A Semester in Oaxaca: Mexico City

We arrived last Monday, February 28, and moved in with host families in Santo Domingo, a working class neighborhood in the Coyoacán municipality. Our excursion guide, Mojdeh, is brilliant. I would highly recommend her travel service to anyone looking to have an authentic visit to the city. Maddy and I lived in the home of doña Luisa, who moved to Santo Domingo in 1971 as part of “the invasion.” Santo Domingo started out as a squatter settlement, built on top of volcanic rock, and slowly transformed into the neighborhood it is today (with a population of about 100,000). The community of 20,000 squatters came together to build their houses, roads, plumbing system, electrical system, and schools with no outside help. Doña Luisa is a powerful woman: once she starts speaking, I wouldn’t dare interrupt her. She is incredibly knowledgeable about everything from the drug war to community development. The sense of community in Santo Domingo is incredible considering that it’s in the middle of Mexico City: the one time a group of students were robbed here, their host mom went to the house of the robber and spoke to the robber’s mother! They got all of their stuff back and the robber was grounded. Doña Luisa and her daughters, all of whom live in the house, run a small restaurant in the front of the house. I would estimate that 13 or 14 people live in the house, and as far as I know they all share one small bathroom. Despite the fact that we were obviously intruding on their small space, everyone was so hospitable, welcoming, and willing to sit and speak with us about their lives. On Tuesday we headed to downtown Coyoacán to check out the blue house (Frida and Diego’s) and Trotsky’s house. On Wednesday Matt and I spent the morning selling bleach and other cleaning supplies from a bicycle-cart with Flavio, one of the homestay dads. The communities around Santo Domingo are very poor, and so Flavio purchases cleaning supplies in bulk and sells them to residents of the neighboring communities in smaller quantities. We walked in the heat for about 3 hours, yelling “claaaaaaaaaarasooooooool” and filling up people’s used bottles for a few pesos each. The work was exhausting—I can’t imagine how Flavio does it for 6 or 7 hours every day of the week. We also had a series of silk-screening workshops with Flavio. One of Flavio’s children was born disabled, something that is neither discussed nor addressed in Mexico, and so Flavio began doing silk-screening workshops for them as a form of therapy and self-expression. Flavio sells the cleaning supplies during the day, he says, because it is the only option he has to make enough money to support his silk-screening project and to feed his family. Wages are low in Mexico City, he explains, and it’s impossible to make enough money to survive unless you find non-traditional work. On Thursday morning we moved out of Santo Domingo and into Hotel Rioja, 2 blocks away from the Zócalo in the historical center of Mexico City. After dropping my stuff of at the hotel, I jumped in a cab and headed to the airport! My flight to Minneapolis was smooth, and it was wonderful to see my parents for a few hours! The Truman interview lasted all day on Friday, and the other finalists were some of the most amazing and friendly people I’ve ever met. Saturday I bid adieu to the USA yet again, and made it back to Mexico City at 9 pm. Sunday I spent the day on my own, doing all of the touristy things (the Zócalo, the national palace, Templo Mayor, Bellas Artes, etc). Then Monday, March 6, we headed back to Oaxaca at 5 am!

Check out Mojdeh’s travel service: http://www.travelmexicocity.com.mx/index.php