Our week began at the glorious beach of Puerto Escondido. A few of us chose to go back to the city on monday to soak up the colorful sights in Oaxaca and settle back in before class started, while the majority chose to stay, as we weren't quite ready to leave the luxurious life in the beach. Those of us who stayed bided our time basking under the hot sun, playing in the powerful waves, and enjoying each other's company. Those staying in the lovely Hotel Mayflower enjoyed a delectable pasta, sauce, sautéed veggies and garlic bread dinner on Monday evening together that we cooked ourselves. A home-cooked meal has never tasted so good! Especially after a days of snacking on bread, mustard and cheese sandwiches at the beach. Although, those were pretty good, too.
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| goodbye baby turtugas |
On tuesday evening, a handful of us indulged in the way-too-much-fun of baby turtle releasing! There were so many squishy little turtle friends the size of our palms. After taking millions of pictures, we each walked with our basin of baby turtles to the sea shore, and began placing them one by one on the sand. We watched as they all crawled with their little turtle feet to the edge of the bubbly water. With each wave, more and more babies were swept away. To top it all off, there was a gorgeous sunset shining down on the the wet sand and tumbling waves, and glowing on the backs of the wet shells of the turtles. We hope you make it little guys!
We were sad to leave on wednesday, but it is lovely to be back at home (I love calling here home!). Our last class of Community, Culture and Space in Oaxaca was on Thursday. To tie things up we spoke about what it really meant to live the good life. Do we really need so much stuff? What are we basing our life decisions from? There are many ways to be happy, and ways of getting there. At the end of the class we found out which of the three village stays we were placed in. There's Bi Dau, a family weaving cooperative that also has a focus on farming, Vida Nueva, a women's weaving cooperative (girl power!), and Centeotl, a very rural community in the pueblo of El Carmen, that has just begun to cultivate the highly nutritious grain of amaranth.
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| In El Carmen |
On Friday the group going to Centeotl went on a field trip to El Carmen for a "fiesta" which in reality was the very interesting experience of witnessing the inauguration of the companies which helped bring amaranth to the communities. We are still trying to fully understand this slightly bizarre encounter while keeping our critical goggles of the situation in focus. More on that later.
The weekend was possibly the most stressful one yet for many in respects to school work. We had a 10-15 page research paper due by the end of the weekend that most of us just began on friday or saturday. But with many cups of coffee, emotional support, and only a few tears, we powered through!
Now onto our lovely village stays. Nobody is too sure of what to expect, but we think we are in for a pretty awesome experience. Thanks for reading ye trustee bloggees,
!Hasta luego!
Josie and Phoebe
