Ballerinas / Soledad square

Friday, December 31, 2010

December 31, 2010

Estimados Amigos, esteemed friends, Feliz Año Nuevo!
I am spending New Years Eve happy as a clam at high tide in my pequeña apartment at Casa de los Abuelos. Very Mexican and cheery. From my upstairs bedroom I can see the soaring twin domes of Templo de Santo Domingo. Feeling human again after three days of being muy enferma con la grippa, flu, and lucky to have kicked back with it at Casa Colonial. Sweet memories of our First Congregational Church Berkeley stay in 2003.The agave plant at the Casa is enormous; Jane says it's Thorny's spirit -- it's grown by leaps since his untimely death a few years ago.

Yesterday, cabin fever threatening  to drive me poco loco, I went with one of the Casa’s guests from Cambridge, Mass, to the ruins at Monte Alban, what an amazing, always fascinating place. Lois wore a pair of sunglasses so unique, the frames like leopard spots, exactly like a pair I once owned. She got them, she said, at a flea market in Boston. Could I have sold them at my leaving-Brookline garage sale in 1983? Could they have passed through many hands and ended up on Lois’ face? Is this the 7 degrees of separation?

Very few Americans in Oaxaca, a sign that recession still has us in its throes, sad. Now that I am regaining health, I am in love again with this place. The wind carries dust and diesel fumes along with the rich smells of elote, grilled corn on the cob and moist corn tortillas. Everything washed smells like bleach and borax.

The taxi driver who drove me and my things 12 blocks across town today crossed himself at every church we passed ─ many! Perhaps praying for a good new year. May his prayers and mine extend to you for peace, love, and happiness in the new year.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Sidelined

Sidelined by La Grippa , the grip. But thank God I am gone from the apartment at Abraham Castellanos and am now at the Casa (Colonial) for a few days, where I can sit in the garden and let the sun soak through me. No running around the city or out to the villages for a few days, no cooking. No chasing after las cucarrachas, who yesterday seemed determined to tell me good riddance, and I them. They are like small military tanks, sending me screaming from the room, which sends them scurrying under the clothes closet. I don’t know why the Casa doesn’t have them, nor does K.T., or Donna Pierce ─ I will have to learn their remedy or else I will have trouble living here. Soledad at El Topil says she doesn’t have them, but I am dubious when she leaves two big vats of mole uncovered overnight in her kitchen.

Teresa and l'otra Soledad are cooking me wonderful meals. Amado, bless his heart, took me to la doctora around the corner from the Casa. There is a new organization called Unidos Para Ayudar, United, to Help. A young doctor sits in a small office from 9 am -9 pm next to a pharmacy. No appointments needed, people are admitted first come, first served. She checked my throat, told me I had an infection, prescribed amoxicillin, cough medicine, ibuprofen for the inflammation in my throat, and something para la nariz, the nose. I paid la doctora 25 pesos (about @ $2 USD) and then $18 USD for the medicine. Amado says this operation is funded by a wealthy man who has some sort of bone to pick with the pharmaceutical industry in Mexico, who knows how long it will last. Esta curioso, like so much else, but you don’t ask too many questions.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

El Domingo

Soledad gave me explicit directions
but the taxi 
couldn't find her casa 
on la privada and drove off,
my sunglasses on its seat.
It was a thirtieth birthday breakfast
for her nephew Roenstand
Las calles no tienen nombres,
las casas no tienen numeros
A woman walked with me
until we found it.
Inside were introductions,
café, huevos, tortillas,
frijoles, pan dulces
They were quiet
Only la mama smiled
They didn’t know what to say,
neither did I
until I asked the dog’s name
Later Sol’s sister Antonia and her daughter
came close
Hablamos 
como old friends.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

