Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Procuraduría Federal del Consumidor (PROFECO), Mexico’s Federal Office of Fair Trading, is the closest you can get to an American or Canadian style government administered consumer protection bureau and mediation facility. Its Oaxaca regional office is run in a relatively swift and efficient manner, meaning that it is extremely user friendly from the perspective of an expat seeking recourse against trades and businesses located both in the state and further abroad. Naturally, though, it’s subject to limitations, and to idiosyncrasies to which we are not accustomed.
I purchased a hot water heater made by Hidro Electrica, SA de CV (HESA), which to my amazement came with an eight-year limited warranty. Usually in Oaxaca one buys domestically produced or assembled goods with a 30 day guarantee. In the odd case it’s for three months (extended warranties are rarely available, since manufacturers and insurers are aware of the lack of adequate quality control in Mexican production). Typically your widget stops widgeting within a week after expiry date … be it a washing machine, microwave, TV, or long-life bulb.
After about a year one side of the dual-tank HESA boiler sprang a leak, and then a couple of months later the other side followed suit. After six months and several phone calls to my retailer, Tubos y Conexiones, the HESA authorized repairman arrived with two pairs of replacement tanks, neither of which matched the tanks which came with the unit I had purchased. “Don’t worry,” Roberto assured. “I’ll bring you the right tanks when they’re in stock, so just choose one of these two sets for the time being so your heater will at least function.”
Whenever you sign anything, if you’re not entirely satisfied with the service provided or product received, qualify your acknowledgment. Doing so assists when availing yourself of the resources of PROFECO. “Temporary solution pending the arrival of the elite stainless steel tanks,” I noted on the work order. Anything in writing appears to be taken as gospel in Oaxaca, therefore regarded as almost irrefutable evidence. Just ask anyone who’s been held in jail for two years pending trial, based on little more than newspaper clippings alleging criminal activity.
Over the course of the next year I periodically attended at Tubos y Conexiones, each time pleading with my contact person, Boneque the branch manager, to help me get the proper tanks before the replacements went awry. Boneque was in fact cooperative, so much so that he admitted to me that the HESA service department had become a real pain, with complaints and lack of their resolution mounting. Hilda, HESA’s Oaxaca representative, had left the company, and serviceman Roberto was no longer accepting work from the manufacturer.
Three or four emails to the HESA service department went unanswered, as did the message left at HESA for its chief technician. Hearing “Mr. Levin will return your call in 15 minutes,” by this time did not instill the confidence in the company I had been seeking.
With my bill of sale and warranty booklet, copies of emails, the qualified work order acknowledgement, and notes of every communication or attempt at reaching a resolution all in hand, I attended at the offices of a friend, litigator Lic. Edna Franco: “Don’t worry about my fee Alvin. My concern is that on a claim worth less than 15,000 pesos, the out-of-pockets will kill you. Go to PROFECO … that’s what I tell all my clients to do before they retain me.”
Oaxaca doesn’t have a small claims court system, which means that regardless of the peso value of your claim your costs will be the same, subject to working out a deal with your lawyer for a reduced fee. Edna advised me that proceeding through the court system on your own, even for a former Canadian litigation lawyer, is an almost insurmountable task. Hence, PROFECO is the way to go, subject to your fact situation meeting its mandate and guidelines, and your willingness to use a government-run mediation facility.
The Oaxaca PROFECO offices are well staffed, yet used by a relatively modest percentage of the populace, meaning that compared to government offices of transportation, immigration and taxation for example, they are a welcomed and expedient breath of fresh air. Intake reviews your documentation and advises what if anything is lacking, and how many copies are required. Your primary advisor then reviews your paperwork, asks for clarification, and prepares a claim package. Feel free to supplement the information she selects to append to your claim, by suggesting the inclusion of any additional documentation you might have. Remember that as competent and seemingly helpful as she might appear, she is nevertheless a Oaxacan civil servant: “Is it okay if we also attach copies of these notes I made over the past year?,” I queried. More hard evidence.
My initial September 11, 2008, attendance terminated with a hearing date I negotiated to meet my schedule, October 10, 2008. “You know,” advised Aurea Guzman Palacios, “you should also name your retailer, Tubos y Conexiones, as a respondent, even though it seems like it didn’t do anything wrong.” I wouldn’t have advised a client with a legal dispute any differently!
