A New Home!

After a escalating amount of tension in my old house, I am now in a new house with an awesome family.  It was a hard experience leaving my family after two months, but definitely necessary.  Although the house was super nice and my old family did everything in terms of a guest relationship, but I didn't have any family interaction.  Conversations were short and most of the focus was on TV and the Yankees.  After many little stones dropping in the bucket, I finally decided it was time to move.  Not that they were a bad family (they probably would be great for many students), they just weren't a fit for me.    It was stressful packing in secret and then moving out, but now I realize that it was a good choice.  I now live with a grandma and her daughter and family, including two really cute granddaughters.  The family interaction is much healthier- they always talk and let me share in their family life which is exactly what I needed.  I also live with a student from Connecticut College and a Teacher from Washington.  It is a big family and so nice to have activity after 9:00 at night and internet access.  And I didn't think it was possible, but the food is actually better here!  My mom is a very talented cook and buys everything daily from the market in the morning.  Fresh squeezed OJ and eggs are some of my favorite dishes.  Thank you everyone for your prayers for my situation and I thank God that he gave me this family.

Vayan con Dios,

Bryan

A way overdue update

To my loyal followers,

It’s been a while since I’ve written and things are getting pretty busy here.  Whatever excess of free time I had during the first portion of the trip is now gone; taken up with an insane amount of reading for classes, writing, meetings, and trying to fit in time for an intercambio and shadowing in a rehabilitation clinic.  That said, life is still going incredibly fast.  We are just about done with our second session, the main session with classes.  Literature class has been a ride to say the least.  I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of literature, and analyzing Mexican literature to find the “hidden meaning” seams insane sometimes.  Only 2 more weeks left!  Sociology is awesome, on the other hand.  We have learned a lot about the social structure of Oaxaca, families, cultural differences, and much, much more.  

Since Mexico City and Día de Independencia, we have taken quite a few trips out of Oaxaca, all of which have been amazing.  Our excursions included a bike tour to Monte Alban, (an hour of straight uphill, for an amazing 15 minutes of downhill awesomeness!), the ruins of Mitla, Teotitlán, Mexico City again, and the beach town of Huatulco.  Since I haven’t written in forever, I guess I should explain about a bit of each, because each was awesome in their own way.  This is what I get for not updating my blog in so long…

After taking salsa class for a few weeks, we have enjoyed going a few times to a salsa club on Thursday nights called candelas, where there is a live salsa band a a big dance floor.  It doesn’t really start until after 10:30 so when we go it is a long night, but usually worth it.  While I can’t speak for the girl’s perspective, I always have an abundance of girls to dance with from the group and learn new moves.  In comparison to the salsa guys that fill up the dance floor, it seems like I have just started salsa.  With them around, the oaxaqueños are out of my league.   Most of them are professional dancers with their own studios, so while it can be a little intimidating, it is always cool to see their moves and look stupid trying to replicate them.  However, they always love it when our group comes and the girls in our group hardly get a break.  One of the dancers we found out is also is a tour guide and dance instructor and offered to take us on a bike tour to Monte Alban.  We rented bikes for a good price and rode through the city until we found the way to Monte Alban, way up on a mountain.  The ride up was a challenge and was about an hour of straight hill, but it was really satisfying to arrive at Monte Alban and look out on the city.  Furthermore, the ride up was paid in full by the full 20 minutes of not needing to pedal as we descended the mountain.

One weekend we decided to get out of the city and go to Mitla, a little town with some ancient Zapotec temples and ruins.  It was an adventure to get there however, because with the flooding the week before the bridge on the only highway to Mitla had a big crack in it and busses couldn’t pass.  We then had to walk across the bridge (while they were repairing a crack in it) to catch another bus to a nearby town.  From this town, we waited for a collectivo taxi where we crammed in until we finally reached Mitla.  The town itself was awesome.  It had so much culture and it was great to be out of the noise of Oaxaca.  The ruins were also quite impressive.  We were only in a group of 3, so it made it easy to walk around town and enjoy the tranquility of the place.  We also enjoyed looking at the handmade indigenous clothing in the shops.

