Futbal

Today I saw a thousand years old `football stadion´, where the Zapotecas played pelota, which was played with an outright religious fervor. Nothing has changed in 2000 years I´d say...

Mole

Oaxaca also means eating delicious ¨mole¨ in the market place, usually prepared with chicken, but for the vegetarian with tortillas and a bit of cheese. I love it!!!

Mole is Mexico's National Dish. There are as many variations of moles as there are curries in India. The word mole is derived from the word mulli, of the pre-Columbian Nahuatl culture in Mexico and translates as "mixture." While there are as many mixtures as there are mole makers, the Mexican state of Oaxaca is famous for seven distinct combinations sometimes called the Seven Sisters.
A mole is a thick, dark sauce that combines native Mexican ingredients such as chilies, chocolate, tortillas, cilantro, tomatillos and tomatoes with nuts, raisins, garlic and bread which are then blended with Oriental spices such as cinnamon and cloves. A well made mole represents many hours of skilled work in the kitchen.
Mole itself has a unique story. The "Mole Poblano" was created in Puebla, a city southeast of Mexico City. According to legend, the inventor is a nun at the Santa Rosa Convent. The Mother Superior requested, on short notice, a new special dish for visiting dignitaries. Because there was so little time, she could use only those ingredients on hand. The Mole Poblano began with local ingredients grown at the convent and nearby: cinnamon, almonds, and, of course, chilis. What makes it so special and uniquely Mexican is the final divine inspiration: local "cocoa" or chocolate stirred in as a finishing touch. To the Aztecs, cocoa was a royal and expensive ingredient, quite appropriate for a special occasion. This is a taste sensation unlike anything you've ever had.

Oaxaca

It has been a bit silent on my weblog. I returned to Fundacion Leon XIII for an extra week of work, amongst others working on project proposals and budget planning to obtain fonds from Grassroots projects where Carla is volunteering. I am very enthusiast about a project two young guys from a community are starting on a health centre in which they will utilize their knowledge on medicinal plants. They are my age and one of them worked with me in the Fundacion for a week, so nice to exchange experiences from two different realities. But now I am a tourist again, visiting the state of Oaxaca.
Oaxaca (say Wagaka) means a lot of agave/maguey of which mezcal, a very strong alcoholic drink is made. Yesterday I visited a tiny factory.
It means eating grasshoppers (chipolin) in the market place, a ¨meat¨ I eat without feeling guilty, the grasshoppers being a plague in the milpa (maize) and it has very high protein contents.
Oaxaca means indigenous groups, with a sinfin of different languages of which Zapotec and Mixteco are the most well known. They build pyriamids, that to me are sometimes (sorry for the blasphemy) just another heap of stones. But it all becomes more exciting when you go there with a local older woman who workes in the city in the houses of the rich and does not go to see the ruins, but to spy on her unfaithful husband and then starts to tell you her whole life story...
Oaxaca also means political unrest, riots, manifestations, strikes. But.... these days you cannot immagine that those kind of things ever take place here. The Zocalo (central square), looks everyday like a friendly Sunday afternoon family meeting point. With its huge old trees, it breathes tranquility. And that is sometimes frightening about Mexico: it seems peaceful almost everywhere, although you know that in the state or even village next by, tomorrow police can knock down a manifestation, a paramilitary unit can enter and people can disappear. You know it only from the only left-wing newspaper, you know it from your friends abroad. Otherwise you don´t know it. And it does not affect you, it affects them and that gives a save feeling on the one hand (don´t worry Mum and Dad), but in me it also provoces a feeling of anger and powerlesness.

Like elsewhere in Mexico, it is hard to feel alone, even if you have come on your own. But still you do not expect to run in to some Dutch friends (Michel and Machteld), that thought you were already back home!!!! We meet again tonight and might go to the beach together later on... The world is sooo small.

