7 posts tagged “oaxaca”

I forgot to upload some of my favorite photos from my work in oaxaca with leah.  Before we went into the mountains, we stopped in oaxaca for 2 days and did some exploring.  From my set of oaxaca photos, here are some of my favorite ones. 

I really do love this city  - certain cities seem to wrap me up into their arms and I feel as if I can truly touch the the rhythm in the streets.  This intimacy crept into my skin the minute I stepped onto the van from the airport.  And it's not an idealizing kind of love with oaxaca -this kind of love with a city is one that considers all the bloodshed and triumphs,  a kind of honest love that believe that the collective energy of the people is more powerful than the elite systems that govern them. 

In  single step on a preserved cobbled street I wonder what history has unfolded on this one step? on this one rock? where did this rock come from?  How many hands did it pass through?  From this micro moment to the macro I wonder how do infrastructures come together in oaxaca to make daily life work?   and how do clouds come to be the umbrella that wraps Oaxaca up in fluffy beauty every single day?  I will never forget the cloud formations here - I think its geographical positioning in the unique mountain ranges turns oaxaca into this cloud making city.   where ever I walked outside, the clouds framed my view.  They were always there, guiding my eyes, saying let me be a part of your photo  - let me take you into the city.  Sometimes I swore that each person walked around with their own special cloud just dedicated to them - and when I saw large cloud formations it reflected lots of people in one place - lots of colliding personal cloud angels.  Isn't that a beautiful idea - if we each had our own little cloud guiding us through life.

I wish I had another few months here just to travel to other parts of the city and talk to more people.  All i can do is attempt to capture my curiosity and the rhythm I felt in my photos.   Enjoy!

here are some more photos from the fieldwork Leah and I did in Oaxaca.  These are some of my favorite pics from the town. And of course some of my favorite pics are of the all the kids I played with and who also taught me spanish -most of the time laughing at my spanish - like mixing up people with goats - chavos versus chivos - or donkey's with purity  burro versu puro.  oh and the economy  of this town mainly relies on subsistence  - and remittances- but that explains why you there are so many turkey  and donkeys around the village.  Most people farm a small piece of land and raise a few animals.
And of the weirdest anamolies was the poster I found in the house of health - that says "DIVERSIDAD SEXUAL" - kinda out of place for a town with such traditional notions of gender.  The women aren't even allowed to vote in the local elections.
And one of my favorite memories was when Tanya, one of the researchers, decided to teach all the kids how to extenderse - to do yoga!!!  it was quite hilarious because we tried to get a group photo afterwards with the kids and they were so relaxed and wound up that the group photo concept just didn't work out. Some of the kids just decided to lay there.  The rest of the pics from oaxaca are here.

you can see the rest of the art photos here.

Sabinillo is the town where we spent 2 weeks conducting research.  It's a small indigenous Mixteca puebla.  The older people speak Mixteca fluently and it is their primary language.  Most people 40 and up taught themselves Spanish.  Erica interviewed a man who was the first person to learn spanish in the town - he learned it at a factory in the 1940's, and the factory was located a few states away.   Although they teach Mixteca in the primary school, the kids don't speak it fluently.  

As I walked around, you could hear all the older people, 30 years old and up, conversing in Mixteca while all the younger kids speaking spanish.  It was very hard for me to speak spanish with some of the really old people, because my spanish comprehension isn't advanced and on top of that their spanish was spoken with a thick mixteca accent.  So I just nodded my head a lot and said bien, bien.

Most people lived in wood or concrete houses. It's a subsistence based lifestyle - so most people owned a few animals and a little land to grow vegetables.   The Casa de Salud was our basecamp.  The picture below is of our amazing research team standing in front of the Agencia - the Townhall.

This family is famous for making fireworks in the region.  It's a dangerous job as they do make the fireworks right outside of their house.  They must have no enemies in the towns or surrounding area.

Senora Eva, the women I am standing with, is the matron of the house. She and along with everyone at the house  were fascinated by my Chineseness - especially my eyes - they couldn't stop staring at them.  We were 6 hours into the mountains from Oaxaca so really for them they had never seen a Chinese person before, much less any Asians! 

These pictures show them stuffing the gunpowder into the shell, and then preparing it to be attached to the wooden frames that are made into various shapes - like a bull or a sun.  These frames are then brought to the fiesta, and someone wears the bull on their back while the fireworks shoot off into the sky!  SCARY!  you can see that they've hung up some of the finished frames. 