We went to Teotitlán two consecutive weeks to learn about the culture and some of the problems the community faces; the first time with a group called ENVIA and the second with Accion Permanente por la Paz, the group that took us to Mexico City and will take us to Chiapas also.  ENVIA is a new non-profit organization that gives out interest-free microloans to women in the town of Teotitlán.  These loans are funded by donations and the tours that they give, and provide a way for women that have the drive and skills to start a successful business get money to be able to start up or expand their businesses.  They take out increasingly higher loans every time they pay off their previous loan and it was really encouraging to see how successful the program was in Teotitlán.   Our tour consisted of going to about 4 different houses and learning about how the microloans work and seeing how they have helped get women and their families out of poverty. 

Our second tour with Acción Permanente por la Paz was one of the highlights of my trip.  The logistics were carried out by our group, but once we got to the town, we were the responsibility of our families.  Our group was divided into groups of 3 or 4 and assigned families in the community to stay with for the weekend.  Every group did their own thing, but we all had a great time experiencing the inner lives  of these families.  It was really powerful to see that although our families did not have much, they loved us with everything they had and shared whatever they could to make us comfortable.  One of the highlights of the trip was attending a birthday party of a 10 year-old girl that was part of our extended family.  The party must have had 60-70 people there and we made around 800 tamales for everyone.  We ate, socialized, and ate some more.  I had a soup called chicken foot soup, and to no surprise, there was a chicken foot in my soup.  Fun times.  One the morning we had to leave, we got up really early to climb a mountain that overlooks the Valley.  It was absolutely gorgeous and satisfied my climbing itch a little bit. 

Because our first trip to Mexico city was mostly educational and filled with a  lot of meetings and presentations, we wanted to take a trip to see the sights of the city.  A group of 5 of us took a bus at 1 am (to avoid paying for a night in a hotel) to Mexico city, a ride of about six and a half hours.  We spent our weekend walking around the city, enjoying street food, touring the museums, looking at the hundreds of Diego Rivera murals, and taking crazy photos.  We even got into this uppity dance club with bouncers and everything, but the entrance fee was too expensive.  We are also very proud to say that we navigated through a eye clinic in Spanish for our friend Kara who had a nasty eye infection.  Consultation, prescription, and antibiotics= 20 bucks. 

            The most recent of our trips was to the cost and the beach town of Huatluco.  It was everything I imagined.  Warm tropical water, pools, a nice hotel, amazing seafood, snorkeling, boogie boarding, piña coladas, Frisbee on the beach, and laying out in the sun.  What a needed break from lit class!  Being the only guy, I was put in my own room which turned out to be the marriage suite!  I got my own balcony, a huge comfortable bed, a great shower, and AIR CONDITIONING!  It was the first room I had been to that had air conditioning in Mexico.  Although I didn’t stay  in my room for more than sleep, it was pretty plush living.  We were also pretty much the only people in the town because it wasn’t a break time for the rest of Mexico, so we got deals for everything:  for a private boat, snorkeling, and visits to 5 different beaches all day I paid about 8 dollars.   I did get a little sun burnt from the snorkeling (I didn’t think it was possible for me to burn), but the experience was all worth it. 

            I’d better stop here, but there’s a little update on my life down here in Oaxaca.  There are so many more details, but those will have to be saved for a later post.  Thanks for keeping up on my life, and thanks for the prayers and thoughts. 

Que les vayan bien,

Bryan

P.S. Most of my photos are on Picasa instead of facebook so you can view them at: http://picasaweb.google.com/thepharoah99?authkey=Gv1sRgCLSRtMiAtdKifw

P.P.S  If I get my act together, a day of the dead post will be coming soon.

¡Ciudad De Mexico!

Hola a Todos!

