Tête-à-tête between Viejitos (I know, I’m mixing languages), seen between the shoulders of two municipal leaders, on the Municipal Plaza in Teotitlán del Valle during this year’s previously mentioned Carnaval.
Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category
Just between you and me…
Posted in Celebrations, Culture, Holidays, Travel & Tourism, tagged Baile de Los Viejitos, Between, Carnaval, Carnival, Dance of the Old Men, Holy Week, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, Semana Santa, Teotitlán del Valle on June 21, 2014| 4 Comments »
What’s easy???
Posted in Culture, Signs, Travel & Tourism, tagged Calle Berriozábal, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, street signs, uno x uno on June 19, 2014| 9 Comments »
One by one…
These signs cropped up last month on a number of streets in Oaxaca. I saw this one on Calle Berriozábal near the Alcalá. But, I’m confused… What’s easy??? Certainly not dealing with the health insurance industry in the US. I am SO ready to return to Oaxaca!
The Memo meme
Posted in Culture, People, Sports & Recreation, tagged Copa Mundial 2014, El Tri, fútbol, Guillermo Ochoa, Memo Ochoa, Mexico, Mexico vs. Brazil, Mexico-Brazil, soccer, Sweetwater Music Hall, World Cup 2014 on June 17, 2014| 6 Comments »
This afternoon, the headline of Noticias announced, “Oaxaca paralyzed by Mexico-Brazil match.” It goes on to report that zócalo restaurants offered drink promotions and there were cries, sighs, applause, and prayers as people were glued to the TV monitors and their mobile devices.
I, too, have caught World Cup fever. I’m relatively new to fútbol/soccer (my sons played American football), but began learning during Mexico’s march to the Gold during the summer Olympics two years ago.
Still in California, today I was one of the Millions of U.S. Soccer Fans … Cheering for Mexico. Friday, I watched Mexico’s 1-0 (should have been, 3-0) defeat of Cameroon by myself, albeit from the comfort of my younger son’s living room (he was at work). However, for today’s match against Brazil, I headed to Sweetwater Music Hall and their ginormous screen.
It was a full house and cries, sighs, applause, and prayers were evident there, too. I’d say the crowd was 60-40 for Mexico, though some of the Brazilian contingent was particularly vocal. Our (El Tri’s fans) hopes rose when Chicharito FINALLY came into the game, but in the end, the score remained nil-nil. No scoring? No, but it was a great game and Mexico’s goalkeeper Memo Ochoa played the game of his life.
Immediately following the game, Memes Hail Guillermo ‘Memo’ Ochoa’s Remarkable Saves for Mexico vs. Brazil. I was going to try to add to it, by putting his face on an airborne Moctezuma during Danza de la Pluma, but I don’t have Photoshop on this computer. Anybody? Chris???
¡¡¡ #VamosMexico !!!
Not your traditional Carnival
Posted in Celebrations, Culture, Holidays, Travel & Tourism, tagged Baile de Los Viejitos, Carnaval, Carnival, Dance of the Old Men, Holy Week, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, Semana Santa, Teotitlán del Valle on June 12, 2014| 3 Comments »
True confession: I’m not in Oaxaca! I arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area a week ago for a 3-week visit. While I love seeing family, friends, “my” mountain (Mt. Tamalpais), and the Pacific Ocean, it also means bone-chilling summer fog, driving instead of walking most everywhere, and the absence of my regular blog fodder — no calendas, ferias, festivals, saints days, bandas, and urban art. (Though, I will probably head to San Francisco for the latter!)
However, this break-in-the-action gives me time to look back through thousands of photos and create posts that had been put on the back-burner when something bigger, better, or more timely cropped up.
So, here we go, back to Friday, April 24, 2014 — the last of five days of Carnaval in Teotitlán del Valle.
While there are masks, costumes, men dressed as women, and merriment, this is not your Christian pre-Lenten Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras Carnival.