A Wonderful Life

I have had the most wonderful Christmas ─ a mestizo Christmas! Thoroughly Oaxacan ─ starting with una misa (mass) on Christmas Eve in el Templo de San Augustin. The communion line, serving , I’m guessing 200-300 people, moved faster than ours does at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, with Padre Jose popping a wafer dipped in wine into open mouths about one per half-second. I was shivering with the return of a virus (la grippa) I and many others have been fighting, and understood little of the padre’s sermon, but his gestures and words, spoken with such heart and soul, warmed me. When the prayers were said and the Glorias sung, all 200 of us lined up for our opportunity to kiss the baby Jesus doll in his cradle. The women before me caressed him, spoke to him with all the delight and tenderness of mothers, kissed his small plastic fingers and lips. Soledad and I went to Bar Jardin for a late snack, listened to the marvelous marimbas, watched the carros from the villages driving around the Zocalo with children all dressed up playing Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and the Three Kings.

The next day an American Christmas! La grippa almost stopped me from going to the Christmas Day party I’d been looking forward to all week. But how happy I was to be the guest of my new friend Donna Pierce, at the home of ex-Berkeley-ites Kathy and David! As much as I adore Oaxacan cooking, I was ecstatic to have an American Christmas dinner! ─ turkey, gravy, ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, baked beans, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie!

I am making new friends, speaking Spanish, writing, loving it here. Loving it deeply.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Following the Star

The poinsettias  ─ hundreds! ─ were planted in the Zocalo a few days ago. This day / this night is Noche de Rabanos (Night of the Radishes) ─ an exhibition in the Zocalo of amazing figures sculpted from radishes. Now I know Christmas is coming.

There are signs subtler than radishes. This morning the Sanchez Pascuas market was bustling more than usual. As I passed through after a hike in the cerro del Fortin, I saw a young man consulting a long list I imagined his Madre or Tia or Abuela had made to prepare for Noche Buena. There were small wooden mangers for sale and I understood that the moss I’d seen for sale in the market earlier is to make the mangers comfortable for the baby’s birth. The churches are dressed up with flowers and greens. And, I’ve noticed ─ in homage to globalization ─ strings of Christmas lights on some houses, a Toyota decked out with reindeer antlers, niños posing for photos with Santa.

Shops and restaurants are closing early tomorrow. Christmas Eve is the big event here, not Christmas Day. Families pray at home or go to church in the evening, and have a special meal around 11:00 pm or midnight. I’ve been invited to Soledad’s house for Christmas Eve, but I don’t know if I can get a taxi back to my apartment at 1 or 2 am. She’s invited me also for Christmas Day breakfast; that may be a little easier. Amid the hustle and bustle, hope is in the air. We are waiting. The child comes!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Walking

Walking

These are the staples of my day: Up around 7, have a little something to eat with organic Oaxacan coffee. Then some writing. Comida (the main meal of the day) at 2 ─ sometimes with friends, or a good book. Intercambio with Soledad ─ she practices English, and I Spanish. Lots of walking.

Walking is an art here. I’m learning to walk mindfully, aware of where my feet touch the ground, looking down at the green stones, cobblestones, holes that could swallow a small person whole, places where the sidewalk is a giant step up from the street or an earthquake one day made the cement walkway like waves in a stormy sea. Respectful of the cars, which mostly seem entitled to run a person down if I’m not nimble or watchful enough when crossing, even where there is a stoplight. Striking a balance between letting eyes take in the richness above ground ─ shops, people, food ─ and keeping a careful eye on the feet that could not walk three years ago and now carry me magnanimously all over this wondrous city. Dexter, sweet old dog, would have a hard time here.

Here is a story I wrote in 2003 about falling in Oaxaca :

Falling
I’m walking fast, my mind on important things. My leather sandals chafe tender broken blisters and tempt the uneven sidewalks on Oaxaca’s Cinco de Mayo to trip me on my way. In less than a second, I am flying through the air, landing without controls, smashing my left elbow and knee into its craggy concrete walkway.

“Shhhhhh-it,” I murmur, aware that the Oaxacaqueños congregated here might look askance at a Gringa lying belly down on the sidewalk, swearing, her loomed shoulder purse and mesh shopping bag having flown off her shoulder and arm, lipstick, Kleenex, books and electronic equipment flung in the four directions. Out of the corner of my eye an outstretched hand, a man’s I think, though I don’t look at the face. I take the hand. “Estoy bien, gracias,” I say with assurance, though I feel small, vulnerable beyond measure. “Gracias, estoy bien.”

