the turtles at mazunte - by sabina

The turtles at Mazunte
Last weekend we went to Mazunte for my birthday and Arlo's too. the trip was really fun. First, we stopped at the mountains in this small town that was all about mushrooms. The place was nice and every thing was good!! the next day (my birthday) we started with a nice breakfeast and then headed off. The road was sooooooooo windy so basicly everyone got car sick and that really stunk because on my birthday we had to all get sick... anyways when we got there some of the parents went to check out hotels and the others stayed to watch us swim, some of the waves were really big!!! you could get washing-machined (maytagged) or simpley radically pounded that night we went to a really nice italian resturant for my birthday and the food took for ever but it was really good. i also got a bunch of presents and it was awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the next day was arlo's birthday so in the morning we went on a boat and went out to see if we could see sea turtles and dolphins, when we were going out in the water to begin the tour and the kids were in the front (smaart) and a huge wave was coming. ruby was looking back talking to her dad and me talia and arlo saw it i thought that the people would never let that wave hit us and guess what?? it did... we all got knocked off our seat by the wave and the wind knocked out of us plus we got covered in sand talia started crying because her arm hurt... anyways the trirp was really fun and we saw turtles but sadly no dolphins.
the next day we went to the turtle museum there were hurt turtles that were going to be freed into the ocean, that was really fun!!
then the next day in the night we went to a beach where turtle lay their eggs - La Escobilla. It's one of the most important places in the world where turtles lay their eggs. the dude who was leading us he said we were walking on turtle eggs wherever we were walking on the beach. after a little while of walking we saw a mom turtle going back to the ocean after laying eggs. after more walking we saw several other turtles and we then we saw babies walking down and we got to hold them and bring them down to the water. after the babies we saw a mom turtle actually laying the eggs and the man who was taking us he dug out a hole where the mom was putting her eggs in and we saw the eggs dropping into the hole and every once in a while she would grunt. the eggs were all slimy and had this gooey stuff on them. there was also some trash on the beach and a baby turtle was stuck in a plastic bag thing and we freed him. the man told us that the babies stay in the same place where they hatched for an hour and smell and look and remember so that they can come back to this beach when they are older to lay their eggs. the man also told us that 1 out of 100 of the babies survive when they get into the water. some get eaten by crabs, raccoons other fish and when they get in the water they sometimes get radiaclly pounded. every thing was awesome!!!!!!!!
--sabina

Sabina's birthday at a strange beach house

We spent a glorious long independence day weekend celebrating Sabina and Arlo's birthdays down on the pounding Pacific coast. Independence Day is popularly known as the day of the "grito" or scream, which remembers independence fighter Father Miguel Hidalgo's rallying cry to guerilla fighters to retaliate against the Spaniard colonial army.

We settled into a strange beach house for a few days, mushed up into the side of a jungly hill. The house sat on the sand and opened right onto the beach, a lovely cove with no riptides - the open ocean here is renowned for sucking even accomplished swimmers out to sea. The house also opened up to scorpions, bed bugs, sand crabs - when I went to make coffee in the morning, crabs skittled in the metal kitchen sink -, and I think a tarantula - I saw an eerie, hairy leg extend out, probing, from under a pile of stored wood.

The house was an acquired taste, much more likeable in the daytime than the uncertain night. We probably should have just set up our tent in the house and called it a day. Nevertheless, it was lovely to be exposed to the elements - all of them. Down the coast is a destination resort called Huatulco, into which the government has poured billions. I understand that there the houses are more of the California condo type, shut in with no natural ventilation. You might keep out the bugs but there is no architectural learning from the way folks tend to live on the coast here, under palapas and the like, letting the wind cool you rather than having to resort to air conditioning. Don't get me started on the infrastructure required to power these resorts - hydroelectric dams that have displaced thousands of families to cool these vacation homes and a new toll highway to get to Huatulco that razes Oaxaca's stunning biodiversity in its wake. The hammocks by the sea were glorious as was bobbing in the sea celebrating Sabina's 11th and Arlo's 10th birthdays. Read Sabina's next blog on Mazunte to hear more about the turtles.

Reformed Turtle Beaters Make For Better Tour Guides - by Daniel

Wasn’t too long ago they were whacking nesting sea turtles with wooden clubs and scrambling up turtle eggs for breakfast. The guide said they were killing upwards of 3500 a day. That was just before he dived off the bow of the boat and surprised a bobbing terrapin. He held it by its shell, a sort of gentle half nelson, hands out of the reach of its pointy beak and its flopping fin. The fin had strangely placed sharp nails, we learned, for better mounting, humping and engagement. He manhandled it long enough for us to also jump in and cop a feel – an incredible assortment of protective textures. Perhaps 10 minutes after this bit of low impact tourist torture, he liberated the turtle. It plummeted towards the safer depths. Sabina is undertaking a research project on the sea turtle (though she herself didn’t join the turtle handling, insisting that it was indeed a form of torture).

