After another great breakfast (herbasanta leaves wrapped around Oaxacan cheese and covered with salsa verde), we headed back to the artesan exhibit. Sandra spent a long time talking to one of the women from a weaving village, and she ended up buying a very nice, small rug that the woman and her husband had done together. It looked somewhat like an Escher design, with fish and birds, and was done in shades of grey—very different from the riot of colors other textiles possessed. The woman told us that she only leaves the village for exhibits like this a few times a year; the rest of the time she’s at home. Tours come to the village, and she makes some money selling to them, but the tour guides get 30% of the take, so her prices have to be higher while her profits are lower.
We then went over to one of the vestida booths we had seen yesterday which had some lovely work. The maker’s husband was staffing it, and we talked with him a while. Then Sandra tried some on and chose one. The man called his wife back from her walk, and they conversed in Zapotec; Sandra & I both think that although the woman understands Spanish, she doesn’t really speak it. She had won a prize in a national contest of some sort and had met Mexico’s president. The man gave us his card, with the name “El Toshiro” and a youtube link. He asked us to take a look, and later that night we did: it was a bunch of short videos of cowboys riding bucking bulls at a rodeo. We are going to see him again to get his e-mail address, and we’ll ask him what’s going on.
After a simple lunch, we spent the rest of the day at the city cultural museum, housed in an old convent attached to the Santo Domingo church. This was a great setting for the content, which was basically a complete history of the region, from prehistoric times, through the Spanish conquest, to the modern era. There were artifacts from the tombs at Monte Alban, which I will be going to next week while Sandra gets her temazcal treatment. Sandra & I both noted that no matter where you were in the world, or what time, if you could establish yourself as some kind of elite (spiritual, political, warrior), you basically got a free ride from the majority (poor) population. Another aspect we noted was that of community service in the pueblos, where apparently people served the community in some kind of governmental rode for free, as part of a service to all. It seemed from the pictures that this was men only, but given what we’ve seen here, that would surprise me if that hadn’t changed by now. There also was a photo show in the museum of works by Flor Garduno, whom I didn’t know. I acutally enjoyed a lot of her work, and Sandra & I both thought of Rebecca and wondered if she knew of her.
Dinner and then a stroll around the zocalo, where, for once, not much was happening besides other people walking around (traidtion still happening here, and which I enjoy).
Yesterday, we met Jesus, from La Carta de Oaxaca restaurant in Ballard. We had planned to see him when we learned he was going to be here the same time we were. I had asked him one night while we were eating if he knew of any good restaurants in Oaxaca, since we were going to be there over Christmas. He said he was going to be there, too, and then he invited us to come to his home. Jesus brought his wife to our place, and we all walked to the zocalo, where he gave us instructcions on how to take a cab to his home on Saturday (for a party with his wife’s family) and Sunday (for a housewarming for their new home). It will be interesting, to say the least.
They went off to do shopping for all their parties, and we headed over to the contemporary art museum. We saw the rest of the Tamayo biennial, and didn’t see much that we liked. The same guide was there as before, and spent a lot of time with us. A very sweet young man, who learned English from Disney shows on TV and is thinking of being an artist.
Lunch and a siesta were followed by studying Spanish on our roof while Sandra had a hot chocolate and I had my first mexcal here; smoky and pretty smooth. We then went over to the graphic arts museum, which was giving a show of a graphic artist from the turn of the century. That form was TV for much of the population at that time, and it contained a lot of the satire as well as depicted the prevailing mores of the era. There also was a room dedicated to his use of calaveras—stylized skeletons—that have become one of the 5 national symbols, and which most folks know from Day of the Dead ceremonies.
We walked back to the zocalo for a concert in a church we’d seen advertised. This was the local estudiantina—similar to a community instrumental and vocal ensemble of all ages—performing their Christmas concert. It was very cute, with the rows of kids moving back and forth unevenly while they sang, surprisingly good tambourine playing by a few of the boys, and simple, easy-to-sing songs from the Spanish tradition. Again, you saw faces you would rarely, if ever, see in Seattle (or even in Mexico, Sandra says). Kids are well-loved here.
The zocalo was packed, and they were preparing for the big radish sculpture festival tomorrow (I will write about that after we go). So, Sandra & I walked back up the Alcala to find dinner. On the way, we listened to a very good street drum ensemble. We thought they were from Columbia or Brazil, due to the obvious African influence, but when we looked up the flag colors back in our room, it showed Bolivia. This didn’t make any sense to either of us, but there’s a lot (most) that I don’t know.
