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