Justicia, Tierra, y Libertad

I keep forgetting to post this. I went to visit Mariana in Tepoztlan. I think I've blogged about that hideous experience before. But on the way back I passed this sign. I thought it was worth a picture :)

Colonia Obrera Fauna

A nice rooster in Colonia Obrera. I shot this picture while we were waiting for the Tux-Van.

Scented mysteries and chemistry

UNPA students primarily (until they started the nursing program to make money for the school) studied sciences like chemistry and biotechnology. They have 2 labs. I have a few pictures here of the chemistry lab. It is amazing how well-equipped it is considering that it is so far out in the middle of nowhere, jungle. Completely impressive.
Another factor, though, that put the blight on life at UNPA was the stench. There was (possibly) a garbage dump or landfill nearby that I liked to call the compost initiative. We speculated on its existence because of the presence of the vultures circling over the hilltop behind the school. The circled like hornets around a hive. It was eerie sometimes.
But the smell might also have come from the processing of hule/ule from the groves all around. Ule is rubber. Men walk around tapping it from the trees and they sell it to people who process it into latex that is then sold to companies to manufacture whatever they want. The process, and the ule itself, has a pretty rank smell.
So we never knew if that dogfood smell was coming from the compost initiative or the ule processing. And maybe we'll never know.

UNPA flowers

I took a lot of pictures of the flowers and the campus on my next-to-last-day at work. I hope I remember how beautiful this place is. It's easy to forget under the burden of the unbearable heat and hideous insects and slacker students that this is actually quite a beautiful place.

La Presa 2

Here are a couple of views of the actual river where it's been dammed. The water level is very low right now. I've been here before when it was so high it was all underwater. It's just beautiful no matter what, though. Very little to complain about. Except.
It was very hot. And in the plastic seats at the restaurant I did have swamp-ass so bad it looked like I'd been sitting in a puddle. Ugh.

La Presa

Homero invited us to go to the presa (the dam) that is the water source for Tuxtepec. He has a car so we went. We drove there, took fab pickies, ate a great meal, and came home stuffed and happy. The scenery around Tuxtepec is always breathtaking.

Walking around Tuxtepec Part 2

Here we have a house with wood slats on the walls of the upper part - an unusual architectural feature for Tuxtepec. But the reason for the picture is actually, if you look carefully, two animal heads mounted on the walls. I think they might be deer. Or gazelles. Or something. They are real, anyway. And mounted on an exterior wall like that, on an upper floor, they are just really bizarre.
The next picture is the pedestrian bridge. We walked across it once and it was totally fun. But the city condemned it - I think the day after we walked across it. And they roped it off and took up the boards. Some helpful soul has apparently replaced some of the slats so that the more daring, or lazier, pedestrians, can still use it - if you're willing to risk it. I wasn't.
The beautiful green wall in the next picture just speaks for itself.
And the last one should read, se recibe escombros. Whoever receives the scrap-metal here needs a lesson in remedial spelling. :)

Oops. My description doesn't match the order of the pictures. And I don't know how to fix that without moving a lot of shit. So I'm leaving it. You can figure it out.

Walking around Tuxtepec PArt 1

There are far too many interesting things to take pictures of in Tuxtepec. So, I will dedicate a brief series of pictures from around town to this project.
Since the rains have set in, the weather is actually mild enough to make walking enjoyable again. So EY and I have been walking around, looking at stuff. And it is making me like Tuxtepec again and I think I will miss it.
Here I am posting a picture of the painting of Super Dog. This is on the wall of a veterinaria place that treats sick animals and sells dog food. Can is apparently the spanish for canine or dog.
Another pf these pictures is a basketball court near the cemetery where somebody has tried to write FUCK on the goalpost, but didn't quite get it right :)
The bottom picture is a grave at the cemetery. Here the cemeteries are called panteones. This one caught my eye because of the Greek temple design and the colors.
And this corrugated iron wall painted white was just pretty.

Masked Children

These kids were re-enacting something in the town square one day last week. I always walk through the square on my way home and usually something is going on. That day there were a lot of kids in various kinds of costumes.
I had my hands full of heavy sacks of groceries so I only stopped long enough to get these 2 pictures. I kinda wish I'd gone back for more photos. There were kids dressed in what looked like pirate costumes, too. But I think they might have been Benito Juarez.
The people here sure know how to make good use of their public spaces. They never do anything this cool at home and here it's commonplace.
I wish Tuxtepec would spiff up their big band and play concerts in the bandstand :) Maybe that's asking a little too much though.

Mercedes in Regalia

Not one of my students, but a student whom I got to know while working here. Her name is Mercedes and she is a little strange. Quirky, really. I like her a lot.
She had this picture as her FaceBook profile pic for a little bit. She is in traditional dress here, for a dance that the school sponsored. I'll try to post pictures from the performance sometime.
Mercedes has a friend named Melina and both of them decided that they loved me and always stopped by my office and talked to me and followed me around. The worst moment came when they asked me if they could call my "mommy." I was HORRIFIED!!!
They were sweet but, really, I need my space.
And I'm not anybody's mommy.
I didn't want to hurt their feelings, though, so I was kinda stuck for awhile. Finally after basically ignoring them a lot when they would come by, they maybe got the message and stopped trying to hang out in my office. I felt like a heel, but dude. I need my space.
That's why I live half a world away from my husband.
:)

4th of July 2010

Last 4th of July I was at Giza climbing around on the pyramids and goofing off with Lindsey. How freaking cool, huh?
This 4th of July I was at work. At UNPA. In the sweltering jungle of Oaxaca near Vera Cruz.
We didn't get the holiday.
We did go out for a couple of beers afterward at the Happy Place. I'll post pictures if I can remember.

