Veracruz Chronicles

Hotel Pendley y Griffin officially closed for business...

2006-06-29T18:11:00.000-07:00

The last month of business was a blast, many friends and not a day without without someone coming or going, something to do. Local friends came today to help empty the house, the maletas are packed, the floors mopped. We are in the center of town, enjoying our last mole y cervesa before our bus leaves town at midnight.

We´re on our way home, but we are leaving a bit of ourselves here.

Hasta luego, Papantla, no es un adios.

¡¡¡¡¡Abuelos!!!

2006-05-31T09:35:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful trip to visit Mark´s parents in the beginning of May. We had some time in Cuernavaca to relax, visit their church...some time in Mexico City with our Norman friends Mary and Chris Carter...followed by a visit to the retreat Oaxtepec.

We started the week at Las Mananitas, for my birthday...

Visited Mexico City from the north (pyramids of Teotihuacan) to the south (Xochimilco) and just about everywhere inbetween...

We finished the week up in the swimming pools of Oaxtepec, for Mark´s birthday...

It was a perfect vacation. Thanks ´buelos!!!

As always, click on a photo above to see more photos.

Semana Santa en Veracruz

2006-04-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

We had a lovely week with a visit from Joy's parents. We started off in Veracruz (the port city) where we took granny and paw paw to the old fort. We also introduced them to cafe lecheros and pescado a la veracruzano here.

From the port city, we moved onto Jalapa, the capital city of Veracruz. Jalapa is a fabulous city, with a small-ish city feel, in the mountains (read cooler than other parts of Veracruz) with enough coffee for our family (read expresso shop on most streets)! It is also a capital of music, refered to as the Austin, Texas of Mexico. We took granny and pawpaw to the Anthropology museum, which has an excellent collection of Olmec artifacts and many impressive Olmec heads. The next day we traveled up to the town of Coatepec, known as a center of coffee production. We walked about town and saw several impresive churches and chapels.

We arrived in Papantla. The children invited school friends and granny brought lots of Easter decorations and plastic eggs. We had an egg hunt and needless to say, our little friends caught on quickly! They all enjoyed themselves.

We rounded out the week with a trip to the local ruins, Tajin, and the whole family traveled out to one of the communities where I work to visit the family and participate in holy Thursday activities (read, making a whole lot of tamales). Mom and dad got to see a vanilla orchard, corn and bean fields and sample fresh made tamales and tortillas off a wood fire. I think they enjoyed themselves and have a good understanding of life in the countryside in this part of Mexico.

The children were so sad to see their grandparents leave and have experienced some real homesickness this past week. Our time here in Mexico is down to two months, hard to believe. We are planning a trip to visit the abuelos (grandparents in Spanish) in Cuernavaca at the end of the week. Time with them will help with the homesickness. We are looking forward to seeing a bit of central Mexico and just spending time with the abuelos before we head back to the states.

Cumbre Tajin

2006-04-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

We'd heard about it before we came but didn't realize what a big deal it really was: Cumbre Tajin. CT is a week long music festival held outside Papantla in a fair ground near the ruins of Tajin. The festival opens in the morning with craft and cultural workshops throughout the day. The kids participated in workshops ranging from traditional weaving of palm fronds to making toys out of recycled trash (a hobby horse). There were workshops in dance, from salsa, tango to African stomps. In the Totonac section of the park there were demonstrations throughout the day of dance, ceremony, cooking and of course the Voladores flew. On the first day of the festival, they held a tree cutting ceremony and set up the Voladore pole.

A troupe of clowns from Mexico City's Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Center) were a big hit with everyone attending. They were somewhat medieval, with large rumps (or chests) and grotesque paper mache noses. They traveled around the fairgrounds several times a day, stopping to perform acrobatics (with PVC pipe and yoga balls), oogle at pretty women or soak the audience with water filled insecticide pumps. They always had a loyal following and their performance was fun and smart.

Mark volunteered at the festival and was assigned to a group of monks. They are from Nepal, living in India in exile, traveling the world to raise awareness of their struggle. (They are in exile due to lack of religious freedom in Nepal after the takeover of Chinese.) They spoke very little English, no Spanish, so Mark's job was to translate for groups and explain the significance of their project, that of making a mandala. They worked for five days constructing the mandala, which is a picture made out of different colored sand. The work is meditative and a metaphor for the detachment they should have to the material world. At the end of the construction, they have a ceremony and then sweep all the sand into a pile. The sand was put into bags and given out as reminders of the mandala. Mark enjoyed his time with them and the whole family got to know the men. It made an impression on all of us.

The highlight of the weekend was the final night when one of Mark's favorite singers performed AND he got to have an interview with her afterwards. For those of you that did not know, Mark is writing a book about a Mexican music genre called Trova and this singer figures into several of his chapters. Don't know if I'll be able to get Mark home this summer, he is having too much fun.

We just looked at the calendar and realized we have but three months before our return. It has gone by too fast. Willa wants to know if she can bring all her friends home with her. My work is good, I am lucky to be working with such kind and interesting people. Anyone want to visit Cumbre Tajin with us next year???

Smiths go to Papantla

2006-03-19T07:11:00.001-08:00

Just got word that the Smiths arrived safely at the border. They drove to the US-Mexican border from Oklahoma and made the 12 hour bus ride to Papantla last week and returned to the border on the same bus. What an adventure! We had a fun-filled week, packed with trips: first to the center of town, where we bought one of each fruit available in the market, then we visited the ecological park for an introduction to the local ecological and cultural scene. We made a trip to the beach, where everyone was a kid and we all came home with five hour sunburns. Opps. Next time one of us monitors exposure. The family visited Tajin and Martine and James visited the countryside with me. The family put together some impressions before they left, so I'll post them below with photos.

