Vida Nueva!

Hola from the Vida Nueva girls! Six of us, Erica, Natalie, Casey, Page, Annie, and Ellie, spent our village stay in Vida Nueva in Teotitlan. We traveled to Teotitlan with the other group staying in BiI Dau, which turned out to only be about a 10 minute walk from Vida Nueva! It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon when we arrived in the small village on the mountainside. We were ready to replace the sounds of honking cars in the city with roosters in the early morning. Our first stop was to meet our host-families. We met our host-moms at the Vida Nueva Women’s Weaving Cooperative. They were an impressive group of women of all ages who have formed this cooperative for many single, widowed, and married women in the community and do many projects to better the community. They manage to balance their home life, cooperative life, and community life, which for many of the women is more than a full days work. We were lucky to stay with a group of such strong women. We stayed in separate houses and thus all came away with very different experiences. We spent the rest of Sunday in our separate houses getting to know our host-families over large comidas and hot chocolate.

Monday was our first full day in Teotitlan and all of us were very excited to get to work with the Vida Nueva women in the afternoon. Until then, we each spent time in the morning with our mothers getting acquainted with the daily routine of a woman in Teotitlan. Some girls went to the colorful food market in the central zocalo of the town to buy freshly baked bread, tender cuts of meat, luscious green vegetables, and bright, ripened fruits. Some girls had the opportunity to check out the mills where the cooked corn from the night before was ground with water to make the masa for tortillas. For the rest of the morning in the homes we were entertained by watching our mothers weave their beautifully intricate rugs, make tortillas (and even sneak one caliente- hot off the grill!), prepare comida, do laundry, and many other daily household tasks. At noon, we all gathered at Vida Nueva for our first lesson with the women. They started by telling us a little bit about their history and then about how they’ve grown. The group started off with about 30 women, but many women ended up leaving the cooperative or got married. The principle drive behind the idea of the cooperative was to provide independence from the house for women. Traditionally, men did not like having the women out on the dangerous streets and they thought women should stay in the house taking care of the family. However, this small group of women started to change the way people in the community thought; after one of their first projects of cleaning up the streets in the city, the people began to see their positive impact and encouraged their work. The group now consists of about 14 women, most of whom are single or widowed, but there are some whose husbands support their involvement. Some of their projects include building ecological stoves to reduce the amount of smoke produced and protect women’s health, cleaning up trash in the streets and getting the community involved by hanging buckets for waste all around the city, dedicating a day to women and spreading “gifts of love” to widows, singles, and all women in the form of food, and finally we were introduced to the project we would be collaborating on, which was called Sembrando Vida, where we were to accompany the women out to their plot of land to plant trees and set an example to take care of the environment. In all, these women are very intelligent and dedicated whose thirst for knowledge and need to contribute to the community were contagious.

