Animal Abuse

There are a lot of things I'll miss when I leave Oaxaca -- fresh tortillas, salsa music, the daily rains -- but there are a few aspects of the culture that I haven't fully embraced, and one of those is the local attitude toward animals. I know Americans are notorious for anthropomorphising their pets, and I've tried to keep an open mind about what occasionally seems like a cavalier attitude towards animal treatment, but today I witnessed a horrifying spectacle in which a sloth was tied up and beaten with sticks by my own classmates while others laughed and sang. The faces of the perpetrators are partially obscured in the videos below, but their outrageous actions must be exposed:

Salsa Piquante

Some of us started taking dance lessons yesterday, and as you've probably guessed we are already practically professional, and when I say "professional" I mean awkward, uncoordinated and hilarious. You'll probably notice I haven't included a photo in this week's post. That's deliberate.

Today I lucked out and got paired with the instructor. Last Friday, we missed the lesson when the instructor moved it up in order to go out in the evening. We weren't entirely clear on why he required four hours of preparation, although some of the boys suggested it might take him that long to peel his pants off, as his sartorial tastes lean towards a tighter fit than our boys are used to. Trousers notwithstanding, the man is an incredible dancer and I actually felt graceful tonight, and when I say "graceful" I mean marginally less likely to maim any of the couples dancing near me.

So I'm making progress. At this rate, I'll be channelling Ginger Rogers by the end of the week.

Elections

Today will see elections play out for various levels of local government. In particular, of the 31 states in Mexico, 12--including Oaxaca--will vote for new governors. The current climate is a big deal for several reasons.

Brief history lesson to contextualize this:

Shortly after the 1910-17 Mexican Revolution, a political party called the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI... Partido Revoluciario Insitucional) came to dominate Mexican politics. From the late 20s till 2000, in fact, it held a Chicago-style, political-machine stanglehold on the country, and Mexico was considered an authoritarian state (not a democracy... by name only) during this time. Some may recall the name Vicente Fox (2000-6), and, more recently, Felipe Calderón (2006--). Fox became the 1st non-PRI president in Mexico, and Calderón is the 2nd. It is pretty much agreed that, although these two men are non-PRI, they were and are at the mercy of a PRI-dominated Congress ... kind of like a Democratic US president facing a Republican-dominated Cogress, or vice versa... though worse. So a president's initiatives can be easily struck down if not in line with PRI ideology.

The state of Oaxaca has never seen rule outside of the PRI. Today will be the first opportunity ever that a non-PRI governor has the opportunity to unseat the PRI political machine here. He's leading in several polls. This is both exciting and unsettling.

If you guys think the Fox News-MSNBC bickering is bad, it's peanuts to bickering around here. Some might have heard that, last week, a PRI gubernatorial candidate was killed in the northern state of Tamaulipas. A few days before this incident, a pro-PRI rally in the state of Chiapas (Oaxaca's neighbor to the east... the last state before entering Guatemala ) saw an eruption of violence and a few bodies fall cold to the ground. Just this past Wednesday, a mayor in a municipality close to Oaxaca city was murdered, and around that day, in the state of Puebla (just northeast of Oaxaca), two journalists lost their lives.

Thus there is a concern that if this non-PRI front-runner doesn't win today (via election fraud), some stuff could go down, as many Oaxacans despise the PRI leadership. Some may recall some violence that occurred in 2006 here between teachers and the government... well, the PRI leadership eventually attacked the peaceful protest (that was demanding more pay, resources...) from helicopters, and this incident is ingrained in many minds here.

Anyways, the city of Oaxaca is made up of "colonias" with our house, the university, and all the other homestays in "Colonia Reforma," which is one of the wealthier sections of the city. As is the case in the States, where there is wealth, there tends to be little threat of violence. Thus, the real threat of violence in this neighborhood is low. However, we're going to watch and wait to see how the elections play out tomorrow. If it turns ugly, then obviously AU will pull the plug and fly us home.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politics is ugly, especially here, so I'm going to turn to different news.