Jonathon says: The food was nothing like the Mexican food in Oklahoma. The bananas were the best and I don't even like bananas in Oklahoma. They tasted different. I ate five each day. We would buy twenty-eight bananas in the market and in two hours they were gone. My favorite thing was the pyramids. There were altars and places to sacrifice people or things and they killed themselves in the ballgame. You couldn't go into the pyramids.

Winston adds: My trip to Mexico was very interesting. First, the food. The bananas were totally different. They were sweeter and not as hard. I think another thing is, it's hot in Mexico. The oranges were much better. They were not as sour as Oklahoma oranges and they were not bitter. When I tasted an orange here, I thought, "You know what, this is a real orange." the places I went were El Tajin. There were many pyramids, just a mystery, it seems like it will never end. You think to yourself, "Did people live in these pyramids? Were there really humans that lived here?" Another thing, there was a statue, I couldn't figure out why they made it. Probably because of the Voladores. A Voladore is a tall pole with men on top that spin around. They climb up, wrap the rope around and the drummer climbs up last. Sometimes he stands up and sometimes not. The other men jumped off and spun around in the cardinal directions. They did certain tricks. Each one had a different trick. They would land on their feet. What I couldn't understand was how they could tell when to flip. That's all.

The crew at the beach. Life is good.

Mimsy has definite opinions about Mexico too: What I didn't like about Mexico was having to speak the language. The best thing about Mexico was the Totonac dancing around the square. Each one's feet dancing were the same. Go to Mexico with me!

At the ecological park.

James says: My own hospitality has become suspect. I will not soon forget my wife cooking tortillas over an open fire in a dirt floor kitchen. That was a trip. Truely beautiful, remarkable people. (James visited out in the countryside with me). I met a barefoot Indian with more sophistication than most people I meet daily: more understanding of how similar humans are, how valuable humans are. I'm already scamming on how to get back.

Martine wrote: Mi pasion por Mexico
I'm glad I didn't have much time to think about our trip here, or I would've spent way too much time measuring whether reality was matching up with what I'd read. As it turned out, I got to experience Mexico on its own terms, not mine. The garlic is stronger here, the music more varied, the flora more brilliant, the kindness more intimate than my imagination would've allowed me to venture.
For the cuisine, I was prepared to go hungry a lot, thinking I would be faced with lots of deep-fried food devoid of any vegetables. What I was served was low-fat, vegetable laden, highly flavored fare, that was surprisingly complex in its flavors, yet simple in its preparation.
As for the heat, it was about as hot during the hottest part of the day as it was in the Florida panhandle in June or July. So, it was fine for me as long as we were in shade or inside during that time.
Watching the children has been warmly fulfilling. They have tried all the different foods, they have gamely trekked all over the city and beyond and they seem to be really soaking up the sights and sounds and smells all around them. I hope their memories stay strong, and that this experience moves them to think deeply about their American life.

That about says it all. To travel to someplace completely different to learn more about the place we live. To see other photos, click on a photo above.

Flat Stanley visits Papantla!

2006-03-19T06:46:00.000-08:00

Dear McKinley!
We had a visit recently from our dear friend Flat Stanley. He arrived from a fellow McKinley student, Ellen, in Mrs. Leisenfeld's class. We were happy to see an old face and showed him around town. Below are a few photos from our adventure. To see more photos, click on a picture below to be transferred to our flickr photo album.

The first thing Flat Stanley wanted to do was go to the square. Most Mexican towns are built around a central square. Around the square, or zocalo, is the largest church of the town, government buildings and stores. Weekends on the square are a lot of fun. We go almost every weekend to listen to music, visit with friends and eat some of the great food being sold (fresh roasted corn, fruit flavored ice cream, ice cold fruit juice). In this photo, FS is sitting with Elena (Willa's name in Spanish) on a park bench.

There is a beautiful mural on one side of the park that tells the story of the region (from the pre-Columbian civilization of Tajin to the present day economy of cattle ranching, vanilla production and the oil industry). In this picture, FS climbed the mural with Austin.

In this picture, FS is with a Voladore. The Voladores are Totonac Indians that participate in a religious ritual that involves a four story pole. Four Voladores fly off the pole, attached by a rope around their waist. You can see a photo of this ritual and more photos of Flat Stanley and the whole gang by clicking on a photo in this blog.

Thank you Ellen for sending Flat Stanley all this way. We sure miss McKinley and Norman and look forward to seeing everyone when we return in July.

Saludos De Mexico!

Carnaval!

2006-03-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

While the big Veracruz celebration of carnaval takes place in the port city and rivals Rio and New Orleans, Papantla put on a parade on Sunday afterwards. I was a bit confused, as what exactly would a post-Ash Wednesday Carnaval parade entail? No red meat? Public display of Lenten discipline?

Much to my relief, it was Mardi Gras and there were plenty of feathers and dancing. Here are a few photos, click on one to see the others in flickr.

Coming soon: The Smiths go to Papantla...

Running in Mexico

2006-03-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

Much to our surprise, we are doing much more running during our year in Mexico than soccer. But this seems to be fine with the children, they have joined a track team and they insist on participating in every race they hear about. The track team is a great bunch of kids and parents, they've really welcomed our family and been very kind to us. The coach is a teacher during the day and meets with the children every evening but Sunday, training any children that come. There is a lot of dedication there. There are two older girls that are on their way to pre-national competition this weekend. They may be the fastest girls in Mexico now and we think we may see them in the Olympics someday.

