San Dionisio Ocotepec

We spent Thursday and Friday of last week with our artisans. Raul has a Range Rover and a Suburban (which they call the Tanque de Guerra--"War Tank") to shuttle us around. All of our artisans live between a half an hour to an hour away by car. The leather group is working the furthest away, in San Dionisio Ocotepec, so we jumped in the Tanque de Guerra with Team Fireworks, Team Wax, and Team Pottery. It was kind of nice being the furthest away, because we got to see a lot of the countryside. We dropped off Team Fireworks (Tomo, Naoko, and Carlitos) and Team Wax (Dina and Kim) in Tlacolula, and drove on to the little town where Team Pottery will be working.



Team Pottery lucked out, as they are working in one of the most beautiful places in the state of Oaxaca. The town is nestled in a valley between two gorgeous mountain ranges, and what's even better, everyone in town still dresses in their traditional garments, which are stunningly colorful. Further, the lady running the pottery workshop is pretty successful and has a huge, colorful, beautiful house. Here are a few photos I took while we were there:

A shrine inside the pottery workshop:



Their work:



We headed off to San Dionisio Ocotepec with Raul and as we drove into town, I was immediately struck by all of the wonderful handpainted signs. Graphic designers are total suckers for handpainted signage, and I'm no exception.





Don Germán and Doña Clara live in a cement house with a huarache store in the front room:



The place is pretty big and there are concrete floors, so they are considered pretty well off in this little town, but I won't lie, many people would be shocked by their living situation. I personally wasn't too shocked, I guess since I grew up so close to Tijuana and I've seen pretty extreme levels of abject poverty from a young age. However, Lindsey, one of the Interior Design girls who is working with us, confessed to me that she was surprised by their living conditions.

Our instructions for Thursday and Friday were to document the artisan's process step-by-step: in our case, from hide to shoe. However, I'm not sure if it was Raul's presence or our late arrival--Don German pretty much decided that we weren't working that day. Rather, he was going to take us on a tour of the town.

It's worth mentioning that Don German used to be mayor of this town. In Mexico, this is an unpaid voluntary position lasting three years. I learned about this from one of the articles in our reader. There is a strong sense of civic commitment in Mexico, and it is very common for men to volunteer much of their time and effort towards the good of the community. It's a very difficult situation, however, because not only are these positions are unpaid, but often the man is left unable to work at all due to his civic commitments. This was the case for Don German--he was unable to make a living off of his huaraches for three years. In addition to this economic hardship, the mayor is also responsible for throwing a huge feast for the entire town once a year. In other words, he has to pay to feed from 400 to 600 people, in addition to volunteering all of his time towards his mayoral duties. As we later learned, this has put Don German's family in a difficult financial position, and he is feeling extreme pressure to move to the US to become a migrant worker. We also learned that so many of the men in S.D.O. have moved to the US for work that at weddings, the women dance two to three ladies per man. Don German is a proud man, super intelligent, and very interested in politics (more on that later). Actually, he reminds me a little of my dad. He's in a very difficult position, though...as he does not want to leave his family for the US, yet he feels he is against the wall. I'm still trying to process what all of this means for our interaction and our collaboration together. I'm sure I will revisit this topic in later posts.

In any case, we're recapping Thursday here, so let's get to all of the things we saw. First, Don German took us by a mezcaleria, where they (you guess it) make mezcal. First they take the maguey plant (which is a type of agave), cut and clean the plant, and bury it the ground with some hot coals and other spices and such. There are 4 tons of maguey under the ground here:



After 3-4 days, they pull the roasted plants out and grind them in here (a horse pulls the big wheel round and round):



Then they go through several rounds of distillation (sorry, I didn't get a lot of the details at this point). What's funny is that the mezcal man decorated his little mezcal shack with photos of naked women...and drawings that his little nephew made. Kind of a weird combination:



After the mezcaleria, we headed over to the water treatment plant that Don German built when he was mayor. He was clearly very proud of this achievement and really wanted us to see the thing that he built. On the way, Dona Clara kept pulling on plants and telling us their medicinal properties. Turns out she is an herbalist. These people are super interesting. :)



We made it to the water treatment plant, and I have to be honest, the smell was pretty potent. I can definitely see why Don German is so proud. He motivated the entire town to work on this public works project, which provides water for irrigation. I'm not really sure about all the physics, but a pipe collects rainwater from the mountain and a series of rocks filter the water until it is usable for crops.