Rock Stars

So, I don't have any actual photos of ME with Ruben, the lead singer of Cafe Tacuba. But I did meet him several times and hang out with him. I have been to his house many times and we even participated in a group therapy session together one afternoon (family constellations - interesting but with an evil, patriarchal perspective). I didn't know he was so bloody famous when I met him and he was actually more interested in my work in Egypt and what I knew about the revolution that I was in his work. Then I found out how bloody famous he is. Incredible.
Still, I never got up the nerve after finding out how famous he was to ask him for a photo of us. So I can't prove that he's one of my homies. However, I did manage to steal this picture of Ruben with his wife and kids picnicking with some of my friends. Is this proof enough of the exalted circles in which I roll?

Tepoztlan

When I was at Mariana's one of those times that I went to get Firulaisa spayed, I stopped for a sec at the gateway to the cathedral and got my picture taken in front of this wall mural made of seeds. It's pretty cool!
I wish I'd had time to explore more and climb the mountain to the temple. But staying with Mariana is difficult. She is very hard to get along with because she has to be in control all the time, she's a drama queen, she never listens to anyone else, and she smoke ay too much weed - so much that she has no control over her emotions. She says ridiculous things and changes her mind with every stray breeze. She nurses a hatred for the US and insists on sounding off with hare-brained political analysis that she does not really understand. Sheesh. I had to stay because I love the dog. But for real, Mariana's a little tyrant and I never want to have to stay with her again.

Cheaters

My students took their final exams last week and during the first class - the 9am nursing class - I confiscated THIS!
I noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under the test of one student and she was holding her arm over her exam in a suspicious manner. So I walked over and picked up her paper and this little, tiny, cheat sheet was smiling up at me.
I think that more of them had a copy of it. 5 people failed the exam. I think they had just not studied at all because they were planning to cheat and then when I put them in alphabetized seats and busted this one with the cheat sheet, they got too scared to use it. I was proud of myself :)
My only problem was what to do.
I confiscated the cheat sheet and let her finish the exam. I ended up subtracting 2 letter grades from her exam. She failed the course when all was said and done. Hahahahaha!!!!!

Holy Key

You can even get the Virgin Guadeloupe on a key here.
So you can call upon divine help to get your locks open, I guess :)

Pineapple Jenny

Tuxtepec is a pineapple producing town. And they use the pineapple in a lot of their iconography - although the name really meas Rabbit Hill in Mixtec.
But the pineapples do grow to enormous proportions here. And they use them as props in the most popular and famous local dance they have, the "Flor de Piña."
I'll post pictures of the Flor de Piña later, for right now, here I am in front of the university with out very own small pineapple mascot. And here I am downtown with a bigger specimen.

peaches

Or something like that. They call these birds peaches. They must be in the corvid family, because a guy was telling me this morning that they can really tear up a corn field.
But they look to me like dinosaurs. I'll try to get a good closeup eventually, but this little group was pretty cute. The people here don't really like them. But to me they are totally precious. And dinosaurish :)

Tuxtepepper

This cute little shop is on the way home from the Tux van. We walk by it almost every day. This is where Maggie buys her coffee and I usually buy my garlic. I think I'm gonna start buying my granola there too.
But I want to talk a minute about peppers. Seeing the big bins of peppers everywhere here, makes me think that a lot of women are doing a lot of cooking with these peppers. And I have no idea how or what they are making.
I wish I knew.
And I wish I could cook something with them.
These peppers make me daydream of spicy, beautiful, mouthwatering, dishes. Of traditional kitchens and talaveraware and pots of beans steaming in pottery cookers.
It just seems a shame that I will probably always wonder about them.
Maybe one day I'll have a chance to find out what they do with them and what they taste like. Or maybe I wouldn't like it.

Earthquake Signs

I can't remember the exact day, but one day last month I was sitting at my desk in my office in the morning, talking to my mother on the computer, when the floor started to slide back and forth a bit. The building was shaking and I thought it was a big truck going by outside, but there aren't any roads or big trucks. So I realized it was an earthquake and probably a big one. When I heard something crash and break in the hallway I told my mother I had to go because there was an earthquake. I ran outside. The motion had stopped and there weren't any noticeable aftershocks.
I later found out that it had been over 6 points on the Richter scale and originated in Veracruz.Scary, that, since there is a nuclear power plant in Veracruz.
Anyway, when I got home, I documented the movement with this picture. You can see the little camels and bottles overturned and you can also see the clean spots where the coins had been lying until they got sloshed aside in the quake.
Thank goodness for my slovenly dread of dusting or I'd have very little evidence of this earthquake.
For the record, I've felt three earthquakes since I've been here, but there have probably been more than that.

Tortillas in Tepoztlan

I want to write about tortillas. There is a trend in Mexican tortillerias to add flour to the corn meal, adulterating the tortillas. This is such a problem that I have seen many tortillerias with signs proclaiming their tortillas free from additives, "100% puro maiz!"
In the market in Tepoztlan, though, they do things the old fashioned way. You can go there and buy handmade, real, 100% corn tortillas, for about 9 pesos/dozen. I ate there one day, when I was staying with Mariana for those 10 hideous days. And I took these pictures for posterity. Actually, at this stall I ate one sope and one quesadilla. They were fantastic.