W & A did a 5K race this past weekend. The route was along a dirt road from one small community to the next. They were the only children and did a great job. In Feb, the family participated in several races in Poza Rica, everyone enjoying themselves. The weather is beginning to change (read HOT), so we may have to alter our running schedule (read 5am). Oklahoma will feel cool when we return in July!

Photos of recent runs below:

Mark and Austin half way through their 10k race in Poza Rica.

This was a 3/4 mile race Willa did in Poza Rica. Her coach tells us she is a great athlete.

Ansel participated in a sprint. He was knocked down in all the excitement after the gun went off, but he jumped up and ran as hard as he could. He got third place! We were so proud he didn't give up.

This was Austin's first 10k race and he did great. We were so proud of him, that was a long run. The other runners and the press were particularly interested in him. They all were a bit perplexed when they found out that he beat his dad, but Mark is resigned. We can't keep up with our children at this point! Our friends, Bernardo and Edna went along for the ride.

Carnaval was quite a show here in Papantla last weekend. I'll post the photos as soon as I get them uploaded.

Ansel blogs: My sixth birthday!

2006-02-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

You have plenty of pinatas on your birthday, if you know what I mean.

Most kids like me don't have a pinata at their birthday in Oklahoma. I had two pinatas at school, one was a soccer ball and one was a rabbit. I hope that you know that a rabbit is my favorite animal, because it really is.

First we had a party for the Day of the Nino, my friends brought me a top. And how my baby party started is there are these cakes and people stuff them with babies and if you are lucky, you get a baby and you have a party. That's what happened to me, I was lucky and I got four babies.

These are our friends that invited us for rosca de reye, so now they are at our house for the baby party.

The day before my birthday, we had to go to the pinata store and buy the pinatas and all the candy. We had to take it all the way back to the school from the square. Then, when we got to the school, we had to stuff the pinatas, with all the candy we bought. My party wasn't like everyone else's, because we had bandanas that mom bought in Oklahoma.

We ate tamales and cake and broke the pinatas. My friends liked the bandanas and I helped them tie them on. People have parties for every occasion here. Let me make a recommendation, you should have two pinatas at your party, cause that's how many I had!

Willa blogs: How to make chocolate!

2006-01-27T22:22:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. We made chocolate the other day. It was fun, hard and tasty. This chocolate is not like the normal chocclate you find in the store, it is better with freshly ground cinnamon, cacao beans and sugar.

First you grind the cinnamon (it makes the best smell).

This is a picture of Mexican cinnamon, called canela. It tastes a little different than other cinnamon.

Then you grind the sugar .Then you grind them together.

Then you grind the Cacao beans. (Cacao beans are really chocolate from nature. They come from Mexico and we buy them in the market in the center of town. When you roast them, they smell like coffee. They are not too sweet, more like a flower.)

These are roasted beans.

This is the cacao bean right after we ground it the first time. It really smells yummy.

Then you grind it again. After you grind all of it together, it is hot and right after it comes out of the molina (the grinder), you need to form the warm chocolate into patties.

With the ones that are still hot you can make leaves by taking a real leaf and puting it on the chocolate and cuting the shape out.

This is me and my brothers and Thelma our friend taking the shell off the cacao beans after we roasted them.

Making chocolate takes a lot of work and everyone in the family has to help, but it is worth it when you get to eat the chocolate or your mom makes hot chocolate for you before bed!

If you come to Mexico, we will teach you how to make chocolate, if we have the time.

Austin blogs: A trip to the rancho

2006-01-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

The other day I went to David's (who is our friend and the owner of the Hacienda cafe) ranch. He has a really big ranch, really hilly. He owns some cattle, about 80. He has a little stream going through it, it is only little now because we haven't had a good rain recently, but he says it's really big when there is a rain. He had a huge tree, must of been hundreds of years old. He is trying to grow some jungle around the stream, but the cows keep tramping in the river.

Before we go to the ranch, we stopped at a town called Coxquihui. We went to the church, it was made completely out of stone, without a stucco, so you could see the stones. It's a town that produces coffee (it is high in the mountains), so we saw a lot of coffee plants and bought some good coffee at a store on the hill.

When we arrived at the ranch, we were on the top of a hill and it was beautiful to look out. We started hiking down to the stream. There were a lot of empty places where it looked like there used to be a stream, but it hadn't rained for a while. We started hiking down the river and it started looking a little more like jungle. The trees are amazing, they have so many other plants growing on them.

We walked down along the stream and then climbed a big hill and you could see out to the end of his ranch.

It was a lot of fun going there. I want to got there again sometime.

If you want to see more pictures, click on a photo above to go to our flickr account.

Coming soon: Willa blogs about making chocolate.

Has it really been a month?

2006-01-16T05:02:00.000-08:00

And I thought I'd blog twice a week, no problem. The time has been well spent, as Mark and I are well immersed in our work and the children are happy and healthy. I can't quite decide how to catch up, so for now I will start with the most recent and perhaps try to catch up in the near future.

This weekend, we finally made it to the ecological park here in Papantla. We had tried to get there various times but were foiled by the weather (mostly) and occasionally laziness (once or twice...) Now we are sorry we didn't discover it the first week as it was a lovely place and we'll do what it takes to get out there several times a month.

When we arrived, we were met by a couple of healthy dogs, one of which is an Xholotlescuintle, better known as a hairless Aztec dog. I'd never seen one up close before and this guy was delightful. He loved the kiddos and I especially loved his mohawk, the only hair on his body.