On the way back to their house from the water treatment plant, we ran into Don German's grandmother!!! She is 95 and only speaks Zapotec...and she still works! I think she works with a metate, grinding corn and such to make masa. but there were some language issues at play here so I'm not sure if I understood correctly:



We also saw the town's church...and about 150 kids waiting in line to confess. Don German shared with us some of his thoughts on the church...surprisingly, he wasn't too keen on it. He felt that the people in town should be spending their time working or doing civic good rather than waiting in a confession line. And it was easy to see his point...there were a LOT of kids waiting to confess. What's funny is, what do you need to confess when you are 9 and 10 years old? Anyway, the point is, Don German is a pretty progressive guy.

I really enjoyed walking around their town and seeing what life was like in a less touristed area of the Oaxaca state. Here are some of the photos I took around town:

Beautiful mix of colors and textures:



They use flattened bottlecaps as washers. Smart!



Kind of random...we got a bag of Doritos at a little store, and they had fortunes printed on them! (With respect you will obtain things):

Miercoles

On Wednesday morning, we had a tour scheduled in the morning at the Jardin Etnobotanico (Botanical Gardens). The garden was super interesting, as it had plants from all over the state of Oaxaca. There were ginormous cacti:





Another interesting fact was that the garden was entirely irrigated by collected rainwater. They collect it from the roof:



Which drains to the ground, where the tiled floors are set above the ground floor so that water can collect and nourish the desert plants:



Pretty smart! You can view my entire Flickr set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopemeng/sets/72157600973027727/

The day was pretty scorching, and Adrien, Katy and I decided we were going to go swimming. The house is not big enough to sleep all of us, so some of the students are being put up in a hotel across the street, which has a pool. Luckily, even those of us not staying at the hotel get to use the pool, so we decided to take full advantage of that privilege. It was really nice to lay out in the sun, and I almost fell asleep a few times before lunch. Incidentally, lunch was a fantastic vegetarian meal with some noodles in a sauce made from a fungus that grows in corn. Sounds weird, but it was the most delicious thing we've had in Oaxaca. Another semi-interesting fact: we eat corn pretty much every meal. I think there are like 17 million varieties of corn that grow down here and they make all kinds of stuff with it. Here is a photo of Tomo drinking a beverage made of corn and chocolate at the organic market on Saturday. Again, sounds weird but it is delicious:



After lunch, we were pretty exhausted from hanging out in the sun all day, but unfortunately, I had a coffee after lunch which pretty much lasted exactly the length of our siesta time and wore off when we had to go to a three hour discussion of the articles from our reader. Needless to say, I was hurting through that portion of the class.

Tomo, Adrien, Katy, Mariana (the class T.A.) and i met up with Eberth and Leo at the Caffeine (pronounced "ka-fa-een") Bar, a cafe and bar in town for a few drinks. I'll tell you what, I really needed a beer after that 3 hour discussion session.

Eberth and Adrien at the Caffeine Bar:

Los Artesanias

The second day of class was a big day for us, as we had writing class with Michael first thing in the morning, followed by a meeting with the artisans in the afternoon. We started off the day by meeting at a cafe right off a little square about a block from the house and talked about the writing portion of the class. We were sent off to roam the city and do three small exercises:

1. Sit in a public space and write about the sounds you hear.
2. Focus on one color and see where that takes you.
3. Describe what someone is wearing and imagine how they would describe your clothing.

