Semana Santa 2011: Oaxaca

OAXACA!!! The southern Mexican city with Zapotec roots and a Spanish colonial gloss, simmers with a passionate spirit. Although it's known as a hotbed for social justice rallies; there were demonstrators in front of the state government building every day we were there, the city's infectious zeal goes far beyond the political, spilling into all its pursuits. You feel it in the buzzing markets, see it in the wealth of colorful crafts, and taste it in the culinary specialty: mole....
I asked David to write this post (above). Isn't his style quite eloquent (aka plagiarizing NY Times)? I will continue, with a more legal style:
The first morning we went to Monte Alban. It was constructed by the Zapotec civilization circa 500 B.C.
In back of us, to the right, you can see the outside of the ballcourt. David and I have seen versions of the ballcourt throughout ruins in Latin America. The rules changed over time and region and often involved human sacrifice--sometimes the winning team, sometimes the losing team, sometimes only the captain. Sacrifice was an honor and the gateway to the highest level of heaven. Another common thing we saw there and elsewhere (including Puebla) was the clapping tweet. If you stand in a certain place and clap, the echo comes back sounding like a bird.

An interesting note is that our tour guide said that a court filled with carved stone monuments all depicted deformed inbreds which was considered honorable. After a little research, I found out our tour guide was misinformed. They actually represent naked, tortured, and sacrificed war prisoners in contorted and twisted poses, some of them genitally mutilated (see wikipedia).
I wonder what else the tour guide was misinformed about. But then again, I didn't get to hear a lot since I was chillin' with a tired child.Our next stop was the Arbol del Tule. It is a Montezuma Cypress and has it's own church, committee, garden, band, and admission fee. It is over 2000 years old and is the largest tree by diameter in the world with a circumference of 119 feet.

While we were there we were lucky to run into the tree's church's Good Friday procession.
This man and 2 others carried crosses and were whipped. We saw several processions that day, but this was the only one we witnessed from the front row.
Oaxaca was a beautiful city. This is the city center and it was rocking 24/7, partly due to the plethora of tourists.

After watching 2 complete soap opera series giving renditions of Mexican history, David has become interested in a few Mexican presidents who are viewed with mixed feelings. The following is a picture in front of the birth place of Porfirio Diaz.
The food was excellent. We had mole poblano (made with over 30 ingredients) in Puebla and below is a tamale and tlayuda we had in Oaxaca.
A cute restaurant we ate at near Callejón de los Sapos in Puebla on the way back home:
EASTER:
My attempt at Easter pictures. These were taken while David was talking to the bishop about the weather... or something.

We got the kids' outfits on our vacation.

Iris in her birthday outfit:

Semana Santa 2011: Puebla

Easter day isn't as big in Latin America as the week leading up to it: Semana Santa. Several people told me that there would be a mass exodus from D.F. We were among the pilgrimage.
First we went to Puebla.
This is the church in the main center:
The tiled dome ceiling is modeled on that of St. Peter’s Basilica and dates from 1575:
Kids





The next morning we went to Cholula, which claims to have 365 churches: one for each day of the year. We got a workout climbing to the top of a hill to see this one:

The beautiful inside was well worth it:

You can see the church in the distance here. Elijah is right in front of ruins that date back to 200 B.C.
On top of the Pyramid:
In the background you can see the snow-capped Popocatepetl volcano:

Can you spot the toasted grasshoppers?
Here they are:
This brave little girl partook along with her father, the rest of us declined:
Which completely surprises me since this child barely eats enough to maintain blood running through her body.
Speaking of skinny, my hand still easily wraps around this child's thigh with my fingers touching:
Yes, we ate at BK, and yes, I consider that sinful ever since the mission, when my companions forced me to eat at TGIFridays every p-day. I would sit and bitterly think, "Did I really travel all the way to Chile to eat here?" This was reinforced on my honeymoon; Wendy's in Honduras made me wretch for the entire boat ride to Roatan. Now I prefer to sample the local food (although I'll leave the grasshoppers for Claire).
But fast food + run the kids silly = a quiet drive to Oaxaca = almost worth it if you subtract the processed cheese and wilted lettuce.
Oaxaca to come

Twist the arm

I'm behind on posting and am feeling the crunch to get one out before we go on vacation. Starting this post near midnight is going to be fun, but David's not home yet and I haven't passed out, so here I go.

Dress up fun:

Iris had fun tooClaire's new extra-safe scooter get-up. She really wanted a princess helmet, but only Abby Cadabby was available. She was pacified when I suggested that Abby is a fairy and quite possibly could be a princess too.
We have started a new tradition of stopping at a small park on our way home from school. As always, Elijah finds every opportunity to talk to everyone, teaching them French, asking for food, recruiting them to help him find sticks to make dinner. His new thing is challenging everyone he meets to races. He usually wins, even grown ups. This is because he's fast, but also b/c his little bike takes the corners a lot better than others. He's beaten grown ups on roller blades, bikes, and teenagers on skateboards. Last week I also found him doing at least 20 "cartwheels" in a row in front of a group of teenagers whom I sure had just gotten his "black lung" lecture on smoking (PS, he also tells smokers and coffee-drinkers that they are sinners). Below he recruited a little girl to make a store with him. They sold her mom delicacies such as popsicles.

Action shots:

Action leads me to the next point. Active children get sick and hurt. Here's the problem:
I am 100% medically rebellious. I refused to go to the doctor as a child and my dad had to sign off on any required school, sports, camp medical forms. I didn’t like doctors lifting my shirt, prodding and poking in private areas. I didn’t want to pee in a cup, which inevitably resulted in yellowed hands. I never took drugs, nor do I now. When I was a kid, one of my favorite words (mostly for the impressive power) was "psychosomatic" and I'd go off on the psychosomatic effect of medication. Now, I never give my kids drugs. Doctors, especially Mexican doctors (because I am already highly expert in the area, enough to make broad generalizations), prescribe overmedication. Elijah twisted his wrist last week. I was supposed to medicate him for swelling which did not occur and leave this splint on for 7-10 days. It lasted all of 3.5 days. The thing got gross and I just couldn’t make him wear something so nasty when his arm didn’t hurt as much anymore. Call me a good mother, call me a bad mother, call me a psychosomatic mother.
Behold the splint:

We went to the zoo after spending all morning in the doc's office. Good news is that the zoo is free. Bad news is that a man followed us throughout the zoo and offered to walk us home b/c it was so "dangerous."He was nice, just a little bit creepy. I finally figured out how to ditch him a few blocks before our building.

Roseola strikes again!

I ordered my blog in book format. It’s pretty ugly and spatially inefficient (269 pages), but it only took 5 minutes to make! I tried doing the pretty methodology, but it was way too time consuming. I have found that this attitude bleeds throughout my life. This is definitely not a Mexican philosophy. Mexicans seem to dress up to do everything including taking the dog out to relieve itself. Then there’s me—I won’t use the word “ugly” as I did with the book b/c that's too self-deprecating. I’ll use “disheveled” for my appearance, but hey, the look only took me a few minutes—beat that, hahaha. Efficiency is bliss.

Here's Elijahs' class picture. Iris got her turn with Roseola this week. Poor child.