I just got back from our first big trip of the semester: a weeklong excursion to Mexico City and Puebla with a non-profit organization called witness for peace.  I am tired now, but the trip was very informative and fun.  Here is a very abridged version of the trip (Photos on Facebook):

Our intensive Spanish session ended on Friday with a test and presentation that went well.  Immediately after end of class, our group walked to the bus station and took a six and a half hour bus ride to Mexico city.  The bus itself was very nice and classy, and in my opinion was nicer than the princess tour busses in Alaska.  We had four movies in Spanish, but they were hard to hear and without subtitles, so I talked with a girl from my group, slept, and listened to music.  After 5 hours I was tired of sitting, but all in all it was a pleasant trip.  From the bus statiton, we took a cab to a hostel called La Casa de los amigos.  It is run by the Quakers and was very pleasant.  We had dinner there and it was great to have something other than tortillas!  It was also a treat to help out in the kitchen cleaning up afterwards because in our houses we can’t really help with the chores.  The morning after, we had a long orientation meeting and activities to get acquainted with Witness for Peace.  The group was established in the 80’s to help with human rights problems in Columbia and has since moved to Mexico to deal with issues here.  They had our trip scheduled pretty exhaustively, which was good in part because we had plenty of things to do, but bad in part that we didn’t really have much time to explore the city.  That afternoon, we all experienced the metro (subway) in Mexico for the first time to get to the Zócalo.  Although it was pretty crowded, it was super cheap and efficient (about the equivalent of a quarter to go anywhere in the city). The Zocalo is the town center in Mexico City and was all decorated for the upcoming bicentennial (Bicentennial post to come). It was also really cool to see ruins of the great Aztec city that Mexico city was built on.   In the Zocalo, we had a two hour quick history of Mexico, which was informative, but an overdose of information. 

One of the craziest things to think about in Mexico City is the sheer number of people!  To think that there are 25 million people in the city is mind-boggling.  As we were walking through the zocalo to go back to the hostel, it took us 20 minutes to walk 100 yards because of the crowd. Intense.  During our time in the City, the major part of our time was spent in meetings learning about problems or listening to guest speakers share their perspective of US-Mexican policy.  I feel like I have come out with a whole new perspective on things.  Although all of the talks were great, they usually lasted 6-7 hours a day, so the trip had a little bit of school-like feel which was hard at times when I wanted to play the part of a tourist.  However, as I am here earning credit, the school feel is probably appropriate.

During one of the free periods in a morning, we took the metro to Chapultepec and went to the museum of anthropology, which was amazing!  They had artifacts from every culture of Mexico, including Maya, Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Navajo.  It was amazing to see the technology and size of the cultures at a time when cities like London and Barcelona were just emerging.  At the time of Cortez, Tiotihuacan had three times as many people as London!  We had to rush through the museum because of time, but I loved it!  And in museums here, photography is allowed, so we took a lot of cool pictures.  If we go back to Mexico City, we will have to go back and spend more time at the museum.

Five days in Mexico City went by really quickly.  With all the meetings and sites to visit, it was an awesome experience in all and I believe I have a better perspective of the things happening here.  On Wednesday, we spent most of the day as tourists, traveling to a huge archeological site outside of Mexico City called Tehuantepec.  Archeologists don’t have a formal name for this culture because they had no system of writing, but at one time, it was was the largest city in the world.  A guide talked to us about the legends and history of the city and the highlight was climbing two colossal pyramids and looking out at the remnants of the huge city.  At this site, we also got to see the work of local artesians and how they made their artwork.   It was fascinating to see how resourceful these artists were to make there crafts with things from the environment.  From Tehuantepec, we took a drive to the city of Puebla, where we had a discussion about the Mexican economy from a professor at the local university.  In the night, we went to the Zócalo to celebrate 200 years of Mexico’s independence.  (More to come later about this).  In the morning, we had a last discussion and processing session and then took a bus back to Oaxaca.