We were also assigned three 1-2 page papers on our reactions to the different activities in Oaxaca. You can see the result of the first writing assignment below.

I left class with Tomo and we wandered a couple of blocks until we ended up inside Santo Domingo church. This is the biggest church in Oaxaca, and though I had passed it on the street many times, I hadn't been inside yet. When I entered, I was stunned. The church was absolutely gorgeous.



I sat in one of the pews in the front of the church and wrote. It was a nice experience being so inspired by the surroundings...that is, until I felt the first pangs of Montezuma's Revenge. Nothing too bad--a couple of the gals in the class have been laid up in bed so i felt pretty lucky, but I did have to leave the church and find a bathroom. :) Needless to say, i haven't been back to the cafe since.

That afternoon, we had a big meeting with all the artisans back at the house. Each of us was to show 2 images or objects: one that was meaningful in some way to us, and a photo of our work. I showed Sew Subversive, as it gave me a chance to talk about Stitch, and the following image, from my thesis project:



For those of you that haven't heard about it, my thesis project was an installation involving three quilts and three books. My thesis statement was that the practice of contemporary crafts was a response to our technologically driven lives. I made three small books, each of which talked about a different reason for why, as a graphic designer, I also feel the need to craft. The stitching on this quilt shows the mouse movements I made designing the final page of the book (sitting on top of the pedestal). Jeremy wrote a Java program for me which tracked my mouse movements and spit them out in vector format. Then I traced the pattern with a pattern wheel and carbon paper and free motion quilted the design.

It was really awesome seeing everyone's work. I had spent a good amount of time with about half of the class, and seeing their work really put them in a new light. We also met Carlitos and Luisa, two students in Oaxaca who are going to be in the class with us. Turns out, we saw Luisa's work at the Mueso de Arte Popular in Mexico City! She did the following glass piece, which I thought was just stunning:



We also saw the work of the artisans. There were five different groups to choose from:

• Fireworks: Yeah, I don't think CCA knows that some of the kids here will be working with explosives. :)


• Leather: German and Clara make leather huaraches.


• Wax: Crispina makes candles and wax flowers that are used in celebrations and funerals.


• Palm weavers: This group of 22 women make baskets, hats, and other small items. The craftsmanship was incredible. These things were hard as a rocks because they were so tightly woven.


• Red Clay: The dishes at the house are made by this lady.

There was supposed to be another group: textile weavers, but they didn't show up. I was a little disappointed but I figured I would still be able to work with textiles between the leather people and the palm weavers. The meeting was incredibly long, and we didn't eat lunch until 4:30PM. We were all starving! Incidentally, our lunches are provided at the house, and an incredible chef, Doña Ofelia, who used to cook at Casa Oaxaca (the fanciest hotel in town--the president stays here when he visits Oaxaca). As you can imagine, teh food is fantastic.

After the artisans left, we began the long process of choosing our artisans. I went with leather as my first choice and palm weaving as my second choice. I was seduced by the idea of making shoes. :) In any case, I got my first choice, and I will be working along with Adrien and Katy (my roommates) and Lindsey (Interior Design). Should be interesting!

Writing Assignment

As part of the class, we have to do a number of writing assignments with Michael, Rauls' partner and a published author. Our first assignment involved writing our reaction to our first week in Oaxaca. This is what I wrote:

********

I never listen.

Our assignment was to inhabit a space in the city and only describe the sounds we hear. I found my way to Santo Domingo church, and drew in a quick breath as I entered, taken aback for a moment by the beauty of the place. Amber vines crawl across the ceiling and I followed both the positive and negative spaces they created against the whitewashed background. Gold leafing covers almost every surface of the church, and the room is immense. Tall columns bend to meet each other in wide arches, cradling luminous windows that filter the diffused light.