During our stay in Teotitlan, we got to accompany our host mothers to the daily morning market in the town center. This was unlike any market in the City, which seem to be catered toward tourists. Women bustled around dressed in traditional attire. Many wore long printed skirts topped by layered checkered aprons. They all flock to the market each morning to sell goods and collect fresh local food for comida in sturdy woven baskets. Taking part in this regular activity in the life of women here provided a nice glimpse into their daily life. It was fascinating to observe the people at the market, each stopping to touch hands in a Zapotec greeting. On Tuesday morning we all get up early in order to meet the Bii Dau group at 7:00 and join them at the Huerta. It was difficult to roll out of bed with the early morning sun, but well worth the effort. The walk up to the farm plot was amazing. We sleepily made our way up the winding dirt road that lead to the Huerta, picking up donkey poop along the way for the days activity. After 20 minutes we arrived awake and ready to make compost. After making a nice compost pile the men at the farm told us about the dry toilet system they had set up there. It was interesting to see what the other group of students had been doing and to meet some of the members of the Bii Dau cooperative. We finished at the Huerta around 11:00 and returned to the village to spend the rest of the day with our families. Later in the evening Casey, our host mothers, my little niece and I took a walk to the presa, a large dam that feeds into a canal, which runs down to the village below. Hay tortugas? Valeria, the four-year-old niece, excitedly told Casey and I about the turtles as we approached the presa. We threw small pebbles into the cloudy green water, built little stone structures and picked flowers as the mothers collected twigs and branches for firewood. They tied the wood in large bundles and hoisted them on there heads. These are tough women! We walked back down the hilly terrain as the setting sunsplashed vibrant pinks and oranges across the horizon. On Wednesday, our group went to Area Verde along with the women from Vida Nueva to plant trees in order to decrease deforestation. It was a really great experience to work with these women on this project and we were all really impressed by their working abilities. For some of the women, their age was not an issue for completing this task, and they put such a great effort into getting the job done. Some of the trees we planted included lime, walnut, and zapote. Afterwards, we all piled into the back of a pickup truck to ride back into town. It was a fun experience and we all enjoyed working together to get it done. Later that day both the Bii Dau group and the Vida Nueva group met with John to discuss what both groups had done so far. Everyone was really excited to see each other and we all were happy to catch up and compare the two trips.

On Thursday, hands down our busiest day in Teotitlan, we joined the Bii Dau group again early at the huerta where they showed us a natural bio fertilizer that they’d made to protect cacti growing in the fields (an important crop used to breed chochinilla, an insect used to make the red dye for tapetes). Feeling like Ghostbusters, we took turns wearing large, white, plastic backpacks with hoses to spray the cacti. Later we chopped more cacti to compost, watered several of the crops, and returned to the center via truck bed. An hour or so later, we reconvened at Vida Nueva where we got the opportunity to work with wool, as Pastora showed us how to make a thick blanket by simply adding water, pressing, and drying the material overnight. We made jewelry by wetting strips of wool, twisting or rolling it, and sewing the pieces together; so far, our bracelets and necklaces have been put to very good use. From Vida Nueva the group went to Ellie’s house where her host mom, Theresita, and Theresita’s father showed us their process of making beautiful decorative candles; a tradition specific to Oaxaca that had been in Theresita’s family for generations. The wicks stood at least 4 feet tall and hung from hooks attached to a large wooden wheel. Theresita’s father slowly poured layer upon layer of wax over the wick (making clear how much work goes into one candle) while she made wax flowers using moulds. We later watched them carefully cut and decorate each flower as they passed around older pictures of candles made by family members, and we learned that they were related to the candle maker that we visited in Santa Ana de Valle! We made a quick trip to the local church, prominent in the village center, which was elaborate and colorful with fresh flowers and many of the decorated candles; definitely a very important aspect of life in the community. After a rushed late comida, each of us made our way with our mothers to a small barn and plot of land that belonged to one of the families; separate from the village itself, we had views of the flat land around and us and the nearby mountains as the sun began to set and we began to build a bed to plant in, using bamboo sticks as a border and shovels to break up the soil. John demonstrated how to implement drip irrigation while our mothers watched, curious to see the process. We planted some organic seeds, onions, watermelons, greens, etc. before checking out the sheep and pigs that had been hiding in the barn.

Friday morning we met up with Bii Dauu group around 5:30am and set off in the dark, quiet morning to climb the mountain we’d spent the week awing over, Picacho. Our mothers packed us with fruit and sandwiches, and some of the cooperative members of Bii Dauu guided us up to the top, where the village hosts a party every May. It was the perfect way to end the week, looking out over not just Teotitlan but other small villages, the dam and the land we’d been working on, the continuing series of mountains. Before leaving, the six of us received a traditional cleansing in a dark room at the cooperative, wiping plant leaves mixed with mescal over our skin. It is one example of traditional healing methods used in the village; it felt very personal and there is certainly lots more to learn. Overall, our experience at Vida Nueva was educational and inspiring. We all made memories that will last a lifetime.

