Mexican Flora & fauna... so far...

I know, I know... I need to post about Monte Alban and Mitla... I'll get it to it I promise. But for now, you can check out fellow NEHers blogs:


Pearl Lau (Art teacher, with great info and she's a great artist too!)
http://pearl-mexico.blogspot.com/ 
Zak Foster (Spanish teacher, all-around cool guy with a quirky sense of humor, LOVE it!)  http://zakinoaxaca.wordpress.com/ 


For now, thought I'd show you some of the flora of the Oaxaca region, most of the pics were taken at Monte Alban and El Tule, but some at Yucundaa ruins.

Love how this one (above) starts out (to the R), then the individual buds

bloom into tiny white flowers which makes a bigger flower!

Some flowers around Monte Alban (above and next two below). 

They are trying hard to reintroduce native plants to the ruin site.

Very pretty but painful!

 

Cactus living in the remains of a tree at Yacundaa ruins.

 Very odd tree leaves at Monte Alban... Our resident biologist (Stef T.) thinks maybe they are a parasite... but the looked to just come up straight from the leaf, not attached like a parasite would, but I dunno... Mom? Thoughts?

  

                              See how the bigger the cactus gets, 

the more bark-like the bottom part gets/ looks?

Tadpoles at Yucundaa ruins.

El Arbol del Tule... MASSIVE tree. It's a sabino tree (a type of cedar, I believe). Over 2000 years old (!!!) and 160 feet in diameter! It's said to be the most massive tree in the world, but not the oldest nor tallest. Very impressive.

You can see abit better here, with the people standing in front of it, just how big around El Tule is... Even with my small lens (28 - 105mm) on the good camera, if I stood where they were I couldn't pull back enough to get the whole trunk in the shot, so had to get farther away!

Lovely gardens at El Tule, which is in front of a church.

Cool clouds over the mountains on the way home from Yucundaa (about a hour outside Oaxaca city).

 
And finally, a great rainbow from the bus window yesterday!

I am going horseback riding this weekend with Stef T. and her friend Sonja (she's not a teacher, she's here for Spanish classes), so no more posts until I get back. We are staying and riding here: http://www.horsebackmexico.com/ 

Hasta luego!

For the horse folks... Mexican QH racing...

So, on the way to Mitla after Monte Alban (more on that later), we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. And as they were giving us a tour of how they make mezcal (similar to tequila), I spotted a small shedrow behind the restaurant, and then a guy walking a horse... Screw the mezcal production! and made a beeline to the guy and horse. We start talking and it turns out that he is a jockey for the owner/trainer of the horses, so he introduces me to Miss Oaxaca, a 2 y.o. QH filly.

Miss Oaxaca  y ella jockete

By then Stef T. had shown up (horses are like magnets in foreign countries to us horsefolks!), and he then introduced us to Miss Columbiana, a 4 y.o. QH mare.

Love how he's on his cell, and she's just chillin'... She's won quite a few races.

And then to El Jimador, a 2 y.o. TB colt, who despite his name, was not very intimidating (he slightly jumped at the camera click! ;-)

El Jimador... the intimidated! ;-)

The shedrow is small, the stall doors metal, only 3 horses living there at the moment. The horses look short in their stalls because they have to step down into them.

The stalls and tack/ feedroom were very clean, but when we had showed up, all the top stall doors where closed so that they were in the dark :-( but we realized with El Jimador, it's because he can undo his latch!

The stalls to the left are for shavings and feed storage.

El Jimador... the escape artist (you can see Javier rushing to close the newly opened stall door!)

Not for the racehorses, of course...

Nor this...

The jockey, I think his name was Javier... I can't remember exactly!, very proudly showed us a picture of him breaking from the gate with Miss Columbiana. And at the back wall of the restaurant, there are dozens of win photos of the owner's racing Quarterhorses. Most QH racing in Mexico is match races (two horses), but is sometimes up to four at a time...

A cool experience, dare I say better than the lunch? ;-)

Festival at Teotitlan

Sunday, Juan suggested we go to Teotitlan to see their festival and visit his friend Jose Mendoza Martinez, who is a weaver from a family of weavers. Teotitlan del Valle is known for their textiles. It seems that most everyone in the town weaves, as has been the tradition for centuries.

So, we pack 5 people in a taxi (6 including the driver) to Teotitlan (about 20 mins away). First, we get to the church and see all the people gathered in the square watching the traditional dances. From what I could tell, it was about the Zapotec people before Spain arrived, then showing Spain's troops arriving... and well, you can see... The kids played a very important role in all this... there were also little girls in beautiful dresses who danced.

The young "Spanish" soldiers... LOVE the itty bitty in the fancy feathered hat closest to me.

We then went to Jose's house to visit and see the family weavings. Jose's young, 25, and his mother also weaves (as did his father, who is deceased). So we met mom, grandma, his brothers, and a few cousins. Jose showed us the looms and how he weaves. His work is beautiful, very unique, and he works in natural fibers and dyes. He's exhibited abit and is slowly making a name for himself, it seems. I *really* want one of his weavings, but they are abit too much money for me. But I did buy a lovely one (synthetic dyes) made by his mom for her first offer of P$200 (less than $20USD). The weavings are truly a work of art and very time consuming.

