Christopher Huck - Opening in Teotitlan

There are many things one can do and see in Teotitlan del Valle.  There are the dancers, the processions, the weaving, the food, but going to an art opening? Now that's a rarity.  Yesterday, just before the last curve to enter the village proper, was just such an event.  And it will be the first of many as Christopher Huck and his wife, Laura Fisher, both talented artists, plan on following this initial gallery opening with one every three months.  They live in the village, but this little fiesta was at their gallery.

The art speaks for itself, filled with vibrant color.

Here's a link to this body of work, but his is extensive, as he is a very accomplished blacksmith with amazing metal work.  Check out some of it here. 

It was an interesting setting.  Girls from the village, in traditional outfits, served food and drinks.  The neighbors came, as well as people from the village, so there was a touch of Zapotec formality.  There were also visitors from the city and beyond.  And even some normal crazy artist types.
All were treated to quite a wonderful show.

We talked at some length about how living here has effected our art.  Hey, it effects one's whole perspective, so it would only make sense to have it infused in his work.  And the magic is sure there.

Those of you here for Navidad have to go check it out.

La Virgin de La Soledad

 Today, December 18, is a very special day for oaxaqueños as they celebrate la Virgen de la Soledad. 
She is the patron of Oaxaca and usually she is inside the church behind the altar, but today she is carried out into the sunlight surrounded by thousands of people.  I have a hard time keeping all the saints and virgins straight but here is her story.

In the 17th century, devotion to Our Lady of Solitude increased when an unattended, heavily-laden pack donkey staggered into Oaxaca, Mexico and died.  No one knew where it had come from, who owned it, or what it carried.  When the people examined his pack, they found a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Solitude.  She wore a crown of diamonds with a huge drop pearl in the middle, and a black velvet robe.  The people decided that as the donkey had died at that spot, they would build a church there to house the little statue.  Since then devotion to Our Lady of Solitude has grown,  especially in Latin America. 

It was quite an event, but not the only thing happening today.  More in a bit.

Occupy This

Hey, El Norte!  It's everywhere. 


"I read the news today, oh boy"  Am I reading this correctly?  The US can now arrest its citizens without charges and hold them indefinitely?  I thought the rest of the world was supposed to stop doing these sorts of things and follow our example.  I did not think it would work the other way.

The whole world is watching.... in stunned amazement.
Time's Person of the Year is everywhere, too.

 "People, get ready.  There's a train a comn'."

Alejandra Robles

Last night, in the park near the baseball stadium, Alejandra Robles put on a wonderful concert.  She is a originally from Puerto Escondido, the costa chica part of Oaxaca.  She proudly represents her Afro-Mexican roots in her music and dance.  She also sings classically.

The event was the opening of the opening of the winter fiesta complete with ice rink, toboggan slide, all sorts of action.  The governor was there and lots of press.  It was a big deal when he rode down in a toboggan and then there was a thirty minute figure skating show.  So the 7 pm listed starting time was pure dreaming.  Try 8:30 and it was cold and blowing - perfect for a winter event.... a concert, not so much.

Of course, I am in love with her... I mean, her voice and stage presence.

And her band was top notch, some really nice players.  The sound was good, but not perfect, which it should have been, given all the tech they had and the amount of tweaking time.  The lighting and video did not work the way they should have.  They had an led screen behind her and the band, so basically, she was a silhouette most of the time, hard to see well and really hard to shoot.  It did make for some interesting shots. 

This one has a Lady Day sort of feel to it.

A classic pose.

And in the end, said as one who put on and performed in hundreds of concerts, most of the magic that happens in concerts comes from the audience. 

Yes, the performer generates it, but the crowd must feed on it and then give it back.  That's what does it. 

And it just wasn't there for this one.  I think it was just too cold and the crowd too small to push it into that realm. 

It sure was not for trying.  She was wonderful. 
 

Faces of Teotitlan del Valle

After posting all those shots of people's backs, here are some of the young faces.
Carlos Antonio Gutierrez Mendoza as Herman Cortes.  What a classic profile.

Alvaro Vasquez Lazo as Pedro de Alvarado.

Rosa Angelica Hernandez Mendez as Malinche

Leticia Martinez Gonzalez as Doña Marina.

And one of the dancers...

I have all their names but I am not who exactly is who.  Next time.

La Virgen de Guadalupe in Teotitlan del Valle

What better way than to celebrate Mexico's most important saint than with the danzantes in Teotitlan del Valle.  The day was glorious with vivid blue skies and intense sun.  Unfortunately, the dancers were in the shade all day, shaded by the huge trees on the southern side of the plaza.  So shooting was very challenging, dark images with intensely bright backgrounds.  Still, it was fantastic, as always.
In celebration of the Virgin, the dancers had newly woven or embroidered images of her on their capes, coronas (headdresses) or, for Malinche and Doña Marina, on their dresses.
 
