Monthly Archives: October 2014

 

I went on one of those trips organized by the school for International Students. I feel like my description posts are kind of lengthy so here are some bullet points of activities, then some quick thoughts. We travelled to Oaxaca, a state in Southern Mexico. Two places we visited are considered UN World Heritage Sites: The city center of Oaxaca (in the state of the same name) and Monte Alban.  [So Meg, you have GOT to go obviously].

It should also be noted that it rained during 99% of the weekend.

Day One, leaving at 12am and driving all night arriving Friday morning to:

Monte Alban

• Huge archeological side made by the pre-hispanic Indigenous group Zapotecas
• It’s said that around 40,000-50,000 people lived here
• Mone Alban, translated to Albino Mtn, isn’t what the Zapotecas called it. They called it Ukuqui which means Green Mountain.
• The Spanish, when they came to Mexico actually built all their churches over sacred Indigenous sites. In this case, they didnt see it when they arrived and was only discovered in the early 1900s.  Therefore, our guide told us it was considered a “virgin” site. They think 80% is still underground and hasn’t been excavated/preserved yet because “Mexico has a lot of culture, but it doesn’t have a lot of money”.

Next up: Carving Place

• A local collective that carves fantastical Oaxacan-Mexican folk art sculptures called Alebrije. Made from copal trees.
• Traditionally carved to be protection animals.
  

  Some of the smaller pieces

  These animals protect your energy because through your energy is how you are killed. There are 20 animals that exist

• Today oftentimes they will get commissions from people who want them for decoration. Commissions from foreigners, companies, restaurants, the government etc.

 

Dinner, hotel check in, exploring the downtown

• Everyone stayed at the hotel for the 1.5 hours before dinner but a friend and I escaped to do some exploring. One of the most interesting things I saw was this march/protest. It was a march for the 43 students who have gone missing in Guerrero (more info on that HERE). What was interesting was that at the front were the protesters…looking like regular protesters. In the back though, there were these dudes, faces covered and looking kind of scary. I asked a person on the street who they were and apparently they are the Guerreros, or warriors. The protectors. I’ve heard from locals that many small villages all over the states of Michoacan and Guerrero (currently two of the more dangerous states involving narcotics and gangs) have taken problems into their own hands, and have created their own “police force” that kick out narco-gangs from their community.  This is because the police and government are really corrupt and are useless in keeping people safe. I wondered if those warriors I saw in the protest were some of them, but I can’t know for sure. For a while we followed them, curious. However, we decided to leave when we looked down a side street and saw like 50 police officers watching/waiting in full combat riot gear.

• Afterwards, we found a wonderful coffee shop. Local coffee and chocolate! Oaxaca is known for these things.
  

  The chocolate comes from the owner’s father’s farm.

  They had their chocolate bars for sale with different flavors, and if you ordered a hot chocolate, they would just crush up the chocolate bar and mix it with steamed milk. Heaven. I had one both days we were there (Hazelnut chocolate one time, and a mix of dark chocolate and cardamon chocolate the other). There was also hot chocolate at the breakfast buffet so it was just a weekend of a lot of hot chocolate.

• Back at the hotel, we headed downtown again with the others for dinner. While waiting for dinner to come out I was bored so I went to an art shop across the street. The owner was hanging outside with his wife and kid, and they were really friendly. The art was beautiful, and mostly screen prints/block prints. As I was looking around, the owner was drinking mezcal with his family and offered me some. I took some of course, it was strong but really nice of him to just give me some mezcal in his shop. I love Mexico. If you’re wondering what mezcal is, it’s a very Mexican alcohol, similar to Tequila and pretty strong too. More on that, later in this post.

After dinner we got to explore the downtown area for a while. Here are some snapshots.

Day 2 omg this post is text heavy, need to cut back

Hierve De Agua

• Rock formations that look like a waterfall. I don’t have any photos so just google it okay? After going swimming in the freezing water there I got this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuktuk Adventure and lunch

• Lunch was an amazing buffet at a local restuarant. We had buffets for breakfast and dinner! It was ridiculous. This lunch place had five different types of MOLE to try. Mole is a famous sauce from this region of Mexico, and it’s made of like a thousand fresh and delicious ingredients. So complex and rich.
• Afterwards we did an activity to explore a small town outside of Oaxaca called Mitla. They had hired a bunch of Tuktuks, and we were given a list of things we had to do. We went around in the Tuktuks, and whoever finished all the tasks first won a free trip to another part of Mexico!!!!!! The catch? Well, there were a few. But one of them was that the entire time, we had to carry a fifth surprise team member: a live chicken. We named the poor thing Jorge and he pooped EVERYONE. I imagine he was pretty stressed out.
• Our team did not win but it was still really fun

This place we had lunch also made Mezcal. Mezcal is a strong liquor popular in Mexico. Like tequila, it is made from an agave plant. Its really strong and has a very smokey flavor. One of the places we had lunch also had a mezcal “factory” in the back so we got a quick tour. And to my delightful surprise, there was a donkey crushing up the intial plant! Its like step two. I have included a video.

