Arts & Science track week 2: The Beginning of Our Music Class

After the adventures from the week prior, the Arts & Science track had the ability to rest a little bit on Monday morning. Although our bodies may not have been busy, our minds were racing with thoughts on what our first music class would be like. We eagerly met at the Zocálo (our common meeting place) at 4:30pm with bellies full from comida to walk to our new class. Our teacher was more than delighted to have us. We introduced ourselves to our new music teacher, Sergio (a fellow anthropologist!) and jumped right into an exercise to allow us to become acquainted with the dance studio we were sitting in. We spent our first class opening up our minds with exercises in interpretive dance. Such exercises included mirroring one another, and leading the group in making different sounds with our bodies and our voices. At the end of class, we reflected on the exercises through understanding our bodies as instruments, and understanding the movement of our bodies in space.  

On Tuesday, we returned back to the dance studio for a lecture on pre-Hispanic music, and the influence of European, as well as modern folk music. For this class, we learned about the functional and traditional uses of music. We explored different instruments, and what various functions they served. For this class, we were lucky to work with local musicians who played various songs and instruments. Towards the end of the class, we were able to play various percussion instruments along with the musicians, learning some of the rhythms that we had previously discussed.

On Wednesday, we had class in a classroom located in a different part of the city from that of the dance studio. For this class, we explored music as culture, and various themes that exist within that. In the beginning, we split off into groups to discuss one of these various themes. When we returned, we had a fruitful conversation where we reflected on themes of musical occasions, music and history, as well as music and identity.

Thursday morning we met at the site of a nearby organic food market to visit an 18th century organ located in La Iglesia de Jeronimo in Tlacochahuaya, a pueblo outside of the city. 

La Iglesia de Jeronimo

Before we went inside, the group was able to take in the splendor of the church courtyard while our teacher narrated the reason for it. Pre-Spanish conquest, the native people of the land performed their religious ceremonies outside. When the Spanish began building churches, they constructed both the church itself and magnificent courtyards to facilitate the incorporation of Spanish religious practices with the Zapotec practices of the time. 

Rooftop view!

Along with a tour of the church, including a tour of the neat roofs, we also learned about different art restoration projects. One of these projects included an organ from the 18th century. We enjoyed learning everything about the organ from its history to how it functioned. In fact, the organist told us that it use to take five people to successfully work the organ; one to play the organ, two to operate the bellows and two operating the knobs of the organ.       

Inside the church standing in the area where the organ is.

We then rode for 20 minutes to visit Teitipac where we toured parts of the town’s church. We were lucky to have a performance by some local musicians. At one point, Josie graced us with her sweet dance moves. She did learn from the best, after all. The mayor of the town showed off his dance moves to us while teaching Josie how to do one of the dances. Although a long, eventful day, we truly did learn about the musical customs going on within these communities.

The church in Teitipec,

On Friday, we returned to the classroom to learn about music and migration. We watched a documentary that our professor helped create on how Oaxacan musical customs are being maintained within migrant communities in Californian communities in the United States. We then wrapped up the week through experience a musical performance that also explored themes of migration and music.

          Our first week in our music class was truly eventful and fun. Next week, we are heading off to the Isthmus for a week long adventure so we can further explore Oaxacan music! Que divertida!

Con Mucho Amor,
Codi y Enya

Here is a video of the gentlemen performing for us! Muy maravilloso!

Arts & Sciences Track: Week 1

After spending last week working with different cooperatives in small villages, it was nice to reunite as a group back in Oaxaca city this week. First thing Monday morning we had class at SURCO, but this time we were the teachers. Each group put together a short presentation about each cooperative to give the rest of the group a better idea of how everyone spent their week. It was interesting and informative to learn how different each cooperative was and the unique experiences of all the group members.

            Tuesday kicked off the first day of our tracks, which means you will all now have three different blogs to read every week! As members of the Arts and Sciences track, we went back to Solexico for our fifth and final week of Spanish classes. The majority of us were in the same class and were intrigued by our new professor, who really just wanted to chat with us in Spanish. After talking mostly about riddles and jokes and then playing BASTA, the Mexican version of scategories, we realized this final week would be more fun than tough. We did have to complete a final exam and hand in one last paper, but then we were taken out to cafés and mercados as well as chocolate factories and museums. I think we all felt that this was a great way to improve our conversational Spanish skills and get to experience more of the city that we had not yet.

            At our group meeting on Thursday, Mary Lucia passed out our village stay reflections and gave us a few moments to read them over and think about any other realizations we might have come to since writing them. We then went around and, based on our village stays, shared one thing we wanted to start doing for the remainder of our time here and one thing we wanted to leave behind. It was very beneficial to hear what everyone had to say because it made us think about things we might not have thought about otherwise.

            Friday counted our final day at Solexico and it was a bittersweet goodbye. We are all excited to move onto the next phase of our trip, but a lot of us will be missing Spanish class. As the weekend rolled around, Mary Lou informed us of some cool and uniquely Oaxaca things to do. On Saturday morning a handful of the group went to Abastos, a market that had an infamous reputation and lets just say you should not wear nice jewelry and you should put your money in your pants. You can also expect to see the unexpected, such as a box of crayola-colored chicks. After about two hours of walking through an overwhelming and massive market, and not passing the same thing twice, everyone went home for comida. But the day was not over yet! There was a traditional dancing event going outside of El Soledad, one of the many churches in Oaxaca. Although we were hit with some of the coldest temperatures we have had here, some of us still went to enjoy the festivities and it was completely worth it!

            As we look towards next week, the Arts and Sciences track will begin our music class and we are all thrilled to start that adventure!

Con mucho amor,

Brittany and Kathleen 

Food Systems Track: Week 1

As the first week of our specialized tracks comes to a close the wild reality that we're well into the second half of our trip is setting in!