Isn't he lovely? The kids are pretty cute too.

This park was once the city dump but a local man, who owned an orange grove next to it, decided to bring the selva (rainforest) back. He had been tending his grove, fighting back the rainforest when three years ago he wondered why he spent so much energy fighting nature. So at that point, he stopped tending the grove and started re-integrating the area into the forest. He covered the dump with dirt and let things grow wild, at times introducing plants but never cutting anything back. There are trails through the forest and we loved walking through them.

(Steve, doesn't Willa look like Laura in this picture?) Juan, the owner, has also set up several museums (photos from the vanilla industry and Tajin) and a living museum where he has built a Totonac home with all the furnishings, a sweatbath and a vanilla orchard. These items were built to demonstrate how the Totonac live in a more balanced manner with the environment.

This is Juan in front of the honey hives. The bees are endangered, don't produce a lot of honey, but are good to have around a vanilla orchard. In all my months of travel around the country side, I have not seen this, not to say it's not out there. Traditionally, vanilla was grown in the rainforest in an area that had enough moisture and combination of light/shade to support the plant (today, more and more, it is being produced in shadehouses or in more controlled environments). Juan has the examples of both the most traditional method (let the vines grow as high as they can on trees as tutors (using bamboo ladders to harvest) and a more controlled version, where tepees are made with wood to serve as tutors for the vines but larger trees around the orchard provide the shade.

If you come for a visit, we promise you a trip out to the park. We only wish we had taken the visitors we've had thus far out there. Well, come back Mark, Denise and Peter, we'll take you this time, promise. There are other photos on the flickr board, just click on a photo above and you'll be led to our account.

Vanilla

2005-11-29T07:52:00.000-08:00

Mark was invited to join a poety club. He had to write a poem to vanilla...though he had his doubts, I think he did a good job. He will read his poem Saturday night in front of the mural across from the central park.

Vanilla,
What should I venture to call you
--I, an Odysseus part-gringo and part-chilango
Never a laborer in your vineyards,
Pen in hand instead of shovel or machete?
What to say to you?

I will venture nontheless, and call you
Aromatic siren of the land of my birth
Yes, a siren,
For having called me here again
--Or, better yet, for having called us here--
My head being silvered a tad by the snows of time
And my children's heads with their Viking hair,
Small pacifist Vikings
Invading your palm-trees and your plazas with Nordic vowels.

And, besides being siren,
I call you furtive fellow-wanderer.
For I believe- if I am not mistaken-
That I've see you in some African port
In the company of French tradesmen,
And among the Indonesian archipelago.

But, when it's all said and done,
You don't belong to the French colonies, nor the Dutch, not to Coca-Cola.
Your aroma was made to mingle
With the music of Cri-Cri
The voice of Negrete, Mexico lindo y querido...
The murmur of the mockingbirds
And the daring of your Voladores.

I know this because I, too, after so much wandering
Have come to find repose
Among the murmur of the singing cricket
The plazas, the palm trees and the mockingbirds.

Todos Santos en Papantla

2005-11-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

Day of the Dead is actually a week of preparation for two evenings of celebration in the cemetaries and throughout communities. While some descriptions focus on the ´´morbid´aspect of the tradition, I see it as more comparable with Memorial day in the U.S., perhaps with a bit of Thanksgiving thrown in (not to mention the ocassional mariachi...) The traditions here in Papantla (I got the feeling that the celebration varies greatly by region and locale) were focused on the food preparations (bread, tamales, chocolate) and the construction of altars. There were not sugar skulls in town, this must be more of a Oaxaca tradition.

The weekend before, families started organizing to make the tamales, bread and chocolate. I was invited to make tamales with Edna´s mother and sister.

The tamales from Papantla are quite a bit different than we are used to. They begin with a masa that is liquid and are steamed in a banana leaf. When they are being made, you really wonder how they will ever set up with all the liquid, but they do, mostly. The end product is much more watery than the firm, spongy masa of more common tamales.

Making chocolate is another big event here. They begin with the cacao beans, of which there are two qualities (black and red). They toast the beans on a comal to loosen the skins. After removing the skins, they grind the bean with sugar and canela (Mexican cinnamon). The chocolate is then patted into disks or figures to put on the altar. I did not get to do this, as it has to be done on a dry day and we got rained out. But our friend Thelma is going to teach me as soon as we have a dry spell. The disks can be seen in this photo, in a cacerola on the altar.

The bread here in Papantla is made in fire fueled mud or brick ovens. I have just begun to discover this and am making a small investigation into this. I am finding that the street venders are selling this type of bread. My friend Bernardo took me to a panaderia (bakery) the other night where they are baking in an oven as big as an igloo (I imagine, never have seen an igloo up close...). They have agreed that I can return for a baking lesson, so more on this at another time.

The altars were fabulous. I don't remember the same emphasis on altars in Chiapas when we were there for Todos Santos. We are thinking this must be the speciality of this area (town?). The school made a collective altar on the playground and in the center of town, various organizations and the secondary schools made altars for public view. It was interesting to walk around and the children were curious about the offerings and decorations. The idea is not so morbid, really a memorial, as you put things on the altar that the person you are honoring enjoyed (they seem to focus on a recent passing).

Below is the altar in the main church, notice the vanilla vines embroidered on the vestment.

