Tagger Central
Saturday turned out to be a much better day than Friday with its very ugly ride. I walked a few blocks to the old part of town seeing all of the graffiti that the protesters have created. My guess is that graffiti isn’t totally new here, but it has been taken to some new heights – or maybe I should say lows. The city of Oaxaca is basically empty of tourists and given the publicity it has received since June, I can understand why. I’d rather not get involved in the politics behind the protests, riots and police action, but I can say that local tourism business has been devastated and there is not a majority of the people complaining about the many different grievances that some are sharing. I have to agree with some that there are not too many places in the world where a group of protesters would be allowed to hold a central portion of a city hostage for weeks let alone months without a police action to squash it. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about Tiananmen Square or Amsterdam, at some point push will come to shove and the armed police always push a lot harder.
Unless you have been around this kind of situation, you’ll have to imagine me turning a corner and being confronted with the sight of a burned out car blocking a street and a few dozen police in full riot gear with two large armored vehicles (water guns) with many more police and riot gear at the ready behind them… all within a beautiful colonial city. There were no protesters about so there was no situation to be wary of. I soon discovered that the police numbering in the thousands (just a guess after being here three days) had taken over the whole central portion of the old town. Each street into the center has the same protection that I just described albeit not every one of them has the burned out car. When passing through the police were very friendly as they searched my bag. They have a whole city inside the city including tents, cooking and bathing areas. They appear to be here for the long haul. There is also a whole host of citizens selling food and what-not to the police. My opinion is that the police were very respectable young men and the citizens were very welcoming to them. Given the choice of rioting or the police, I was happy with their presence strictly for my own situation of wanting to see this historic city. I hung out around the cathedral which is very beautiful before moving through the zocalo and walking up the street to the famous Santo Domingo de Guzman cathedral. In front of the cathedral, I found “protesters”. Basically, they are people signing up volunteers and sharing their political views (I don’t know what they believe in or want – I can tell you that no media is telling you because they seem to be from many political and cultural backgrounds so whatever is being written is either just part of the story or it is more the political views of the writer than all of the protesters). Since I can’t understand the language enough to know, I can only report that they are selling communist tee shirts and things have a socialist bend. Amongst the protesters there are many folks selling things – God, I really love capitalism!!!! – including DVDs of home videos taken during the early November riots. I especially liked the images of the protesters throwing rocks at the police and the police throwing the same rocks back at the protesters! Obviously, things were much more serious since there were deaths reported around the city including an American journalist who seems to have been here more as a tourist joining in rather than reporting. I went into the cathedral and all I can is that it may be grander than any of the umpteen greatest cathedrals I have seen in Northern Europe. A cathedral like this one doesn’t make me believe more in God, but it sure does make me believe more in Man’s obsession with God. I spent a long time in there looking in all of the nooks before my head hurt.
I walked around the city a lot that day and really fell in love with the character of this colonial city. I love the colonial buildings including the many churches as well as the brightly colored ala Latin America homes and businesses. Cobblestone streets, old street lamps, ornate iron work… just beautiful. Unfortunately, the graffiti is just horrible. Some idiots went so far as to desecrate historical buildings including churches and squares. It’s everywhere and it is mainly stuff like “death to the governor” (one of the issues is that the governor supposedly one an election unfairly – an election that took place in 2004!). Also, there is a lot of chunks of things like bricks and metal missing and it took me a while to realize the city is full of potential projectiles and some were apparently used. Another highlight of my walk around town was the contemporary art museum with works by sculptor Javier Martin. Stunning!
I spent the afternoon at Mercado Abastos outside of the historic center. This is where the locals buy goods on Saturdays. Imagine a mostly covered area stretching over many square blocks where stalls exist selling just about everything that is needed for daily life. It was very crowded and my head was swirling after a couple of hours. They have outstanding farmed goods including vegetables, dried chiles, grubs (!), grasshoppers (I still didn’t give them a try – but I did eat something interesting the next day which I will report in the next entry) and things I could not identify. They also had numerous chocolate manufactures of which a lot was further processed into mole. Chickens, ducks, turkeys… Cheeses, meats, coffee… Toys, shoes, hats, clothes… Food stands,,, Furniture, cooking utensils – everything you could need to live in Oaxaca! I was so lost inside that I worried about where I was going to pop out, but I ended up coming out the same side as I entered.
That evening I went to one of the best restaurants in town called Casa Oaxaca. It has seating for about forty. I was the only one there. The food including a three mushroom and chile soup plus duck tamales with two different mole sauces was exquisite. I was sad to see their business like so many others so devastated by the protests and subsequent publicity. It is my opinion that it will take a long time to fix their situation even if the protests are over now (doubtful – another entry to come!). There are already good businesses that have failed due to the many dry months and I suspect there will be a lot more if this carries into 2007. There is anger in the voices of some people here towards the protesters and I can understand why considering they are losing their livelihoods for issues that they don’t even share.
Tags: Central America, Mexico, North America, Travel
vagabondrick
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