Mutiny - by Daniel

I shouldn't be writing this post and look forward to the mutineers speaking their piece.

It's getting ugly around here - everyone said it would happen but one is never prepared for what it feels like to be accused (with reason) of torturing one's own children. School has started, homework has started, getting up at 6:30 am has started, not understanding what the hell the teacher and students are saying has started. Homesickness has deluged us.

There have been plenty of distractions up til now - the drive down through Mexico, housesitting in paradise at John and Adele's, our new puppy. But now the realization that it's not just summer vacation has reared its ugly head. And we, the nutcases that thought up this brilliant idea to spend a year here, are the targets of some serious mud slinging.

How do you forge ahead with life, even try to enjoy it, while leaving plenty of room for the kids to feel the sadness of leaving friends and the immense difficulties of fitting in here? I look forward to the wisdom of others like Chuck and Tricia and Nora and Harry and Liz and Lilliana, Isabel and Elena (two families - friends of ours - that charted this path prior to us). Will we find family peace and cultural adventure and openness here - or will we be dashed against the rocks, our vessel in splinters? Stay tuned and stay in touch.

Pin the bald spot on the head - by Daniel

What better way to celebrate one's birthday than to have loved ones play a friendly game of pin the bald spot on the head? Such was the short straw I drew for my 49th birthday.

Brian, Susanna and I returned from an amazing hike some way up the nearly 10,000 foot mountains just out our door - Tyler had feigned a belly ache (not uncommon in these parts) and peeled off to prepare a surprise party for me. We had Anna and Meena (Anna is a dear, dear Australian friend with whom we worked in El Salvador who had the amazing foresight to hitch up with the equally dear Meena) and their children - Rahoul and Asha as well as the Moss Haaren and Bloom Moore clan. We ate, danced, laughed, and not surprisingly, found the bald spot.

Afterwards, we went up the road a quarter mile to the appropriate technology center of CAMPO - the Center for Support of the Popular Movement of Oaxaca. CAMPO is a non governmental organization that I've come to know through Grassroots International. We've been supporting them for many years. They are a mix of community planners and organizers, engineers and lawyers working with indigenous community to protect their human rights and develop their communities through a grassroots process - trying to undo the damage that Mexican party politics of exclusion and marginalization of indigenous communities has wrought. The community where we are living - Casa del Sol - was founded by many of CAMPO's founders - and is an unusual and unusally welcoming sort of co housing community.

Fortuitously, CAMPO was celebrating something (life, they said) and it coincided with my birthday. With watermelon, mezcal and salad in hand (no Entemann's baked goods nearby to bring), the gringos (sorry to throw you in the same lot, Australia) descended on the party. They'd slaughtered and cooked a couple of their sheep and rabbits, we feasted, and then played Mexico vs USA in the CAMPO cup. We lost rather badly - despite the stellar efforts of Arlo and Talia.

Too Much Time in the Car - by Talia

Too much time in the car
By Talia

We are finally in Oaxaca. It was a long trip and we had a lot of arguments but otherwise it was really good.

We got to watch movies, we got to play on our Nintendo DS, we got to listen to music and talk to each other. I liked Virginia because we got to see Alex and Liam’s grandparents and I liked Tennessee because we got to swim and go out to dinner. The next day we went to the Martin Luther King civil rights museum and we learned what Martin Luther King was like. We went on the real bus that Rosa Parks went on and we saw where Martin Luther King was killed. I liked Houston because the place that our cousins Sheila and Isaac live was really nice and we went to a really nice Vietnamese restaurant.

The next day it was really fun because we went to Shlitterbahn, a really big waterpark with an awesome wave pool and this awesome waterslide thing because you went side to side and I went off the side – caught some air - and then I got back on the thing. The next day we went to a desert campout and there was this awesome spring that had a pool that we went in. We saw big catfish on the bottom of the pool. Then we crossed the border and we waited there for half an hour and signed all this stuff. It was pretty boring. I thought it was going to be worse because I’d seen a bad movie about it.