“We’ll look after serving them, but remember to make sure you’re here at 10 am sharp on the October 10th.” Even in Toronto we’re accustomed to giving 15 minutes grace, so how could it possibly be that Oaxaca, government to boot, could possibly adhere to a more stringent and exacting timetable?
Service of the proceeding and notice of the date is effected by the regional PROFECO office where the company carries on business. In the case of HESA, this meant in the State of Mexico.
A Tubos y Conexiones representative attended, arriving shortly before the appointed hour. HESA was a no show. The PROFECO mediator, Javier, called the Estado de México PROFECO process server, and was advised that HESA was not served because company employees were on strike and the factory was shut down. The mediator was skeptical, indicating to me that sometimes federal government employees forget to do their jobs, or simply can’t be bothered and make up stories. But in this case we should give them the benefit of the doubt and simply ask them to once again try to serve the documentation with a fresh return date, a month down the road. November 10th was set for the new appointment, with more documentation drafted, the preamble including the circumstances of the adjournment.
Before conceding that PROFECO was unable to serve HESA, in the presence of Javier the conciliator and Engineer Octavio the Tubos representative, I called the HESA offices. Lorena Torres, receptionist, advised me that the employees were not on strike, nor had they been in the recent past, and that the company was functioning as normal. So much for the veracity of the State of Mexico PROFECO process server.
PROFECO levies a fine against a company for each missed appointment, the amount increasing with each failed attendance. Should HESA fail to attend the next date, after having received notice, the fine would be 172.79 pesos, making it hardly a compelling reason for the company to send someone from head office.
By the time November 10th had arrived, my hot water heater, wrong new tanks still in place, had once again sprung a leak, albeit a small one. The main implication is that the dripping water puts out the pilot from time to time, so unless you’re constantly checking, you never know when your shower will be hot or cold.
Neither HESA nor Tubos attended on the new date for the proceeding. The PROFECO mediator checked on his computer, and with the State of Mexico regional office, once again being led to believe that HESA was on strike. And once again I called HESA and confirmed that business was operating as normal, without strike. “Don Alvin,” Javier assured, “we’ll try to serve HESA once more, and hopefully this time the process server’s supervisor will have a word with him and tell him that there is no strike.” More importantly, the conciliator decided to levy a 3,000 peso fine against Tubos for not sending its representative to this second meeting.
I didn’t ask why the fine for Tubos was so steep, simply stunned that my ally was being dinged with a sizeable stipend while the scoundrel was getting off unscathed because it ostensibly had no notice of the proceeding. “I think we should be trying to convince Tubos that it should share responsibility, and maybe this fine will be what it needs to convince it to come to the table and acknowledge that you were relying on the judgment of its salesperson when you decided to buy a HESA product.” Javier was treating me with the utmost respect (i.e. “Don Alvin”), giving me advice, and being pro-active in his approach to the matter. “Let’s give them a bit more than a month to be served, just to be safe. How about December 15th?”
On December 15th, Engineer Octavio once again attended, but no one from HESA. This time PROFECO had a statement from its process server stating that indeed HESA was on strike, all very strange since there has not been any such indication on the internet. “It could be that some company employees are striking, and HESA is able to use this as a way to avoid service of legal documents for the entire company,” Javier surmised. Only PROFECO is permitted to effect service of PROFECO documents, so my offer to have a friend in Mexico City attend at HESA with the papers was rejected.
I decided enough was enough, and if I could exact upwards of the 3,000 peso fine from Tubos, and buy a new, alternate brand product, that would be the best, at least in terms of finishing my business with PROFECO. I could continue to pursue HESA, but only in court since the PROFECO proceeding would be closed out. We adjourned until the 17th, the plan being that in the interim I would attend at Tubos, select a comparable product of another manufacturer, and be given a 2,500 peso credit.
As long as PROFECO does not register a fine with a companion governmental branch, presumably finance or collections, the amount or any portion thereof can be applied to a comprehensive resolution as part of a negotiated settlement. PROFECO doesn’t otherwise receive the fine amount, nor does the consumer. The paperwork which reflects the levying of a fine can be redrafted with no mention of a fine. Literally, one branch of government does not know what the other branch has done.
I selected an alternate brand, Delta, with equivalent specifications and a six-year warranty, for a net cost to me of 9,800.25 pesos. Three years earlier I had paid 11,736 pesos for the HESA hot water heater. Given Mexico’s rate of inflation, I didn’t do too badly. Although I have released Tubos y Conexiones from any further obligation to me, I have preserved the right to proceed in court against HESA, for all losses including the cost of my new Delta boiler. Economically feasible or not, that’s the way I intend to go.
