- Mexico has been in existence for more than 30 years.
- There are over 100,000 people living in Mexico today!!!!
- Mexico was founded by the Walton family who coincidentally founded Walmart.
- The official food of Mexico is Mexican food.
- The official music of Mexico is Mexican music.
- The official language of Mexico is Mexican language.
- Mexico invented electricity.
- Mexico and the United States have fought 47 wars. Mexico won 42 of them.
- Mexico used to be part of Canada.
I think it helps to have a little "background" so some of my entries make more sense and you can get a better picture in your head of things. All of the information above is kind of insider information. You won't find it in the history books. I only discovered this information after I took some peyote and went to sleep in a cave. I interpreted the petroglyphs and then dictated my findings (in Zapotec) to my shaman.
The last couple of weeks have been dominated by language school and related activities (and late night parties with some locals). It was a great decision to start with school for a lot of reasons. For one, my Spanish isn't as good as I thought. But the school is also a wealth of information and organizes some excusions and activities. Some activities are good, like our trip to Tlaxitac where they reenacted the crucifixtion de Jesus and whipped the actors so that they were bleeding by the end and some are not so good like the trip around town to see the creepy Catholic churches. That one could have been done in 20 minutes but the guide dragged it out for an hour and a half. The pagan stuff was really cool and was placed subversively into the architecture of the churches by the locals who built them and who were tired of having their land stolen by the church (you know, the work of God). I kind of felt like I was getting crucified, it dragged on so long. But my Spanish teacher who organizes this stuff is cool/fun/crazy and cares way too much about her students. She's one of the hardest working people I've ever met. I'm now going to four hours of class per day which is a lot of Spanish class plus I have an hour or so of homework. Next week I start private lessons probably for only an hour a day.
Went to a baseball game last week and the saw the local team (Los Guerreros de Oaxaca) beat Campeche on back to back homeruns in the bottom of the 9th (the first a grand slam). It was exciting, especially with the 90 cent beers, the scantily clad dancing girls, and $3.00 seats on the field. For my un-American soccer loving friends, a homerun is when the guy with the stick hits the ball over the fence. Yes, that's you Weitzenberger and Holback. And Cunningham for that matter. I know, I know, everyone in the world plays soccer. But it´s not because it's exciting to see your team score a goal every third game but because almost every village in the world can scrape together enough money to buy a soccer ball and then put two sticks in the ground for a goal. I have photos but it's taking me so long to upload them so I am going to push my photos to Flickr.
Oaxaca is a great town. Very progressive people (you know, people who like art, music, books, and don't hate people because they are black, poor, or homosexual - but only Christians do that and also want to burn books). It's about 100 years ahead of a good portion of the United States in terms of thought and attitude. People are so much better informed than a very large swath of our country. However, it´s one of the most dangerous places I've ever crossed the street because nobody obeys stop signs and at intersections controlled by lights, you can never find the light because it is always in a different place (like hanging from a tree). But I have never seen a place with so much art and so much music. There is live music every day, day or night. A good place for me. Of course my hangout is a jazz bar where I know the owner and all the bartenders and have made some local friends. Cool people. My friends back home would love the people I've met. They've paid me the highest complement that they can give - I'm "chida" (cool). But not cool like cool but cool like part of the family. People have my back here already. I can't believe how much I have learned in the past three weeks. More than in the past three years.
I saw an art demonstation today that was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. This dude (indigenous artist) would take a natural substance like pomegranete seeds and smash them up in his hand. So he had red. Then he would add this limestone powder and he would have orange and then he would add lime juice and it would turn to something like lavender. He then paints clay sculptures with these all natural substances that he mixes in his hands. He paints with his fingers from the five or ten colors in his palm. Cool shit.
So my boys here are Paco, Carlos, Kenny, and Pinky. Obviously Pinky is a nickname and I don´t know his real name. Eddy and Pinky are bartenders at Cafe Borga and Paco hangs out there which is how I know him. Carlos plays in a classic rock band. A little story about the band that I emailed to a friend:
A week ago Saturday I was walking by this bar and I hear a band playing classic rock covers (I believe it was Hotel California). I sit at the bar and start talking to the guitar player´s girlfriend. At set break the bass player/singer (Carlos) comes over and we start talking about music. Instant friends. So he tells me that they are the only band in Oaxaca that plays this type of music. None of them speak English but they sing the songs in English. They start asking me what they should play because nobody else in the bar cares so I tell them what to play for the rest of their set. After they are done, they invite me to this other bar around the corner. And there's a classic rock band (so there are two). BUT, they sing in Spanish. For some reason classic rock bands in Mexico all like to sing songs by America (Benturrra haighwaiy, in de sonnnnshiine). Anyway, the guitar player's girlfriend is hitting on me with him sitting there (as she was at the other bar) and I´m trying to fend her off while also conveying to him that I am not interested. I'm asking Carlos to help me out and he's just giving me this evil smile and telling me that I was on my own, Amigo. Anyway I start talking shit and saying that I hate Mexico and Mexicans and that I hate speaking Spanish and she is buying the whole thing and getting pissed off. Carlos and his cousin are sitting on the other side of me falling out of their chairs laughing and telling me to keep going. She finally figures out it's a joke after an hour and then continues hitting on me, trying to get me to go get more beer with them and go to her house (it was 4 AM). Called it a night but I am going out with all of them again this week. Hopefully she'll keep her hands off me.
No comments:
Post a Comment