Come to Oaxaca

Good morning! Buenos dias! I have a few minutes before I have to go down to breakfast this morning. Today is Mike's birthday (his 30th) and his girlfriend is arriving, so even though she'll be staying here, I'm sure I'll see much less of him now. Yesterday was a day chock-full of activities and experiences. School was fine... I am kinda over being a student now and frankly am counting the days till I don't go anymore. I think I am depending on it mostly for my social life here in Oaxaca, so I am not eager to be away from the school, only not sitting in a classroom for 3 hours a day. Teachers are usually the worst students, and this teacher is NO different.

So after lunch yesterday I found an adorable hotel for my mother and I. It's more of an apartment with 2 floors, full kitchen, living room, private bathroom, etc... run by a cute older couple, called La Casa de los Abuelos (the house of the grandparents). Luis and Rosy are adorable, and although they don't seem to speak a lick of English, I understood that we could have the apartment for only $50 a night, for 2 people. It's a total steal! Sadly, I read on the internet yesterday that tourism is down like 60% here and the occupancy rate in the hotels is only 40%. This is a city that depends on tourism for it's livelihood and I guess that since the news was overblown that it was unsafe to be here, people just aren't choosing Oaxaca like they used to before the riots and uprising that happened here last year. It's very sad. The people here are SO nice (muy amable)! So that leads into the other thing I did yesterday... we (the students) watched a documentary at the school, about the events that happened here last year, when there were teacher protests, rioting and people killed during those events. The governor of Oaxaca is apparently somewhat of a crook and he had his people quieting down the protestors by killing them, throwing tear gas, and completely unnecessary violence. It was supposed to be a peaceful protest. Anyway... it's complicated and I don't have time to get into it now, but the film was very sad and very informative. Afterwards, the teachers were invited in to have a discussion with us about our opinions and their feelings about what goes on here. The good part of the discussion: it was passionate and lively and was encouraging to see people with strong feelings about their government. The bad part: ummmm it was pretty much 100% discussed in Spanish and I only understood a small portion of what was being said. Big bummer! After the meeting it was almost 9pm so Mike, Jamie and I went out to dinner with the director, Enrique and one of the teachers, Veronica (I think they're a couple). We had yummy pizza (something I never have at home anymore). The conversation was half in English and half in Spanish, and was very fun.

So now today, I am off to school and then we're taking an excursion to a nearby town, Ocotlan, which has a hugely popular market day on Fridays. Tonight we will go to the Mezcal Festival to celebrate Mike's birthday. I don't know if I will be around to post anything before then so I wanted to write this little bit this morning. Tomorrow we're going to Monte Alban, a significant archeological site for Mexico, with pyramids, etc...

Have a great day!!! Thanks for reading!