This is a pre-Hispanic celebration that happens the Monday through Friday after Easter, not before Lent.
Via El Baile de Los Viejitos (the Dance of the Old Men), it brings the community and elected leadership together to remind each of their social contract — in an extremely humorous way.
A procession, gathering participants along the way, leads to the Municipal Plaza, where it seems as if the entire village assembles.
And, of course, the dance and ritual continue late into the night…
This is a good spot
Posted in Buildings, Creativity, Culture, Signs, Travel & Tourism, tagged abandoned buildings, artists, buildings, dangerous, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, SCOM, street art, urban art graffiti, wall art on June 8, 2014| 6 Comments »
The “buildings in a bad state” in Oaxaca continue to multiply.
Where some see unsightly decay, others see opportunity…
including urban artist, SCOM.
They’re back!!!
Posted in Culture, Food, Travel & Tourism, Weather, tagged chicatanas, culinary traditions, food, insects, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, salsa, tzicatana, video on June 1, 2014| 12 Comments »
The rainy season has definitely arrived in the city, bringing several hours of lluvia every night for the past five nights. The first rains of the season also bring (drum roll, please) chicatanas! Early this morning, I went out onto the terrace with my coffee to be greeted with these not-so-little insects. Flying (into my hair, eeek!) and crawling all over the place!
Female chicatana on a very wet table.
What, you may ask are chicatanas? They are giant flying ants that emerge with the first rains of the season — and by giant, I mean about 4 cm from the head to the tip of the wings for the females. (As in much of the insect world, males are smaller and wingless.)
Male chicatana on the deck.
This occurs early one morning each year and lasts only a few hours. My first experience with them was a couple of years ago, when I arrived at Oaxaca’s airport for my 8:30 AM flight one May morning, to find, yikes(!) an infestation of insects. I had no idea what they were, but nobody seemed to mind, and kids were running around collecting them. The answer came after I boarded the plane and began talking with a Oaxaqueña across the aisle. She explained that the arrival of the chicatanas was a much-anticipated event because they are a delicacy. As the video below documents, they are soaked, cleaned, toasted on a comal, ground, seasoned, and made into a salsa.
According to this post in a Chicago based culinary chat site, it has been almost “500 years since Bernardino de Sahagun reported to Europe on the tzicatana [chicatana in Nahuatl] in his Nueva Historia, from its divine associations to its swarm ethology (mirroring the movements of the Aztecan armies) to its apparent deliciousness to the Nahuan-speaking people in the region.” And, long before that, tzicatanas were mentioned in the Florentine Codex.
Female chicatana doing the back stroke on the table.
By 9:30 this morning, they were gone. However, should you find yourself in Oaxaca during a brief visit by the chicatanas, here is a recipe for Chicatana Salsa.
My split second story
Posted in Celebrations, cell phones, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged el Divino Señor del Calvario, festival, Mexico, Mixteca, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca on May 30, 2014| 11 Comments »
“I dunno… not much… festival going on downtown… Yeah, food looks good… couple of bands… castillo tonight… So, ya wanna go?”
Last Sunday on a quiet side street away from the chaos and cacophony of the festival honoring el Divino Señor del Calvario, in San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca, Oaxaca. Of course, it’s probably not at all what was being said, not to mention the fact the conversation was most likely in Spanish or Mixtec. But it’s my split second story.
Not your Chicago Bulls
Posted in Animals, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged basketball, bulls, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca on May 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Bulls, real…
and imagined…
… yesterday on the streets of San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca.
We were there for day four of the annual fiesta in honor of el Divino Señor del Calvario and to see the Templo y ExConvento de San Juan Bautista — another of the grand Dominican churches currently undergoing restoration. More about both later. No bull!
Monos on the move
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged Expat Blog, Expat interview, Mexico, monos, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations on May 24, 2014| 6 Comments »
Yesterday, I was walking along calle de Flores Magón, and what to my wondering eyes did appear?
