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Published: April 18th 2006
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Murals
Murals on Oaxaca´s history in the Government palace The journey to Oaxaca takes you over some spectacular mountain landscapes with desert-like soil supporting only a few grasses and cacti, unfortunately I didn´t have a chance to take full advantage of the scenary as I was taking full advantage of the 3 (pretty terrible) feature films showing, dubbed in Spanish, on my luxury bus.
Oaxaca is a lovely city, much smaller and safer than Mexico DF with a beautiful treelined central square only 1 block fom my language school. My classes are great and I´ve been studying uses of the subjunctive in about a hundred different forms: If you were to go to the cinema I would be very pleased; I wish that you had never done that etc etc - very confusing but really useful for ecpressing myself, something that I´m pretty crap at doing in classes actually due to my inability to think and speak in Spanish at the same time.
I am staying with a nice family: Señora Paty and her daughter, Lorena and home-help (servant really), Angela. They are good at feeding me Mexican dishes which are nice but I am only just beginning to get used to and force feeding me doughnuts whic
Vases
Vases of Barro Verde cermamic in Atzompa cost about 1pound each! seem to be a substitute for bread Hmm. I have also met their aunt and uncle who I educated about England: it´s in the UK in western Europe, it´s an island, we don´t have earthquakes or cyclones etc! along with most of the rest of their huge family who always seemed to be popping in and out over the Easter weekend.
I went on an excursion with my teacher Luis and a couple of other students from the school to Atzompa where they make Barro Verde pottery. Amazingly beautiful stuff at a tiny fraction of the price we´d pay in the UK, if only my bag were bigger and lighter and padded to prevent breakages. I do have a gorgeous candle holder though to add to my Aztec stone man. Oops!
I also went to a baseball match with 3 others from the school, Alex from Australia, Kevin from Scotland/Australia and Bryn from New Zealand/USA, which was fun - we sat right behind the batter (is that the correct term?) while Bryn filled us in on the rules and we met the mascot too and our team won so was a good evening. Also, we did a cookery
tortilla making
Me making tortillas in cooking class class too where we made Mole Verde - kind of spicy sauce to eact with tortillas and chicken. It was really yummy and so much fun to make. I went with Alex and Kevin to Monte Alban one of the country´s spectacuar ruins which are also in the really, really old category of being BC. They were similar to the pyramids of Teotihuacan but not quite the same and have amazing views into the surrounding valleys and down to Oaxaca city. We´ve also been to the cinema to see Maria Full of Grace in Spanish, which although I´ve seen before I did without reading the subtitles this time (I might have read them but someone´s head was in the way and I couldn´t!)
I also have to admit that I´m a little addicted to Amor en Custodia - a pretty terrible Mexican soap opera that is all the rage here (Barbara has just found out that she has a sister and Nicolas who is in hospital with cancer has been discovered by his girlfriends father!) , I hope I can watch it when I´m in Guadalajara too.
My host family took me out to a market neighbourhood which
Monte Alban
The ruins of Monte Alban circa 300BC sold loads of Barro Negro, called San Bartolo, and I bought a little vase since the family seemed offended that they had taken me all the way there and I didn´t want to buy anything. So I can now add that to my list of unsuitable souvenirs which also includes a Barro Negro mug given to me in exchange for the crumbled up box of shortbread I gave them - hardly seemed a fair exchange until I saw at the market that the mugs only cost a doller, so while the shortbread was crappy it was at least more expensive! Unfortunately I didn´t get to go to El Tule (home of the widest tree in teh world) in the end, as I was proimised by the family, as they never got home in time to take me. Instead I spent from 3.30pm (when we were supposed to go) to 8pm waiting for them to come home, on the plus side I did read nearly all of the 900 page novel Dad gave me before I went - thanks Dad! - It´s called The Labarynth and it´s very good. It´s also interesting how close the D´Oc language (from where the novel
Grasshoppers
The local Oaxacan delicacy of grasshoppers. They actually just taste of salt really, not bad but not my first choice snack! is set in south France) is to Spanish - it´s quite a lot how i remember Catalan being, half way between French and Spanish and yet not really either.
On good Friday I went to see the Procession de Silencio - a tradition I really have yet to understand, it all seemed a bit odd to me! And on Easter Sunday I went to mass in the catherdral which was packed unsurprisingly. I have had no chocolate in well over a week so I hope you all saving me some, I can´t wait to get back to my secret supply stored in Mexico´s youth hostel storage room.
Off to Puebla and Tlaxcala next before I go on to Guadalajara via Mexico DF.
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Kait
Katherine
Great journal entry. Thanks for sharing! Oaxaca is near the top of my list of places to visit, and I also want to attend Spanish school while I am there.