okay so i know that i said i have no words for my experiences and the last email was a bit painfully short and undescriptive for all ive been seeing... well i was feeling a little under the weather but am on my way to recovery now, plus i got a few extremely colorful and inspring emails from my sisters and brothers all over the world with tales of their own adventures (muchisimas gracias a mat, raphael, and aliyah)... and miraculously, i found words! fuck it, my friends and family should know exactly where i am at right now so here goes...
right. so finally moved my ass and got off the beach... the chiapas and oaxaca coastlines were pretty mesmerizing and time flies when all you do is lie in the sun and observe the tides of the pacific. my pulse had slowed to about 40 though and i began to feel the atrophy of muscles and swift loss of brain cells. after seeing puerto arista, boca del cielo (both of these beaches have GOT to be close to where Y Tu Mama Tambien was filmed, they were so spellbinding), zipolite, mazunte, and puerto escondido, i motivated and said goodbye to the beach friends (some of whom may very well be sitting on their chairs at zipolite for the next 5 or 6 years), the lovely neverending sunshine and heat, and on to oaxaca city i went! well the heat and sunshine endured and what changed was my level of activity- its nuts here, there is SO much to do. i see why people have a hard time leaving here... got all my photos processed from 3 months of traveling and am feeling so alive at seeing the documentary of my trip thus far. this city just has mad amounts of art, from libraries and bookstores filled with new artists for me to sink my teeth into, to photo centers where i sat in on discussions in spanish, and processed b&w film for the first time in years, to modern museums and galleries... oh its so rich. went out the first night by myself in search of salsa beats and a live dance floor and woah did i find it... sat down at a table with a oaxaqueÒo man and spoke with him for a few hours in between fantastic live sets of salsa and merengue, he turned out to be an artist too. (for those of you who are expecting me to come home with a novio mexicano or little brown babies, think again... it was not meant to be this time, this guy just was not quite my type, neither was the muy-machismo keyboard player who grabbed me as i was leaving... they all get an A for effort though) the rest of the week was spent getting to know fellow travelers, learning the city through some oaxaqueÒos i met on the coast, hiking in the mornings and bars at night where mexican cover bands sing pink floyd songs from a balcony that looks like it might collapse with every drum solo... constant fielding of cat-calls which i have all but gotten used to- what is it going to be like to return to the states where people just don¥t speak to each other as they walk on by? the term "g?era" has become so familiar to me- another word for gringa- its actually used semi-affectionately for the most part, by my zapotec family even when explaining cultural differences to me and i hear it as often as trucks passing on the road beside me. thats another thing that has been truly incredible- living (since tuesday and probably until my mom comes to visit next week) with a family in a weaving village about an hour outside of oaxaca, with a couple named trinidad and manuel, their 92-year-old abuelita, and a mid-twenties daughter who cannot walk and is very sweet. their family has been wonderful to meet as well... how many people are in this family? muchas.. muchas... they almost all live in teotitl‡n, and i am liable to end up spending an afternoon with the little ones judith and jorge (6 and 2 years old) if i happen to run into them on the street, their happiness is positively infectious. they are all so welcoming, it is beautiful. the photographic sources are endless by the way. shooting shooting shooting is all i can think about.
there are some beautiful zapotec rugs and weavings on their way back to the united states in no time at all. meanwhile... peace to everybody. i love you and wish you well in this crazy time of war, chaos, joy and peace.