I'm very happy with how the study program is working out. We mix classroom classes with "field trips" made throughout the state. On thursday we made a trip to the mountains of the north (Sierra Norte) to take a tour through an indigenous town and learn about how they run things. The state of Oaxaca hosts 570 municipalities, with 418 of these being recognized as officially indigenous. That is, these indigenous communities are self-sustaining and have their own system of land tenure and politics. The idea is community ownership of resources and destiny. Thus, Oaxaca is unique in that it hosts formal democracy with 100s-of-years-old indigenous tradition, and this is a peaceful coexistence.

Week 3 in the bag (of 8). I'm crossing my fingers to see the end of it from here, and not Detroit.

Halfway done? Say it ain't so

With the blink of an eye, three weeks have passed, and while most of my compadres have another five weeks to look forward to in Oaxaca, I am officially more than halfway done with my trip. Indeed, as I write this, I'm realizing that we have but one week left in Oaxaca city, only one week left of Spanish classes and seminars and homestay, before we set off on a weeklong field trip down to the isthmus. L and I have been trying to explore as much as possible without getting too touristy, but even so, I feel like I've just barely cracked this city.

So far, highlights for me have included the field trip to the women's weaving cooperative in Teotitlan del Valle, baseball games rooting for the Oaxaca Guerreros, and, little by little, stringing together longer sentences in Spanish. Of course, on the food front, there have been too many highlights to document individually, but as I look over the pictures I've taken, I'm especially fondly remembering the posole and tlayuda of my first few days here, the abundance of quesillo and amazing salsas that accompany just about everything our host mom makes, the fresh salsa and tortillas (made by us!) at the women's weaving cooperative in Teotitlan del Valle, and the refreshing nieves from the mercado 20 de noviembre.







Sadly, I fear the next two weeks will be passing all too quickly; I only hope to cram as much as possible into my limited time remaining here.

A hop, zip and a jump

This Thursday we took another field trip to the Sierra Norte region, where we took a "half-hour hike" through the forest that somehow turned into a four-hour trek in the woods. Though lengthier than anticipated, it was a beautiful walk that gave us an opportunity to see new flora and fauna and learn about ecotourism and Oaxacan indigenous culture, none of which I intend to discuss here.

The bus ride was a grueling two-hour slog through switchback roads that required three separate stops for various classmates to scramble out for a kneeside view of the magnificent vistas and roadside ditches. I was slightly nervous about our plans to work up a sweat, stuff ourselves with trout and clamber back on the bus at the end of the day, but as most of the riders have doped themselves up on dramamine, the return trip was considerably less eventful.

Said trout was served at a restaurant in the mountains, which also boasted a zipline, which many of us--emboldened by dramamine and the recklessness of youth--decided to try. The zipline ran from one high rock to another across a wide expanse of grass and a creek. To get from the landing rock to the restaurant, you had to cross the kind of bridge which is sometimes referred to as a "suspension bridge" and sometimes as a "rickety collection of boards," although in my own house, it would more likely be called "that bridge Mom doesn't want us on."

That's it above and to the right, and in the picture, it actually looks pretty sturdy--which it was--although as I was preparing to cross it, our professor called out to me, "If you're walking across, you might want to bear in mind that it's missing a few boards." Noted.

Rockin' in Mexico

So we had ourselves a wee little earthquake this week, but nothing to be too concerned about. In terms of bed-shaking ability, it ranked well below a Magic Fingers or a vigorous sneeze, and I doubt it would have awoken my roommate and me at all, had we not been sleeping poorly due to an ill-advised cactus-and-cilantro salad.

Ranking far higher on the Richter scale of our personal lives was the minor inundation that flooded our rooms the same evening. We'd left the door ajar for some desperately needed fresh air, but that (combined with a gutter overdue for cleaning) resulted in a massive puddle sweeping across our floor later in the afternoon. I threw three towels on top of it and watched them sink to the bottom of the creeping puddle. J, overwhelmed by salad-eater's remorse, crawled into her bed to "brainstorm" and I stared stupidly at the puddle until our host mother appeared, mop in hand, and heroically swept it out.

All in all, it was an adventurous day in Mexico. Note to self: Shut door during monsoon.

Images from Oaxaca