Christmas in Oaxaca

Hello, hello... as usual, my thoughts on a little bit of everything, sort of in the form of an email and sort of in the form of an internal monologue.

The tree was exactly what I wanted it to be. Not exactly a Charlie Brown tree, but nonetheless a little guy, barely taller than I was, and just a little lopsided in its branches. It was drizzling when I bought it, the kind of rain that they slangily call "chippy chippy" in Mexico, just enough to be ignored on a good day, just enough to be totally irritating on a bad day or when driving. The total cost was $130 in pesos, or just under thirteen American dollars. This fact in and of itself was a thing of immense pride for me, as the plastic ones in Chedraui and Gigante were at least twice as much, and obviously they didn't come with the authentic Christmas-tree smell. Cheeka and I had been looking for several days, but I knew the moment I saw the lot and was quoted a price that this would be where I bought the tree for my classroom. Never mind the house. Kate had already decorated it to the brim with kitchy decorations found in our downstairs storage closet (which is, incidentally, never ending- I even found a cappuccino maker in there the other day). No, I wanted something that people would see and enjoy every day, something that would liven up my classroom. So I bought a tree.
I coerced a taxi driver to load the bound tree into the back of his car, and he brought me, Cheeka and it home to our apartment. The tree was none the worse for the wear, though I couldn't say the same for the taxi's trunk, which suffered from inexplicable brown dirt stains on removal of the tree. I paid the driver and escaped into the house, dragging the tree behind me and onto our patio before he could scowl himself into charging an even higher faire. I would deal with getting the tree to the school later. I went to bed early, reasoning that I could think better in the early morning anyway. And sure enough the next day at five thirty am, right on schedule, I was hit with a stroke of particular genius and decided that the best way to get the tree to school was to tie it to my wheeling luggage, which I energetically rolled out from under my bed for the occasion, using the removable strap to tie the thing down so it didn't flop off the wheels. And so it was thus that I went to school a few weeks ago on a Tuesday morning, all prim and proper in my button down shirt and uniform, wheeling a Christmas tree behind me as though it were simply another bag of books. All in all, I didn't draw too many more stares than usual. My neighbors are now somewhat used to me toting bags of things for science experiments and showing up at the local miscellanea stores at six in the morning asking if they have, per chance, toothpicks or raisins or six small blocks of ice of identical size. A Christmas tree, I suppose, simply seemed the next logical step on my slow public parade into seeming insanity.
And so we decorated the tree. My students were absolutely thrilled, and brought in everything from lights to ornaments to window decorations to a can of spray-on window snow that didn't work. I had to let go a little bit of my compulsion to do things perfectly when it came to putting on the lights, something which in my family is usually done with meticulous care and attention, and let my students simply have at it. At the end, it looked beautiful, and it was with more than just a little pride that each day I walked into my classroom early to turn on the lights, and with more than just a little regret that I switched them off again at the end of the day. I have the habit of arriving a full hour early to work, when the middle school students are just beginning the day, just to sit in the sanctuary of my classroom, grade papers, and go over the things I want to do in the course of the day.
Exams were hectic. I lost my voice on day two, and sucked down an entire jar of Honey Loquat, my new preferred throat medicine, in the course of the week so that I could simply stay alive. The work of the teacher I had replaced was characterized with horrible bouts of laziness and forgetfulness at things such as recording grades in any way shape or form, so I more or less had to make up half of the bimester´s marks in the course of a week. I was sick with a stomach flu when my students performed "All I want for Christmas is you" by Mariah Carey at the annual "Jolly Christmas" event, but I heard they did well. We had choreographed an elaborate dance routine and spent hours practicing, and I am still waiting to see the recorded performance. But eventually, in the haze of the end of the bimester, the grades were miraculously handed in, a gift exchange successfully executed, and it seemed, at least, that my students had managed to show that they had learned a thing or two in the process. I even had a chance to read The Gift of the Magi, one of my favorite Christmas stories about the importance of giving presents which are meaningful rather than material, to my students. I had time to swim before the pool was closed for winter renovations until January, and I spent some little time at a new swimming spot outside the city at the site of a (very cold) natural spring.
