Bye-bye Oaxaca!

I promised, but . . . .

I haven't forgotten to post. Well, not really. I returned home to a "surprise" gut kitchen renovation that has left us camping out in one room, had food poisoning for several days and then experienced a basement flood after last weekend's torrential rains.

Things should be settling down in another week (or two), and I will begin unpacking my papers and flash drives, organizing my photos, and posting after-the-fact stuff about my adventures in Oaxaca.

Cocina con Nora, # 4

I'm back in the land of reliable WiFi!

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NEH Oaxaca, 1st Week

Posting regularly has become a dream with the wonky WiFi here, so I give you -- highlights with minimal commentary! We are just about to wrap up our second week, I'm grappling with my curricular unit (not too successfully, I'm afraid), and a good friend arrives tonight, but I'll try to throw something up whenever I get a connection.

Until I see you all again, hasta pronto!

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I Came to Eat

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Miscellaneous blah blah

Okay, I know you're waiting for me to say something profound and intelligent about my first week here, but in the evenings I'm too tired to say more than, "Attach Part A to Part B." That's good, isn't it? I'm having a great time, meeting wonderful people, and learning a lot. But I'm thinking of you all and sending you good vibes from a spiritual/historical hot spot!

NEH Day 2 -- Monte Alban and Rancho Zapata

We began Tuesday's excursion at Monte Alban. The ruins of the structures that survive were built by the Zapotec and give us a picture of ceremonial life in a city that reached its zenith between 350CE and 550CE, about 1,000 years before Mitla's rise.

Unlike Mitla, Monte Alban was built on a strategic hilltop that is at the intersection of three arms of the Valley of Oaxaca. It was abandoned, possibly abruptly, around 850CE and was deserted until the Mixtec appropriated it as a sacred burial ground and continued to use it up to and after the arrival of the Spanish in 1519.

Some of the first archaeologists to explore the site in the 19th Century were -- no surprise here -- Germans, but systematic exploration and documentation began later in the early 20th Century led by Alfonso Caso. It was his work that uncovered the Zapotec treasure -- both in terms of objects and knowledge gained -- from Tomb 7, much of which can be seen today in the Museo of the Centro Cultural Santo Domingo in Oaxaca. Reading the following article has shown me that while we covered a lot of ground in our two-hour visit, we didn't even scratch the surface of what there is to know about this site:

Tomb 7.

(I've posted some new photos but am still having problems with wonky WiFi, so uploading photos has been a struggle. I'll keep at it but may not get a lot up until I return to NYC next month.)

On our way to Mitla, we stopped at a mezcal plant and learned the various stages of turning agave into a potent drink. We sampled several varieties before we ate a splendid meal:


Estofado Oaxaqueno

The group dynamic continues to be positive and enriching. We're all negotiating social boundaries with 30 or more new acquaintances while grappling with a lot of visual and intellectual stimulation, so it's tiring, but in a good way. I feel very lucky to be here and am just as happy socializing for hours on end as I am going off on my own. So far, I've found a balance that's working for me.