My first week of classes is over! On Monday afternoon, Oliver Froehling, from Unitierra, took us on a “reality tour” of the city. We visited government housing projects, the sewage plant (or lack thereof—the infrastructure for dealing with waste doesn’t really exist), suburbia (complete with a Sam’s Club and Sears), and squatter settlements. As we’re all living with well-to-do families, it was really interesting to see how the majority of the city lives. And yet, despite the stark poverty, I’m learning that the people here are so rich in so many ways that we aren’t. People here have a strong sense of community—I’ve been asked several times why on earth we move away from home at the age of 18. Also important here is tequio, or community work. The entire community is expected to come together to help each other with everything and anything. Even those who have migrated to the US are expected to perform tequio in their home communities—usually by paying others to perform tequios for them. The other day I was talking to my host brother about snow and he asked, "is it true people are responsible for shoveling their own sidewalks and driveways? Why don’t neighbors help each other with this task?" He just couldn't understand the individualistic, nuclear-family based lifestyle that many of us lead. One student asked what happens if someone doesn’t feel like doing tequio, or what happens if someone has other things to do when the municipal government (ruled by usos y costumbres) calls a tequio. The response was, “what do you mean? Why would someone not have the time or effort to help their neighbors when asked?” There’s a whole different paradigm here of what is valuable and what it means to be a part of a community.
On Wednesday, we learned about the history of Oaxacan social movements from Marcos Leyva from EDUCA. On Thursday, during our Spanish class, we went to Casa de las Artesanías, an artisan cooperative here in the city. During the afternoon, we went to INSO, a local NGO that works with water conservation in Oaxaca. Casa de las Artesanías was right up my alley, of course, and I even got to try making the tin folk art figures Oaxaca is famous for. Check out all of the amazing organizations I visited this week here (note, some of these are in Spanish):
http://unitierra.org/09/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52:unitierra-entradaingles&catid=36:unitierra
http://www.educaoaxaca.org/
http://www.insooaxaca.com/insoeng.html
http://www.casadelasartesanias.com.mx/
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| Una paracaída: a squatter settlement with houses made mostly of tin and tarp |
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| Oaxaca City |
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| A vendor selling candy at the observation deck |
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