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| Alan enjoying another beautiful day on the Avenida Alcala |
It is very hard to believe that the time has come to say goodbye to our winter home here in Oaxaca and get ready to return to our friends and family in New York. In many ways it seems like such a short time, but in reality it has been almost three full months.
We decided to put together a final newsletter with some highlights that did not make it into the earlier editions.
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| Susan , Norman and I deciding what part of the market at Tlacolula we will explore next. Alan took this shot, he likes it because it looks like a cultural face-off. |
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| Women in Tlacolula cooking the meat they have just purchased from the stalls behind them. For many rural people this weekly market is the only time they get to eat meat. |
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| Susan and I sampling fruit while Andres and Norman look on |
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| Stan and Alan making pozole at school in Luz's kitchen |
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| Suzanne and I finish the pozole which all the students will enjoy |
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| Stylish women in the US have designer handbags, Oaxaquenos like to carry roosters |
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| Beatrice is not really Frida Kahlo, she is, however, an excellent cook. |
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| Her food stand at the Ocotlan market. That is Bruce, Norman's brother, sitting across from him. |
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| What a treat! We visit the library we co-sponsor with Steve and Julie and Stan and Suzanne |
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| The kids love to read to us when we visit. |
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| Some students at the school where our library is housed. Here they are asking me if I know Justin Beiber, or have if I have seen him in New York where I live. |
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| Alan having fun with the kids. After they asked him to show them US money, which of course he was not carrying, they wanted to know how many pesos in a dollar. At that time it was 11, so Alan was asking them how many pesos in 3 dollars, 5 dollars, etc. They liked that. |
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| More math with the tall gringo |
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| Another topic of much interest: What do kids in New York play with? Many of the kids here had tops with strings. They were able to do lots of tricks. |
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| This entire class wanted us to sign our names in their notebooks. As Steve said,"This is the closest we will ever come to being rock stars!" |
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| This photo of Suzanne and Stan with a young reader was taken on our Libros Para Pueblos tour. We visited two different towns with small libraries that are looking for sponsors. |
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| Lucky Stan! He was given a drawing by this lovely girl in the library at Huizol. The kids did a project in which they read a book then made a drawing about it. |
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| Part of the beautiful old kitchen in Huizol's church. It has been in use since the 1500s. |
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| Oh happy day! Cristian Flores Perez, a student we have sponsored for three years, with his parents. They came down from their town in the mountains to see the first person in their family graduate from college. They both went to school until third grade, so you can imagine what Cristian's achievement means to them. |
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| The biggest smile we have ever seen on his face- he told us he could not believe that he was really a college graduate. |
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| We joined the family after graduation to celebrate. This is the outside area of the place Cristian and his sisters have been renting so they can attend school in Oaxaca. The chicken was absolutely delicious! |
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| All the furniture was moved out of the room that is usually his bedroom and chairs and tables were set up. More guests came after the evening mass, we only stayed for afternoon comida. |
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| His mom gave me this beautiful traditional blouse and lent me her skirt for the photo. ( By the way, I am 5'2''!) |
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| The porch where the family usually eats. Recognize Cliff from the sponsoring organization Oaxaca Street Children? Cristian told his dad that Cliff was his second father; he has seen him through high school and college. Alan and I felt so honored and proud that we had anything to do with this wonderful success story. |
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| Susan, Alan and I were very excited at this calenda. The men's costumes were unlike any I have seen before. Their heads were covered with scarves and cowboy hats, they wore carved wooden masks with large black moustaches, fringed jackets and fur pants, and big silver spurs that they clicked as they danced. |
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| Later that same afternoon, we saw this reenactment of a marriage ceremony. Sorry, I do not know the name of this particular group of people. There are more than 25 different tribes and languages in the state of Oaxaca. |
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| The groom is at the front holding the poles but the women do the heavy lifting. By the way, they keep backing up, turning around, go forward again, all the time dancing to music - no easy feat! Does the bride looks like this because she thinks she may fall off, or is she not sure she wants to get married? As we leave this magical place, we know we don't look so happy either. Thanks for sharing our journey - | Que le vaya bien! |