Bii Daüü, Teotitlán

Lesley, Shiren, Claire, Jessie, Kristina, Z, Melisa

Grounding, refreshing, genuine, eye-opening, enriching: These are just a few words that we chose to help explain our experience with the Bii Daüü weaving cooperative in Teotitlán. When we met the Bii Daüü community, the group of people we would be spending the next five days with, none of us really knew what to expect. But as the week unfolded and we started getting into our daily routine- working in the huerto, spending time with our families, and participating in presentations- our eyes were opened to new ideas, and the Bii Daüü experience really started to give us a different perspective. Here are a few of the key things we did during the week, and a few thoughts it raised for all of us.

The Huerto: The huerto was a plot of land owned and managed by Bii Daüü to cultivate crops, mostly used for the natural dyes of their yarn. Each morning, we woke up at 6:30 with the sunrise, ate a light breakfast, and met with the rest of the group at the Bii Daüü Co-op. We would then walk, equipped with tools for the morning work and plastic bags full of fruit, on the winding road outside of the village to the huerto, which was nestled in the valley between the mountains. The walk was one of our favorite parts of the day, the fresh air eliminating the sleep from our bodies, waking up our minds. We would walk on the cobblestone road and it would fade into dirt, houses becoming scarcer, evolving into fields where horses and cows would be grazing. There was a dam that held back a decent sized body of water, the first body of water we had seen in a while. Usually there were birds flying overhead, making their way to unknown destinations. It was a magical experience everyday.

On the first day they gave us a tour of the permaculture-inspired farm. They were growing various crops for their natural dyes, including pipe, marush, petycomb, muitle and nopal crops for the production of cochinilla, just to name a few. They also had a composting toilet and solar panel for their well, as well as different techniques to conserve water, such as trenches and terracing. They also talked about their ambitions and goals for the huerto, including cabañas, a restaurant where they would grow all of the food on-sight, and a store where they can centralize Bii Daüü’s ambitious, inspiring and progressive goals. On that first day we helped with watering plants and prepared a biofertilizer (made by mixing ground garlic, alfalfa, chile, and aloe vera, diluting the mixture in water, and then letting the solution sit for three days before applying it to plants). On the second day the group from Vida Nueva joined us, and we spent the day learning how to make a top-notch compost pile, using chopped up nopales, dry materials such as hay and paper cartons, a lot of manure, soil, and water, and then systematically layering it in a 4 ft. by 4 ft. pile. The idea is to get the pile to heat up so that all of the organisms break down, creating nutrient rich soil for your plants. On Wednesday we applied the biofertilizante to the nopales, watered, weeded, and set up a new irrigation system. John had brought a drip-irrigation system, which is perfect for the dry climate because it cuts down on evaporation of water by applying it directly to the root of the plants. We planted High Mowing beans, melons, and onion seeds that John had brought from Vermont. On Thursday, our last day on the huerto, we applied the biofertilizer, watered the trees, and weeded.

The huerto was an incredible experience for all of us because it taught us the importance of working as one with nature, finding non-chemical alternatives to caring for plants and the earth, and also just taught us a lot about different plants, their importance for the Bii Daüü community, and their importance for the cooperative. It was sad to leave the huerto, but also rewarding. The work we had done was tangible and visible, and something that taught us so much about the importance of caring for the environment. The days were full, leaving us with an accomplished feeling by 10:30, when we would return back to our individual homestays for our second breakfast of the day.

Dying presentation: The cloth dying presentation at Mariano’s house on Monday made us realize that the process of coloring the wool and other fabrics took an incredible amount of patience. Not only did everything have to prepared beforehand, such as the grinding of the cochinilla, or peeling of the muitle leaves, but water had to be prepared in a certain way before the fabrics were introduced. This made us appreciate the hard work the people at the cooperative have to do before they even start the process of weaving, another project that requires hours of work and patience

One of the first steps of the dying process was to use an organic fixant called “alumbre de potasio,” which was added to water to protect colors against leeching or fading. We also got the chance to grind up cochinilla on a mortar and pestal. What a beautiful deep red color! We learned that when placed in different pots, the metal of the pots has different effects on the color of the cochinilla. When added to iron pots, the dye is a purple color, while in other pots it may appear more orange or café. This was a nice little chemistry lesson for all of us!

