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Published: February 15th 2007
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Where I am right now!
This is Tierra Adentro, a cafe that also houses an indigenous women's cooperative of weavings and crafts, a gallery of local art, an ngo store of zapatista apparel, a independent bookstore, and a meeting room where my academic seminar on Mexican History is held twice a week. Oh, and they have wireless internet... :) I have arrived in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico! Yes, I was supposed to be studying in Oaxaca, but we received word on Christmas eve that the program would be held in San Cristóbal this semester due to the situation in Oaxaca (which is actually resolving as the 8,000 police troops of the Policía Federal Preventiva begin to leave the city). Luckily, our program (School for International Training - SIT) is at least somewhat mobile because we are not connected to any particular university here; we have seminars specialized to theme of Mexico Grassroots Development and Social Change, language classes, and our 1 month independent study project.
I arrived on Tuesday, February 6 after a somewhat eventful travel day. During my red-eye flight to Mexico City I woke up to the plane making a sharp right turn. Soon the pilot came on the loudspeaker to announce that we were unable to land in Mexico City due to rain and freezing temperatures, and that we would be re-routing to Guadalajara. After landing and pulling to a stop, all the passengers stood up to get off the plane, while I’m thinking, “What are all of these people going to
do when they get off the plane?” Luckily the pilot gets on the loudspeaker again, and asks everyone to sit down and announces that we will just be refueling and returning to land in Mexico City now that the skies have cleared there. Also luckily, was that I had a 4 hour layover in Mexico city, so I did not miss my flight to Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas. But not so luckily, when I arrived in Tuxtla Gutierrez, my bag never came out on the conveyor belt and there was no SIT representative in sight, as promised. So I wander around the airport trying to figure out what to do, and suddenly a young woman stops me and says, “Are you ok? The look on your face made me worry. Can I help you?” Running on three hours of sleep, I begin to breakdown a little as I tell her my situation. It turns out that this is Mariana, a girl on the flight who I had given up my beloved window seat for her middle seat so that she could sit with her boyfriend. She is actually from Argentina, and she and her boyfriend are here on vacation. She helps
me with making a “claim” for my bag, asking all the right questions, and then offers me a ride to San Cristobal. We talk in Spanglish about Argentina the whole 1 hour drive to San Cristobal, and they drive me right to the door of my hotel. Martin, Mariana’s boyfriend tells me that I must see take the good out of a bad situation, and I think I truly did by meeting this wonderfully friendly couple. And I think karma really caught up with me, because my bag arrived at the hotel that night (even faster than in the states)! Moral of the story: always give up your seat on the plane to the friendly argentine couple. What an uncanny segway from my Argentina experience to my new experience in Mexico…
We stayed at a cute little hotel during our very relaxed orientation. There are eight of us students (7 girls, 1 guy) and I am the only one hailing from the west coast! We started out as somewhat of a quiet group, but everyone’s personalities are starting to come out. During orientation we’ve talked about our fears/expectations, learned that we cannot drink the water or eat anything washed
in the water here, and one morning we had our “drop-off” assignments where each person had a different landmark/interesting place that they needed to find (without the help of a guide book) and spend some time observing/chatting with the people there. Mine was Centro Cultural El Carmen- a really cool cultural center that had music and art classes, a café, and a garden of “epifitas” which are plants that grow on other plants like orquids growing out of trees. The garden also grew organic vegetables which were for sale to support the cultural center.
On Saturday we had a “surprise” trip to the river canyon Sumidero and on Sunday afternoon our host families came pick us up at our hotel! My family is great, very welcoming and always very chatty with me. They even drove me to the clinic at 6 am when I came down with Moctezuma's revenge the first night at their house. Turns out I had a stomach infection, but I've been taking medicine and I feel worlds better now.
We went to the School of Cacao yesterday- which was perfect for valentines day and the goodbye of Julie, a woman who was helping with
our orientation. We tasted a cacao drink, cookie, and cake and listened to a man relate cacao to everything possible (economy, health, culture, religion, politics, etc) in a three-hour discussion. Here are some interesting facts I learned:
-Cacao is different from cocoa. Cocoa is actually cacao without the special fat layer that contains all of the healthy properties.
-Cacao is 4x more beneficial for the heart than wine.
-Between 1515 and 1600 the conquistadores of Mexico used cacao as their monetary unit
-Priests were allowed to drink cacao during their fasting periods
If you can get your hands on some cacao seeds or powder, that is the healthiest way to eat our beloved chocolate.
In Mexico Valentine's day is actually called the Day of Love and Friendship- I hope you all had a lovely day!
Don't forget to save the web address and check back on the blog soon, because there won't be any email alerts for at least a few weeks, because of problems with the Travelblog website.
More soon,
Maggie
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Mom
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Love those photos!
Thanks for sharing your newest adventure. The cafe Tierra Adentro looks like a great spot to hang out! Glad to hear your illness is better. We miss you here on Bainbridge!