I chose a pew near the front of the church to sit down. They are restoring a wall to the left of the altar and I listened closely to the sound of sandpaper moving back and forth over an already smooth surface. Muffled voices and echoing footsteps come in and out of earshot as tourists walk up and down the center aisle. I would never do something like this at home. I have so many commitments in San Francisco that I rarely have a moment to myself unless it is scheduled. I certainly never have a chance to just sit and listen.

Traveling always reminds me what it is like to be a normal person, one who doesn’t work a full-time job, run a business, go to school, and plan a wedding at the same time. And although I can reasonably believe that my life is richer as a result of all the things I do, I also wonder how much I am missing. Even now, as I sit in Santo Domingo, I cannot follow a sound to the end of its echo without being distracted by a new one; and I could more clearly describe to you the scratch of a restorer’s sandpaper against this church wall than I could the rhythm of my kitties’ feet against hardwood, the song of the birds who live in our neighborhood, or the sound of wind rustling the leaves on the aspen tree in our back yard.

It is easy to understand a belief in the omnipotent power of God in a place like Santo Domingo. Even the smallest sound becomes monumental in the nature. I am reminded that there are two paths to a life of richness—the one that I’ve chosen and one that exists within the simplicity of stopping to listen as the world moves around me.

I am listening now.

**********

Santo Domingo, from the outside:


Inside Santo Domingo:


I am not sure if I like the piece--the ending seems a little too "clean". But I think it's good for me to put it out there...just to get over the fear of being too exposed.

Finally, Oaxaca

I'm going to have to start trying a different method for posting, as our days have become packed with activities since we've been in Oaxaca, making daily updates pretty much impossible. I've been here for a full week now and I can't believe how quickly the time has flown.



We started off the class by heading over to Monte Alban on Monday morning, the site of some ancient Zapotec ruins. Zapotecs are a pre-Columbioan civilization, and along with the Mixtecs, they make up the largest ethnic groups in the Oaxacan state. Once again, we had an excellent tour guide (Raul) who filled our brains with fascinating facts. I've found that tour guides in Mexico are very well educated (usually they are graduate students or former anthropologists), which differs quite a bit from the situation in the US. Raul filled our heads with tons of interesting facts about the ancient ruins. For example, we learned that many of the structures on teh outer edges of the city had curved corners so that the god of wind can travel around the structure without breaking. I thought this was a really lovely sentiment. We also learned that the each Mexican ethnic group believes that they descend from and animal, and the Zapotecs believe that they descended from the jaguar. Here is a photo of a jaguar carving. You can see its paws and tail, though the head has been chipped off:



We also learned that the Zapotecs would ritually castrate and then sacrifice people with birth defects. Kinda sucks! Though, I guess it kind of makes sense...you would essentially prevent anyone from passing on these genetic mutations. You know, survival of the fittest and all that. We learned that these people usually had malformed hands and feet, which would be represented in stone carvings by showing a figure with an elongated thumb or toe. You can see this in the figure below. Also, you can see that this person was castrated by the flower near his loins.



After we returned from Monte Alban, Adrien and I headed out to buy some mosquito nets. The mosquitos are pretty viscous around here and I didn't want to take any chances at night. We learned that the Spanish word for "mosquito nets" is pavillones. I think we figured this out after we asked the lady at the store for "circulos...para mosquitos". Luckily, she figured out what we were looking for. The mosquito nets come in all different colors, and I ended up with a mango color. Everyone calls them our princess nets. I sure feel like a princess sleeping in it!

View of our room from the bathroom. My bed is the one with the mango colored net:



When we returned from our outing, the house was empty, as everyone else had left on a walking tour with Raul. Adrien called her friend Eberth, a guy she met last time she was in Oaxaca. He took us out to a soccer game (it was a local leagure soccer game that he played in). They play on cement! It was pretty hard core.