That evening we explored downtown again, then headed out the next day. We stopped by another city on the way home but only spent about 2 hours there, so I am not going to go into detail about it.

Some of my thoughts while on the trip

1. It was really nice to be herded around on a tour, easy travelling. But also not being able to just take your time and do your own thing was at times frustrating.
2. I loved riding on the tour bus. Being able to look out the window as we went through towns and cities and villages, seeing the daily lives of people even if just for a second, was fascinating. I always tried to get a window seat
3. The mayhem of first arriving at our hotel, and everyone NEEDING the wifi password was SO strange. Is it that important to be so connected the whole time? Can’t we go a day or two w/o internet?
4. Another thing I noticed travelling with a large group of students: pictures. It was so important to some people to just take pictures pictures pictures. I’ve noticed this in general when travelling, sometimes people are more concerned about getting the shot, of proving you were there than actually enjoying being there.
5. The food was incredible. Half the bus DID get sick on the last day, but nonetheless I loved it. Mole, chocolate, so much good food. I got lucky and there were no poops for me.
6. Oaxaca is closer to Guerrero state where the students have gone missing.
   

   Ayotzinapa
   Your struggle is my struggle, your pain is my pain. They took them alive, we want them back alive.

   Seeing the solidarity in the town was really beautiful and empowering. It was scary too, to see the faces of the missing students on posters all over town. Scary in an important way.

7. I was initially reluctant to go on this trip, but was really glad I did! Things like the Tuktuk adventure we took are things I would never have been able to do on my own, and is a highlight I won’t forget.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you read my blog post about “A Life in the Day” you may have seen that I’m currently taking boxing classes! It’s really fun, although it’s only an hour (but three times a week!). I get nice and sweaty too. My boxing wraps smell like cheese if I don’t wash them (tmi…??). ANYWAYS, the coach of my class is a funny man, and students who don’t know that his name is Juan just call him Señor fácilisimo because even when we’re working out and sweating a lot he just says “fácil! fácilisimo!”. Which is just “easy! super easy!” I asked him the other day where we can watch boxing on TV, and he invited my roommate and I to visit a guy he trains at the gym. Of course I said yes! So on Friday, my roomie and I went and visited. Apparantly this fighter is a world kickboxing champion!

My roommate is really into kickboxing back home, so I was glad that she came too. This is my roommate on the right:

I was really glad I went because I feel I got a new aspect of Queretaro (albeit small) that wasn’t necessarily geared towards tourists or students or selling stuff. It was a new little niche that gave me more perspective of what makes up this city. The gym was it’s own little community, with kids running around. I felt it was almost like one of those Italian mob family places, with these tiny kids, really done-up momma’s and younger kids who would come in and kiss all the adults politely on the cheek before starting their training. Okay maybe I was projecting my own stuff onto them but whatever. Still awesome. The taxi driver who took us told us it was a rougher part of the neighborhood. I am yet to be able to figure out which parts of Queretaro are rough and not.  Nonetheless, here is a view of the outside.

My boxing coach told me it was sort of a master class for the students, and so some of them got to spar with the champion. It was really cool, and my first time seeing live boxing! Before they start fighting I noticed that all the fighters cross themselves. The large majority of the country is catholic so this makes sense, but I still thought it was culturally interesting. And seeing young men who are all tough and stuff but also religious is interesting and paradoxical to my small mind. Anyways, before they even get into the ring, the coach puts Vaseline all over the face and arms of the fighter. Apparently the punches are supposed to now just slip away….I don’t know how effective this is because those guys punch HARD! By the end, one of the students had a bloody nose and was dripping everywhere. Omg intense.

Boxing is an interesting sport, because the fighters are so tough and strong, but once they have their gloves and head-thing put on for them, they’re so helpless in a way. The coach has to pour water into their mouths, wipe their sweat, take their mouth-guard in and out. It’s kind of funny how they can’t do anything but fight once their gear is on.

