fluent in Spanish. She will be a good friend. We are meeting at a market Sat morning. Then Gerardo and I went back to his house where we feasted on yellow mole that his mom made for us. A young guy from CA staying with them and who is studying Spanish joined us as well as a German woman in her 30’s who is here studying Spanish for the 3rd time. Gerardo’s mom and she and I are going out next Friday to a bar to listen to salsa music. Gerardo, 25, is defending his bachelors thesis on human resources on tuesday.
When we got back to the apartment it was finished, clean with huge vase of flowers on kitchen table. I couldn’t believe it!
But the beds are hard as a rock…was really sore this morning. I miss Lyn’s bed…it was perfect. Going to have to get some foam or something! Kitchen pretty sparsley outfitted…about like Greg’s! 🙂 But I do have a brand new blender, juicer, coffee pot and fan. Wish I had some of the stuff from Azalea St. 
Glad I brought my down pillows…pillows here lumpy and flat as a pancake. 
Went shopping at the supermarket last night at 8…finished at 10 and took a taxi home in the slogging rain. Most stuff had unrecognizable labels. Places here don’t cater to tourists like in Asia. I am realizing how comfortable I had become getting around in Asia…not so confident here…but went out walking today to get my bearings and then went to Sam’s Club (like Costco) in a taxi.
Lost my credit cards twice and found them again…not good for the nervous system. Tried to buy a sim card for Thai phone but it didn’t work…didn’t work in US phone either.
Unpacked already…extra bedroom has two twin beds waiting for my son Greg and his friends…and anyone else who wants to come. Wifi works great. Bought a bottle of wine and a wine glass…guess I’ll burn some sage and celebrate.
I am looking forward to visiting my grandfather's little village in the north. Seven generations of his ancestors were farmers and lived in the same little village of Szczepankowo. In ... 
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