Palm Sunday - Domingo del Ramos

On this Palm Sunday or Day of the Branches, Domingo del Ramos,

the city was abuzz with lots of people and lots of interesting action.

Outside of all the churches people were selling pieces made of palm fronds or straw.


 

People paraded into the churches

and streamed out after the masses, all clutching their newly blessed fronds.

 
The zocalo was packed and there was a wonderful concert under the towering laurels.  They played Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and it was spectacular.

Famed artist unveils mural at COM

photo by Kevin M. Cox
from The Galveston County Daily News

TEXAS CITY — Maestro Shinzaburo Takeda, an internationally known artist who lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, watched as a mural was unveiled Friday at College of the Mainland.

The mural, based on one of his paintings, was executed by art students under his direction.

The mural is a symbol of the close relations between Mexico and Texas — and between Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca and College of the Mainland......

Takeda went to Mexico in 1963, fascinated by the tradition of the great muralists.

“There were no murals in Japan 50 years ago,” he said.

While Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco were dead, David Alfaro Siqueiros became a friend and mentor.

“If you sell a painting, a rich person puts it in his home and it is gone,” said Takeda, who had trained as a painter in Japan. “A mural on a wall is for everyone.”

The same applies to print making, he said. “The murals and prints are a way to communicate with society.”

Takeda traveled throughout Mexico, fascinated with the cultures, especially those of the indigenous peoples.

He settled in Oaxaca and has studied its cultures for 30 years. The region is home to 17 groups, each with its own environment, customs and cultures, he said. 

Ventanas de púrpura y blanca

Window decorations for semana santa.

Semana Santa approaches

A beautiful, but hot day in the city as Semana Santa approaches and the place fills with tourists.  Purple and white decorations can be seen everywhere.

Today the streets were filled with altars to the Virgin Doloroso.

The clay pots filled with fresh greens are signs of spring.  The cream colored pieces look like they are made of plastic, but they are pieces of palm.  
The Virgin is weeping for the son she will soon lose.  

People are making and selling lots of pieces made from palm.  

Here is a intricate and beautiful piece.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

When I drive into the city, I drive by this sign and it always makes me think how the GOP in El Norte was going to "focus like a laser on jobs, jobs, jobs."

Any signs like this in your neighborhood?
Translation:  "Like never before... 3098 new employees in only 100 days.... the new governor is on your side."

Working hard or hardly working

There are many things to admire about Oaxaca.  One is the people's work ethic.  They work hard and they work long hours.  Over the years I have posted lots of shots of people at work here.  So much of work here is "grunt" work, hard labor with no machines.  I have watched guys carry wet sand delivered out on the street and then carried in using five gallon buckets, bucket after bucket.  I have watched women grinding corn with metates.  Campesinos, clearing fields by hand, using oxen to plow the furrows.  From restoration, construction, right down to sweeping the streets or collecting the trash, most of it is done by hand.  I have learned to work that way myself.  It is just normal life here.
I guess that is why I react when I hear the negative stereotypes of workers from Mexico.  If people only really knew.
Well, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released as study that it quite interesting.

Mexicans work longer days than anyone else in OECD countries, devoting 10 hours to paid and unpaid work, such as cleaning or cooking at home. Belgians work the least, at 7 hours, compared with an OECD average of 8 hours a day.

Karma

Yes, that is three weeks in a row for me.  After eating another helping of Israel Mendoza's fine costillas or ribs, available only on Sundays at Jacobo Angeles' Azucenas Restaurante on Rte 175 at the entrance to San Martin Tilcajete, we noticed a couple waiting for a bus or cab and asked if they wanted a ride back to the city.  They jumped in and proceeded to tell us that they had spent the day visiting the carvers in the village.  They were ebullient and had dropped a sizable chunk of change buying masks.  They wnet on to say that they had a book with a map of all the carvers and went on to say how helpful it had been. 
"Hmmm," thought I.  "I think I know the guy who wrote that booklet and he is a real jerk," sez I. 
"Well, he did right by us," they said. "The book was invaluable," and they pulled it out to show us.
And yes, it was my little book on "The Carvers of San Martin Tilcajete."  They let out a whoop of surprise and went on about how much they had enjoyed their time in the village because of the book.
So picking up a couple of strangers proved to be rewarding in unimagined ways. 
That is Adrian Xuana in the photo, who sold a few pieces to the couple.  Good karma all around.

Cornered

I got nuttin'.  Maybe mañana.  Workin' way too hard outside, but ahhhh.....

Luther Burbank & Frida Kahlo

Some of you know that I am an intrepid gardener, a real plant nut.  My mother turned me on to plants when I was young and I discovered early on that I had a gift for working with them.  One of the most important books in my life was The Secret Life of Plants by Tompkins and Bird, which came out in the 60's.  It totally blew my pea-sized mind and if you know the book, you know why.  One chapter was about Luther Burbank.  He had the gift... times a million.

I just finished The Garden of Invention by Jane S. Smith, a wonderful book about Burbank.  How nice to be re-inspired.  I knew some of his story, but never knew that Frida painted his portrait a few years after his death. Connections, connections, they never end. Diego did one, too.  Incidentally, that is also Luther buried under the tree returning to and feeding Nature.  He invented more plants that we all use today than you can believe. An unbelievable man with a very believable story.

And here he is with two of his many admirers and friends, Edison and John D. Rockefeller.

Your table is waiting

The tourists are back....sorta. 

However, there is still room at La Hosteria de Alcala.  Doesn't that look inviting?

Or maybe you would prefer this bench.  It is very exclusive.

Popeye is one of my existential Buddhist masters.  I live by his immortal words. "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam."  Toot, toot.