What amazing work!  This is Monctezuma's cape.

Sequins in the center of this corona.
 
The Virgin was everywhere in many forms.  What amazing weaving!

Wow!

More wow.

What a magical vision and such an honor to be there.

Yes, the dancers had faces and there are frontal shots.... in a while.

Street Art cont.... of a different sort

 These bright pictures are on the side of a hill on the road to Ocotlan.  They have been renewed from time to time and this time it was for last week's Virgin of Juquila pilgrimages or peregrinajes.  It is hard to show the scale of how large these pieces are, but you can see some small shacks and structures and that should help. 

What a labor of love and devotion.

Street Art cont.... never fails

This place just has the best posters and graffiti.

Piece by piece

and as a whole

Cuish is a mezcal brand or vendor.

Street scenes...

It's piñata time.  This one is maybe two meters in diameter and is hanging in a busy intersection as an advertisement and enticement for the maker just down the side street.

The zocalo is bedecked with poinsettias making for a pleasant place to work.

Flowers.  There are always flowers.

Of course, what one sees depends on where the street is.  This from Los Reyes.

Change

Sometimes construction jobs seem to happen very quickly.  Where there was once a field is now a building.  On the other hand certain building projects can take years.  These are often people's homes. As the money comes in, the construction continues in stops and starts. 
While I was in El Norte it seems like a lot got finished.  There is a huge new Walmart in the city.  I mean, huge.  A new Autozone, a few other franchises and this, a new Bodega Aurrera on the street from Etla to Tres Reyes. 

I wonder what it all means to the vendors, the stores and the nearby market.  The market is one of the best things about living where I do. What sort of change will this all bring?

It reminded me of this sign I saw in the market in Zimatlan. 

That market was graced with this beautiful statue.  Here decorated for El Dia del los Muertos.

Walmart or Aurrera ain't gonna have anything like that.

The Waltons or Walmart are/is very big in Mexico with hundreds of stores.  Just in Oaxaca, there is the new huge one that is only a kilometer from Sam's Club.  There are Bodega Aurreras and Super Aurreras all over the area.

Wal-Mart operates over 1,410^[1] retail outlets in Mexico including restaurants and supermarkets, under the names Walmart, Superama, Suburbia, VIPS, Sam's Club and Bodega Aurrerá. The company is now Mexico's largest private sector employer.

Incidentally, "Aurrera" in Basque means “Come on.”
Read the history and the state of the Walton Empire in Mexico here and here.

Oportunidades - Opportunities

Seemed like old times today as I headed out in search of one thing and found everything but.  I thought I would find Virgen of Juquila celebrations, but every church I visited was empty.  However, whenever one is driving around there is always plenty to take in and learn.  And so it was when I got to nearby Tres Reyes expecting to find lots of people carrying flowers, where I instead found the zocalo filled with a long line of women. 

There were hundreds and many men and families waiting on the outskirts. 

 I asked someone what was happening and they said. "Oportunidades."  I said gracias and left, but when I got back to the house I looked it up and Oportunidades is a program run by the Mexican government and it seems to be working. 

Here's some of what Wikipedia has to say:

Oportunidades is a government social assistance program in Mexico founded in 2002, based on a previous program called Progresa, created in 1997.^[1] It is designed to target poverty by providing cash payments to families in exchange for regular school attendance, health clinic visits, and nutritional support.^[2] Oportunidades is credited with decreasing poverty and improving health and educational attainment in regions in which it has been deployed.^[3] As of 2006, around one-quarter of Mexico's population participates in Oportunidades.

Key features of Oportunidades include:

• Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) - To encourage co-responsibility, receipt of aid is dependent on family compliance with program requirements, such as ensuring children attend school and family members receive preventative health care^[4]
• "Rights holders" - Program recipients are mothers, the caregiver directly responsible for children and family health decisions^[5]
• Cash payments are made from the government directly to families to decrease overhead and corruption^[1]
• A system of evaluation and statistical controls to ensure effectiveness^[2]
• Rigorous selection of recipients based on geographical and socioeconomic factors
• Program requirements target measures considered most likely to lift families out of poverty, focusing on health, nutrition and children's education^[1 

The anti-poverty program has become a flagship success. Thirty percent of the population directly receive conditional cash transfers from the program. Effects have been both positive and numerous. Increased contraceptive use in rural areas of Mexico has resulted in reduced teen pregnancy and fewer infant deaths. Students are progressing with school for more years and with high grades. The number of graduating high school students has increased 85%. More students are going to college.

 Seems like a very successful program and one that is definitely needed.   Oportunidades for them and an opportunity for me to learn something new.