Making love

When on our own, my colleague Marcelino (33) tells me his life stories, that must for a great deal be examplary of many young people here.
How he came from his community to San Cristobal to study (high school and later agricultural technical education) and work in a house of rich people at his 15. ¨I learned to clean and cook and be on my own, away from my family. From my Dad with its strong character and my suffering mother, whom he would often beat up.¨
How he got to know his wife Carmen, who had come from another community to study nursery. How they were girlfriend and boyfriend for five years, before ¨getting together (as we never officially got married, althoug I call her my wife)¨.
¨Of course I became excited when I saw her, but no one had ever told me anything about women. After a few years I wanted to make love to her. And she to me. But we did not have a clue how that was supposed to be done. One evening the house lady was away and we were alone. We knew that ´it´ was going to happen, that we both wanted it, but she lay on her back with her legs together and I did not know what to do either, so we just touched. Many weeks passed after which one day we finally understood how love was made.
But since we did not know how children were made, we did not know how to prevent them coming either. She got pregnant before we finished our studies. I could not tell this to my parents, as my father would certainly have hit me. I still lived on his money and tried to manage the new situation with a family to take care of. When passed my final exam, I finally told him I was father already.¨
I asked him if they were not scared to become parents, so young. ¨No, we were not afraid, because we simply did not realize what it meant to have a child, how much diapers and medicines cost. She decided to stop her studies, I wanted to too. I felt guilty living with my father´s money, but she urged me not to leave it with only a few more months to complete. Our relationship was different then it is now, we did not plan, did not sit down to talk what would you like, what is best for you? It was just trying to cope with what came by. Before having the child, we broke up many times over petty things. But we had to grow up fast with the child and we started to understand each other everyday better.¨
Their next two children came six and seven years later. To Marcelino I dare to ask what method of contraception they use. I am curious to know as many indigenous people are negative about the contraceptive pill, as the hormones causes problems to the women and condoms are excessively expensive and very impopular (¨That is more something for when you go to the whores¨). He explains me that he always ´pulls back before coming´ and that that works really well.
During all my life I have been educated that coitus interuptus or ´leaving the church before the singing´ as we call it in Dutch, would not be safe at all. But ever since people (even docters) have told me it has worked perfectly for them and scientific research confirms their view. When I ask a health worker here why then it is not included in teachings world wide on contraception, she voices the typical answer: ¨Oh no, that is a method that requires men to keep their head cool during sex, to be very mature and practised and is not pleasant for the man nor for the woman.¨ I: ¨But when it is practised correctly it is a safe method? ¨ She: ¨Well yes.¨
It just sounds a little patronizing to me, giving people the wrong information, denying them the choice for a free form of anticonception, just because someone decides for them that they ¨will not enjoy sex this way and are far too irresponsible to practise it anyway.¨ It might for some people be the only way of family planning that they culture, pocket or health allows... and more pleasurable than condoms.

Prayer to my lungs

Please, why don´t you do your work, lungs?
Why protest, squirm and tensen in rebellion?
A song I like says ¨Living is easy. Inhale, exhale.¨
But it seems too much to ask to you.
Dont you think one bronchitis a year is enough?
Did I not tell you we were going to stay in la Selva for some three weeks not just one?
Grr, with all your mates (the community people's lungs) waiting for the ovens to be build to help them breathe wel too?
With the milpas ready to be sown, our experimental plot needed to be measured for it to fit 50 different farmers seeds to compare...
And did I not tell you we would pass for Juana and her family in San Quentin, for the Zapatistas in la Realidad to talk about their health centre?
I cannot help being a little angry with you and a little decepcioned for all the plans falling apart
here in my hostel in San Cristobal, obliged to rest for who knows how long, although my spirit is running wildly...

Doña Mica says I am leaving la Selva, because I am lazy and although it is a joke
it hurts, like it always has hurted all along my life, the comments of the people
as they cannot see what is happening in my body I have to apologize them
but at times I cannot, and become angry with you, my lungs, instead

But maybe I should be grateful for all the days you do work
for over three months giving me full oxygen everyday without problems
Thank you for giving me the energy to work in the Fundacion ´like a man´ as my slightly machisto boss Alfonso says
Thank you for conceiding me this one week in La Selva,
Learning how to make cheese
Almost finishing the first oven (not enough time to check whether it doesn´t break, but hopefully leaving the people prepared with advice on how to improve it...)
giving them the enthusiasm to build more ones
Hearing the happy voices of the children singing the mañanitas for Mother´s day
Catechist Sebastian´s ironic laughter, Lazaro´s political discourses changing to the ingenuity of a boy when relaxed and joking, our songs in the night
seeing Lazaro´s healthy new-born thirteenth child!!!
With Sebastian commenting that his eight child to come was not 'intended' and that it is not religion that prevents him to do something about not having more, but in his own words ´pure ignorance´, looking up to me, leaving me slightly embarrassed not to give him any advise. Happy that a new health project is starting that will embark on the theme.
Little Toño (5) flunging himself in my arms whenever possible
Bathing in the river
A re-encounter with Virginia and Carolina, beautiful, strong women with all the weaknesses of a human being.
Sowing vegetables with the children
The poisonous Nauyaca serpent that does not survive our encounter
Beans and maiz untill you are more than fed up with them and are sooooo happy that you brought cookies, also because food got scarse and reduced to two meals a day.

Don Chebo when seeing my work as a albañil/metselaar and inviting me to build my house of stones that can be found in the hill of the Mayas (a ruin) in his Rancho, but ¨I don't give you any money, because the Europeans have to give us back what they stole first¨, laughing as a naughty little boy

Thank you lungs for supporting the smoke (slash-and-burn agriculture) and dust (it is dry time) and heat
just enough time to see all this, although the last days already in a gaze because of the lack of oxygen.
But please, take in the fresh, clean mountain air of San Cristobal, take up the medicinal teas, the fruits and vegetables, use the rest and............. get well!!! Let me breathe again and continue building and doing.