We also got to rip the leaves off of the muitle plant, which were then added to a pot of water dyed with ground up aníl, or indigo. The muitle plant is added to the indigo because it takes the oxygen out of the water, and long story short gives the indigo that incredible deep indigo color. That’s more chemistry in effect!

After watching and participating in the presentation with Mariano, he told us that he really enjoyed doing this work, regardless if it was a slow process. He said it was because he could work at his own pace, he was his own boss, and he could be close to his friends, his family, and everything else that he loved. This was a beautiful thing to hear, because sometimes it’s hard to find someone that genuinely loves their trabajo.

After the presentation, we had learned a lot about proper ways to dye wool, and good organic plants and products to use to make brilliant, eye-catching colors. Again, the most important thing for the Bii Daüü community is protecting the environment, and using all-natural products.

Weaving presentation: On Wednesday we went to the house of Juan Carlos, who was the Administrative President of the Bii Daüü Cooperative. We learned how to make our own mini-tapetes after a fantastic meal of tamales, tacos dorados, and quesadillas.The process of weaving was long and difficult and made us appreciate the work that the weavers put into every piece. We also did a little weaving on the large looms, which was very intimidating but fun as well.

Tour of the Pueblo: We spent Wednesday afternoon with Fausto and Procoro, who guided our visit to la iglesia, el museo comunitario, y la cuervita. La inglesia is vast in comparison to the homes and people of Teotitlán, and stands resplendently in the center of the village. Inside the church are life-size replicas of saints and beautifully handcrafted candles.

After our quick visit to the church, we made our way through the town Zocaló and into the community museum. The museum was in many ways similar to the one we visited in Santa Ana but we were able to find a deeper meaning in some of the exhibits, as there were detailed written descriptions of each display in Zapoteco, Spanish and English. From the museum, we climbed into the back of Fausto’s red pick up truck for a ride to la cuervita, a sacred area for the people of Teotitlán. La cuervita consists of three levels of a concave rock wall that represent the place of the Gods, the Humans, and the Dead. It is an important place for the people of Teotitlán who gather there every 31^st of December to celebrate and make requests for the New Year. Gathered in the level representing the place of the Gods, we listened to Fausto’s astounding words. He spoke of the Zapotec cross of the universe that consists of the light and darkness, the North and South poles and a center. He also explained the belief that bad does not exist, only positive and negative energy between which we must search for equilibrium. Fausto described three types of people to us; those who order others, those who obey and those who do neither because they are able to follow the path of their hearts. When Fausto finished speaking with us we had a delicious snack of mangos, platanos, naranjas, y manzanas. As we left la cuervita, Procoro stopped to give what was left of the fruit to three young shepherd boys playing beneath a tree, which shows the compassion of these people. On Thursday morning, as we finished our work at the huerto, Fausto revisited his talk and reminded us that no one person is capable of changing the world but that if we all do our part and work together, we will make a difference.

Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Comida, Dinner: Comida was a huge aspect of our trip to Teotitlán. When we were told that we would be fed very well, we didn’t realize how much it would actually be! Anywhere from assortments of fruit, to bread, to enormous tlayudas, to hot chocolate, it felt as if we were always stuffed to the brim with delicious traditional food.

But the significance of food for us during our stay was mainly based on how it was tied to the hospitality that the people of Teotitlán showed us. It was a very tangible way in which our host families and the other members of Bii Daüü displayed their generosity and opening of their homes, hearts and families. They always made food for us first and always asked us if we wanted more. They were just so generous with giving that it humbled us and made us feel more comfortable in the homestays.