PROFECO has its limitations, especially since its power to force and enforce resolutions in this type of consumer dispute are restricted. However, it does provide an important and valuable alternate means of dispute resolution, attractive for a number of reasons:
1) The system works fast, much more so than that to which we are accustomed in Canada and the US;
2) There is no cost to the consumer;
3) The staff are helpful, obviously well trained, and willing to render legal or quasi-legal advice … although not necessarily correct advice, it’s nevertheless helpful for foreigners, often with limited networks otherwise able to provide counsel;
4) Its mediators appear to have good mediation skills and be sincerely motivated to bring parties together with a view to achieving resolutions in a cost-effective and sensible fashion.
Alvin Starkman has a Masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, takes tours to the sights, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience, providing Oaxaca accommodations which combine the comfort and service of Oaxaca hotels with the personal touch of quaint country inn style lodging.
12/21/2008
Day of the Dead 2008 at Casa de las Bugambilias B&B
We built a beautiful altar between guests and staff. After 2 1/2 hours of hard work!It's always a joy to share our customs.
Casa de las Bugambilias B&B www.lasbugambilias.com
12/16/2008
Art Openning at Casa de las Bugambilias B&B and La Olla Restaurant
Twas the Gallery Night before Christmas!
Casa de las Bugambilias B&B
AND
La Olla Restaurant
AND
La Olla Restaurant
Where local art is exposed
Featuring:
Lisa Ciccote & Studio Oaxaca
"Arte en Tapetes"
Aurora Cabrera Watercolors
Featuring:
Lisa Ciccote & Studio Oaxaca
"Arte en Tapetes"
Aurora Cabrera Watercolors
"Botánica"
Thursday, December 19th
6:30pm – 9:00pm
Enjoy food and refreshments provided by La Olla Restaurant, while we expose
some of the local art and artists hiding in our community!
Reforma 402, CENTRO
951.5161165 - lasbugambilias.com
Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca, México
Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca, México
11/24/2008
A primer on the politics of socializing in Oaxaca
A primer on the politics of socializing in Oaxaca
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
It’s been said that the reason most Oaxacans hold down two jobs is that they need one to meet the financial demands of their day-to-day lives, and the other to attend to their social obligations. While at first blush such a statement seems if not incomprehensible then certainly exaggerated, after careful analysis within the context of how the lives of most expats in the city are expected to unfold as compared to their collective existence in the US or Canada, one finds a clear understanding and the truth of the proposition. And it goes a long way to answering the oft posed question “what do you mean you don’t have time to run your daily errands for god’s sake, you’re retired.”
Let’s say that the average age of foreign born retirees in the city is early 60’s (we tend to not wait until we’ve had heart attacks or been diagnosed with cancer to smarten up), and in our previous lives we worked either as professionals or as self-employed business persons, usually about 6 days or 70 hours a week for most of our adult lives. We looked for ways to get out of social obligations, too tired at week’s end to endure yet another family gathering, and there were never that many in any event, what with smaller families and a priority placed upon saving for retirement rather than spending by, as Horace once proposed, picking the flower of the day. Inviting another couple over or going out for dinner was the order of the day, and we did it perhaps twice a month. For the rest of our leisure time it was usually too much trouble to drive downtown to the theater or for gallery openings. We lead an insular nuclear family existence by and large, acceptable according to North American standards, in particular for those in northern climates who loathed stepping outside from November through March. After so many years of living for our children, by the time it was no longer necessary to do so we’d already been programmed to that lifestyle.
The Oaxacan way of life is the polar opposite of the Canadian and American experience. Not only do families still tend to be larger, but through compadrazgo (a type of fictive kinship whereby one extends the size of his family through the appointment of usually non-blood godparents at a broad range of rites of passage such as first communion, baptism, when a girl turns 15 [quince años], wedding, graduation, and so on) the number of compadres or extended family members one has conceivably continues to grow for decades, exponentially. Youth maintain an uncanny level of respect for the elderly. Inter-generational social gatherings are the rule rather than the exception, with entire families being invited to, for example anniversary and birthday parties of frequently even non-relatives. Thus through compadrazgo the number of social obligations increases, and with the expectation that entire families will attend, functions tend to be large in terms of the number of individuals present.