The ingredients we collected at the market

Our week began by wrapping up our village stays. On Monday morning we all gathered, and group by group shared our different experiences to compare and learn about commonalities and differences between all of our experiences in the villages. Then it was time to part with our village stay pals and regroup into our new groups for the tracks that we will be in for the remainder of our stay.

And so the food systems track began our first course: Food, Culture and Health in Oaxaca. We started out by completing some introductory readings and response questions about the cuisine and culture in Oaxaca online by Tuesday night because our first professor, Amy Trubek, had not yet arrived in Oaxaca.

Wednesday morning we met with our teacher's assistants, Amber and Carey, to travel to Etla market, a larger market that was a bit of a bus ride away. Once we got there, our assignment was to split up into three groups to collect designated ingredients and to label what they were; the groups either had to purchase as many chilies, herbs, or spices as they could with 100 pesos. This proved to be more difficult for some groups than others, as often things referred to as spices, we may normally call herbs or seeds and vice versa. But nonetheless we completed our task and even made it back in time for comida in the city!

Our professor Amy arrived Wednesday night and we met her for the first time at Solexico on Thursday morning. We discussed our experiences here surrounding food thus far, learned a bit about Amy and what her experiences have been, and finally, we laid out the ingredients that we collected at the market the day before on a table. We tasted the ones we knew, and tried to identify the ones we did not.

 

The group in Huayapam

Friday morning we met with Amy and walked to a small nearby market together. We did a tasting/sensory evaluation of atole (a popular corn based drink in Oaxaca) and of champurrado (the atole drink combined with chocolate). We then walked around the market and tried to pick out what we thought were the primary fruits and vegetables, as well as some of the not so common ones, and to note any we could not identify. After, we returned back to Solexico to share what we had found. We then moved to our discussion surrounding tejate, another popular, historically significant cacao/corn based drink in Oaxaca. In the market Amy bought a mamey fruit, as the seed of the mamey is actually a crucial ingredient for the tejate. We were all more than happy to help her eat the mamey itself, which we decided has the consistency of an avocado but looked and tasted something like a sweet potato. We discussed the process of making tejate and started to prepare for our visit to a small pueblo outside of Oaxaca which is famous for their tejate, called Huayapam.

The Rosita de Cacao tree

We arrived in Huayapam on Sunday morning and began by taking a walking tour of the town to see the tree with a special necessary ingredient for the tejate making process: the Rosita de Cacao. Huayapam is said to be the only pueblo that grows this tree, so it is one of the reasons why their tejate is special. Ater that we went to a restaurant owned by a local couple for a tejate making demonstration, a process that requires far more skill and technique than any of us could have imagined. 
    

The tejate making process

When it was finished, we had the pleasure of tasting this unique Oaxacan drink. It is quite rich and filling so we then took a walk to the church to work up an appetite for the comida they were preparing for us. It’s a good thing we did because the food just kept coming and coming! We sat around a table with our hosts and discussed some of the looming questions we had about our observations before heading back to the city to hopefully finish, but perhaps get started on, our first food systems paper due in the morning! 

Next up, a week full of cooking (and of course eating) to look forward to!

Abrazos y Besos,
Olivia and Sandra

Spanish Track: Week 1

Train accident posters

This week we started off our Spanish class that is taking place at the local university here in Oaxaca (UABJO).  The class we are taking for these next three weeks will explore the history and culture of Oaxaca.  There is just the two of us in the class, but our professor, Edith, is super snazzy.  Our first day was on Wednesday.  We went over the syllabus and then jumped right into the material.  Since it is just the two of us Edith has allowed the class to be very flexible and we get to choose if there is some aspect of the course we really want to focus on.  Between Wednesday and Thursday we had six hours of lecture about the geography, history, and regions of Oaxaca.  Within this we covered aspects from the pre-Hispanic period up to the independence of Mexico.

A tiger sculpture in the old train station

Over the two days we learned a lot about the Zapotec and Mixtec people along with major leaders such as Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz.  We also learned about traditional foods and clothing of Oaxaca from the pre-Hispanic period.  After all this information was thrown at us we got to go on two great field trips to put some meaning to everything Edith had told us!


On Friday we went to a market called La Merced to try some of the foods we had heard about.  We tried a certain type of vegetarian tamale, empanadas with the flower of a pumpkin in them, along with champurrado, which is a chocolate corn drink.  All was delicious and afterwards with full tummies we drove around the city with Edith seeing different neighborhoods and streets that were important to the leaders we had learned about.


On Sunday, we tried to go to Monte Alban for our second time, but we were not able to because we are not nationals like Edith, so we could not get in for free like Edith.  So, back down the hill we went and stopped at an old train station just to look around.  We took lots of pictures for Edith…she loves posing.  Unfortunately, they are all on her camera so we only have a few of us and some sites we saw.  The train used to run from Oaxaca to different pueblos throughout the region.  Around the abandoned tracks were posters of different train accidents that occurred, which were interesting to read about.  

A codex in the museum

After the train station we went to Santa Domingo to walk through the gorgeous museum there.  We spent three hours or so walking through and seeing everything the museum had to offer.  It was very cool to see the change in artifacts from the pre-Hispanic times to the conquest time.  We could really see the influence that the Spanish had on the way of life in Mexico and Oaxaca.  There were many artifacts there that were found in Tomb 7 at Monte Alban along with many different figurines that had great meaning to the Zapotecs.  There was also an exhibit outside of different canoes that people used to use.  The way the exhibit was set up was very artistic and fun to look at and walk through.

So far we are loving the class and how personal it is.  We have lots of other fun trips planned so look forward to hearing from us next week!

Abrazos y Besos,
Gabby y Torey