Oaxaca, Tajin, Telar de Cinturon!

Hello again from Xalapa!

Things here continue to go very well for me and in the past 2 weeks since I wrote last, I´ve done more things than usually fit into a 2 week span. The past two weekends, I´ve travelled away from Xalapa, the first weekend our group went to Oaxaca which is a state that borders the pacific ocean about 8 hours from Xalapa by bus. This past weekend, I went with a friend, who is from Xalapa, to a festival in Tajin, an archaeological site where they hold a cultural festival once a year. Both weekends were incredible experiences. In addition to the trips on the weekends, the weeks have been packed with school, friends, my weaving workshop, carnaval in Xalapa, playing and watching soccer and frisbee, trying new foods (it seems like there is always something new to try) and speaking as much Spanish as possible.

I´ll first give you a bit of an overview of our trip to Oaxaca. We took an overnight bus ride last friday night to arrive in Oaxaca at around 8 am. From there, we took a tour of the city to see some of the main sights, like the cathedrals, markets, etc. In the afternoon, we went to an archaeological site which is called Monte Alban. The amazing part about Monte Alban is that it was built on top of mountain (not quite like Machu Picchu) but nonetheless impressive. In the evening, I went out with a few friends to try the famous ¨tlayudas¨which is a typical food in Oaxaca. Its basically a giant toasted tortilla with beans, meat, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, aguacate, etc. and they are´delicious. The next day, we were free to do tour the city for ourselves and see the things that interested us. I spent the day in some of the giant markets in downtown Oaxaca as well as going to see the supposed biggest living organism on earth, which is a giant tree close to Oaxaca. It´s over 2000 years old and pretty massive, although I´m not totally convinced that its bigger than the seqollas. To return back to Xalapa, we took another overnight bus and got back late to Xalapa on Monday morning but luckily we didnt have class on Monday because of carnaval in Xalapa.

The past weekend, I went with a friend, Alejandro to Poza Rica for the cultural festival there. We took a bus on friday night and arrived in Poza Rica around 12:30 am, at which time we went out for ¨supper¨on the street and ate some tacos with Alejandro´s cousin who lives in Poza Rica. His cousin and aunt were nice enough to take us in for weekend as they live close to where they festival took place. On Saturday, we spent the day at the festival, first visiting the famous ruins of Tajin and then entering the cultural festival nearby. The festival basically consists of lots of workshops and entertainment, all revolving around the culture of the area. I think around 20,000 people come to festival each year and its a really impressive event. The workshops vary from local dances to weaving to indigenous languages to juggling to painting and so on. Once you pay the entry fee, which was about 10 dollars, you can visit any workshop and they give you the materials and let you keep whatever it is that you made. There are also people constantly demonstrating various talents, like dances, tight rope walking, gymnastics or a famous ritual that is done from a really tall pole and consists of one person at the top of the pole playing the flute while 4 other people are suspended with rope by their feet and spin around the pole and are slowly lowered until they reach the ground. After spending a while at the festival, we went back to the ruins after dark where they had a light and sound show at the ruins. They projected different colored lights and images onto the pyramids while there were sounds projected from speakers or people performing. The idea is that its a passage through time to learn about the civilization who built the pyramids, but its done in a really creative and entertaining way. On Sunday, we spent the day at the beach near the festival before taking a bus back to Xalapa at 1:30 am. We arrived back to Xalapa at 6:30 am at which time I went to my house for breakfast and headed off to my 8 am class at the university. It was just about as long of a weekend as you can have :)

Hopefully those summaries of my past two weekends didnt drag on too long. As I said before, I´ve been doing lots of things during the week as well, I feel like I hardly have time to stop in a my house for more than a meal on most days. Every thursday after class, I go to my weaving workshop (telar de cinturón) for a few hours which I continue to enjoy. I´m getting into more of a rythme here with my classes and extracurriculars and I continue to get to know people, my surroundings and the language better, which is a big plus. Its hard to believe that my time here is Mexico is now just about half way done, I am really looking forward to the second half and already know that it will be difficult to leave, but knowing that makes me enjoy every moment that I have here. I hope everyone is well, until next time!

The photos are of the following:

1-the pyramids of tajin during the light and sound show

2-me in front of the giant tree in Oaxaca

3-the weaving workshop and the scarf that we are making

Volcancillo, Workshop, Pizza!

Hello everyone! Once again, another week here in Xalapa has passed by and its been nothing short of another adventure. Early on in the week, a student from my anthropolgy class at the university invited me to a workshop with a few other students to learn how to sew/braid scarves and blankets using a prehispanic technique which is basically a simple machine put together with a series of wooden sticks. I bought some thread before going and the workshop lasted about 3 hours and we made a lot of progress. Its a really fun technique and the atmosphere was relaxing. It was held at one of the students houses outside in their patio and several people brought musical instruments and played while we made our scarves. I didnt take my camera to that event but Im planning to go this week again so hopefully I can get some pictures of what Im doing.