After the champion fought two separate fights with different students, he started his training. Who knows how he had any stamina left but I guess that’s why he’s a professional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, I went home to my family’s house once to find out that my host mom was making Oaxacan style tamales! She had taken the banana leavess from our backyard and wrapped up some chicken, salsa, and a mixture of corn masa and pork fat with it. This was then steamed for an hour. I had them for breakfast the next morning. Very delicious. Tamales are a breakfast food here for some reason. **Once I know what makes a tamale a Oaxacan style tamale rather than a regular kind, I’ll let you know. Afterwards, that same night I also watched a lovely-strange film called Como Agua para Chocolate [Like Water for Chocolate]. Even after watching the film I still don’t understand the grammatical structure of the title. So don’t ask. I want to say that I watched it in Spanish with Spanish subtitles but that would be a lie. I watched it in Spanish….with english subtitles. But hey, I’m working on it aight.

 

And thats it for now folks! I have a post on my trip to Sierra Gorda last weekend coming up, so stay tuned! Next weekend, I’ll be going to Oaxaca for my first organized school trip. We leave at midnight on Thursday evening! WOW!

And on a different but very important note: Much love to all the Canadians out there who are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend! I miss you. And I miss turkey. Out of the three kids in my family, two are not in the country this year, but I think it will still be a great thanksgiving for my brother and mom (and my bro’s gf and roommates I am guessing with be there haha). I’ll be studying for a partial and dreaming of gravy and rice:)

 

 

 

Do not lie on the grass with bare skin exposed. You will get a rash from the fertilizers used.

Ouch!

I fell asleep in class today, and my spanish teacher gently woke me up. Counting down the hours until 1. It’s Thursday night 2. I can get more than 6 hours of sleep.

The student homework life people. Yes, even on exchange.

One of the biggest misconceptions about Mexico in the United States is what exactly Mexican food is. Oftentimes all we see are places like Taco Time that attempt to convince us that Mexicans eat hard tacos and cheesey chimichongas. Well, not so much. The food in Mexico is delicious and extremely diverse with so many differemt flavours! The other day, I went to a restuarant down the street from my house that specializes in Mexican food. Nico’s. It was kind of fancy, but I finally got to try a Mexican specialty that I’ve wanted to for a while. Chile en Nogada.  It’s a very typical Mexican dish, and is very popular in September. Why September you ask? September 15th is when Mexico celebrates it’s day of Independence and is considered to be one of the biggest parties of the year. The various ingredients in Chile en Nogada come together to have white, red and green: the colours of the Mexican flag! It is a green poblano chile that is stuffed with dried fruit, meat,  aromatics and different spices. It’s topped with a walnut based white cream sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. So I tried it. I died. I DIED IT WAS SO GOOD.  SO LOCO GOOD.  The state of Puebla is especially proud of Chile en Nogada and say they invented it.  It was not simple; but rather a complex palate of flavours. Not just plain salty, but elements of sweet and salty with the cream walnut sauce, the ppomegranate and the dried fruit. There was a little bit of heat with the poblano pepper. Heaven people. HEAVEN. I am hoping to go back to the restaurant soon to it it again.The food in Mexico is so varied, so fresh, so colourful, so wonderful. I love it!

And of course, the rice in Mexico is delicious. You can have it red, green, or plain, depending on what sort of sauce you cook it with. However, this post is not a complete love song to Mexican food (although I sort of wish it was now…). As much as I love love love Mexican food, I eat it every single day. Back home, I would have a lot of the Japanese food my mom cooks (because I’m cool and I live at home, age 23 waddup), but I’d also eat a lot of Indian food, Vietnamese food, Italian etc. etc. So here, it’s been wonderfully challenging to get used to eating corn and beans and salsa nearly every day. It’s still pretty varied in the way it is cooked, just corn/meat/beans/peppers/salsa make up the base food for a lot of food here. For example I have chicken in mole sauce for lunch tomorrow. Mole is a really special sauce with a different recipe from every Mexican abuela out there. The one I have for lunch is one that my host mom got from the market and added stuff to. It has four different types of peppers, an ingredient I couldn’t understand, as well as a bit of chocolate. Cool right? And tonight I had churros for dessert with postale as my main dish. Postale is also a very typical Mexican dish, it’s a unique soup like thing with big chunks of meat and corn! ANYWAYS back to my point. So I love the food here I do, but I definitely crave my mom’s cooking, and lot’s of different kinds of food.

So when the opportunity arose to visit a Japanese-owned restaurant in the city, I wasn’t going to say no! After quite the adventure of getting there after school one day with a japanese and korean friend from school, we arrived at the restaurant. When we got there, there were two separate tables of Japanese business men, and a Japanese/Mexican family. So we settled in and feasted! So very satisfying. I had fried pork cutlet curry (カツカレー）while the other two had ramen. And while the meal turned out to be quite expensive—around $18 CDN for my meal of rice and tea)—it was totally worth it. I felt so happy after! It was challenging to get there on the bus, but I would definitely try to go again soon!~