Guelagutza me out of my Mind

The Guelaguetza is a annual festival held in the city of Oaxaca and the surrounding villages. It takes place during two weeks, dated on the day of the prehispanic god of the maiz. The festival celebrates the diversety of the indigenous cultures of Oaxaca. Each region has different traditional dresses and dances which are precented on stage. The Guelaguetzas are goods, which are distributed by the performers to the crowd, at the end of a dance, such as sweets, fresh onions or tamarind sauce. The dances and differ from village to village, it is hard to find background informations on them, so pictures explain the Guelaguetza better than words, see for yourself.

The title refers to a little anectote:

Gary, our friend from the Mezcal fair, is a photographer of the traditions of Mexico (his instagram is garykarolli, check it out, the pics are amazing!). Gary kindly escorted our little group of new found friends to the various parties. As it was a lot of times us and the family of his friend, we rode in the back of the pick up truck to the villages. Not very safe but so common in Mexico, everybody does it and the police gives the example by riding in the back, standig up, with the machine gun around the head.

The drink of the region, Mezcal, was omnipresent and served out of gas tanks to the visitors for free. Saying no, was not accepted for an answer, so the smoky liquid run down our throats many times. Yet the Mezcal was not what made our heads turn the most in those days.

One night we decided to go on a mexican teacup ride, and as we got on, I was joking with my ride comany, Luke, that the price was so high, maybe the ride would last thirty minutes. We both laughed and squicked with joy, when the ratteling, old lady of a ride, started. Our handle didn’t close and a floor plate was missing half of the screws. At some point, the employee started to grab our teacup and spin it even more manually. Now that was kind of intence, but still fun! The ride went on and on and on and the lesson that experiencing more of a pleasure does not allways accumulate to extacy, slowly sunk in. Now the guy had stopped turning us manually and as I look around, to check if he went to stop the ride, I realized he left. The ride had been running for about ten minutes at this point. I started to feel sick, anxious and sweat from every pore. It felt like we were stuck in the moment, in a different time dimension. With every round it got worse. When the guy finally got back, only our signals made him  put a end to the madness. We all need a moment, before getting up. As we walked, we must have looked like a group of drunkards, not being able to walk in a straight line. The dizziness lasted for another hour, we defenetly got our moneys value from that ride! Later, as the best Tlayuda ever helped our stomacks settle down, we highly insisted on not drinking Mezcal!

 

Protesting Teachers, Mezcal and Grasshoppers

So there are places which hold objective beauty but they are still easy to pass through. And then there are the places where you plan to stay a few nights, but man they get you and you can’t seem to be able to leave. Welcome to Oaxaca.

It was mere coincidence I ended up here at this time. I had visited the Frida Kahlo museum the day before and met there three lovely women from the state Veracrutz, while I waited in the seemingly endless line. They told me about this festival going on in Oaxaca at the moment, called Guelaguetza. It sounded amazing, and would go on for another two weeks. This suited me, as my plan was to travel to Puebla and go slowly south. Yet the next day I stood at the busstation and somehow spontaniously chnaged my mind,next thing I knew, was me sitting in the bus to Oaxaca. It was luck and good timing as the buses had just started to serve this road again. For one whole month teachers protest had been blocking all roads to and from Oaxaca. Teacher of the southern states Oaxaca and Chiapas have been off school since May, protesting against gouvernemts efforts to reform the desolate public education system. Changes include evaluating teachers and creating a competetive enviroment for open positions. Most of the uninvolved people and students used to claime a nutral position on the matter, but recent efforts of the police to clear the roads violently: causing the death of nine people, let support for the teachers grow.

Maria sits beside me in the bus, she explains me that she understands the teachers but their protest are an economic desaster for her and her family. She is a weaver of traditional tapistry, like her grandmother and great-grandmother. The lack of tourists put them in struggle to make a living. Maria is tiny and incredible warm. Her first language is Zapolteca, she is a decent of one of the many pre-columbian populations of Mexico. Due to few remaining road blocks, our trip takes eleven, instead of six hours. I find myself in Oaxaca at eleven o’ clock at night, with no secure taxi in sight and am quite clueless on how to get out of that situation. Then Maria appears again, like the saint the was named after, weaving out of the car of a friend who has come to pick her up. She insists I come with them, wanting to make sure I get to my hostel safe. I am very grateful!

The Guelageutza features a couple of side events, one of them being the Mezcal festival. Mezcal is a Liquor brewed from the Agave cactus, like its more famous brother Tequilla. Wheras Teauilla is brewed in other regions, from the blue Agave only, Mezcal comes in many different types, brewed from other types of Agave. Somehow Alice and Luke from the UK and me got into the sold out festival, half accidentally walking in through an exit. This must be celebrated with free samples! Mezcal is strong stuff, it only takes a few samples to be in a very joyful mood, to say the least. We chat to a group of Mexicans which challenge us to drink Mezcal from chillie peppers, decorated at the edge with even more chillie powder. Viva Mexico, I feel like my throat and internal organs are on fire. The bottom of the chillie holds a worm, which comes from the Agave and gives certain types of Mezcal its flavour. I pass on the worm but try some of the grasshoppers. They are here, in this region eaten as a snack, friend and served with chillie, onions and garlic. They taste is not so bad, but the thought of legs being stuck between my teeth horrifies me a bit. The night blurres into the next morning. We wake up with a terrible head ache but we had made an awesome new friend. Gary will show us in the next days proudly his home and makes sure we get a authentic Guelaguetza experience. Stay posted for the next entry!

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/world/americas/mexico-teachers-protests-enrique-pena-nieto.html?_r=0