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.