Sunday, May 18

Traditional Dancers taking pictures in the streets.

Today was an amazing and beautiful day in Oaxaca.  Rocky, my roommate, and I started our morning with an orientation with Carlos, the director for the Adelante Program stationed in Oaxaca.  We walked around the town and became aquainted with the street names and some of the locations.  We saw traditional dancers taking pictures for a photo shoot.  They are going to be on posters advertising the Gualguetza, which is a huge festival held during the last 2 weeks in July.  We visited the zocalo, which is the town center, and learned the history of the San Domingo Church.

San Domingo Church

Orientation only lasted about 2 hours, and when we arrived back at our apartment, Mrs. Irma, our land lady/pseudo mother, took us to the supermarket.  Things they don’t have in Mexico: lemons and lemonade mix…. For those of you who don’t know, I put lemon on pretty much everything and, since I don’t like plain water, I really only drink lemonade.  I bought a lot of American brands, Frosted Flakes in Oaxaca are called Zucaritas!  But they did have hummus and feta cheese so I will make due.  We spent about 2 hours shopping because it is so hard to read everything in Spanish and not completely understand which aisles have what.

When we returned to the house, Mrs. Irma invited us to a Fiesta.  It is her cousin’s birthday in one of the neighboring towns.  Rocky and I said yes, but I grabbed a bag of ritz crackers just in case I didn’t want to eat any of the food again.

The amazing view of the mountains from the Fiesta,

20 minutes later the roads turned to dirt and everything looked like barren farmland.  We pulled into a parking lot, not a driveway, and walked into a huge tent with 150-200ppl sitting down a tables.  In the distance, you could see the mountains and it was a very nice view.

The Spicy Soup

Mrs. Irma introduced us to many people and we said hello to the birthday girl and a few familiar people from the fiesta before.  The entire party was catered.  We started with a spicy soup that had beef and bull meat in it… I guess I could kind of relate it to minestrone soup, but it was so spicy I only ate half.  Then came dinner, which was seasoned meat, seasoned with what I don’t know, but I think it was beef… We ate it rolled in a tortilla with beans and guacamole.  Last came the alcohol… Mezcal to be specific.  It’s kind of like Tequila, and it hits you very fast.  I only did one shot, but Rocky did like 3 or 4.

Dinner: meat, beans, and guacamole with tortillas

Time to acquire a taste fro Mezcal.

The Mariachi Band playing on the other side of the
table covered in flowers.

After dinner, the DJ started playing music and soon after a Mariachi Band arrived.  The DJ stopped so people could sing along with the Mariachi Band.  During this time, more and more people kept arriving.  With them, they all brought 3 things: 1)a birthday present, 2)an extravagant arrangement of flowers, and 3)a case of beer.  By 6pm there were 2 tables full of presents, 2 tables overflowing with flowers, and an entire wall stacked up with beer.  It was quite the sight.

"We we just handed pineapples?"  "Just go with it!"

When the Mariachi Band finished, the DJ started back up.  Everyone quickly got up to dance, including Rocky and me, and was really fun.  We were handed pineapples about 20minutes into dancing for a traditional song.  From what I could understand of Mrs. Irma, we are celebrating a harvest and hold the pineapple on our shoulders for the first part, then we wave them in the air while walking in a circle, and then put them on the ground and grab a partner to dance with you around the pineapple.  This was one of the more interesting things I’ve ever done.  After, we were given handkerchiefs and the men put on cowboy hats and you grabbed a partner to dance with again and we waved our handkerchiefs around and just laughed a lot.

#LifeinOaxaca

...Now walk around the pineapple

Handkerchiefs and Cowboy hats

Once the traditional dances ended, many people started to leave the dance floor and I was following suit when all of a sudden a man grabbed my arm and motioned to dance wit him.  I’m really happy to learn so I joined him, but he didn’t want to dance with me, he was actually getting me to dance with his nephew, Gabriel.  Gabriel speaks fluent English, thank goodness!  He was an excellent teacher and must have danced constantly for 2hrs.  I finally said I was tired and we walked over to a table and sat to talk.

Mrs. Irma approached us and said Rocky was ready to leave. Gabriel didn’t want me to go and asked Mrs. Irma to let me stay and said he would drive me home later…. Keep in mind they were talking quickly in Spanish and I was only understanding words here and there, so this is what I deducted from their conversation.  She agreed and gave us a 9pm curfew and I stayed at the Fiesta.  We ended up going into the pueblo and walked around.  We played Fuzbol and I won 3/4 games!  We didn’t end up getting back home to Oaxaca City until 10:30pm, but Mrs. Irma wasn’t mad, Gabriel is like her nephew, and only asked if we had fun.

I’m happy to report the food was much better and I hope every day is this much fun!,

Maria Katerina