Then we went to Ciudad Juarez and we went to a priest’s and nun’s house. It was scary because they said that burglars came. After that we went to Randy’s and Sagrario’s house in Chihuahua. It was a pretty nice view. Then we met up with Ruby and Arlo and headed off to Copper Canyon. It was fun to see Ruby and Arlo – they’re the people we go camping with every summer and we’re going to spend the whole year with them in Oaxaca.

Copper canyon was really fun and we met these really annoying kids – Android and Rachel but Jackie was nice. The Copper Canyon view was awesome but we went on this really boring hike for 350 miles I say. The villages were pretty boring and all the girls wore dresses.

Then we went to this weird hotel and Arlo and Mommy were sick. After that, we went to another hotel in Zacatecas. It was pretty nice and we went into this awesome mine. We went in this little train thing a ma jobber and I thought it was going to collapse. Little kids used to work in the mine.

Then we went to Guanajuato. Attacking earwigs came into our room, but the hotel was really cool. Then we got to Oaxaca! It was so good because I was bored of the car like heck. We saw Tilly the dog and little puppies. For all the people that are coming, our new house is real small so beware. Nice writing. Goodbye.

Now in Oaxaca - by Sabina

We are finally in Oaxaca, Mexico it was a long car ride that had many goods and bads. Overall the car ride was not as bad as I thought but there were at least 20 fights between Talia and I. Stella did stay in her spot and was good for mostly the whole car ride, we mostly watched movies and listened to books on tape and on non windy roads sometimes we read.

This was not as bad as I thought it would be but still I would be much happier in Boston with all my friends. Last week we went to language school to practice Spanish at first we had a horrible teacher but then we got a great one and as soon as we got home we would all jump into the pool.

Oaxaca at Last - by Tyler

OAXACA at last!

A great road trip had come to an end. We spent out first night outside of the city of Oaxaca in the hills of San Pablo Etla. We had been to this beautiful place before when dear friends Tricia, Chuck and Nora had lived there during their year in Mexico. Fortuitously the home they had house sat was purchased by their neighbors, Adele and John, who happened to need housesitters while they returned to visit their home in the states just as we were arriving.

“Housesitting” included feeding their Burnese Mountain dog Tilly, 2 cats Tigre and Amlo, many turtles, chickens and turkeys while basking in the remarkable views of the surrounding mountains and valleys. The kids were in heaven as down the road at the B&B Casa Raab, Rebecca, the proprietress, was the Doctor Doolittle of the Etlas. She had just received a drop of 8 puppies and 2 kittens. Her menagerie includes burros, horses, cats, dogs, puppies, kittens and wounded birds. Talia, Sabina, Ruby and Arlo were young vets in training with Rebecca while the adults ran around the city markets looking for paint and furnishings for our little homes on the other side of Oaxaca .

No surprise that when we left for San Luis Beltran a couple weeks later we were fostering a 5 week old Mexican mutt named Lila. Stella gets to play mom. I get to wake up at 4 am for “play”sessions (read: cleaning up wet spots). School starts on August 18 and there is a lot of anxiety brewing about going to a Spanish speaking school, making new friends, all against the backdrop of missing dear friends in Boston. We went by Colegio Teizcali last week and all the kids were kissed by all of the teachers. We are off to a good start!

A Discount from the Mexico City Police - by Daniel

A Discount from the Mexico City Police
By Daniel

They get a bum rap those Mexican policia. All we hear about is the intimidation and extortion and very little about the deep discounts and excellent escort service. You might wonder: How did I get a 50% discount on my bribe to the cops as well as police accompaniment back to the superhighway?

It started in Guanajuato – an amazing place of labyrinthine alleys - a day out from trying to skirt around Mexico City’s sprawl (population 25 million – take that NYC!) en route to our final destination, Oaxaca. We were preparing ourselves for a bad day of marathon driving, hoping to make it slightly less wearing. We were eager to find THE route around Mexico City’s traffic snarls and smog. With map in hand, I went in search of travel advice. After many fruitless queries, I was told to look for the knowledgeable bartenders at the Fly Bar. An hour later – well-meaning directions proved to be contradictory - I entered the Fly Bar. A young, dreadlocked bartender, as friendly as our bouncy Labrador, Stella, listened as I described our dilemma. “I don’t know my way,” he responded, but his friends might.