Another example of their generosity was when we had refrigerio, an afternoon snack that always turned into a large meal that the families would share with all of us students. We would usually have these at other Co-op members’ houses, and they all ended up being very fun and a great time to converse with people.

Food was also a means of reunion and a medium to ask questions. Almost every meal we ate with our homestay families would be an exchange of Spanish or Zapoteco. This gave us the opportunity to practice our Spanish, and listen to the Zapoteco language, an idioma that none of us could understand, but could appreciate with a new curiosity. With comida as the center of our conversations, we learned more about their values and their lives in the pueblo. For a lot of families, their values center around God, love, family, comida, and health.

Another thing to consider is just how much work and energy it takes to make this food. Every day, a family member would go to the market to buy fresh foods, such as fruit, bread, or meat. Some family members even worked in the market in the morning, and others had vegetable gardens and animals in their backyard that they would use to make their own food. This gives an impression of self-sufficiency, and it makes us more grateful for where our food comes from. The experience of eating with our families and watching them cook made us realize even more our profound connection with the Earth and with the food we put into our mouths, and it was beneficial for us to take away the cultural knowledge of the people. On our last day we had a fiesta at 11 am at Lorenzo’s house after our 5:30 am hike (whew!). The food at the fiesta was literally enough for an entire buffet, and was almost entirely vegetarian, which was very considerate for the people who don’t eat meat in our group. We ate empanadas, tlayudas, tostadas, enchiladas, delicious fruit drinks, salad, and to top it all off, a traditional drink called tejate, which is made from maiz and coca. This fiesta really showed us what a central part traditional food has in the lives of the people in Teotitlán, how we are all so connected to the food we eat, and how we can really connect to other people through food.

Homestays/Language Barriers: During our individual home-stays in Teotitlán, all of us spent a lot of time getting to know the families we were staying with. In the city, we spend more time in classes or playing around town, so it was a new experience for us to spend so much time with the family members. It was also a new experience for many to try to speak Spanish at all times, especially during the night when there was more down time. Along with this, many of us faced the challenge of feeling left out of conversations with our families when they would only speak Zapotec at dinner or during other activities. This wasn't necessarily bad, but a learning lesson for all of us. We were all starting to really grasp the Spanish language, so it was a bit of shock not being able to understand conversation between the family.

Despite the language barrier, all of us had incredible experiences with our families. Between playing games to eating with family members to playing with the children, we all learned a lot about how the family structure works, what they like to do on their free time, and how hard they all work to support the family. We realized how genuine these people are, and how open their hearts are. Family is so important here, so we really saw that aspect come into play. They really made us feel apart of their lives and apart of their families.

Tiempo Libre: Aside from a week of amazing time spent in the huerto and in the weaving cooperative, there were other activities that significantly contributed to our overall experience. On Wednesday and Thursday members of the cooperative participated in an informal English lesson, which was lead by our group. These members were so incredibly enthusiastic about learning, and wanted to know the names of everything they worked with, in English of course. We went over sizes, colors, phrases and items that the weaving cooperative may encounter when selling to English speaking tourists. The eagerness to learn was astounding. Everyone was intrigued, excited and smiling. The range in age was also large, as there were members from ages seven to fifty participating. What really stood out was how truly interested and passionate these people were to learn, though they have some access to internet they wanted to hear from us, their new friends.

On Thursday, after our English lesson, we all headed to the cancha to play basketball. Two intense games and our friends were still ready for another game! It was awesome to see Horvacio and Mariano, two middle aged men, shoot hoops like they were in their twenties- boy were they fast! This basketball game felt important to us because it only further demonstrated the genuine hearts of these people. They truly welcomed us into their community and wanted us to be a part of their lives. It was not simply a week of weaving as it was more of a week of engaging and connecting with everyone.