Eberth, Juan Angel, and Leo play soccer on cement in the rain:


We met his friends Leo and Juan Angel and drank a couple of beers with them after the game (they lost). This quickly devolved into several rounds of calimochos, a drink consisting of cheap red wine and coca cola. As strange as it sounds, it's actually kind of good. :)

Tomo's Mexico City Photos

Tomo posted some amazing photos from Mexico City on his Flickr here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crackitbaby/sets/72157600929136568/

Sigh...makes me want a nice camera.

FYI, Tomo and I are doing a photo series called "poetic moments" where I try to look really serene. They're pretty hilarious...well, at least we think they're funny! Here are a few from DF:





I'll update soon. Our week has been crazy busy and I haven't really had a free moment to think, much less post to the blog. But I stayed home "sick" from the field trip to the market today, so I have a few moments to myself to catch up. Stay tuned...

Vamos a Oaxaca

I don't have much to report today (Sunday), as we were on a bus all day. The buses here in Mexico City are sold by class, and you can get first class, super first class, and super duper first class tickets. We got super first class tickets and I am happy to report that the ride was very comfortable (though it would have been a nightmare for those of you that get carsick, as the roads are not well paved here). One thing of interest is that when you buy the super first class ticket, you get a bottle of water, a soda, a tea bag, a pair of headphones, and anti-diarrhea pills. I guess that's all you really need for a 6 hour bus trip!



I tried at times to imagine that we were driving through California instead of the Mexican countryside, and I was more successful at some places than others. At some point, we began to see large, very straight cacti sprinkled throughout the countryside, which made it impossible to imaging that the landscape was in California, as it was so different than anything else back in the States.

I ended up napping towards the end of the trip, and I didn't wake up until we pulled into the bus station in Oaxaca. All of a sudden, I felt really anxious that I had to learn all the little things over again: where the corner store was, how the city was laid out, etc. I had just gotten the hang of things in Mexico City and I was going to have to do it all over again in Oaxaca. It was weird and very unexpected because usually I love exploring a new city, a new place. I blame it on the fact that I was asleep for the transitionary period between the countryside and the city.

We dropped our bags off at the house, which is located in the northern area of Oaxaca City and is big, beautiful, and all white. Raul loves white. We are sleeping three to a room and I'm bunking with Adrien and a gal named Katy who is a grad student in sculpture. I am pretty happy with the sleeping situation, as I would have had a hard time rooming with certain others in the group. We're also pretty lucky because we have the only room with a bathroom attached. Everyone else has to share a bathroom in the hall. There is a big, gorgeous back yard and a deck. Also, Walter, Raul and Michael's dog, is hanging out with us, and there are two beautiful little white kitties that live at the house.

The Kitties:


Walter:


That night, we went out to eat at a local restaurant called El Topil and I tasted mezcal for the first time. Mezcal is a local alcoholic drink that is like tequila, but it is filtered differently. Sort of like the difference between cachaca and rum. It tastes a little smokier than tequila, but I like it! Supposedly, it doesn't give you a hangover but you have weird dreams all night long. Well, I can attest to that...I went to bed with a stomach burning with mezcal and slept fitfully because I was afraid of the mosquitos. Also, at about 4AM, a bunch of fireworks went off because it is guelagetza time right now. I had strange dreams all night long, but, true to rumor, I did not wake up with a hangover. :)

Flickr updated

I've finally uploaded about half of my Mexico City photos to my Flickr account here. I've also updated my posts below with some of my own photos, so scroll down to check them out.

adios DF

Today (Saturday) was our final full day in el DF, and although I'm really glad to have gone on this portion of the trip, I am feeling ready to head down to Oaxaca. Mexico City is the largest city in the world, and the air quality betrays that fact. I had a bloody nose yesterday, which, in all fairness, could also have to do with the dryness and the elevation of el DF. And although it's pretty cheap by US big city standards, Mexico City is much more expensive than Oaxaca.