On our turtle hunt, the guides trolled for tuna, snagging a couple of them as well as some kind of tropical snapper and a needle fish. Those sea creatures were not spared a clubbing and one was sold to us for a lunch that couldn’t be beat.

I’ll be engaged in a study for the next few months on the impacts of tourism in Oaxaca. Perhaps the spared turtles could be at least partially chalked up to a positive tourism impact? My study – a chapter of a book on tourism in Central American and the Caribbean that I’m contributing to – will focus on Oaxaca’s urban center – a colonial jewel. With agriculture failing, natural resources depleting, no appreciable industry and population growing quickly, Oaxaca has bet big on its tourism industry. The usual positive impacts are cited – historic and ecological preservation and service sector employment. Less discussed is the seamy side – spiraling real estate prices leading to displacement of working families, commoditization of cultural rites, dead-end, poorly paid jobs, the ruling class and economic inequalities entrenched as powerful elites usurp tourism’s dividends and aquifers sucked to precarious levels to wash tourists’ towels. I’ve been exploring these themes through interviews – it’s been fascinating. Stay tuned for discoveries.

Cloud Forest Mushrooms: The Economic Power of Fungi - by Daniel

On our way to the beach, we tripped upon one of Oaxaca’s magic mushroom capitals, San Jose del Pacifico. In the sixties, the Zapotec locals used to run and hide from the VW hippie vans passing through their cloud forest en route to the beach. But ever since the 70s, when they discovered the market value of an abundance of psilocybin sprouting from their amply composted pastures, the VW’s and their wild-eyed, drawstring pants occupants have been warmly embraced. And it’s not just the mushroom sales that buoy their economy, but the ancillary products like decorative mushrooms knit from their sheep’s wool and guided sweat rituals (called temezcales). From the looks of things, the town is doing relatively well, at least compared to its non-fungi neighbors.

A stout, fiftyish year old grandmother restauranteur, whilst chopping onions and tomatoes for our huevos a la Mexicana, described how her entire family enjoys an occasional mushroom outing. “Viajes” or “trips” she called them. After San Jose del Pacifico, “feliz viaje” will never quite have the same ring to it.

Weaving and bug dye in Teotitlan

We spent an amazing afternoon with good friends of Chuck, Tricia and Nora, Celestino Bautista and his family, in the Zapotec village of Teotitlan - about half an hour's drive from Oaxaca. They are rug weavers. The principal red color, which they vary with lime and more mysterious powders, is crushed cochinilla bugs. These bugs make their homes on the nopal cactus; the family harvests them and then grinds them on a stone to extract their precious blood for dying. A rug can take a couple of months to make, so no complaining about prices!

Love Thy Neighbor - by Tyler and Daniel

Love Thy Neighbor

Washing one’s face in our Oaxaca home is not just a simple matter of turning on the faucet. The water system is a complex Rube Goldberg affair. The water flows occasionally – sometimes Tuesdays and Saturdays – from the municipality’s system into an in-ground cistern. It’s up to us to flip the pump switch to move it from the cistern to a tank on the roof.

Well, turns out the durn cistern was not filling with water. Three neighbors gathered to weigh in, each with a different solution. They were disappointed when I called the plumber; one neighbor told the plumber to his face that his solution was misguided. It very well might have been. He had to send his young assistant (14 years old, he had to leave school for lack of funds - books and uniforms here, even for public school can run $300) down into the dank tank to retrieve a dropped pipe.

All of which is to say that we live in a cozy community of 80 or so families. The founders’ originally came together with an ecological and communitarian vision; today diversity is more common. The uprising of 2006, in particular divergent opinions about the direct action tactics of the teacher’s union and its allies, have caused significant division.

But we’re interested in making friends with anyone who will have us and in reviving community in any way we might contribute. We consulted with our neighborhood confidents – staff of the local community organization CAMPO – the Center for Support to the Oaxacan Popular Movement - to plot. A neighborhood party for the kids wouldn’t be a bad idea, they thought. With all the subtlety of Cortes, we dropped flyers throughout the neighborhood and hung colorful signs that were washed away in one in a series of torrential rainstorms.