Husband and wife? Novia y novio?? “Just” friends???
I’ve got to say, they looked rather stiff and not very comfortable. Hope their trip was a short one!
By the way, if you want to read a little about my journey to Oaxaca and expat life, Expat Blog recently published an interview with me, American Expat Living in Mexico – Interview with Shannon. There is even a photo of a couple of monos supervising a banda. Perhaps friends of the above???
Are your eyes open?
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged Albert Einstein quote, Bob Marley quote, eyes, graffiti, Marcel Proust quote, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, street art, urban art on May 21, 2014| 8 Comments »
The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes… —Marcel Proust
He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. —Albert Einstein
Open your eyes, look within: Are you satisfied with the life you’re living? —Bob Marley
Eyes looking out on the world from the mural on Tinoco y Palacios, between Vasconcelos and Niños Heroes.
Eve of (mural) destruction
Posted in Creativity, Culture, People, Travel & Tourism, tagged art, Central Connecticut State University, culture, Diego Rivera, Mexico, Mike Alewitz, mural painting, murals, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, urban art, wall art on May 18, 2014| 1 Comment »
Mexico has a long and important place in the history of communication through murals — from stories related by pre-Hispanic civilizations…
Maya fresco circa 790 C.E. – Bonampak, Chiapas.
through the world-renowned and influential Mexican muralists of the twentieth century: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros, and others.
History of Mexico by Diego Rivera, 1931 – National Palace, Mexico City.
And, as many of you know, murals on the walls of Oaxaca are part of the urban landscape, authorized or not, like them or not, they celebrate…
One of several murals in the pedestrian tunnel to the Guelaguetza auditorium in Oaxaca city.
educate…
San Antonino Castillo Velasco, Oaxaca.
reveal past and present — and hopes and fears for the future.
Calle Tinoco y Palacios, between Vasconcelos and Niños Héroes, Oaxaca city.
Those found on the streets we expect to be ephemeral, but commissioned work, both inside and outside of buildings, we hope would have a longer and more permanent lifespan. Of course, the Rockefeller family’s destruction of Diego Rivera’s Rockefeller Center mural showed differently. And, more recently, my friend and artist, Mike Alewitz experienced the obliteration of his mural on the side of the Pathfinder Building, also in New York. Both were instances of political differences and, while distressing, perhaps not too surprising.
However, today Mike is leading a battle in defense of his students’ murals. According to NBC Connecticut:
Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) has built up one of the largest mural collections in the country since the program started in 2001. But Professor Mike Alewitz, who oversees CCSU’s mural painting program, said that collection is at risk.
The school has painted over six of the murals without notice and plans to do the same with another 12, Alewitz said Richard Bachoo, director of operations, confirmed. He said he hopes an appeal to the university and community support will protect the remaining murals.
“It made them feel part of the larger world, that they weren’t looking at blank walls inside an institution, but they were looking at the hopes and dreams of young people,” Alewitz said. “We found out that 18 murals were scheduled to be destroyed.”
<snip>
He says in the 14 years the mural program has existed, the policy has never been implemented in this way. Alewitz said in a statement that this is “the largest destruction of public art in recent history.” While administrators have removed murals in the past, they normally consult with the art department first, he said.
“The real policy has been that people love the murals, so when they’ve been painted, they’ve stayed up,” Alewitz said.
Oaxaca would lose much of her character and lessons would be lost, if we were to wake one morning and find all her murals disappeared. The story is the same at CCSU. For the full article, click HERE. To send messages of protest and to see some of the amazing student murals that enliven the walls and stimulate thinking at CCSU but are slated for destruction, click HERE. And, Why Bureaucrats Fear Art, is a letter to students and fellow artists, by Mike Alewitz.