The cemetary reminded me of memorial day in the states, but with the pot luck at the cemetary instead of back at home. When we first walked through the gates, I was struck by the smell of burning wax, frying pancakes and wet paint (many families use this day to repaint concrete). We walked through the sites, my companions greeting friends and family. We stopped in front of various plots, placed flowers, said a prayer. At B´s fathers plot, we talked about him, what he enjoyed about life, funny stories. B hired a band to play a ranchero and the children laughed and danced a bit. Willa was happy she went along and Ansel said he thought Mexican cemetaries were a lot of fun, ¨They´re not scary at all, mom. I really like them. Hey, can I have a cotton candy?¨

Asi es la vida...the week after everyone talks about how much weight they've gained from the daily tamales and chocolate and the cemetary is awash with color.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

Pictures are better than words

2005-11-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

or at least they will have to do at this point, as I am swamped with work and do not have time to write. I did get the Todos Santos photos loaded onto Flickr. Click on a photo below and you will b redirected to our photo album there.

Of note, Willa is going to the regional competition as a pentathalonist! Dec. 3rd in Poza Rica. She won second place in the county competition...it was her first time to throw a soft ball or try the high jump. This is a good year for her.

I start traveling with the government extension program tomorrow. I hope to see all 40 farmers groups in the next two months. I promise an accounting of Todos Santos by Thursday.

La Cuidad de Veracruz

2005-10-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

We traveled to the port city of Veracruz to pick Mark up after his return from Singapore. It was good to get him back and to see the city. We felt that in the interest of all you who promised to visit, we should check out the city and find the best places to show you...plus there was the matter of the best coffee house in Mexico and you all know about our family and coffee!

Willa describes the trip below. Also, you can go to our flickr photoalbum by clicking on a photo in this entry.

Veracruz is great! We did all sorts of stuff, we went to a castille. Since they didn't have stone, they used coral to build the fort. The fort is on the ocean, so it was easier to get the coral. Then we went to the wax museum. It was hard to tell if the person was fake or real. My favorite part was the Disney display with Harry Potter and the Seven Dwarfs and Snow White. They had a tunnel. When you went through it, the walls spin and you feel like you are spinning even though the bridge is stable. My dad felt sick, but me and my brothers did it over and over. Then you walk through the scary room. It is scary, becuase they look real, but if you remember that they are real you can make it through.

Then we went to the aquarium. They have a lot of fish there because the aquarium is close to the ocean too. When you go outside, you are right on the beach.

I had my first cup of coffee in the best coffee house in Mexico. I had the lechero, it comes in a cup and then they pour the milk in. The milk makes a long stream and fills the cup. I loved it.

The funny thing that happened this week was that it got cold. Last night it rained so my soccer game got canceled this morning. Now everyone in town is preparing for todos santos (Day of the Dead). The streets are full of flowers and palm crowns. In school on Monday, we will make an altar. Austin and I are going to do a presentation on Halloween in the United States, so we are making posters this weekend. Then we get to learn how to make the chocolate candies. They take the cacao seeds (that's how chocolate is from the plant), they roast them and then grind up the seeds with sugar and cinnamon. I can't wait to learn about it. They are also making tamales, mole and dead bread. We are going to go to the cemetary, but I might not go. My mom said I don't have to, but I haven't decided yet.

That's all for now. We'll put lots of pictures on next week.

Why Mexico: Part II

2005-10-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

Why Mexico?

The obvious: after three years of coursework and not much sleep, I am able to bring all the work together in research. Our reason for being here, specifically Papantla, has to do with my dissertation. Three years ago, when I decided to start a PhD I knew I wanted to focus on economic development and I knew I wanted to do work in Mexico. A professor/friend mentioned that no one has done anything with vanilla and that I should check out a little town called Papantla in the state of Veracruz. First, after learning to spell Papantla, I did some searches to see what had been done. He was right, database searches did not turn up much (though I have since learned that there is quite a bit of work done here by Mexican agronomists, anthropologists and historians. Their work does not register on U.S. academic databases. A problem.) So I started with a visit to Papantla with the whole family the summer before I began my coursework. Papantla was the Mexico I thought I was traveling to the first time I visited with Mark in the late 80s (instead I got Mexico City and Cuernavaca). The streets were steep, at times cobblestone, the people open and kind. We returned to the U.S. and for three years planned to return with the whole family for a year of research. I will pontificate at a later date about this research, but for now I’d like to talk about the other reasons for coming to Mexico. I think of this year in many ways as a return to essentials. Is that possible?

The essential: What is essential in our lives today? For me, at this stage, as a mother, a partner, a student, sometimes what is essential gets lost in the everyday-ness of getting bodies to places on time, getting obligations taken care of in time, keeping little humans alive and well, doing, getting, time…what’s lost? So this year was like a chance to start over.
A chance to pack up (both the house and too many suitcases) and start over.
How often do you get the chance to do that?
As I packed the house, I asked myself about everything I put into boxes destined for the attic. Is this something essential? Will I miss it? Would someone else be able to use it now? It felt good to pack less and send more boxes to charity. I wonder how much of the items I deemed essential will seem so as we unpack in one year. In June I traveled to Papantla with a dear friend and looked for a school for the children and a house to rent. I wanted to be able to return to the children and talk up the school and tell them about the town and describe activities they would participate in and fun they could look forward to: I needed them to feel assured that life would be similar and safe. So I also found a sports club with a pool and asked about soccer teams and found a music teacher…
When we arrived, they started school the very next day. I couldn’t believe they took their little bodies to school and went to class where they did not understand a thing. I don’t know if I expected revolt, I don’t know that I would be so brave. I have to force myself to make meetings and ask questions. (I don’t enjoy that, but I want to know the answers and want information and data, so I do it.) And we found soccer teams for them to play with and set up extra Spanish lessons with a teacher from school (yes, the shoemakers children not only do not have shoes, but they are buying shoes elsewhere…) The kids asked, “Where is the pool, let’s go to the pool” and “When are we going to take music lessons and we want to start tennis lessons”…I started to wonder if we were merely replicating our life up there…
So I started a conversation with them about the essentials. Why are we here, what do we have to learn…what is our life like in Norman and what should our life be like here? I waxed poetic about how we had a chance to really slow down this year, spend more time reading, doing art projects, not having to be somewhere on time. They listened. They nodded their heads. I exhaled. Austin said, “Yeah, but when am I going to start guitar?”