It's beginning to look....

 Have your tree yet?  I guess they can be pretty pricey, but here they are reasonable if you don't mind a dry one with no fragrance.  I love how they have them sitting in a shallow dish of sand.  Who knows maybe that is the secret to keeping them fresh and moist.  These however, were looking pretty dry and brittle.  But hey, the price is right about $22 US.

Did you know that depending where you live, there is a good chance that a mexicano harvested your tree?

From the LAHT

BEECH MOUNTAIN, North Carolina – The Christmas tree industry in North Carolina continues to depend on Mexican labor to keep alive the tradition of placing natural pine trees in homes for the holiday season.

According to figures compiled by the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association, there are 1,600 tree farms in the state that harvest 5 million pine trees – and plant 50 million – per year on 25,000 acres of land, most of them Fraser pines, the one best-known for its particular fragrance.

It is estimated that more than 27 million U.S. homes will put up a tree during the month of December to brighten the festivities.

....during the 1980s the first Mexicans hired by farmers under the H2A visa program began arriving in the state.

“In the last 25 years, the labor force has changed,” said Hamilton, who carried out a study on the impact of the Hispanic labor force in the industry.

“It began with farmers in the state, their families, including students, but with growth they needed workers from other places and the Mexicans ... began arriving there.”

One of those workers is Mario Tehandon, 42, who along with his four brothers were the first Mexicans to settle in Avery County to devote their efforts to the Christmas tree industry.

“It’s a very hard job, of 12 or 14 hours a day. We have to get up at 5 a.m. to work, even in the rain and even when it’s frozen because you have to cut the pines no matter what the weather is,” Tehandon told Efe.

He is in charge of 30 employees, all working for the Triple H Pines firm, which annually cuts 50,000 Fraser pines.

“We Mexicans have gotten ourselves ahead in this industry, because trees from here are distributed to Texas, Mississippi, New York, and that’s a source of pride,” he said.

Hamilton emphasized that the Christmas tree industry continues to depend on seasonal workers who arrive in the state every year to harvest and prune the little trees, given that the “natives have devoted themselves to other jobs.”

 I think there are some things unsaid in the story, like are they all documented workers, but at least the story has a positive spin to it.  Better than Arizona, Alabama, Georgia,.......

Shhh...

Time for a fence goin' the other way?
From the LAHT

More than 2 million retired Americans have chosen Mexico as their new home, a figure that continues to increase thanks to the pleasant climate and favorable economic conditions, Tourism Secretary Gloria Guevara said.

During Friday’s inauguration of the 1st National Forum for Retired Americans: Expectations and Solutions of Life in Mexico, the official said that Mexico offers such products as medical tourism, rest and relaxation tourism, and business tourism.

She said that retired Americans are a segment of great importance for developing the economy of the nation’s tourist destinations, and added that more and more Canadians also opt for retirement in Mexico.

Guevara said that the favorite retirement locations are Mexico’s northwestern states and the Yucatan peninsula.

At the same forum, the president of the International Community Foundation, Richard Kiy, said that 53 percent of retirees making their home in Mexico are under age 65 and choose Mexico for the favorable living conditions and stable economy.

He said that Mexico being near their home country does influence their choice, as does the possibility of purchasing a home at a much lower price than in the United States.

He said that 34 percent say the economic recession has not affected their retirement plans nor their quality of life.

The study indicated that 93 percent of retirees say that drug-related violence, which has claimed nearly 50,000 lives in the past five years, is not a problem that would keep them from moving to Mexico.

Window art

The first is from the remarkable restoration of the San Pablo Academic and Cultural Center funded by the Alfredo Harp Helu Foundation.  This is a new museum/performance space and library that is right next to the Textile Museum, the Macedonia Alcala Teatro and the Stamp Museum.  They take these things seriously here and these are all gems, both architecturally and culturally.

In the eye of the the beholder.

I love how this almost looks like it could be a framed piece, but that's the sky behind a roofless room.

Good to be back....

My luggage and I were finally reunited after three absolutely horrible days of being apart.  There was a bit of intrigue and some tense moments as it was driven around the city from one wrong address to the next, but finally... the cheddar cheese and crunchy peanut butter were set free.

So today, it was a nice walk through the city basking in the warmth.  It has been cold here.  The tender plants in San Sebastian got nailed and it is only the first week in December.  Last year we had a fairly hard freeze, but it was later.   However, the sun was out and it felt great to reacquaint myself with the city.  This guy was way up there restoring a church.  Look at that face. 

How can you not feel happy seeing that.

Different palettes

It is a world of colors. 
New England's autumn

to market day in Etla

Knock, knock,

Who's there?
My luggage,
My luggage?
My luggage finally made it here.
Now to go and find it.