I woke up earlier than the rest of my roomies today. I'm staying in a room with 3 other gals (there are 4 beds in two different rooms and one bathroom), so my earplugs have come in really handy. I woke up feeling pretty refreshed and I decided to head out with Adrien and Tomo (a Japanese grad student in design) to run some errands and grab a bite to eat. We found a pretty big marketplace about a block away from our apartment, and went for the first taco stand that had a bunch of locals hanging around it. I had two tortillas again this morning, one filled with cheese and mushrooms, and the other filled with cheese and squash blossoms. I think it was a dollar for each one, and my stomach was pretty much set at least until late afternoon.

We got back to the hotel soon after and found a few people sitting in the courtyard, deciding what to do for the day. One of the girls commented loudly that we were getting a late start because "people kept leaving," a comment that was definitely intended for me, Adrien, and Tomo. Oh well, such are the pleasures of traveling with a big group. It's been interesting traveling with a bunch of strangers and I am slowly starting to understand each person's unique quirks and personality traits. There are definitely some I get along with better than others. Once we get to Oaxaca, we will have much more autonomy, so I am looking forward to that as well.



We decided we wanted to go out to the Coyoacan area of el DF, which has a large outdoor market with vendors selling crafts from different regions in Mexico. We traveled via subway, and one of the interesting little tidbits about el DF is that almost every public sign has both a written and visual (i.e., logo or pictograph) component, as a majority of the population is illiterate. The logo representing the Coyoacan subway stop is a wolf or coyote with a hole in the middle of it, howling at the moon. Some of the logos are kind of strange. I saw another sign instructing people to crawl on the ground in case of fire. Instead, the pictograph made it look like you should lay down and do sit-ups if birds are attacking you.

When we got to Coyoacan, the majority of the group wanted to go eat, but since Adrien and I had already had our fill of tacos that morning, we decided that we were going to wander around and shop. I bought an embroidered purse (which subsequently ended up dying my shirt, skin, and pants a faint mustard color) for about $15. I tried to bargain him down further than that, but we were in a hurry, so I just took the price. Apparently we won't be able to get embroidery like this in Oaxaca.

Since we had our share of the market and we still had some time to kill before meeting the others, Adrian and I ducked into a cantina, where I tried the Mexican version of the black and tan: basically Victoria or Corona with Negro Modelo added. It was pretty tasty!

We met up with the rest of the group and headed towards Saint Angel, where the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo studios are located. Adrian and I decided that we wanted to grab something at the market so we told the rest of the group that we would catch up with them. Ceci, who is Raul's friend and a Mexico City resident, told us that we should turn right at the big cross and we would end up on the same street the rest of the group was on. Uh, yeah. Turns out there are crosses on every block in Mexico. We made our purchases and walked down the street...there was a cross on top of a building, but it wasn't very big, so we decided to keep walking. At the next street, there was an even bigger cross, so we figured we would turn there. We power walked for a good 20 minutes, and then we realized that we were probably ahead of the group at this point (the group as a whole walks pretty slow), so we asked a lady on the street how we should get to El Estudio Diego Rivera. We kept asking directions from people until we got there. I've been pretty impressed by my recall and comprehension of Spanish...though I definitely butcher a lot of the language, I feel pretty confident getting around on my own and have become the group speaker when Raul or his boyfriend Michael are not around.

Adrien and I got to the studios and waited for the rest of the group...and waited...and waited. After about 45 minutes, we figured they changed their mind about going to the studios, so we decided that we were going to do the studio tour and go back to the hotel afterwards. Luckily, we ran into the rest of the group inside the studio. I don't know what happened, but we somehow ended up getting there 45 minutes before them even though we had walked the whole way and they had walked about halfway and taken a car the rest of the way. I guess that's how much time it takes to herd cats.

