Día de los Muertos preview

Oaxaca is full of fanciful calaveras and calacas leading up to the Day of the Dead. Here are just a few.

 

In an open courtyard, these needed rain jackets.

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The calavera Catrina is a very popular symbol of Dia de los Muertes. Here are four Catrinas together.

El tiempo se fue y otras cosas

Here it is Friday, I've finished my first week of school, and have not had a spare moment or brain cell to post to this blog. Oaxaca has a way of immersing and enveloping you. There is always something going on, people to talk to, new foods and drinks to try, window shopping to do. The streets are full of auto and pedestrian traffic day and night, and it's noisy but in a friendly way.

I had to get used to the ubiquitous sound of cojetones--the kind of fireworks that are all noise and no light. When I was here during the Christmas season in 2008, I thought they were related to the various churches' fiestas for their Virgin Marys; but no, they seem to shoot them off all year long, just for the heck of it. Explosive prayers.

Spanish is reappearing from the recesses of my brain but I don't have enough RAM to simultaneously conjugate verbs in Spanish and retain all my English words. After several hours of talking in Spanish about the environment and learning new vocabulary, I couldn't remember how to say "garbage disposal" even in English!

Here is some vocabulary I learned out on the town:

• ¡Que padre! means "cool!"
• Bacardi, the rum, is pronounced with the accent on the last syllable--Bacar-DEE. Say it the US way and you might be served Vacárri, an anisette.
• La Red can mean: web, internet, fishing net, or a great and inexpensive seafood restaurant on Morelos street.
• Tiburón is shark, and can be found in your soup.

Tomorrow I am going on a daylong tour of pueblos in the mountains near here, and the archeological site Monte Albán. More about that later.

Hurricán Patricia meanwhile has made landfall near Manzanillo, and we are watching and hoping that people will be safe. We are well south of it and 5000 feet above sea level, so experiencing no more than intermittent rain.

Hasta luego, with some scenes from daily life.

sopa (soup) de flora de calabaza

cats that hang out at the Instituto

¡Estamos aquí!

This will have to be another brief one. We got to Oaxaca this afternoon, and spent it roaming the city. Our Instituto is a 7 minute walk, max, from our hotel, Las Mariposas, which is charming.

We walked to the zocalo and ate dinner at one of the more pricey restaurants for tourists. About $16 for mole negro con pollo, arroz, chips y salsas, dos mojitos por el precio de uno, and a melt-in-your-mouth chocolate. We had a table upstairs at the balcony with a view of the bustling Sunday evening scene and traditional dancers performing on an outdoor stage.

Walked back along Alcala, meandering through galleries and bookstores, feasting our eyes on beautiful works of art and craftsmanship. There are definitely going to be some alebrijes coming home. We are enjoying the various renditions of Catarina and other calacas and calaveras for Dia de los Muertos.

We need to be at the Instituto at 8 am tomorrow to pay our fees and take placement exams, After that, we will report at a more hospitable hour, 9 am. Buenas noches a todos. 

¡Vamanos!

The Floating Librarian is traveling over land for this trip, and, come to think of it, she has retired from being a librarian, so...a new blog and new name. This time I'm fulfilling a longterm wish to return to Oaxaca, Mexico, where I studied Spanish at the Instituto Cultural in December 2008. I can't wait for the rush of recognition, the sights, sounds, and smells that are imprinted on my mind from that first monthlong immersion.

And yet I know it will be a new experience, too, and want to be open to all that presents itself. This time I'm traveling with a friend, Cathy Saylor, who will have her own ideas of what to explore. And there is much more ubiquitous wifi than seven years ago : ) So I will be more in touch with my US world, and may need to impose some self-discipline in order to get the most out of the immersion experience.

Right now we are in Houston Hobby airport, waiting for our flight to Mexico City. We will fly to Oaxaca from there tomorrow. I just wanted to get something down to get this blog started, and promise there will be more exciting posts to come. Tal vez en español.

 
After a last-minute crisis involving our airport ride, things are looking up. Our flight wasn't full, so we had an empty middle seat. And when I asked for more Coke because my free drink was too strong, the attendant brought me another full mini-bottle of rum to mix my own. Yeah, we're ready.