Mexico City & Cuernavaca

Hola a todos!

I have so much to tell you all about Mexico. We spent 5 days in the Mexico City (DF - districto federal) in a youth hostel right on the Zocalo (main square). It was cool to say at the hostel because we didn´t stick out as much living with a bunch of other young tourists! While in DF, we went to a lot of places, but I´ll just give some highlights so hopefully I won´t be too wordy ;) We visited the Palace of Fine Arts where we saw a Diego Rivera´s mural - WOW! His murals along with others in the Palace were amazing, they have such strong messages and are very impressive with their colors and sheer size. I also had the opportunity to go to the Mexican Ballet Folklorico one night. We had seen some folkloric dance in both Ecuador and Brazil, but this blew the others out of the water! It´s hard to explain, but the closest thing I could relate it to (putting the music and costumes aside) is Lord of the Dance - it was that good!

We also had the chance to go to a futbol (soccer) game in Mexico. This was a daytime game as opposed to the nightime game we went to in Maceio, Brazil. Nevertheless, the place had a lot of energy and once again, our home team won! Even though soccer isn´t my favorite sport, it was still a good time because it´s so easy to get into!

After our short stay in DF (which I´d like to return to because there was so much we didn´t have time for ex: Frida Kahlo´s museum, the famous Basilica, etc.), we traveled to Cuernavaca for our homestays. We are being hosted by the Spanish-English school here called Cemanahuac. My close friend Kiley and I were lucky and got placed together for our homestays. We are staying with a wonderful, loca and enjoyable homestay mom, Alicia Mendoza. She is a widow, so it´s just her with her yippy French poodle Juicy (pronouced you-say). However, her daughter Emilia, son-in-law and their two young daughters live RIGHT next door. Alicia has been very gracious to us and she is an incredible cook. Just this morning, we had chilaquiles for breakfast...oh, they were amazing! Alicia is very funny and is easy to talk to - Kiley and I are really enjoying being with her....I could go on forever.

Okay, 2 more important things to talk about. A couple nights back we had a speaker come talk to us about a town 2 hours from Cuernavaca called Tlamacapzapa in the neighboring state of Guerrero. Susan Smith (Canadian born) is the founder of a non-for-profit organization called Walking Together for Health and Development (Caminamos junto para salud y desarollo) in the community of Tlamacazapa. Tlamacazapa, like many other rural parts of Mexico is without potable water, electricity, and several other things we as Americans take for granted. Here, 90% of the adults are illiterate, the limited (and contaminated) water source is monopolized by two men, and there are many diseases as a results of lack of sanitation, contaminated soil (from feces) and arsenic and in the water. Susan has been working soley with Tlamacazapa for the past ten years trying to improve the situation. She explained that even though Caminamo Juntos isn´t the solution to all of their problems, they are working to build dry toilets (real toilets as opposed to just in a bush, that keep the feces out of the ground that the animals would then ingest) and help with communication and literacy skills as well as recovering knowledge of herbs and other medical treatment for the many ailments that they face. There is too much to say in order to explain the situation thoroughly, but needless to say it was a sobering event. Susan Smith had a very thorough and well-rounded approach to the problem recognizing it´s many complexities.  I´m glad I know about Caminamos Juntos because it´s a great example of an NGO that does a good job of keeping all politics and religion out of the situation in order to not complicate the matter. Also, I´ve always wanted to do volunteer work after college, so it was a good look into that the reality of that avenue.

Lastly, I want to talk about our experiences with Dia de los Muertos. Dia de los Muertos occurs on the Catholic Church calendar for All Saints and All Souls´Day. It is an indigenous tradition that the Spanish catered to fit into the Catholic tradition as well (good example of syncretism). Today, many traditional Catholics and others still celebrate it (along with a little influence from NAmerican Halloween traditions too). The main idea of Dia de los Mertos is that families make altars in remembrance of deceased family members. The altars vary from house to house, but they usually all have candles, pictures of their loved ones, and favorite foods of the deceased. This is unlike anything we have in the United States, so it´s hard to comprehend at first. My host mom set up an altar on a small table in the living room for her deceased husband and parents. She put out pictures of them along with candles, mole, cigarettes, tequila, and other favorite foods. The idea is that every year, the loved ones come back and visit their families in their homes. It isn´t a solemn event, but rather an time to remember and appreciate their family. We visited a neighboring rural town (Ocotopec) where Dia de los Muertos is still celebrated as a community event. There, we walked from house to house bringing candles as an offering and we visited the altars (called ofrendas in spanish). At first, I felt very awkward because it is so different from the way we handle and embrace death. However, the families were welcoming and offer everyone there food and drink (usually a tamale and some cafe or tea). We would wait in line, visit the ofrenda, make the sign of the cross, give our candle to the family members and stay awhile before moving on. It was an interesting experience that I still don´t understand completely, but I appreciate it.

Okay, thanks for staying with me!

I´ll be home soon....yikes!

Peace,

colleen