Street scenes

There is so much Oaxaca in this one shot.  From the rugs, probably from Teotitlan del Valle, to the large graffiti, the color scheme, the numerous posters, the street sign, the little guy on the lower left.  All it needs is a scooter.

Domo arigato, Mr. Moto... I know, I know it should be Mr. Roboto, but who cares.

Power to the People!

Things are looking up.... Santa Ana Zegache

The church in Santa Ana Zegache is one of my absolute favorites.  The road cutting over the wide valley from Ocotlan is much improved, kinda paved in spots, nice and smooth.  Here are a couple or recent shots of the interior domes.

Banksters and gangsters - Who woulda thought?

It is tough out there for a bankster.....
This is an amazing story from The Guardian about just how broken the system is.  (Emphasis added)

The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller's cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme. Of special significance was that the period concerned began in 2004, which coincided with the first escalation of violence along the US-Mexico border that ignited the current drugs war.

Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year's "deferred prosecution" has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine.

 "Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations," said Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor. Yet the total fine was less than 2% of the bank's $12.3bn profit for 2009. On 24 March 2010, Wells Fargo stock traded at $30.86 – up 1% on the week of the court settlement.

The conclusion to the case was only the tip of an iceberg, demonstrating the role of the "legal" banking sector in swilling hundreds of billions of dollars – the blood money from the murderous drug trade in Mexico and other places in the world – around their global operations, now bailed out by the taxpayer....

"What happened at Wachovia was symptomatic of the failure of the entire regulatory system to apply the kind of proper governance and adequate risk management which would have prevented not just the laundering of blood money, but the global crisis."

Too subtle?

Besides grinding up hundreds of bamboo in my new wood chipper for mulch and compost, I'm reading the political news from the States, as always.  Wow, just wow.  Teachers and cops are Satan?  Tennessee undoes the Scopes trial?  Burning Korans?  That is some serious scary stuff.  I mean, Donald Trump????  All I can say is

Posted w/o comment

Who is that guy with a jicara on his head? 

h/t Henry Wangeman

Megablockade

Meanwhile, just down the road, there was a huge and very disruptive blockade of the roads yesterday.  The people making the blockade are from villages that have been promised changes and repairs from last year's rains.  They say they are tired of empty promises.  That is their side of the argument.

On another side are thousands of people who cannot get to work or to their destinations.  On another side are businesses that are severely hurt by not having workers or customers.

In essence, there are a lot of very pissed off people. 

There has to be a better way.

full story from Noticiasnet
another story from El Imparcial

Spain Chosen to Replace Mexico as Guest of Honor at French Fair

This story from The LAHT has so many threads.  What a sad mess.

Spain is replacing Mexico as the guest of honor at the 79th European Fair in Strasbourg because of the tensions between Paris and Mexico City over the Cassez case, organizers said Tuesday.

Mexico’s participation ended because of “the events,” Strasbourg Evenements, which is organizing the fair, said in a statement.

The long-running fair features food, tourism, crafts and other exhibits.

The statement was referring to the diplomatic dispute between France and Mexico over the case of Florence Cassez, a Frenchwoman convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to 60 years in prison in Mexico, company officials told Efe.

Numerous activities planned as part of the “Year of Mexico,” a series of more than 350 art, cultural and business events scheduled to be held in France throughout the course of 2011, have been cancelled since February, when Mexico suspended its institutional participation in the program......
Cassez was arrested on Dec. 8, 2005, on the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway along with her boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, the suspected leader of the Los Zodiaco kidnapping gang.

A day later, agents from the now-defunct AFI, Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI, staged a mock raid so TV cameras could film the arrest of the gang members in a wooded area near Mexico City.

Cassez’s defense team said witnesses changed their testimony and implicated the Frenchwoman in the abductions after it emerged that the raid shown on television was a re-enactment of the original police operation.

The Frenchwoman has proclaimed her innocence from the beginning, denying that she participated in kidnappings.....

Casa Roja

Remember this shot from a month or so ago?  I wondered what color scheme they would go with.
Well, here it is. 

Would it work on your street?

Walking Tour

The city is hoppin' these days, more tourists then in many moons.  I am not sure why, but it is fun to see.  Oh, and it is hot!  May is usually the hottest month, so this heat is early.  I hope it brings the rains soon.  I am acting tour guide for a friend and covering lots of territory and just checking out the scene.
One of my favorite windows.

As always, protests in the zocalo.  The violinist was quite good.
 
The funniest thing about this shot of a shop on the main pedestrian walkway, Macedonia Alcala, was the laughter coming from the woman working in the store.  I got to use a phrase I just learned, "No tiene verguenza?" "Have you no shame?"  She broke out in contagious laughter.

This new place is on the south side of the zocalo, the side that is strictly oaxaqueño, not for tourists.  Who knew Boston was famous for coffee.  What's next?  A Dunkin' Donuts?

Things are looking up.... Teposcolula

A shot of the interior dome of the newly restored church in Teposcolula.  There is a chandelier hanging below it which adds to the mandala effect.

The restoration work has been going on for months, maybe years, but it is gorgeous....not quite finished, but gorgeous.  I don't know if this one is finished, but it sure looks fine,

It is the same in Yanhuitlan, one of my all time favorites, but the church was closed when I was last there.

I have been shooting these interior domes whenever I get a chance.  There is one is San Jose del Progreso that is supposed to be one of the nicest ones in all of Oaxaca.  I have gone there five times, but never made it into the church for various reasons... like it was closed or there was a ceremony going on or they were having political altercations, you know, normal life.... Next time for sure.