After everything was said and done, and Cheeka and Kate had taken off for vacations, I surveyed the house, then a disaster zone, and decided to clean. The apartment I live in, aside from being paid for by the school, is quite nice, even though I had to fix the toilet flusher with a paper clip and we recently had a disaster with our ailing, ancient refrigerator when I tried to de-ice it with the hilt of a kitchen knife and accidentally removed the critical chunk which happened to be holding the coolant into the side of the refrigerator and Freon gas sprayed all over the kitchen. It had taken several weeks and a lot of spoilt food, but the school had eventually shelled out the money for a new fridge, which sat halfway wrapped in its cardboard box in the middle of the living room. Neither Kate nor Cheeka had dared touch it, but I was determined to deal with the situation before leaving for Christmas. Exhausted, and knowing all along that moving refrigerators by oneself is not generally a good idea, I broke a window moving our old refrigerator out into our own private enclosed alleyway, something which I have guiltily still not reported to the school. Somehow, dealing with a broken window (which, really, was quite a nonessential window, even for security purposes, and the current situation only adds to the house's ventilation) was something I could put off in my head until later, whereas the mess was not. However, the eventual result was that the house got clean and the kitchen looks much brighter, and I left on Saturday to come to Oaxaca knowing that when my roommates return they will be in for a pleasant surprise and a totally reorganized kitchen complete with new glassware and additional storage space.
I didn't pack much for vacation, my plan being to spend Christmas in Oaxaca and then as much time as possible at the beach swimming and playing in the water, but I did remember to bring the grocery bag brimming full of chocolates and other presents that my students excitedly unloaded on my desk on the last day of school. CEICO is certainly host to some of the wealthier people in Orizaba, and even as a new teacher I was showered with presents, including but not limited to a fancy black skirt, two purses, a wallet, a Christmas candle and mug, and an entire bag of chocolate, which I was sick off of for perhaps two days before I realized that even in my sugar-crazed delirium I was never going to get to the bottom of by myself.
And so on Friday I climbed aboard an ADO bus to Oaxaca with some clothes, a copy of Atlas Shrugged bookmarked by a drawing of the tattoo I (may) eventually get this break, and a bag of chocolate. It was an uneventful ride, which I spent mainly sleeping after such a frenzy of work, play, and chocolate-binging, and I arrived in Oaxaca without event. I knew that I was getting close when I saw a sign reading "Etla," a nearby town of whose existence I had known only from newspapers reporting troops stationed there during the political conflict, and a small piece of isolated graffiti on the back of a street sign which read, defiant in its smallness, "APPO."
Arriving at the ADO bus station, I felt inexplicably at home at the same instant that I inexplicably realized that I didn't have anywhere of my own to go and deposit my bag of chocolate, which was undoubtedly melting in the 80-degree, perfect-for-a-trip-to-the-beach weather. And so I sat down, a guest in my own city, made a few phonecalls before and set off to my former apartment to simply sit and await Brittany, who is now living in my room.
My landlords and their family welcomed me with open arms, ushering me, despite my keylessness, into their backyard, a show of typical Mexican hospitality in spite of what must surely have seemed to them an abrupt departure exactly five weeks before, and renewed an old offer for me to join them for Christmas dinner the next night, which I gratefully accepted.
From there I eventually met Brittany's parents, down in Mexico to visit for the holidays, and accompanied them to their hotel, not two doors down from my original Oaxaca homestay. From there, I met Emily, and we chatted for an hour while walking round in a large circle the size of the zocalo looking at radishes.
Wait… radishes?
December 23rd, aside from being my mom's birthday, is also Noche de los Rabanos, or Night of the Radishes, in Oaxaca, a celebrated event for which artisans bring in incredibly detailed sculptures of traditional Oaxacan people and events, as well as nativity scenes, made entirely out of radishes. Grated radishes, peeled radishes, carved radishes… figurines averaging a foot high, though some scenes were far more complex, guarded off. Beautiful artwork… made of radishes. Brittany and her family even apparently saw Ulysses, Oaxaca's bastard governor, ushered quickly through with a necessarily large entourage of police and reporters, an all-too-obvious attempt to show that the city is now "safe." And then, at maybe ten at night, the work is all taken down and families are let to roam around the zocalo, a big orchestra playing Christmas music in the background, a dream come true, happy families and tourists united in smiles and laughter in front of a backdrop of fresh colonial architecture.
If you know me at all, you know that last sentence was more than a little facetious. Let´s go back and talk about the city of Oaxaca for just a minute. It makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable. I would even go so far as to say that, in the context of the way I knew it earlier, I don't like it. It is quite artfully repainted, something rumored to have been funded not by the state but by the feds, all traces of earlier graffiti and suffering and pain buried under layer upon layer of new, brilliant colors and seemingly industrious storefronts. Ice cream vendors at every corner, new cobblestones where cars were once burned, new faces to old stores recently reopened, new everything. A giant Christmas tree lights the zocalo from above, and a nativity scene made from tin is on display amidst thousands of recently planted red poinsettia flowers. People frolic and bask in the sun with their children. Restaurants are occupied. `The economy is fine´, the city seems to be screaming with all its might. `We have recovered.´ A façade, I say.
