I'm getting good at

killing mosquitoes with one hand... two fans help as well.

Scenes from walking around

Or being driven around, this was an urban bus I got on on my way back from Gelavia that had a flashing blue light mounted just behind the driver, I don't know how he could see









The big sky and dramatic cloud formations are one of my favorite things here, it almost gives me that same feeling at peace as watching the ocean (almost!)

Cantera, the native green stone, is eminently photogenic. A friend of mine from here was telling me how much she loved the aesthetics of Puebla however because its cantera is not marred by graffiti (most of it since the 2006 conflict).

Today's cute kid story

I really like having my neighbor J and her son K around, really nice and interesting and easy-going and K has truly fallen in love with Essie. He bangs on my door usually every afternoon after his school gets out and asks to "go visit the seal" and then usually brings her out to the living room and asks me questions, invited collaborative story telling etc. Today he came over and after dropping quite a few hints about how "I bet the seal would like to come play with my dinosaur again" I asked him if he wanted to take her home for a couple hours and as he left he asked "do you think the seal would like it if I read her a story? Does she like to read books?" So precious and really fun, he keeps me on my toes.

It's a small world after all...

Even as I often feel adrift here (and paradoxically am already saddened to leave people who have, or I expect to, become real friends--luckily or not, many are Americans I can expect to see in the States in the future, and also, yay facebook connectivity), I am reminded that the social world encompassing Oaxaca is a tiny one of a certain sort. Case in point, Sat after still feeling in a bit of a fog, I headed off to my local organic Sat market under semi-protest. It's been a hard week with my crazy neighbor really sort of dumping her own craziness on me (and I'm not using crazy lightly) and I've been feeling very vulnerable. So going to the market was something I had to motivate to do. However, I knew I wanted to get specific things (including coffee), I knew I always love that market, and I knew that there was a fair chance I might run into someone I know. But, it's just around the corner so I was pretty focused on getting in and out (maybe coming back in the afternoon when I would be more likely to run into friends after a workout and shower) and in a slightly grungy state.

I walked in and got my usual broccoli and arugula (my vegetable vendor now has little lemon/lime hybrid looking things too) and stopped to talk to the woman who sells tomatoes and comes in 2 days a week from 4 hours away (I like to ask people how far away they live). She's (Augustine) fabulous, we've had long conversations about organic farming and her husband is a consultant for other small villages who are transitioning from conventional to organic practices. It was great to talk to her about how she frames these health issues (things like the water they use from the wells is cleaner than that closer to the city, so the inside of the plant is also healthier-- I still wash all veggies unless they've been prewashed) as well as hear her views on buying directly from farmers. It is very much reflexive of the impact of NAFTA that she told me farmers who sell through middlemen to the big markets (and then presumably throughout the State if not country, although they're tiny operations) get almost no money and make only enough to subsist and we talked about the value of healthy fresh food and why at this market people are willing to perhaps pay more (it also is a market that has a big American and tourist presence).

Leaving her I headed up to my favorite ready made food stand run by an Italian man and Korean woman who make great fresh pastas and pestos and cookies and decent S. E. Asian salads when I was struck by the profile of a woman talking to 'Sandro, it was another anthropologist (A) I know from NY who graduated from my program and then came back to teach in the Latin American Studies center and with whom I took a class (of course I couldn't remember her name for the life of me for about 5 minutes). Her work has taken a turn in a similar direction as mine and she was in Oaxaca for a short research trip/ vacation. She introduced me to her husband and we chatted and then an acquaintance came through and a contact A had here (a fulbrighter my friend C had tried to put me in touch with, who never returned my email) and then more people A knows from NY who also happen to have connections to Oaxaca-- all a little overwhelming. And in the meantime my friend K and her boyfriend G came in with a friend of their's I knew from my first two visits here who was just back for the weekend. And then while talking to them I ran into one of the doctors I work with in Tlacolula. It was all a little overwhelming and made me supremely conscious of my unwashed hair :-)

And so I'm trying to hold on to that feeling of connectedness when I fall into feeling lonely without community here-- also that I have a friend who would call me and ask me to babysit her 3 kids when her daycare plans fall through...... lots and lots of hide and go seek in my tiny apt (lots of hiding in my armoire and under the bed). And in a week my really good friend from college A is coming with another friend and after I meet them in Puebla, A and I are going on some kind of adventure.

See Becca rage, rage Becca rage

for some reason while I'm in a raging mood I narrative my life as Learn to Read with Dick and Jane book. So I just finished waiting another 3 hours for a cablemas technician only to call the office and be told that there was never an order for a technician.... meaning that I waited for an illusion both days for a total of 8 hours or that I was just lied to by this woman. I am soooo fraking frustrated and have no way to expressing it to make them just fix the damn thing, when my voice rose I was told "senorita Rebecca calmate" and I still don't have all the technical verbs and such so who knows what they're telling me sometimes, I can troubleshoot the thing, but can't follow technical assistance instructions over the phone. I guess I'll have to go up to the office to try to talk them that way. It just makes me sooooo mad, especially since I've run out of money on my cell phone in 4 days talking to them.

So cute

About a month ago a set of new neighbors moved in, a Canadian woman about my age and her almost 5 year old son whose dad is Oaxacan but who doesn't speak spanish (JM and K) and they are utterly charming. JM and I get along really well and K is a total darling, full of imagination and engagement with the world. I have this display area in my living room/ entry set up as one person called it as my "altar" with a beautiful hamsa that my friend S gave me to protect me during fieldwork and a turquoise eye and these bird alebrijes and a coyote I bought for S's mom. K loves to come in and play with my animals, telling me all about the secret lives of my birds and why the coyote will play with them rather than trying to eat them, all of which I love. I also introduced him to Ezzie, the stuffed white seal I've slept with since I was 3, and he warned me to be careful if I took her to the North Pole as polar bears might try to eat her. Today he came in and after playing with the alebrijes (he's so gentle with them), he asked if he could go visit Ezzie and when I went into my bedroom with him he asked me all sorts of questions like what she liked to eat and do for fun and then told me all about his stuffed T-rex who really likes seals because he doesn't eat meat etc. So Ezzie went off with K for an hour to play with his unnamed dino. It's really nice to be around highly imaginative verbal children!

When expectations need to fall and why I'm hating the expression "welcome to mexico"

In other news, my internet is down again because cablemas seems to have problems connecting with my bank to pay monthly with my credit card, I am not amused. It is super frustrating to negotiate customer service/ technical service in a language I am still not completely comfortable in and seems to be an endeavor that takes at least all of one day if not more. So far I have talked with several people yesterday morning (as every time they put me on hold, they disconnected me), thought I had it all straightened out to come back on after 2pm, the internet didn't come back on when they promised it would and then I spent the afternoon on hold once more (having already been disconnected probably at least 9 times) after the person first told me I needed to pay and then once we got that straightened out, that this had already happened, he told me it would come back on after Monday morning, and then when I protested, then he checking the technical aspects as I sit racking up the wireless minutes (luckily I just put money on my phone).... waiting for him to disconnect me again. Finally I was able to complete a call without being placed on hold and after being told that I still owed them money (which I didn't), they're finally going to send a technician tomorrow.... bets on whether he comes during the expected window?

This is my I'm 4 hours in waiting face




And, after waking up early, making sure my house is presentable and waiting waiting waiting, nope, not going to show up today (they say after 4.5 hours), instead monday!