Jose at work.

Abuela (grandma) hugged us all like we were long lost children, she came up to maybe my armpit... itty bitty thing, but plump. She laughed when I told she looked no older than 25.

Abuela.

 Mom (Rosalia Martinez) made us a very traditional chicken soup (it was broth based with chicken and very souffle-like eggs... add abit of chili and YUM!) with homemade yellow mole chicken tamales.  Tamales here, generally, I have noticed are much thinner than we are used to in Texas... the masa is more crepe-like, but very good nonetheless.

Rosalia with my weaving.

Then we come to find out that one of Jose's brothers (David - 18) plays violin in a mariachi band, so he eagerly put on his uniform and played for us, and sang too (extremely well, he's studying singing). I will be making copies of the photos here in Oaxaca to send to them.

David in his mariachi uniform in front of more of Rosalia's weavings.

Then, as we were leaving, there was this lovely couple of elderly ladies, and I asked if I could take their picture. The younger said Yes, please! but the older said Oh no! I look terrible! and smoothed her clothes with her hand, but the younger insisted. After the photo was taken (with the younger's husband), I come to find out that they are mother and daughter, and mom's 98!!! They both were no taller than my shoulder. And, they made *sure* I received their address so as to send them copies of the photo, which I will most certainly do since I can get prints made here in Oaxaca.

Aren't they beautiful!

The Zocalo

Had a busy Saturday, Akilah and I met Helen and then went to the organic market. Also with us was Debbie, who is a teacher in my group and arrived last night and staying at Casita Camila. The market was great, and I was able to get a lettuce mix, arugula, eggs and cilantro. I also ate an amazing blue corn tortilla that had mushrooms, cheese and arugula, made fresh for me!  Helen and I picked up our laundry, and then we all went to the zocalo (the main central square in Oaxaca). As an aside, the laundromats here are full service, so you drop your laundry one day and it's ready the next... 3 kilos (for me 4 pairs of pants/shorts, 5 t-shirts, socks, undies, bras) of clothes cost $3 to wash, dry and fold. But you must, of course, give the instruction, "Por favor, no braserros in la machina de secca!" - basically, don't put the bras in the dryer!

We met a whole bunch of the rest of the NEH Oaxaca group at the zocalo for lunch... It will take awhile to meet and remember everyone as there are 30 people in our group... Certainly  makes for very conspicuous outings, wouldn't you say? I mean, I already stand out because of my white skin and blue eyes, but with a group of gringos that large, we're hard to miss!

A young boy and his sister dancing on the zocalo.

On the way to the organic market, the arches used to be aqueducts (for water).

We passed by this small weaving shop, which is in the front room of their house.

The man in front is spinning the yarn/ thread and the man in the back is doing the actual weaving by hand.

The organic market.

A singer at a pride parade at the zocalo.

As Debbie and I were watching the clowns, I got pulled into their act for a few minutes since the realized I spoke some Spanish and they made a bit of fun of me, but I got to poke alittle fun at them! It was a cool experience.

We are going to a fiesta at Teotitlan today, so will post on that later!  Hasta Luego!

Mi clase de Espanol y Papermaking

Flowers of the Pechote tree

Day two of Spanish class went well, I am remembering more than I expected. Only two of us in class, un otro estudiante being Helen, una maestra de arte (what a coincidence!) from Indiana who is also on a grant,  but more of an artist grant, not a teacher one. She and I are doing pretty well under the tutelage of Moctezuma (no joke, that's his name... but we call him Mocti).

At the language school, there's a group of teachers, administrators and kids from California who have been taking many day trips after their lessons. Katherine, one of the staff, thought Helen and I would like to tag along on today's excursion to Etla to visit a papermaking workshop. Of course! The group were very nice to include us, and we had a good time. See evidence below.

Natural fibers and dyes used for the paper.

In the large tub is a slurry of cotton, linen and/or maguey (cactus) fibers and water. He dips the frame in the slurry and covers the screen in the middle of the frame with the slurry. He then drains off the excess water....

...and carefully tips the whole sheet of new paper onto a felt covered board. Here he's putting one sheet on top of another to hold the leaves inside the paper. The sheets are put one to a board and stacked on top of each other and put under a very heavy press, which squeezes out alot more water. They are then hung to dry, which takes about 3 - 4 hours in the sun.

When dry, the beautiful paper is made into many things: envelopes, writing and art paper, notebooks, boxes, and yes, even kites.

Here's a woman making a paper kite. They make pretty large sheets of paper, but with a kite this size they have to glue sheets together. They then secure a split bamboo brace to the back with glue and glue and paper strips. They also fold over and glue the edges of the kite.

We then went to a local arts center, which is housed in an old textile factory, where they were having an exhibit of local Oaxacan textiles and a ceramics exhibit of one man's life work.

These textiles are beautifully handwoven and most are quite thin, and in a variety of colors and styles. Some, as you can see, are worn as shirts or dresses or shawls.

Second story of the center, the ceramics exhibit.

The view from the terrace patio.