Carnival in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca is a five-day festival that begins on the Monday after Easter. Why is this? Carnival is celebrated around the world, and other places in Mexico and Oaxaca before Lent begins. I asked several local residents who said they did not know. It’s the way it has always been, they replied. Perhaps this timing of Teotitlan’s Carnival predates the Spanish conquest and goes back to an ancient pueblo springtime ritual. Does anyone out there know the answer?
Meanwhile, Day Two, hosted by the Mendoza Ruiz weaving family for their section, continued with the same fervor as the first day. The family invited me as a guest and to take photographs.
Oaxaca Photography Workshops Coming Up Soon!
Cooking teacher and chef extraordinaire Reyna Mendoza Ruiz prepared an incredible mole amarillo , traditional for Teotitlan del Valle fiestas, with the aid of an army of women. (I’m linking you to a recipe, but for the most authentic experience, come to Teotitlan for a cooking class with Reyna.) Her brother, weaver Erasto “Tito” Mendoza and owner of El Nahual gallery with his wife Alejandrina Rios, told me the meat was toro when I was served a bowl laden with the sauce covering a succulent meat, fresh potatoes, green beans and choyote squash.
The women had been up since 6:00 a.m. preparing for about 100 people who gathered for the 2:00 p.m. Teotitlan time midday meal. Alejandrina said the beef had been stewing in an olla since the early morning hours. Reyna offered me a spoon but I preferred the Zapotec way of dipping the fresh made tortilla into the spicy mole and tearing off a bit of the toro to eat together accompanied by fresh horchata.
As is tradition, the men are seated separately and served first. Then, a section of the table is cleared for the abuelos, mothers and children to sit together. Everyone drinks beer and mezcal as the band plays, the host family begins the bailando, the Zapotec line dance that is de rigueur at every function. Then, the masquers who danced in the plaza the night before (and all the next night) make their grand entrance.
Late in the afternoon, around 6:00 p.m. Teotitlan time, the group will exit the Mendoza Ruiz home and begin its procession to the plaza outside the municipal building in front of the rug market.
Again, the crowd will gather to watch the masquers make merry, eat nieves and cream-filled pastries, and sit mesmerized as sun sets. (Oaxaca time for the celebration is 7-10 p.m. through Friday.) Best estimates were a crowd of 500-700 people, so get there early to snag a front row seat!
We made our way there by various modes of transportation: by foot, by tuk-tuk, by car and by truck. I didn’t see anyone on the back of a donkey.
The merriment will continue through the night and into the morning, when the troupe returns to the Mendoza Ruiz family at 6:00 a.m. for another meal to fortify themselves for Day Three. As I write this, it is Day Three and I can hear the band in the distance. Today, the festival is in our section of town and another family will host the meal and merry-making. To be continued: food, beer, mezcal, dancing, music, processions, clean-up, and interconnected community.
P.S. I managed to take over 700 photos between 3:00 and 9:00 p.m. and culled them down to what I am showing you here using Lightroom, my new lifesaver! thanks to the Oaxaca Portrait Photography Workshop we just finished.
Working From Home Has New Meaning: From Oaxaca to North Carolina and Back Again
This blog post is about work, working from home, retirement, immigration reform, and travel on the secluded Oaxaca coast. A hodgepodge.
You haven’t heard from me much in the past few weeks and I admit I have been remiss in writing and blog posting. I left Oaxaca at the end of April for the luxury of a 10-day sojourn with my family (son and family, brother and family, sister) in California, then continued on to North Carolina for a long-overdue reunion with my husband Stephen. I have settled into working from home in NC until I return to Oaxaca on June 21 for our summer Market Towns and Artisan Villages photography workshop that starts June 28. Working from home has taken on new meaning for me. Some days I even take this to a higher level: “working from bed.”
At this moment, I am looking out at a lush green perennial garden filled with hot pink echinacea, equally hot phlox, silvery coriander with yellow flowers, yucca stalks sprinkled with white blooms, and hydrangea blossoms bigger than my fist. The pollen is about killing me! But, I delight in the contrast between this landscape and my beloved Oaxaca where magnificent mountain ranges ring the expansive high desert plateau punctuated with herds of grazing sheep, maize and agave fields. Oaxaca is always on my mind and in my heart. I feel fortunate to be able to go back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico and love living in both places. My round-trip plane tickets originate and end in Mexico!
Now, for the serious stuff!
Thank you, Damien Cave, The New York Times Mexico City foreign correspondent, for writing about another Mexico — Mexico: Without the Crowds, or Attitude (June 2, 2012) and the tranquil fishing villages of Oaxaca’s Costa Chica — Mazunte, Zipolite and San Agustinillo. This is where you can still sleep in a hammock or a 3-star hotel and hear the ocean roar, dip your toes into rock protected coves, and visit the sea turtle preservation sanctuary. This is the real part of Oaxaca, far from the over-developed Huatulco (in the style of Cancun), where you can be lazy, eat and sleep well.
Also, in The New York Times on June 1, 2012, Jorge Casteñeda and Douglas Massey published Do-It-Yourself Immigration. They discuss immigration reform, the controversy around undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and the natural decline in migration from Mexico to the United States. Jorge G. Castañeda, the foreign minister of Mexico from 2000 to 2003, is a professor of politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. Douglas S. Massey is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton.
Working from home now constitutes organizing workshops for the coming year, confirming registrations, making lodging and restaurant reservations, and setting itinerary plans for moving participants from one location to another. It also means having the time to do market research and planning. So, while you haven’t heard from me, please know that I’ve been busy working!
And, as always, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know if you have any questions. I haven’t talked much about what it’s been like after taking retirement from UNC Chapel Hill last December. I don’t know if that would be interesting to you. I did worry about whether I would be able to continue to be creative without the structure of a traditional work day and if I could sustain myself financially–all those things that we worry about when making life transitions. But, it’s working out. For anyone out there who is afraid of taking the plunge, I will give you encouragement.
Sending all my best, Norma
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Oaxaca travel, Photography, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats
Tagged blogsherpa, immigration, Mazunte, Mexico, migration, Oaxaca, retirement, work lifestyle