One of the main parts of the "Somos Hermanos" program is learning the culture and language of Latin America, and in addition to our months studying in Guatemala, we take a week long trip to Oaxaca, Mexico to live with a family, learn about their culture, and take class with Mexican teachers to learn Mexican-Spanish. This is such an important part of our program to ensure that we can learn how to be better health care providers for immigrant populations in the U.S.
The family we stayed with in Oaxaca was a wonderful family. I lived with my friend Rekha from the program in a beautiful little house with a sweet Oaxacan woman named Conchita. Rekha and I felt exceptionally lucky with this nice family who lovingly picked is up at the bus station with a little, handwritten sign when we arrived Sunday morning in Oaxaca. Conchita and her husband, Luis drove us to their house and served us fresh fruit, yogurt, and homemade granola. It wasn't long until we learned that Conchita takes care of the house and many students as well as teaches Oaxacan cooking classes! Between the Oaxacan cheese, homemade mole sauce, fresh tamales (otherwise known here and in Guatemalan and Oaxaca as "tamalitos") we definitely got the heavenly Oaxacan food experience!
It was also great living with Conchita and her family because the family could give us even more information about the prideful and rich Oaxacan culture. Conchita's family had lived in her beautiful house for over 3 generations before. Also, just by eating our three meals at home, we noticed the different ways Mexicans would speak Spanish. Guatemalan's always say "vaya" when they're agreeing, but Conchita was constantly saying "andale." It was great to get a bit more familiar with other speaking patterns in Central America.
Our Spanish classes in the mornings in Oaxaca helped with this learning process too. We had a great, exciting teacher named Octavio who went through all the history of Mexican community (mainly their community values like respect for elders and even fiestas!), and he defined lots of vocabulary that you can't find in the dictionary, for example "Toda la madre!" = Perfect!
A picture at border control on the Guatemalan side on our day long bus trip to Chiapas, Mexico -
Maya and I on the Mexican side (with the "Welcome to Chiapas" sign in the background, which is the southernmost region of Mexico)
Trying out the famous Oaxacan "nieve" (water-ice),
Unfortunately, after a day in Oaxaca, the cases of swine flu in Mexico City (200 miles north of Oaxaca) began to rise, and anxiety abut the flu rose as well. Our group, "Somos Hermanos" immediately began investigating the flu and our risk of being exposed to the disease. We searched out some Tamiflu and monitored the news closely, and after about a day, we decided to leave Oaxaca early to avoid any risk of contracting the disease, and more importantly avoid problems at the border (there were rumors of the Mexican-Guatemalan border closing and of possible quarantines there). With all this anxiety, we were all pretty bummed, but in the afternoon we had left, we had a little time for a few jokes...
Wearing our newly bought masks that supposedly prevented the air transmission of swine flu. (However, after my own research, I don't think that these masks make a huge difference on exposure to the flu although the government distributed them for free probably more to calm the general population, and even more, there were hardly any cases in Oaxaca.)
The swine flu unfortunately cut out Oaxacan study trip short, but in the two days we were there, we definitely took advantage of a lot of the wonderful things to do in Oaxaca.
Oaxaca is a very old city with so much history, culture, and beauty. The city is so clean and elegant, full of markets, stores, and beautiful architecture. The first afternoon (after sleeping all morning to recover from the overnight bus ride), we wandered around the city to the main square, called the "Zocalo," where we tried a Oaxacan delicacy called "chapulines" or fried grasshopper (they didn't taste like much of anything except crunch) and wandered around the market to look at clothing, little art toys, and artwork.
Monday afternoon after our first Mexican-Spanish group class, we were fortunate enough to have our trip to Monte Alban, home of the ruins of the Zapotecs (a really strong and intelligent indigenous population before the Aztecs around 500 B.C.). The afternoon was hot but clear, and it was amazing to see and even climb the pyramids that these people had built so long ago.
A bit more of our "quarantine" pictures in Monte Alban... we're "flu fugitives" :)
The famous "Danzante" stone artwork in "Monte Alban." This stone below is probably a depiction of a pregnant women having the baby. These depictions may have been religious or possibly, just an outlet of creativity, but I found the stones very beautiful. And even more exciting was the fact that so many of these stone depictions are still in tact after all this time!
The second (and unfortunately last afternoon) in Oaxaca, we wandered around getting in some last minute shopping and wandered into the beautiful Santo Domingo cathedral, with its baroque architecture from 1572 -
That night we went all out with a heavenly Oaxacan dinner downtown before our quick escape from Oaxaca...the mole sauce, Oaxacan cheese (and even cheesecake), and sangria were divine!
As we made our way back to Guatemala that night after dinner (an overnight bus ride again to Chiapas) we were informed that we would not be going directly back to our houses in Xela as to not put anyone else in risk of getting the swine flu from us. Although none of us showed any symptoms of flu, we decided to spend two days at a government resort in Reu, 45 minutes outside of Xela. Despite being "quarantined" for 72 hours, our group had tons of fun at this resort - it was beautiful with its tennis courts, large pool complete with water slides, a badminton and mini-golf court. We felt like we were on a cruise ship on land.
There were even huge amounts of peacocks wandering the resort!
After two days, we headed back to our coordinator Liz's house in Xela to spend one last night before returning to our families. We ordered Domino's and watched movies all night, and I think the group definitely had a great time being "quarantined." In fact, we were a bit sad to leave each other after spending the whole week traveling together. The whole experience makes us even more excited for our 10 day trip to El Salvador in about a week.
Also, thanks to everyone for their concern. I know that with the media-craziness and general uncertainty a lot of you were very worried about my proximity to the swine flu pandemic in Mexico City. I'm sorry you were so worried, but now I am safe and sound (and healthy) back in Xela, and I miss you all and hope for the best for everyone.
Love,
Sarah
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