Contrary to the idea that it is supposed to look better this way, that this is what Oaxaca really is and that it is happy, I don't much like it. It is as though one is in the presence of someone who is wearing far, far too much makeup, trying to be naturally cheerful but somehow just managing to look posed and premeditated. Tim asked me as I explained my discomfort today, "Is it that you like a city in conflict better than a city in peace?" No, I resolutely answer. After all, Orizaba is peaceful to the point of being boring, on many levels. There isn't much to do in the name of touristy attractions. And yet I love it. And, too, from this end I can see that this holiday season is one very large hope for the revitalization of Oaxaca, a very important time that I gladly contribute to on my vacation by posing as the average tourist in expensive restaurants sipping my overpriced coffee. It is simply that I enjoyed living in a city where there were no tourists, where I was not simply one in a crowd of ignorant sheep speaking every language but Spanish putzing around the zocalo for a photo op and awkwardly bargaining for shawls and pottery and t-shirts they do not know the value of. It all seems so fake, so horrendously fake. And yet, while I know that I will probably not ever be able to return to the Oaxaca I know to live the way I used to, I suppose I begrudgingly appreciate the changes which have occurred at lightning speed over the past five weeks because they mean happiness, of a sort, to a previously tortured city.
I only hope that this happiness is a permanent one. The teacher strikes are an annual event; or at least, they have been for the past six years. Who knows what will happen in May of 2007, whether the teachers will be allowed to return in their traditional way of protesting the ills of public education and the countrywide problem with under representation of traditional cultures and impoverished communities, or whether the reign of Ulyses, in all of his ridiculousness, will be allowed to continue unchecked until 2008, the next year for state elections. Calderon, thus far, seems to have proved himself an able president, in fact taking up some of the quite reasonable improvements suggested by his more liberal competitor Obrador, calling for recognition and support of communities such as those who spilled their souls in the form of sweat and tears into the streets of Oaxaca for six months while waiting for their voices to be acknowledged. Perhaps things will change. I cannot claim to know.
I spent Christmas eve day journaling by myself and later with Emily in the zocalo, talking and thinking about everything and nothing at once before retiring to our families for Christmas eve. I ate dinner with my already large family and perhaps fifteen guests, a truly multicultural mix as Javier and Enrique both seem to prefer girlfriends of the European persuasion and had them and their families over for the occasion as well. I sat next to a mildly boring electrical engineer (or something, I can't remember) named Adam (or something, I can't remember) from New Zealand (that much, at least, I remember), periodically exchanging jokes with Javier's girlfriend who was quite pleasant. After dinner, as if Christmas could be placed any more out of context than it already was in 80 degree weather with such a comical group, we hoised up two piñatas, and busted them open. I, the only American in the group, had the honor of being the one to break open the piñata that the women hit, after jokingly saluting in a general northward direction towards home and saying in Spanish, "United States, I apologize in advance if I represent you poorly." An old man from the Danish crowd broke open the second, which they had reserved, for some reason, for the men.
Today, Christmas, has passed without much event. I went down to the zocalo and enjoyed another leisurely breakfast, reading, taking it easy, and sitting in the sun listening to Christmas music. I called home. I didn't do anything. It was nice. Not exactly what I pictured a year ago when I first decided to move to Mexico and made the vow not to return for a year, coaxing myself into the idea of Christmas in Oaxaca. But nonetheless, things have been very nice. I have realized in the past two days that I haven't been on vacation in a full year, what with school, a nonexistent (by choice) graduation, working frantically to pay come down here, TESOL certification, and then work work work with my kiddies, even when it was only part time a draining job… summer simply did not exist for me this year. And yet here I am, seeing Mexico as perhaps it should be seen, with two weeks and a bundle full of cash marked "paid vacation" burning a hole into my pocket, while the sun shines and the wind whispers invitingly into my ear, "time to get a tan."
Thinking of you all on this Christmas day in sunny Mexico. I hope that everyone received at least one Magi Christmas gift, and had the opportunity to give one in return. Mine has been that I have all of you at home to think of, even three thousand miles away.