La Iglesia de Las Siete Regiones

I have been praying that God would show me a new church and a family while I’m down here for 4 months, and he has provided.  A covenant missionary that my Mom worked with when she came down to Oaxaca told me that there was a short-term missionary going to the Institute for Spanish lessons.  Her name is Amy Mullin, and she was relocated from Monterey to Oaxaca because of the drug-related violence in the north.  She attends la iglesia de las siete regiones and invited me to come this Sunday.  What an answer to prayers!  The church is a little far away, but it was worth every minute of the drive.  I found a new family there who welcomed me with open arms.  The service is kind of an all-morning thing, which I was apprehensive about at first, but it was great.  During the the first part of the service, the youth led us in worship, with plenty of time and songs to worship our creator.  Songs are very hard to understand in Spanish, and although I only caught a few words here and there, it was clear that this church worshiped with their hearts, so I had no problem.  Next were announcements and testimonies, and it was great to hear things that the Lord is doing here in Oaxaca.  After that, the kids and youth were dismissed, and I went to a young adults group of 12 people, aged 14-30 to study with the pastor of the church, Antonio.  We studied the miracle of Jesus walking on water, and I made the mistake of making a joke that I only had an English Bible.  They were only too willing to lend me theirs, so I ended up reading the passage.  Hopefully they could understand what this gringo was saying.  One of the best parts of church was realizing how universal God is:  He is the same in Alaska as he is in Washington as he is in China and Oaxaca, and we can worship him whenever we want.  What an awesome thought.

After the service, a daughter of a family had a birthday, and the whole church joined in praying and dedicating a new year to the Lord.  Later, we stuffed ourselves with tamales, a hamburger  (a nice change to my constant supply of tortillas), geletina, and birthday cake.  It was great to see the family atmosphere at the church and how everyone took part of this child’s birthday.  I also became very popular with the children because I showed them my camera and that it has a video function.  There was no end to the pictures!  I’ll be sure to post some up on facebook soon.

The youth of the church welcomed me like I had always been there, and were not too shy to get an Alaskan involved.  They asked me all about Alaska, and found out that I played the piano.  I wouldn’t put it past them to figure out some way to make me play in worship.  I was definitely pretty rusty after so long without practicing, but we’ll see what the future holds.  All in all, a prayer was answered, and I received a new family.  

¡Intercambio!

This week I started to meet with my intercambio (like an assigned friend who’s trying to learn English).  While all the girls in my group are very nice, it is very nice to have an amigo amongst all the amigas I have.  My intercambio’s name is Raymundo, and he’s studying at the Instituto de Tecnología to be an engineer.  He’s 23 years old and has lived in Oaxaca his whole life.  After 2 days of meeting and getting to know one another at the ICO, he took me to meet some of his friends at the institute.  Him and his friends really like the computer game Age of Empires, and we played a multiplayer version for a while.  It was great to relax and do some guy stuff.  I wasn’t great because I haven’t played in a while, but still had a fun time.  Next week we are going to a sports center to play volleyball, soccer, and tennis with his friends.

Classes are going great, and I’m learning a lot.  Only one week left of intensivo!  While most of the concepts aren’t new, I’m starting to cement them in my mind.  My comprehension and speaking skills in Spanish are increasing, but it still is quite a challenge to communicate everything in Spanish.  This week I came in contact with a short-term missionary from the Covenant Church, and I’m going to try out the local church here.  I’m really excited to meet some new people and worship God!  Amy, the short-term missionary, told me that usually the service is around 5 hours long, so we’ll see how that goes.  My guess is it will take some getting used to, but I’m going to enjoy it a lot.  Your prayers are appreciated!  Please pray for the people in the south of Oaxaca, as there is massive flooding due to Hurricane Frank and a new tropical storm that's supposed to land tonight.  Unlike the U.S, almost none of the houses are uninsured and there is almost no help from the government.  

Un abraso,

Bryan

¡Salsa!

Salsa is a much different dance than anything I'm used to, and I'm really starting to enjoy it.  As one of three other guys taking the class, the pressure's on for me to learn the part of the lead.  Like any other dance and even more so, the lead has it all.  If I don't know my part, it makes it very difficult for the girls to learn their part.  Here's the problem: Since there are only 3 guys and about 15 girls, the teacher takes the time to carefully show la mujeres part, but shows los hombres the part a few quick times.  Do you see the problem?  However, all in all, the salsa is a very fun dance and the spanish songs are catchy.  I am learning my part fairly well and am just about ready for the salsa club.  Roberto, the instructor, is very good and has so good tips on how to lead and make the dance suave.  Salsa club, bring it on.  

Los Alebrijes