“Su camera,” the voice says, handing me my camera and tape recorder. I take them. “Gracias.” Stuffing the spilled goods back into the bags, wiping the sidewalk’s grit from the seat of my purple jumper, I stand tall and proceed forward on the sidewalk, though I am aware of the flayed skin and reddish brown lumps already forming on my elbow and knee, aware that my spine feels out of alignment, my neck, shoulder and back stiff from the body tensing as it crashed. When I arrive at my destination, on time, sweat at my temples and in my armpits, muscles in knots, I learn that Juan Manuel left five minutes ago.

Things often do not go as planned in this city that is trying hard to catch up with the developed world. But then things often do not go as planned in the world at large. This evening the President of my country announces that the United States will invade Iraq.

In the morning I am filled with sorrow for the world and for myself. My left elbow and knee are tender and swollen. I am angry and ashamed to be an American at this time, so sad to be leaving my beloved Oaxaca in a few days, despite its damned sidewalks. Tears spring to my eyes. I’m thinking how little control any of us has in this life. Pulling myself together, I assure myself, I can come back to Oaxaca. And I can protest this war. But what about falling?

What about walking on uneven sidewalks? I wasn’t paying attention at the time, anxious to get to the meeting that didn’t take place. So, I think, I can walk more carefully, like the Buddhists in walking meditation. Breathing in, I feel where the street turns cobblestone and massages the balls of the feet, where it drops off into a dip and then a gutter easy for the foot to slip into, for the ankle to twist, and the body to hurl into the air and crash into concrete. Breathing out, I feel joy. Um. Right.

Colonia Reforma’s sidewalks are like waves in a concrete ocean. Here the earth has moved many times, causing the feet to have to step up, watch for the place where the concrete disappears, then step down over the chasm, trusting the body’s joints to bounce like well-oiled ball bearings. The Centro’s sidewalks have holes like Swiss cheese and giant steps down to the street. Stoplights change without a yellow warning; pedestrians have no right of way. Walking here can be hazardous to your health.

I took that outstretched hand on Cinco de Mayo not looking at the face, especially avoiding the eyes that might expose my tender places, and maybe those eyes weren’t seeking mine either. In this culture that is so gracious, perhaps there is something of what Octavio Paz calls masks. A vulnerability hidden behind the graciousness, because this — falling — is not really supposed to happen. Me duele la rodilla. Me duele el codo. Literally translated, “It hurts me, the knee.” Not my knee, not my elbow. But we are vulnerable. We do fall.

On my last evening in Oaxaca, I stop in the Templo de San Jose, its cool stone floors a gift to my feet, wounded from the bounce, jiggle and heat of walking all day on sun-baked cobblestones. Here in abundance are candles and calla lilies. I drop my gaze and ask God to hear my prayer and hold it, join it with prayers of others for peace in the world. Has God heard enough prayers within these centuries-old stone walls to turn swords into ploughshares? Maybe not. They say that when a butterfly flutters its wings on one side of the world it causes a commotion on the other side. In this temple I am not in a hurry. I fall on my knees with grace.

Monday, December 20, 2010

The Dark Side

Don’t get me wrong. It is full of light, color, and beauty here, but there is a dark side ─ Oaxaca's shadow, as Becky would say. Here’s how I see it. When I first came here in 1994 with David, the outlines of the Sierras were sharp and clear against deep blue sky. Today, the high peaks are perpetually shrouded in a polluted haze, their outlines indistinct, blurry. There are more people, more cars, buses, trucks, and too much diesel fuel. Too much trash, not enough environmental awareness or funds to do anything about it. More and more vendors ─ people who’ve come to the city from the Sierras ─ selling cheap stuff in the Zocalo, the Alcalá, and Santo Domingo. You can’t see the Zocalo too well for the vendors, and there are not enough buyers to get rid of all the stuff. Women from Chiapas wearing black skirts, babies on their backs, wander the Zocalo hawking chiclets -- Jane believes Oaxaqueños are trafficking and warehousing them, giving them the skirts and the tienditas they wear around their necks. I heard there was a drug shooting in front of Santo Domingo a few months ago. Burger King has a place on the Alcalá, and guess what? -- there's more obesity here. Cell-phone ringtones have joined the cacaphony of  band music, marimbas, and pirated CDs blaring from market stalls, and kids have tattoos and face piercings. Globalization has arrived here. 