Finally, on Friday at five a.m., the group of thirteen girls and John (Vida Nueva and Bii Dau) woke up to hike Pikáchu, a massive mountain peak in the beautiful valley of Teotitlán. As we carefully ascended this new terrain, our wonderful guides, Jesus (Chucho) and Horvacio, made sure that we learned about the natural landscape -both it's history and it's meaning in the Zapotec language. As we gained elevation, there was a locked fence at the top closing off the summit. Chucho then explained to us that this was because the mountain was communal land and they wanted to know everyone who had access to the summit. They did not want the mountain to be exploited for tourism and did not want people making money off of their land and destroying it.

At the peak, we all ate fruit and watched the sun rise over the mountains as it cast rays of light all over the immense valley, a wonderful memory that all of us will always have and carry with us. We descended that peak feeling so lucky and fortunate to be surrounded by a group of people with genuine hearts, people who had open minds, hands and doors.

After the hike, we had the grand fiesta at Lorenzo’s house. We sang songs, ate a tremendous amount, laughed, and danced together. They made all of us beautiful ‘bolsas,’ or bags, as going away gifts, which was incredibly generous because of the time and materials it must have taken to create them. We all felt very lucky to be in this beautiful, kind, and unique village that had welcomed us so openly.

Leaving Bii Daüü was hard for a lot of us because we all had such amazing, life-changing experiences. Being back in the city was almost culture shock. We didn’t realize how tranquil Teotitlán was until we were back in the city, trying to play Frogger with the cars on the busy streets. Now, we’re getting settled back into our city lives, living with our host families, getting prepared for classes. But what we will never forget is the generosity, open hearts, and warmth that all the people of the Bii Daüü community showed us, and we’ll always remember the new perspectives we gained from this experience. This trip made us all more well-rounded people, and taught us so much about the Teotitlán community.

Thank you to the people of Teotitlán for an incredible experience! We hope to return soon.

Centeótl

When we arrived in Zimatlán, we found ourselves wandering the streets looking for the only restaurant in town. Zimatlán was not the “village” that most of us had in mind. Instead, it is a small city, bustling people and mototaxis at all hours of the day (and night). Instead of sleeping on a dirt floor, like some of us might have expected, we found ourselves watching MTV for the first time in two months, in the ritzy Hotel Princesa. We use the term ritzy loosely, as the bathroom door needed to remain closed at all time due to a suspicious and unbearable sewage smell the emanated from all drains in said bathroom. Also, Allie found several mysterious hairs in her bed, that did not seem to match any of the members of the group. Luckily, we’re a rugged bunch, we don’t mind living on the edge.

Our first full day in Zimatlán, started off slowly. We ate breakfast in the market, the first of many scrumptious dining experiences involving beans and eggs during our stay. Afterwards, we ventured over to Centeótl, the organization that we would be working with throughout the week. Centeótl is a NGO (Non-Government Organization or GNO en Español) that works with local communities finding different ways to address their needs. This needs, as we learned, can range anywhere from creating solutions for water and land issues, to financing small female-run businesses throughout the Central Valle region of Oaxaca. We would be working with Nicondro who is very experienced with water projects in the area. After meeting the members of Centeótl, and stretching our Spanish comprehension skills to their limits, we accompanied Nicondro to two of the the three villages we would be working with for the next three days. These communities were called La Guadalupe, El Carmen, and La Soledad.





On our first visit, with Don Victor and his family in El Carmen, we were welcomed with open arms and plenty of food. Don Victor dug up jicama from his own field and shared it with us, sprinkled with lime and chili. Some of us played a game of soccer with his grandchildren (and one great-grandchild). Upon returning to Zimatlán we all enjoyed a big dinner of tlayudas, a Oaxacan specialty.