Down the stairs we went to find them. They too listened, politely to my anxious plea. One pronounced, “no hay pedo” (literally “there is no fart”). In Mexican slang this means “it’s no big deal”. Dreadlocks invited me to a rock reggae party that night and sent me off with a complicated handshake which I could not follow. My hand hung lonely in the air.

Not much relieved we set out at dawn. Six hours later in a traffic snarl, we were pulled over by state police. The kids lifted their heads from their Nintendo devices to inquire what was happening. A police man who looked as though he’d had a broken beer bottle dragged down the left side of his face, informed me of the crime: we had the wrong license plates. To cut down on air pollution, Mexico City allows only certain plates with certain final digits to circulate. I’m all for that; I just didn’t know about it. The procedure: come down to the police station, get your vehicle impounded and the judge will receive our 5000 peso ($500 US) fine the following day.

I asked if there might not be some other, more expedited way to settle the matter right here and now. I was offered a discount to 2500 pesos. I asked for a moment to consult with Brian and Susanna – our partners in this adventure. Brian is a lawyer – a good one – but even he did need see fit to challenge the Mexican police and legal system. We’d seen bumper stickers saying “I don’t give bribes” and as admirable as that message is – and essential for transforming a rotten system - we saw no way around contributing to police corruption. I accepted the officer’s kind offer of 2500 pesos. He leaned his head far into the car, watching me count out the bills when I expressed that we might not have enough. Remarkably, because Brian and Susanna had the correct digits on their plates, they did not have to contribute to the police officer’s fund.

How to avoid getting stopped again en route to Oaxaca, I asked. They would lead us to the super highway. Follow me, he said. Tyler was convinced they’d lead us yet to an even darker, more abandoned alley for further fundraising and encouraged me to slowly lose the officer in traffic. He found us. An hour later after having signaled to other police not to stop us, with a cheery wave, he bid us adios and sent us south to Oaxaca.

Three dead a day in the Eden Mine - by Daniel

Three dead a day in the Eden Mine
By Daniel

Ever since El Paso, we’ve never descended below 4000 foot elevation. We entered the Eden silver and gold mine in Zacatecas at over 7000 feet.

A very bad joke indeed to name the place the Eden Mine. I guess it was a sort of Eden for the investors (those with the naming rights) who made astronomical profits. But it was hell for the enslaved and indentured workers who died at the rate of approximately 3 per day over more than 3 centuries of production. That adds up to over 300,000 dead at just one of hundreds of mines.

Most of the silver coinage in Spain and so many of the riches of Europe were extracted from mines like Eden here in what was then called New Spain. We took the kids on a spooky tour of the depths, hokey, but illustrative mannequins of indigenous people taking picks to the metallic veins, eight year old children carrying out the dirt up etched logs

Some wealth stayed in Zacatecas, Guanajuato and other mining towns. The Spanish brought their architects with them on their colonizing vessels to replicate the Spanish cities down to the very last arch. The Dominicans and other Catholic orders brought their blueprints from their hometown cathedrals. On a plaza in Guanajuato, you feel as if you’re in a European medieval town.

So it’s sort of a funny feeling, this colonial immersion. I don’t mean to be a sourpuss, I like the idea of sipping cappuchino on a Mexican plaza as if I’m in Sevilla, Spain as much as the next guy. And it sure is cheaper than traveling all the way to Sevilla. But it does make you think twice – when we marvel about Mexican colonial jewels like Oaxaca, we’re marveling about European constructs, slave labor and razed indigenous settlements, in many cases erected directly on top of indigenous cultural treasures. And that’s not to say that Oaxacans aren’t proud of their colonial jewel – of course they are. I’m just fumbling to make sense of it all..