So Oaxaca is going the way of the world. Whatever violence is here still can't rival what takes place in Oakland. I feel perfectly safe walking Oaxaca’s streets at night. And for all the reasons in other posts, I'm still saying Yes.


Sunday, December 19, 2010

Visions of Sugarplums

In these days before Christmas, visions of a life in Oaxaca -- my life! -- are dancing in my head. My heart is full with new friends. Everywhere my senses delight in color, sunshine, music, beautiful people, glorious artwork, delicious food. Everywhere ─ despite much suffering ─ is kindness, gratitude, celebration.

Last evening as I walked north to collect my laundry and come home to an empty apartment, I was sidetracked by some new friends ─ expats living here ─ who convinced me to walk south with them to the Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños (Museum of the Oaxacan Painters). Famous artists like Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo are exhibited here, and last night’s opening honored an artist who makes whimsical and fantastic animals from pieces of scrap and used metal objects. If I move here, I will have to change my early-to-bed habits ─ life begins after 8:00 pm; the exhibit opened about 8:30, tamales with mole were served by 9:00; Oaxacan music and dancing followed. What fun!

My new friend, K.T., a former Manhattan-ite who bought and created a beautiful home here 4 years ago, gave me lunch today along with some frank talk about the cost of living, health care, renting apartments, buying and fixing up houses. I think it is all doable!

There is a glimmer.
Joy.
Rightness.
Blessedness.
Tomorrow this may change. Today my heart tells me Yes.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Meeting the Other

Yesterday morning at the Oaxaca Lending Library ─ a hub for ex-pats ─ I sat with 15 women in their 60s and 70s discussing Louise Erdrich’s novels. After a week of hard work stretching and straining to understand and make myself understood with the water man, the trash man, the tortilla man, the landlord, the laundry lady, the key maker, and the hardware man, sitting with these women was like nestling luxuriously into a soft, downy chaise. Easy. But not exhilarating.There is a place for this.

In the afternoon I went to a party at my friend Gustavo’s NGO, Universidad de la Tierra, in Colonia Reforma ─ a working class neighborhood away from Oaxaca’s touristy Centro Historico. Dear Gustavo hugged me deeply ─ we had not seen each other in 5 years. There was a potluck ─ I brought pasteles pequeñas (small cakes). There were small gifts for all – each of us took a number and claimed our corresponding gift on the long table. Mostly there were Mexicans, all ages, from 3 months to 70s. Gustavo gave a little speech about celebrating hope. I met a lovely Mexican woman, Lina, a psychotherapist who volunteers at Casa de las Mujeres ─ and we talked ─ really! ─ in Spanish.  

Something good about being stretched, meeting the other. Something exhilarating about understanding the differences, claiming the similarities, opening the heart.

P.S.: Today is the Festival of the Virgen de Soledad, the city of Oaxaca's own saint -- stay tuned.

Friday, December 17, 2010

A roller coaster ride

A roller coaster ride. Yesterday no water ─ an empty tinaco (the tank that sits on the roof) ─ how was I to know? A good intercambio with my friend Soledad ─ she practices English and I practice Spanish. She’s having a bad time keeping her restaurant El Topil open ─ FCCB women may remember our meal there. The Triques have set up a makeshift vending area in front of her door and no one sees that this sweet 25-year old restaurant on La Plazuela de la Bastida is there. A budding “fusion” culinary trend has taken hold here, too ─ I can get a fabulous organic goat cheese salad, but it’s hard for a traditional cook like Soledad to keep up. Later, after waiting until dark in the Zocalo for a friend who never showed up, I came home sad and lonely, not realizing that last night was the most important calenda (parade) leading up to Christmas in the state of Oaxaca. Indigenous groups from many regions come to the city to parade through the Zocalo to the Basilica  Soledad, where dancers perform the Danza de la Pluma on the church steps. I missed it, listened to the fireworks in bed.