Why Mexico?
The material and the immaterial. Packing for a year away makes you think about needs and wants. Of course, we are not in an isolated village without access to the market, but I wanted to strike a balance between bringing things we would need and had extra of already, thus reducing our expenses once we arrived and not bringing too much. Making a home: household stuff, sheets, blankets, pillows, and kitchen gadgetry. Can I live a year with only the basic pots and pans, utensils and dishes? If we do, what of all the lovely items packed away in the attic? Do I need those when I return? I did decide that the garlic press and veggie peeler were much needed and of course we packed the coffee filter that has been there for Mark every morning for the last 15 years.
Books: though I was advised not to read theory in the field, I did bring along way too many books. This happened the last time Mark and I lived in Mexico. But we do get through them (Mark is reading aloud to the children as I write this) and I do need to read more history and as much of Bourdieu I can handle (sorry Peter). And then there are cookbooks? At first I settled on a book of Southwest Vegetarian cooking, the Mexican Kitchen by Rick Bayless, The Bread Book by Laurel’s Kitchen and the Joy of Cooking. When bags got too heavy, I took out the Joy, surmising I could look up most recipes on the web if need be. I am happy with the other choices now that we are here, as vegetarian cooking starts at home we’ve learned (diets here heavy on meat and corn masa). I am making my way through Bayless’ 14 essential Mexican flavors, something I’ve always wanted to do. Now the bread book may have been a poor choice. First, I don’t know how yeast will react to this heat and the oven in this house doesn’t seem to light...at the least, this book will provide late night reading and dreaming for bread to come.
Art supplies and sport equipment: I think there must have been a suitcase full for each of these. I have to say, we play soccer five days a week and the children have had paint projects out everyday. Good use of space.
Items not packed: television and car…two items we just assumed were not involved in this year away. What can be said of the television? It’s not the kids actually, if we had one, I’d waste time in front of CNN. The children have not even missed it. We do have a DVD player and they watch a movie on the weekend. So essential if you have it but forgotten if you do not. The car, much to Mark’s and my relief will not be an issue this year. Mark and I, not being car-minded do not miss it. Especially, given the state of energy consumption today, the recent surge in gas prices, we do not miss the opportunity to drive our car (or fix our car, or clean our car, or insure our car…). Public transportation in Mexico is great and walking to most our appointments/activities has to be good for us.
That covers the material in this adventure. What about the unseen, unpacked? What will we take back with us, but not in a suitcase?
Perspective: It’s always been our dream to have the children immersed in Spanish. So learning a language is important but learning that language and living in a different culture is really about perspective. How can we expect our children to think broadly about the world if they only experience suburban lifestyles in air conditioned houses with fast food and television. Even the act of choosing essential material objects to carry with them for a year gives them a different perspective (they each have a small suitcase they packed with whatever they decided they needed to have for the year).
How do other people live, how do they eat, make a living, celebrate, what makes them happy, sad, angry? What makes us different and what makes us the same?

Several times since I’ve arrived, people have stopped me to talk in order to practice their English. Two questions they always ask are “Do you like Mexico?” and “Do you like Mexicans?” These questions are hard to answer, because they ask me to essentialize a country and a people. It is like asking if I like America or Americans. Are there essential differences between Mexicans and Americans? Besides the contemporary placement in the global economy and the differences between our access to resources? If you take one Mexican and one American, spend the day with them, share meals, talk about family, are they different? Maybe in how they make a living, what food they put on the table, but are the people different?

And yet, there are real differences between life here and life at our home of the last ten years. Obviously, here we are outsiders, learning the language, learning where to get our groceries, how to pay bills and what time to show up at parties (6pm means 7pm or thereafter). And what about the gaps between the rich and poor? Papantla seems to be a relatively middle class town, without the shanty towns of larger industrial towns, but still, there are signs. During school hours one day, we saw some children working in a stall with their mother. Willa asked about that and I had to tell her that not all children get to go to school, that their families need them to work during school hours. A new perspective for these children of a core nation. Though the U.S. is now experiencing the largest gap between the rich and the poor since 1929, we don’t really see that on a daily basis in our lives. My children hear their parents complaining about these inequities, but now they have images in their heads. When we travel through Mexico City, which we will several times this year, they will see shanty towns, with homes made of cardboard and children without shoes. Several days after seeing the unschooled children, Willa sought me out to talk about it. She is very uncomfortable with children that do not get to go to school, she wants to know why they have to work during the day. I have the same feelings of discomfort and the same questions about their childhood, but not only here in Mexico, in the United States, in many other nations where a communal support for the common good is no longer a shared value.

The essential this year comes down to very few things and mostly time. Time as a family, time as individuals, time in community. The people we meet this year, the world we witness, similar and different from the one we have known, these are the essentials of life that get lost when the calendar is full and the momentum of our lives dominate.