This week I also went to a small village with a mexican friend who invited me to go with him to experience a festival in the pueblo. It was a really neat experience, the village, although really small, was full of people and cars. They told me that on any other given day of the year, the village is really calm with very few people, but on this day people come from all around to celebrate the festival. Basically what happens in the festival is that the people who live in the village cook lots of food and open their doors to anyone who is visiting and feed and entertain them. I ate with my friend and his coworkers in a house full of tables and people. They also bring in differents rides and games that are set up in the village center almost like a fair. So we walked through that section as well and played a few of the games they had set up like ring toss, etc.

The other highlight of the past week was on Saturday when our director and a few students went to Volcancillo, which is an extinct volcano not far from Xalapa. First, we explored a bunch of the caves that our director knows about, although very few people go in and explore the caves. They are fairly hidden in a rural, rocky, forested area and you have to watch where you step because all of sudden an entrance to a cave will appear in the ground. The caves are basically the old tunnels of lava from the volcano, so its difficult to get lost in them, but they are quite impressive. Some are huge rooms with different levels of tunnels and others are really small, just big enough to squeeze your body through. We used candles for the most part to explore the caves, which was fun as well. We also hiked to the crater of the volcano, which is basically a huge circular canyon of rock walls. Unfortunately, I didnt take my camera to this place either, some others did, so hopefully I can get their pictures later because there are some great photos.

Anyhow, those are the highlights of the things Ive done this past week. This week I expect that many more things will come my way as well, although I have very few plans at the moment. Here things tend to unfold daily and each day is always filled with the unexpected, an aspect of life that I really enjoy here. Well, time to walk home and each some supper with my host family. I wish all of you the best, hasta pronto!

Photos: I forgot to mention, even though I put it in the title, that I made pizza for the family of my cultural assistant Omar, which is where the first 2 photos came from. The third photo is playing ring toss at the village festival.

Visitors! Carnaval and Classes

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in writing since the last entry. This last week especially has been extra busy, but full of fun things. Last Sunday, 5 friends from Goshen arrived, Jacob Brenneman, Brian Wyse, CJ Hague, Chris Neumann and Cody Felton. It was a lot of fun having visitors here and showing them around the places that I'm familiar with already as well as exploring some new places with them. Among the highlights of the week with them were a day at the beach, a day at some waterfalls in a nearby city, a day of whitewater rafting in a nearby river, having them over to my house for a meal, a soccer game with some local mexicans in the soccer field in the volcano in xalapa, salsa dancing, singing karaoke, touring xalapa, and the famous hotdogs and tacos al pastor of xalapa. We kept ourselves very busy and on top of classes during the second half of the week, it was an extra busy week for me. Luckily, they picked a great week to come as I didn't have classes on Monday or Tuesday due to holidays for Carnaval. This week, the homework is definitely piling up faster and I'll have to buckle down a bit on school work after a week of what felt like pure vacation. For me, exploring a few of the small towns around Xalapa where we went to the waterfalls and the white water rafting was especially fun because it was my first time exploring the more rural parts of the region. We took a number of buses to arrive at the various places which is always a fun experience as well. Usually the bus rides are accompanied by some form of live music, whether it be accordian, guitar, singing, etc. It's also a great way to see some of the beautiful coutryside. We seemed to have incredible luck with just about everything that we did as well, as it was our first time getting to know the bus system and not really knowing where we were going or where we would end up, but we never got lost and never waited for a bus for more than 5 minutes. I think thats more of a tribute to the quality of the bus system and the generosity of the Mexican people to answer our questions and help us out than a tribute to our ability of navigate. That's definitely a valuable lesson to be learned here, if you are unsure of something, there is most likely someone waiting to help you out. When we arrived in Xico, we swam in a cool pool of water underneath a nice waterfall and made a bonfire to cook some hotdogs. It was a nice relaxing afternoon and reminded me a lot of some of the places around Virginia with forests and rivers. The following day, we went to Jalcolmulco for a day of white water rafting. This experience also turned out to be quite different than I expected. Upon arrival, we were treated to juice and snacks and hospitality as if we were part of their family, when in fact we were just a bunch of guys who showed up to raft a bit on the river. The rafting trip lasted about 2 and a half hours taking us about 18 kilometers through some pretty decent rapids at times. We also got to swim in the calmer parts and jump off a nice rock cliff at one point as well. The guides added to fun, challenging us to stand up in the raft through some of the rapids, which turned out better sometimes than others. Needless to say, I had a great week here with my friends and I think they would say the same about their week of spring of break. After eating one, or two, last deluxe xalapan hotdogs at 2:30 am on saturday evening, they took a taxi to the bus station to grab a bus to Mexico City. I spent the majority of Sunday doing some catch up on my homework and today classes started up again. I continue to really enjoy my classes, especially at the University. I'm continuing to get to know more university students which is a lot of fun and an important part of my experience for me. Today, my final class about Literatura Chicana began. I'm looking forward to that class as well because I think we will study a lot about the relationship between the US and Mexico and get a glimpse into life on the border. Anyway, I'll leave it at that for now. The pictures this time are off the parade at Carnaval, a photo from Xico of the Pico de Orizaba which is the 3rd highest peak in North America, and a photo of the group who went to the waterfall in Xico. Hope everyone had a great month of February and started March on a good foot. I appreciate the emails, letters and thoughts. Until next time!