This morning I am up early, taking my laundry around the corner to the little lavenderia across from Sanchez Pasquas market. Reyna Leonor Vargas Hernandez takes my dirty clothes with a smile, promises them for tomorrow morning. Next to her shop the tortilla man presses soft, fragrant tortillas made of maiz; most people buy them by the score; when I ask for two, he gives them to me waving away my money and wishing me a good day. Warm, mouth-watering tortillas for breakfast, the promise of clean laundry, clear, bright morning air. Gifts to start my day.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Real Life in Oaxaca: Bloom off the Rose

I’d had twinges for days around my right arm and shoulder. Yesterday, jet-lagged and walking up Garcia Vigil with bags of groceries, I stopped, short of breath, in La Iglesia Carmen Alto. So when I awoke at 4:30 this morning with pain in my chest, I thought I might be having a heart attack, and who would I call? I’m in a stand-alone apartment on a quiet street; a physiotherapist office on one side and I don’t know what on the other. At 6am (4am your time) I called my dear Sue, who thought it might be anxiety but encouraged me to see a doctor. Who? How? George, who I met last July ─ a friend of a couple of old lefties I grew up with in Baltimore, gave me the name of his internist. I called, no one answered. I walked to the office, it was locked. The cardiologist across the street wasn’t in until 5:30pm; his secretary sent me across town to another. Dr. Aragón said my EKG was normal, my heart sounded OK and my BP, a bit high, was coming down.  “Tranquila,” he said warmly, as he handed me a prescription for Tafil (Xanax).

The Oaxaqueños would say I’ve had a susto (fright). Just before I left, old Dex had a seizure. His caregiver had a crisis, leaving me to find another on short notice. Last Wednesday my cleaning ladies unwittingly locked me out of my house, having first flushed a sponge down the toilet. So when I got to this apartment Saturday at nearly midnight and the key didn’t work ─ I had to hail a taxi, find where my friend Donna lives, get another key ─ and the next morning I had a backed up toilet, I guess I began to get anxious. It’s freezing here. The apartment is poorly stocked (not even a spatula), has horrible fluorescent lights running along the tops of its 12-foot bare lavender walls, and a bad drain in the shower. I bought some warm ropas usadas (used clothes) after seeing Dr. Aragón and got eggs, fruits, and vegetables for dinner. It ain’t perfect. But with a heart still beating for Oaxaca, I’ll see what tomorrow will bring.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Super Perfectionista en Oaxaca

It is because I am a super perfectionist that I love Oaxaca’s messiness. It reminds me that I am human. The old tile floors of Cristina’s apartment, cracked and grey where the grittiness of the city has seeped in. The masking tape, peeling away from the window grate ─ no way to keep the cold air out ─ 38 degrees this morning and no heat in the house. Rebar poking up from the pillar outside the living room window, and into my consciousness. Always something unfinished here.

A man sits on a step near the fountain a few steps from la Iglesia de La Soledad. There are some bags by his feet. It is warm at 4 p.m. He holds his head in his hands and does not look up when I walk by. What sadness or hunger or other pain he suffers I don’t know, but my heart aches for him. A wizened woman sits on the sidewalk. Tiny, she must be sitting on her knees, unless she has no legs because I can only see her skirt. She holds out one hand, palm up. It never moves. She stares straight ahead.

You ask, “How will the face of the Christ child come to me this year? In the man on the step, the woman on the sidewalk.

So, I am here. It was a hard trip. After having to break into my house on Boyd Avenue last week because the cleaning ladies locked the wrong locks, I couldn’t get into the apartment at #109 Abraham Castellanos at 11:30 pm Saturday─ the new key didn’t fit. Something about entry and barriers has been haunting me. But I am in; all is well, and all will be well.