2005-10-12T08:31:00.000-07:00

Rain

2005-10-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

I am a bit behind on the blog, but thought I'd let folks know that we are fine. The rains arrived after the hurricane hit about 200 miles to the south. The kids got a week off school, as the state canceled all schools. Papantla is a bit higher than many communities, so there were no problems here with flooding.

For now, the rain has stopped and the intense heat is back.

Anyone know the exact nutritional content of ants and wheavils?

Why Mexico? Part I

2005-10-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

We've planned this year for three years and here is it. Steinbeck describes some of what led us here: (From Travels with Charley: In Search of America)
'Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it.'

So plan we did but really, the trip took us. And here we are, one month into it and we are living...each day the same, each day completely new.

Primer mes

2005-09-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

Our first month in Papantla. We are feeling much more settled. The children are doing well at school, we are so proud of them sticking with it. We took a day to travel over to Tecolutla, a seaside town about 30k from here. We swam in a pool near the beach, the children hit the waves and we ended the day with mangos cut like flowers, some in our party have graduated to chile on their mangos already!

Impressions from the first month below:
Willa: WQ've been here a month and now the cold front has moved in, from 100 degrees to 99! Our friends are wearing jackets in the morning. I have seven friends now. They are all very nice. Three friends invited me to walk around the square with them. We fed the squirrels, which are black. One squirrel wouldn't come down so my friend threw a peanut at it and it got mad and threw something at us. One squirrel got a peanut off the ground and stuffed it in his mouth and ran and got one out of our hand.
Mexico approval rating: 10 chiles
Austin: Oklahoma probably gets the same temps as Mexico in the summer, but Mexico doesn't have seasons, well, maybe but they are hot, hot, really hot and hot...We found a good soccer team. We work out two days a week for two hours each time with a professional soccer player. I'm having my first game today.
Mexico approval rating: 8 chiles
Ansel: I like to eat chile on lollipops. I have a friend named Geraldo at school and he is on my soccer team too.
Mexico approval rating: 10 kinder eggs with chile on them

Celebration:Independence Day

2005-09-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

The photos are of the crowded square before the grito. The mural is a contemporary piece that shows the history of Papantla, from pre-historic to contemporary.

Our first Indpendence Day in Mexico with the children, as all our travels here happen during the school breaks. I do remember that when Mark called his parents (who live in Cuernavaca Mexico) to tell them the twins were born, they said the 'grito' had begun all around town. The first night we arrived, we sat in a restaurant over the square and watched as they place lights around trees, hung large portraits of heros (from Hildalgo to the niños heroes) above the streets and strung papel picados with Viva Mexico stenciled out of red, green and white plastic from the two story gazebo. It was the first of September, so I wondered if they were already getting ready for Independence Day. That was, of course, before I knew about el mes patria, patriotic month.
We promised the children an evening in the square, so they met up with class mates and ran around in the heat and humidity until they were wet. Ansel collapsed in my arms before the grito, we took everyone home and may never earn W&A's forgiveness for missing the grito...but what to do with a fifty pound soaking wet doll in a crowd of thousands.
Our experience was enlightened the next evening upon being invited to eat chiles en nogados with some friends we've made here. This is the traditional dish to eat for Independence Day, given the colors: green chiles rellenos, white nut-cream sauce and pomegranite seeds. It was delicious and the family was so kind to us. We met the extended family and now have many contacts for both our projects.

Celebrations:cumpleaños

2005-09-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

Our first week in the house is a success. Last week was big for celebrations, given the tenth anniversary of Willa and Austin's birth and Independence Day for Mexico.
W&A had a good time at school with their classmates. We ordered tamales, the teacher brought a cake and the class broke a piñata. We learned that tamales here are wonderful and suckers do not belong in piñatas (at least not with the big kids, they were in a thousand pieces by time they hit the ground).

Nuestra Casa

2005-09-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

After a week of searching and living the the Tajin hotel, we found the perfect place to settle for the year. The director of the school remembered that a friend had mentioned having a house open for rent. We walked the short two blocks from the school to the house compound and knew we had found the place. Not only is the house close to the school (we are a sleepy lot in the mornings) but there is plenty of room (for all you that promised to visit) and to top it off, the owner had a storeroom of furniture for us to borrow. We only have to buy the fridge, a couple of mattresses and a few tables for desks. Truly good luck.
This is a photo of the compound.

The house is located in a small compound with two other houses and an apartment building. The owner and her daughter live in the larger house on the right and a family lives in the house above us. There are several children, so WAa have enjoyed being out at night, running with the others, kicking a ball. This situation is also good, as we do not have to learn the ´ropes´ by ourselves, the neighbors let us know when the garbage truck comes by (Monday and Thursday for this street, you have to listen for the bell and run to the corner to meet the truck), where to apply for a telephone (in the center of town, a fairly short line, an expensive fee and an open-ended aggrement to install it sometime before we return to the states...), where to buy water and hot tortillas. So the house situation has worked out well.
For other pictures of the house, click on the photo above to see our photoalbum at flikr.com
We are still working out the bugs, literally and figuratively: the first fews nights the children complained about burros, roosters and chickens, but now they don{t mention the noises. We´ve held our breath and bought insecticide and mouse traps, the children want to know if we really have to kill the mice...Mark and I are in agreement here, though I did dream we adopted a cat last night.

Today we work on the telephone connection and we are preparing for the children´s birthdays tomorrow-Thursday. They will have a pinata, cake and tamelitos at school with their class. Hasta luego.

Nuestra escuela

2005-09-07T17:47:00.000-07:00

School is going so well. W, A & a are enjoying themselves. Today, in Anselmo{s class they celebrated a birthday. So Ansel got to swing at his first authentic pinata. They played soccer in the schoolyard and true to character, Ansel took out a couple of friends...they said he can come back tomorrow.