After touring the studios, we did a little self-guided tour of some of the downtown cantinas. Apparently it used to be pretty nasty and dangerous downtown, but recently there has been a number of renovations on the old buildings by the owner of Sanborns. He is renovating a bunch of the gorgeous, European-style buildings into lofts and fancy yuppie apartments. It's kind of weird to think that there is gentrification in Mexico, too. The first cantina we went to, called La Opera Bar, was absolutely gorgeous. Very art nouveau, with tons of carved wood, luxurious booths, and velvet wallpaper. Wow, this place was stunning! We sat and had a beer and left to check out another cantina. The next one we walked into was considerably more run down, but fantastic nonetheless. I guess it was an homage to bullfighting, with large murals of bulls and glass-enclosed cases with mannequins dressed up in matador outfits engaged in various bullfighting scenes. Everything looked like it had about 10 years worth of dust on it, but the room had that kitschy charm that I tend to like. We sat down to eat and decided it might not be clean enough for our sensitive American stomachs (one gal already had her food poisoning incident come and go on the first day). We walked down the street to check out a restaurant that someone had recommended, and found it to be delightfully non-touristy. The entire place was packed with people drinking and eating tacos. I got a taco al pastor, a taco adobo, and something called salchicha pierna. I couldn't figure out what that was besides being made of beef. The food was outstanding and I think it only cost 70 cents per taco. We had a little bit of a surprise when the waiter came up and told Ceci that someone at the table had a secret admirer and that he was drawing her as we spoke...and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I found out it was me. This old man had drawn a portrait of me, which he very nicely gave to me on the way out. Kind of sweet and kind of creepy at the same time.Apparently I am very exotic here because I am so tall...but also, I look a little like southern Mexicans because of my slanted eyes. It will be interesting to see how confused people will be by me when we get to Oaxaca.

We ended our night by going back to the bullfighting museum cantina and taking tequila shots as we danced to a very eclectic mix of reggaeton, drum and bass, and bad techno. Again, I was amazed at how much we had accomplished in one day. We spend all day on the bus to Oaxaca tomorrow, so I was happy to spend my last day in Mexico City going out with a bang.

Frida y Lucha

Today was another "hip-hop-and-ya-don't-stop" kind of day, where we were pretty much walking nonstop. It's kind of interesting when you travel--you realize just how sedentary our lives are at home and how little we actually walk and move our bodies as they are meant to be moved. I am pretty much pledging my allegiance to the cult of Keen; I bought a pair of cute mary janes at REI before I left and they are saving my feet from destruction during these long days of constant walking.



We started off our day by getting breakfast at the corner food cart. A senora was making little quesadillas with homemade tortillas, nopales (cactus) and cheese. Yum! I had two since I had no idea when we were going to be eating again. We stood on the corner for almost an hour eating our breakfast. Everything takes a little longer in a big group...as the T.E.A.M. likes to say, it's like herding cats.

After we finally finished our breakfast, we jumped on a bus towards downtown to check out the historical district and its surrounding buildings. We got caught in a bunch of traffic and decided to jump off when we found ourselves at a standstill by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and we noticed that the huge Frida Kahlo retrospective (to commemorate what would have been her 100th birthday) didn't have the rumored 4 blocks of lines. I had been wanting to check out the show, since I really appreciate artist retrospectives...it gives you such a great idea of the artist's true interests, their motivations, etc. While waiting in line to get in, we talked a little bit about why Frida was so popular after her death. Raul says that her work wasn't very popular at all while she was living and that her fame has come posthumously because the story of her life is so vibrant and tragic. I am sure that is partially true, but I am also inclined to believe that her work is of particular interest now because her paintings (from this woman's perspective) alternate between a tender and willful expression of the female condition during the 1940s and 50s. Now that we're pretty deeply past the women's liberation movement, her voice is now, more than in the past, utterly relatable. For example, this piece, to me, was particularly heartbreaking:



Previously, I had only seen Frida's self-portrait painting work, but the show had a couple of her still life pieces and one work of collage that I found interesting. They also had a number of photos of her. I was glad that we got to see the show (i was afraid that we weren't going to go)...though I got the feeling that some of the group wasn't that into her...and I couldn't really gauge whether it was because we had to wait in line for a little while, or if because she was so popular and it was "cool" to be "over" her. Seriously, this show is a big deal...there are posters for the show plastered all over the city, and they proudly proclaim that this a "HOMAJE NACIONAL" (national homage). For those of you that have been to Mexico and know the level of machismo that can be achieved here, you know that it is no small potatoes when a woman is treated as a national treasure.