When we plant trees…
Posted in Celebrations, Creativity, Culture, Politics, tagged Árbol de la Diversidad, Bisexual, Gay, Gente Diferente, International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, Lesbian, LGBT, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, public art, Transexual, Vinnii Gaxhee, Wangari Maathai quote on May 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »
“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.” — Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. From the poster for the inauguration of the Árbol de la Diversidad (Tree of Diversity) on Macedonio Alcalá celebrating May 17, International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
The Ombudsman for Human Rights of the People of Oaxaca said the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia is an opportunity to become aware as a society of respect and acceptance that we owe to the other, a day that encourages us to live and work in building a more just, more humane, more egalitarian and fraternal society. (Noticias, 17 mayo 2014)
Information please
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged art, Gorilla Glass, graffiti, Jason Pfohl, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, SCOM, street art, urban art on May 13, 2014| 8 Comments »
These creatures began materializing around town a couple of months ago. I wonder…
Who are they?
Where did they come from?
What do they want?
Perhaps, I should ask here!
The walls of Oaxaca… you have questions, they have answers.
Update: The monsters sprang forth from the mind of SCOM.
h/t Jason Pfohl of Gorilla Glass.
Happy Mother’s Day
Posted in Celebrations, Culture, Holidays, tagged Día de la Madre, Mexico, Mother's Day, mothers, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, women on May 10, 2014| 4 Comments »
Braided with love (and a little pain). Ahhh, I remember it well… Thinking of you, mom.
Triqui mother and daughter near Santo Domingo, Oaxaca city, 2014
3 generations on top of El Picacho, Teotitlán del Valle, 2014 Día de la Santa Cruz.
Queen and mother at 2nd Viernes del Llano, March 2014, Oaxaca city.
Feliz Día de la Madre to all the beautiful, hardworking mothers of Oaxaca and all over the world.
Speaking of insects…Liladownsia fraile
Posted in Animals, Culture, Environment, People, Science & Nature, Travel & Tourism, tagged Chapulines, Fondo Guadalupe Musalem, grasshoppers, Lila Downs, Liladownsia fraile, Mexico, Oaxaca, science discoveries, Sierra Madre del Sur, singers, Studies in Mexican Grasshoppers: Liladownsia fraile on May 9, 2014| 4 Comments »
Yippee!!! A new, and extremely colorful, species of grasshopper has been discovered in the pine-oak forest of the Sierra Madre del Sur Mountain Range in Oaxaca. Liladownsia fraile has been named for Oaxaca’s favorite daughter and one of my favorite performers, Lila Downs, someone I’ve written about often.
(Photo Credit: UCF)
From Science Codex,
A newly discovered grasshopper by University of Central Florida scientists now bears the name of Grammy-award winning singer and activist Ana Lila Downs Sanchez.
The scientists named the new species discovered on the side of a mountain road near Oaxaca, Mexico, after the Mexican-American singer as a nod to her efforts to preserve indigenous culture and penchant for wearing colorful, local costumes as part of her performances.
“It was primarily Paolo’s idea to name the grasshopper after the singer” said Derek Woller, one of the authors of the paper referring to colleague Paolo Fontana. “He’s a big fan of Lila Downs (her stage name). The grasshopper is so beautiful, so vibrant and colorful. When he told us all about her, her work, her colorful clothes, and that she was born in the region where we found the specimens, we thought, yeah, that’s great, let’s do it.” Read full article HERE.
According to the Zootaxa article, Studies in Mexican Grasshoppers: Liladownsia fraile, a new genus and species of Dactylotini (Acrididae: Melanoplinae) and an updated molecular phylogeny of Melanoplinae (a mouthful, I know, but the photos are worth scrolling through the article), Liladownsia fraile had been sighted in San José del Pacifico, Suchixtepec, and Pochutla.
By the way, if you are in Oaxaca, Lila Downs is performing tonight at the Teatro Macedonio Alcalá — a benefit for Fondo Guadalupe Musalem, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of the young indigenous women of Oaxaca through education.
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