View From Casita Colibrí

After the two days spent in Teotitlán del Valle last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the following article, written for the Guardian International Development Journalism competition.

Theme: What stops children in rural areas going to school? sponsored by the David Rattray Memorial Trust

Elena Gonzales folds yarn between her fingers. Her tapestry is woven in an intricate pattern of ochre and indigo, with fibre that has been dyed using moss and bark, fruit and flowers. Here in the hills of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, indigenous Zapotec communities have been weaving rugs for more than two thousand years. Elena spins the loom and the centuries fall away.

Like many Zapotec children growing up in the 1980s, Elena did not attend school. Faced with a primary curriculum that took no account of Zapotec language or culture, her parents decided that she should be educated by her community. She was taught to weave by her grandmother. Self-sufficiency is the historic norm in Oaxaca, but in recent decades as rural life has become increasingly entretejidos – interwoven – with the modern market economy, Zapotec children who have not gone to school are finding themselves on the wrong side of an urban-rural education divide that excludes them from employment and contributes to deepening poverty.  [Read full article]

Tapete purchased in Teotitlán del Valle by a friend. It was woven by Demetrio Bautista Lazo but was started by his young son.