We walked out of the beautiful art-deco Bellas Artes building straight into a group of naked men who were protesting...something. Nobody--not even the locals--seemed to know what they were mad about [actual conversation: Hope--"What are they protesting?" Mexico City Resident--"I don't know...everything?"] It was the biggest group of naked people that I had seen outside of Burning Man, and strangely, enough, it made me feel really comfortable and at home, as weird as that sounds.

After we got our fill of the naked men, we walked through one of the oldest parks in Mexico City (apparently part of the Spanish Inquisition had occurred in this park) to arrive at the Museo de Arte Popular (i.e, the Craft museum). This was actually a really great introduction to the various crafts from different tribes from all areas of Mexico, and I took some photos of the work that I found particularly interesting (posted on my Flickr page here). Honestly, I was blown away by the craftsmanship and detail of some of these pieces. I apologize for the quality of the images...everything was behind glass, which made it hard to photograph, but in person the work was stunning, and made me even more excited to get down to Oaxaca (where a lot of this work originates).



After recharging with a couple of coffees made by the hardest working man in Mexico City (seriously, this poor guy was running the cash register, making the coffees, making the sandwiches, and delivering all the goodies to our tables), we went downtown to check out the old square and some the surrounding historic buildings. We decided to have lunch in a very fancy cantina, which was housed in an absolutely gorgeous building. I felt like I was in the middle of Provence, as snotty as that sounds. :) I ordered beef with squash blossoms (flor de calabasa). YUM. This place was great! Unfortunately, when the bill came, it was a serious buzz kill, as it's kind of difficult splitting the bill with 9 other people who had varying levels of drink and eat. All of a sudden, I remembered that I was with a bunch of college students, when I kept having to throw down 10 more pesos, and another 10 and another 10.



My harshed buzz was soon recharged with the thought of our plans for the evening. We were planning on attending the Lucha Libre fight that night. For those of you that haven't heard of La Lucha Libre, it is sort of like WWF, but the wrestlers wear iconic masks, fantastic costumes, and, as I found out later that night, have midget sidekicks in gorilla costumes. We really had no idea what to expect. As me and Adrien (one of the gals on the trip that has become my little buddy) are the ones with the most Spanish speaking skills, we were left to try to garner tickets for the rest of the group (we had tried to get tickets earlier that day, but the lady at Gandhi, the local "Tower music", said that they had no more tickets in any price level that were seated together. So, we found a scalper that had 5 seats together in a decent part of the arena Mexico, and after some tough bargaining, we talked him down from 200 to 180, and then down to $900 for all 5 (which, actually, is $180 per ticket). Math is hard...let's go shopping! Actually, I'm not sure that we could have done any better, as it was a serious madhouse there and we could barely make it through the crowd because it was so thick with people. All of that was worth it, though, as we got to see Mistico fight (apparently he is muy popular). It was SOOOO funny...the entire thing was staged and the kitsch level was VERY high. Whenever someone got thrown out of the ring, the entire front row would jump out of their seats to get out of the way because they knew that the next guerrero was going to jump out of the ring to body slam them. One fighter, Alex Koslov, was a favorite with the ladies for his good looks (he didn't wear a mask) and his gyrations. Whenever he made a good move, he would rub himself and rotate his hips, and the girls would go crazy.

All in all, I'm amazed by the number of things that we did in one day, and I am seriously grateful that I got to see la Lucha Libre live.