Sue Spirit, a participant in our Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat 2011, had this essay about her experience published in “All About Women,” a High Country of North Carolina magazine. It beautifully expresses our week together and I want to share it with you. Published here with Sue’s permission!
Oaxaca: Bright Riches on My Plate
Dreams of Oaxaca, Mexico, have haunted me for years: fat tacos filled with queso blanco and red mole sauce, mariachis playing sprightly tunes, Zapotec women weaving colorful huipiles and aprons, outdoor markets overflowing with bright fruits and flowers, and rugs woven with Native American designs.
Suddenly my dream springs to life. A woman named Norma is offering what seems too good to be true: a writing workshop with yoga, massage, a cooking class, sweat lodge, meditation, and immersion in the Zapotec culture of a small village called Teotitlan del Valle, in the heart of Oaxaca. Who could resist? Give me a writing workshop any day. And in Oaxaca! Unbelievable! The rest is salsa on the enchiladas.
I enter the courtyard of Las Granadas Bed and Breakfast, a fantasy world of pomegranates hanging from trees, bouquets of calla lilies, tortillas baking on an open-air wood fire, birds called dortolos singing sweetly, roosters crowing, doves cooing, and nearby donkeys braying.
Our writing workshop meets for three hours a day with our leader Robin. We meditate for twenty minutes in the sunny courtyard, then free-write for 45 minutes. “We should always surprise ourselves as we write,” Robin says. Indeed. Her advice and the technicolor experiences we’re having help us produce some memorable pieces. “You’re the shepherd and words are the sheep,” Robin continues. “You call them, prod them, cajole them, protect them, feed them.” As I bask in the sun, letting my pen move languidly across the page, a poem takes shape, oozing rich imagery.
We wander through the open-air market at Tlacolula tasting just-ground chocolate with cinnamon and buying some for hot chocolate. We purchase perfect small clay pots with spoons for serving salsa. We have lunch at Mary’s Comedor, ladling salsa from several pots over our enchiladas and chiles rellenos.
We experience a temescal, a Zapotec sweat lodge, three of us at a time crawling naked into a sauna-hot hut to be doused with hot water and beaten with eucalyptus branches by an old Zapotec woman tending the fire.
We go for a cooking lesson with Reina, queen of Oaxacan chefs. First we drift through the local market with baskets on our arms, collecting offerings of peppers, garlic, Oaxaca cheese, and all the ingredients needed for our cooking spree. Over an open fire in Reina’s courtyard we toast hot peppers and herbs, then grind them in a molcajete (mortar and pestle) and on a metate (indented stone surface with rolling pin), mash them with tomatoes to make a rich red mole sauce. We sit down to the best meal ever: cactus salad, enchiladas mole, and raspberry ice cream.
How amazing and precious is a small taste of another culture! The time goes by slowly as I savor every moment, recording it all in my journal. Jacaranda and bougainvilla blossoms, plates of neon-bright mango and papaya, ancient cobblestone streets, a molinillo (a little twirly wooden mill) for making our hot chocolate light and frothy, looms in every home for weaving ancient Zapotec designs: all these disappear into my journal day by day, to appear later in poems and essays that surprise even me. Oaxaca writing workshop: what a gift for the spirit!
–Sue Spirit
Resources:
Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat 2012
All About Women of the High Country
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Possibility
Sunset at Las Cuevitas
New Year’s in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, is an extraordinary, momentous and reflective time when families gather to make wishes for the coming year. The celebration is on January 2 when the entire village makes a pilgrimage to the caves (las cuevitas) or grottoes in the hills outside the town. There, they make an offering to the Virgin of Guadalupe for the hopes, dreams and possibilities of the year to come. From the twigs, rocks and grasses, families will construct a symbolic house, adding a roof or a garden or barnyard or a new addition or a second floor. Everyone wants to create a home that holds children, grandchildren, grandparents, aunts and uncles. This is a sign of both satisfaction and wealth.
This photo captures the mystery of the Las Cuevitas annual ritual. As the sun sets and the people gather, the possibilities for the future are luminous.
Las Cuevitas Sparkler
The boy sits by the “house” made of rocks contemplating his future. A sparkler lights the space. Are the possibilities limitless for him? Oaxaca is the second poorest state in Mexico and many young people migrate to the cities or El Norte looking for work. Perhaps he will stay in the village and work construction or weave like his father or grandfather before him or plow his father’s fields and plant them with organic indigenous maize. Will he dream of going on to high school? Perhaps. And, then, what possibilities will open to him?
A family wishes for bright possibilities
Circle of Women, a not-for-profit advocacy organization, says, “Oaxaca, being a mainly indigenous state, has one of the lowest literacy rates in Mexico, and literacy among indigenous adult women is even lower. Historically there has been a major bias towards Spanish literacy in education, leaving indigenous languages marginalized. Migration to the US for jobs has also left women as heads of households. Illiteracy and discrimination has been a major barrier for women in trying to market their weaving products and create sustainable micro-businesses.”
See our Oaxaca arts workshops: Christmas and New Year’s photojournalism workshop, Day of the Dead documentary photography, creative writing, and more.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Photography, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism
Tagged blogsherpa, las cuevitas, Mexico, Oaxaca, postaweek2011, Radish Festival, Teotitlan del Valle