Elena (Willa) and Agustin are in the fourth grade class together. Willa did well on her first spelling test, she showed it to me in the evening. Austin said, "We had a spelling test." This is going to be a great year! He took me seriously that I don{t care about grades this year...

Their class mates follow them around and touch their hair. Austin said they pick up anything they drop on the ground. I think we could make money if we charged people to touch Austin{s hair.

Here is a picture of our wonderful school.

News from the niños:
Willa-Today in English class, my teacher corrected me. She a swim suit is a swim suite. So far I have been doing good in school. We have had a spelling test. I met the sixth graders today and they gave me three bracelets and they invited me to a fiest they are putting on for Mexican Independence day, the day after our birthdays.

Austin-We found a soccer league. They name themselves after the professional teams. The team is Barcelona. Tomorrow we go to the first practice. I{ll play with my classmates.
Big news this evening! We found a house and we{ll move in tomorrow morning. I{ll post about the casa and move over the weekend.

Ya llegamos...We are here!

2005-09-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Papantla after a long trip from OKC. We need to revise our previous suggestions to friends to just catch the bus at the border. We now recommend finding the best plane ticket into Veracruz City...

We are staying at the Hotel Tajin here in Papantla, looking for a house. It is a bit slow going, as the process includes walking around neighborhoods, asking people sitting out on steps or in little stores and following up on suggestions. We hope to be in something by the weekend. We have enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. After arriving Thursday afternoon, the children all started school Friday morning. Friday evening, we caught a lecture but the anthropologist Victoria Chenut, who has been a great help to me in setting up research. She just happened to be lecturing at the city auditorium, on laws during the Porfirio era here in Papantla. It was a great lecture, gave me a few more questions to ponder, especially in regard to the role of women and household autonomy. Also, we were able to meet many anthropologists-social/scientists.

Saturday we house hunted all day and Sunday we went to Tajin to see the ruins. Although these ruins are not clime-able, like many piramids in Mexico, the children were impressed with the jungle.

This photo is of the Pyramid of the NIches, an unusual architectural style for mesoamerica.

Below are comments from the family after the first day in Papantla:
Willa- Our first day of school was great. I now have six new friends. The trip from OKC to Mexico was long, I did not like that part but now I am happy that we are in Mexico. Right now, we are looking onto the zocalo (the town square) and they have papel picados (little banners) in the colors of the Mexican flag. They are getting ready to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. I accidentally touched chile and touched my face. I do not recommend this if you visit.

Ansel- Now I really like Mexico, There{s a soccer ball at my school and we play with it on the playground at my school. There are people that I like to play with.

Austin-Today was a good day. School was fun and I made a lot of friends.

Mark- This is like the calm after the storm, as we sit on the picturesque plaza, eating bocoles (Veracruz version of gorditas) and enchiladas, after a grueling trip with too much luggage. It feels great to be here and I am so proud of the children for adapting so well.

Time to go...

2005-08-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Final preparations almost done...just need one more BIG bag and we think we have it ready. Mark assures me there is Parmesan cheese in Papantla, but I'm going to find a way to take some with us...I think I'll be able to grow basil all year and what would I do without Parmesan?

The children are packed and ready. We've sent a final note down to those we are in contact with in P, asking them to spread the word that we are looking for a house. This will be interesting.

The blog is now open to all comments, so you do not have to be a member to click on the comment and leave us a message. I'll leave a message tomorrow and then it may be a few days before we check in. We'll let you know when we are in P and settled into the hotel and we'll report on W,A,a's first days of school.

We fly into Brownsville Texas and catch the bus in Matamoros. The bus travels overnight through Ciudad Victoria, Tampico, Poza Rica and into Papantla. We think we'll arrive early in the morning.

The photo on the left is of the townsquare (zocalo) in P. Notice the vanilla vine growing up the little tree in front of the statue. More in a future note about our research projects (mine-vanilla production/Mark's-popular music).

Off to make a few more phonecalls and find cheese that won't mold or melt on a ten hour bus trip...

Five days to go

2005-08-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, we leave for Papantla, Veracruz. We will spend one year living in this lovely town in East central Mexico. The children will attend a school in town that we are very excited about: Instituto Pedegogico Veracruzano. The class size is small and the teachers and students are excited for us to join them.
We are flying to Brownsville, Texas, where we will get a bus on the Mexican side of the border. We'll ride the ten hours between Matamoras and Papantla, an appropriate introduction to our year without a personal car. The buses in Mexico are excellent: air conditioner, clean bathroom and movies (it used to be all Bruce Willis dubbed into Spanish, but in June I got to watch Whale Rider). We should arrive in Papantla on the 31st, where we will check into a hotel (El Tajin, check it out on google). The children can start of IPV the next day and Mark and I will start looking for a house/apartment while they are in school.
This is a view of the city from the roof top of the Hotel El Tajin in June.

No news on any rentals open, but we are sure we'll find one within the week.

Veracruz Chronicles

2005-08-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

The Countdown has started. Ten days until we leave for Mexico. We are still working on some details. Mark arrives home from Singapore Thursday evening and we'll return to Norman for the weekend. Neighbors Mary and Clemencia are giving us a send-off on Saturday night and we'll say goodbye at St. Micheal's on Sunday morning.

Blog test

2005-08-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

This is a test to see if i've set this up right. This blog is being established to record our family's adventures in Veracruz Mexico during the academic year 2005-2006.