We billed it as a “Fiesta Juvenil” - a youth party - in the afternoon, with no alcohol. It had been raining for days with the hurricane season fully underway. We woke up on the morning of the party to blue skies and hot sun. The Moss-Haarens and the Moore-Blooms divided the tasks and the party fixings started to take shape: 150 tamales retrieved from the woman in front of the cemetery, a piñata and hibiscus tea leaves purchased at the sprawling and amazing Central Supply Market – a maze of small vendors’ stalls.

Under a small party tent that we borrowed from CAMPO, we organized games: a 3 legged race, an egg race, “Twister”, musical chairs and the grand finale “the egg toss”. From there, it was all football, soccer and tamales. Did we make friends? I think so but you’d have to ask the neighbors to be sure.

A march, no bar-b-que, for Labor Day - by Daniel

A march, no bar-b-que, for Labor Day

Oaxaca is a conflictive state. About the size of Indiana, just over 3 million people live here, divided among 16 indigenous groups (with distinct languages intact) and a slight majority “mestizo” population (mixed indigenous – European blood). And a few of us gringos! Economic inequality and political domination are regular, troubling features of the social landscape. There is much active resistance to this state of affairs.

You may have heard that in the spring of 2006 there was a general uprising in Oaxaca, initially sparked by a teacher’s strike (for better working conditions and to dismiss an authoritarian governor whose abusive power derives from questionable elections). Corruption and marginalization had created a tinder box of dissatisfaction. In April 2006, the teachers occupied the main city square for over a month and were joined by all sectors of society delivering food and solidarity. The demands for change grew as did the swell of public outcry for change. An umbrella organization called APPO – the Popular Assembly of Oaxacan Peoples – was founded. The police violently uprooted the demonstrators a month later. Repression was fierce and effective. The movement for democratic change remains strong today (although the governor remains in office) but is tired and not nearly as unified – factions have emerged.

The September 1st march grows out of that history (woefully butchered in the above paragraph). Specifically, 70,000 teachers and students took to the streets to protest a new law attempting to cut teacher pensions (something certainly not unique to Oaxaca). The neighborhood we live in – Fraccionamiento del Sol – has a high percentage of families with teachers. Many families were very active in the 2006 protests and some participated on September 1st. Differences have emerged among families about what tactics are most effective to preserve teachers rights and advance democracy in Oaxaca. We’re just trying to figure out the political landscape here.

1000 miles away - by talia

hi guys, i am living the live of torture every day.um...well school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!is really annoying!!!!!!!!!!!!i'll tell you why WELL ITS ALL IN SPANISH DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ITS SOOOOOOOOOOO ANNOYING:FOR HOMEWORK EVERYDAYYYYYYYYYYY WRITE IN SPANISH DUHHHHHHHHHH AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.WELL.....................UMMMMMMMMM IFFFFFFFF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!!!!!!!!!!I AM SO BORED BECAUSEEEEE!THERE ISNT YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF IT WASENT FOR MY PARENTS I WOULDN'T BE HERE RIGHT KNOW(DONT TELL MY PARENTS I SAID THAT)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!LOVE YOU MISS U LOVE-TALIA!!!!!!!!!!!

Lila - by Sabina

Lila

Our family is fostering a little puppy called lila, she is adorable!!!!! This is the story of how we found her:
We were at casa raab a b&b in san pablo etla americans own it so that was a opportunity to speak english. The couple who own the house are called tony and rebeca and they have sooooo many animals, horses, burros, dogs, cats, and even birds its so awsome!!! Anyways, we were sitting in the laundry room with the puppys who were blanco, spot, rocky, tank, velvet, oso and rico. We were all sitting with rebeca fussing over them and what their stories were of being found when 2 boys whose parents work for tony and rebeca ran in carrying a dirty flea bitten size of a guinea pig puppy (but we did'nt know that it was a puppy). Rebeca ran outside quickly and took the dog from them i ran out with ruby, arlo and talia and rebeca without looking at what she was doing tore millions of bloated with blood ticks off her then she picked her up and said "es hembra". She thanked the boys and went inside with us and we all gave her a flea bath. Instantly a ton of ticks and fleas fell off of her and she just stood there terrified and shivering, we shampooed her several times and rinsed her then we gave her food because she was also pretty skinny, we wrapped her up in a towel and started the brushing... about an hour later we had a cup full of ticks and fleas and that kind of stuff, but now the puppy named lila had had her life change in 1 1\2 hours.
Rebeca said that she could come to our house for a little while, we were delighted and thats when it happened the Moss-Haaren family fell in love with her and decided to foster her.
Anyways thats the story and sadly she is leaving on saturday the 6th (another 6 days till my birthday) but she has had her time in luxury and now moves on to another permanent home.
Good bye till you visit.
--sabina