(I like the photo that shows the empty onion bag from the state of Chihuahua because you see an email address on it.)

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Jaripeo - Rodeo.

All I could see around me were deep mountains that seemed like big rocks against the clear skies.  For a moment, it felt like the voice of the Jaripeo announcer ruled the mountains and the entire world - it seemed to bounce off every mountain tip and jump to the next tip - and each word would echo until it ran back into your feet.  You could feel his undulating voice melt into the dirt, and each time the voice would settle into the ground the bulls would shift uneasily in their pens and kick up the dirt, sending it back to the skies.  as the voice would fly away more would come and the whole process would start itself again.  I know these bulls could sense all the tension around them. 

If I tried hard enough, I could put the announcer's voice away in my pocket and hear the little kids running around, babies crying and hushes of voices.  But just as soon as I could hear the crowd the music would fall into my ears.  I knew then to give up, and to just let it all go. Was it in my nose's imagination that I could hear the little flaps of flags wavering - the ones that were hung up across the pen?  I swear I could.  Little pieces touching each other and the rope.  At every moment, I wanted to stuff all the sounds and smells away with me - the words of the announcer were so undecipherable that it felt like a calming call with trumpets humming through it seams.  If only it could be zipped away, but the mountains didn't let me keep it. 

It was mostly men who were watching the Jaripeo.  The few women were young teenage girls, and they made themsleves known very easily.  The two girls in my picture were the only who sat on the top - did the bulls or men give them more attention?  Well the men gathered around the pen, watching the newcomer drink a few swigs of beer before he would mount the bull.  The poor boy in the video tried so many times to mount the bull.  But you could tell he was scccaaared - he kept gesturing for more swigs - and he did this probably 5 times  - each time the announcer would get excited and rouse the audience up - and just as he was about to start the count down, the boy would ask for another swig of beer.  I am not sure if anyone told him that alcohol doesn't work that quickly to calm your nerves.  But I am sure the symbolic act of drinkings gave him the strength for 10 seconds to believe in himself.  Eventually he believed he could throw his life and limbs into the hands of the bull.  The man in the Wrangler shirt muttered something about "these young riders."  He probably was laughing at him as he was thinking of his first bull ride. 

what happened next?  the boy got on. the gates opened. the boy immediately fell off. the men roped the bull in without a fight.  it was odd, because the bulls just didn't seem to care that much.  The one in the video just kinda stood there.   Passive, unknowing, breathing from false hopes and bewildered that it could be over so quickly- and full of riding disappointment?  Is this what the first time is always like?

Leah and I went to Oaxaca field research.  May I mention that we were the Principle Investigators and that we  secured thousands of dollars in research money?  THat's right! congrats to us!  Our project studies communication technology usage in sending and receiving immigration communities of Mexico and California.  SOOOO that means we get to have lots of fun working on this project for the next year!   The next 5 posts will be summaries of our trip.

It looks like we only had fun, but it was A LOT of work.  Especially in Mexico - leah really put in a lot of leg work setting up our connection with the town, getting our fieldwork materials safely stored away and arranging our hotel stays.  My spanish improved a lot as I was the official "Play with the Kids Director."  They found my chinese eyes fascinating and my child-like Spanish hilarious.   I do think that is one of the secrets in working with a town is that that all the children like you - kids always know who to trust.  I will post more photos of ninos later.

We  the MOST amazing research team ever!  This was my first time in the field and I learned so much from Erica, Peter, Max and Leah.  It was an honor to have such a great group of experienced researchers and souls.  And on a very personal note, thank you to all of you for always helping me with my Spanish - like making sure I knew the difference between pene and pena, burro y puro and etc.  Those corrections saved me a lot of public mishaps with the town. 

Leah and I are gratful to the town we were in.  They talked to us with open arms.  We also are grateful to CCIS - especially Ana for setting us up with desayuno!  And of course than you to all of our funders! 

Here is a video of our daily commute.  We stayed in a town 15 minutes away from the town we worked with.  However, with Jacinto's peaceful driving style, it was a 1 hour commute each morning and night.  These were some of my favorite memories. Especially at night time, I would always sit in the back of the truck with Tanya, Erica y Peter - and all the kids who came along for the ride.  Most of the time, I was quiet - as I couldnt' stop staring at the stars.   NEVER in my life had I sing the stars of our universe so clearly.  On several nights, one of the boys would sing a song.  This is one of my favorite memories.  And of course in between it all - we were obsessed with taking pictures :)