We started the next day, right after breakfast, with a ride out to Guadalupe, where we were welcomed by a surprisingly large group with an even larger amount of food to share with us (about one hour after eating a huge breakfast). One of the major things we have learned here, is there is no turning down food. Eating together is perhaps the most important way of building relationships with members of the community. All of us agree that some of our happiest moments on this trip were sharing meals with different families that we met. After breaking off into small groups to discuss issues such as water, land, air quality, food production and migration, we presented to the community the results of our discussions. This was definitely a test of our Spanish skills as well as a test of our nerves. One thing that we wanted to make clear was that we were there to learn from the community members, and not to teach or tell them what they should do. It was fascinating to see how much of consciousness existed about their land, and especially about how the natural cycles of water had changed over time. Even groups who weren’t specifically discussing water, showed a clear concern for the changes in availability (there is much less than there used to be). After the discussion, we split off into pairs visiting different members of the community. This was another test of our limits. We were not given any specific plans, and many of us walked very far from each other to the distant houses in the hills, not knowing, when, where or how we were going to reunite with Nicondro. We just stopped caring for a while, to live in the moment and enjoy the interactions we were having. Eventually, we all found Nicondro and made it back to the Princesa. Later, we got together to reflect (no one wanted to eat dinner… almost everyone had been fed or over fed by their hosts). We all acknowledged that it was much different not to have a clear schedule, and we learned to throw our expectations to the wind and go with the flow. This would be our mantra for the rest of the week.

We started out the next day in a similar fashion, with discussions that mirrored those of the previous day. The community, El Carmen, faces many of the same issues as La Guadalupe. For some of us, it was a good reminder of how different group dynamics can be in every setting. Some people were definitely more interested in talking to us than others. Regardless, we found that the community members welcomed us into their homes, offering us both learning and eating opportunities. (Beans… eggs… tortillas… the standard). We were taken by one family to each one of their wells (pozos en Español) to give us a better understanding of what they were dealing with. We did encounter awkward moment at one site, where the grandmother confronted us as a group and asked us for a solution to a problem she was facing. She expected us as students from the U.S. to know how to stop her land from eroding into her well during the rainy season. None of us study anything related to water engineering, but we still felt compelled to provide her with some sort of answer. In the end, we really couldn’t and still feel unsettled about it. Nonetheless, her son did offer all of us a ride on the family mule. Later, she still didn’t seem to mind that we didn’t have an answer for her, immediately after she welcomed us into her home to share an amazing meal of chicken and mole verde. Which is really special, considering she only eats chicken once a month at grand celebrations. By the time we left, we all felt like we were saying goodbye to old friends. Many of us hope that we can return to the house of this family.


We’ll keep the description of our last visit to the village (La Soledad) brief, because that’s exactly what it was. At first, the community didn’t seem very interested in talking about the issues we were told to discuss. Some of the women were literally falling asleep in the first meeting… it was awkward. Once we got out of the classroom and into the real world (a concept we keep coming back to in Oaxaca) we were able to get them to really open up to us and enjoy the time we spent together. On this this day, we also got to make tortillas. Some of us were more successful than others (it looks a lot easier than it is). Some of our hosts were amused at how Russ, the only male in our group, was, in fact, the most naturally talented tortilla maker. All, in all, this day wasn’t what we expected, but that is what we have learned on this trip… go with the flow! Once again, it was hard to leave our new friends, and it when we were saying goodbye, many of us realized how much the experience meant to us.




Our last day was a time of reflection and wrap-up to try to understand what we had done for the previous week. Some of us quickly visited an amaranth factory, while others stayed behind to discuss a continuing relationship that the University of Vermont can have with Centeótl in the future. We hope this relationship can be one of friendship and reciprocity. We want to continue cautiously in finding ways to support the organization, without falling into the trap of “helping” without fully understanding our impact on the communities. This concept is something we’re going to continue to talk about in the future, and only time will tell what the relationship will look like. Many of us left feeling like we had been given more than we could possibly hope to offer to the communities. We hope that maybe someday we can return the generosity and hospitality that was continuously offered to us throughout the week. Perhaps if we can never give enough back to the communities, we can at least remember their example, apply it to our own lives and show solidarity.


Signing off from Oaxaca,
Amber, Allie, Russ, Mary Lucia, Elena, Sarah and Taylor