With respect to birthdays, often people are not actually “invited,” but rather there is an assumption that dates have been diarized, with the expectation that those in one’s loosely based social network will simply show up. While of late lifestyle has changed somewhat for the middle classes in terms of getting together with another couple or two for dinner without a formal reason for so doing, for most this is not yet the norm, and socializing occurs through celebrations only…all in all on a much more frequent basis than is the case with the “new generation.” With an extremely relaxed set of rules respecting attire for almost all functions given the diversity in terms of socio-economic classes of invitees, one is able to flit from a country birthday party to an urban wedding and vice versa with little if any concern with appropriate dress.
For the more formal affairs such as nuptials of urbanites, where invitations are in fact expected, they are hand-delivered no more than about 10 days in advance of the date. The mail is slow and unreliable, and too much advance warning means people might forget. Along with the invitation is a small “admittance ticket” indicating the number of attendees which are to be let in at the door. Not much notice is taken if 6 arrive to fill the complement of guests permitted and one or more were not those specifically identified on the invitation. It’s the number which is the main feature of the invitation, and often specific individuals are not named, but rather “y familia,” which effectively has no bounds in terms of which members should constitute the family. For functions in towns or villages, be they weddings, anniversaries, quince años, or local religious or secular celebrations, where no invitations are provided, one can attend with any number of friends or relatives, and additional tables are simply set up as guests arrive, this likely eventuality having been contemplated by the hosts in advance in terms of additional tables and chairs and sufficient quantity of food on hand.
Before focusing on foreign residents and social gatherings, let’s first deal with the change in lifestyle from a general perspective. You’re no longer too tired every evening or either contemplating or working on pending crises or commitments. Used to be you were exhausted after work on Friday, ran household chores on Saturday afternoon, were able to get out for 3 – 4 hours Saturday night, then did office work on Sunday afternoon and were reluctant to go out that evening, having to get an early start Monday morning. Everything seemed like a chore, especially when it meant fighting traffic for upwards of an hour or so to get downtown and then again to return home. Even the highway traffic to get to the mall was often too much of a bother. Here in Oaxaca, weekdays, weeknights and weekends there is a plethora of cultural events no more than a 10 – 15 minute drive from where you live in the city, generally boasting free or nominal admission. You’re paying, across the board, about 50% of what you’d been accustomed to spending to live north of the border. It’s never too cold and rarely too rainy or too hot. While it’s still true that you’re only as happy as your most unhappy child, at least to some extent with your progeny out of sight they’re more likely to be, at least more often, out of mind.
What to do with that time, energy and additional disposable income gets resolved in short order, as long as you spread your wings, learn a bit of Spanish, do not surround yourself with expats most of your waking hours and instead interact with native born shopkeepers, neighbors, service professionals, tradespeople and artisans in the villages. That is not to say you should live your rejuvenated life with your nose in the air shunning interaction with your fellow foreigners, but rather walk a healthy line. Be amenable to, at least when occasions present themselves, adapting to Oaxacan hours, meaning having comida (lunch) between 2:30 and 4:30 and cena (dinner) after 9. With your new-found potential for changing old patterns there is no rational reason for not attempting to do so.
What’s there to be political about in terms of socializing, one might reasonably ask. Accepting the foregoing assumptions apply to you, and given your ability and willingness to change old patterns given that the impediments for so doing have effectively disappeared, you must still take steps to “fit in.” Growing up in the western world you gradually learned from your parents, peers, educators and by mere osmosis about socializing mores. Without those decades and a support system behind you, as a recent transplantee a bit of assistance might just be the order of the day. Hence, three areas of concrete advice for when attending social functions, with additional assistance thrown in for good measure for when it’s your turn to be host:
TIME:
Some Oaxacans are punctual but most are not. Being invited for comida without a time specification means arriving anytime between 2:30 and 4, or thereabouts. Ask what time, naturally, but doing so doesn’t necessarily equate with an expectation that you’ll arrive around that time. Birthday comidas in particular, especially in the country, often meld nicely into the evening. If there’s hired entertainment for such functions, at times it won’t even begin until 5 or 6…but then again sometimes it will be over by then. Rarely if even will a cena begin before 8:30. Depending on patterns of alcohol consumption, dinner can extend until 2 - 4 the next morning. This means that arrival time can conceivably be up until perhaps 11, which leads to a general expectation that you’ll attend the cena after you’ve been to another social obligation for that same night. It’s often no excuse to apologize by saying you already have another commitment. If it’s a wedding or quince años, there’s usually an expectation all round of punctuality, but wandering in “late” won’t be looked down upon. There just isn’t that concern or western obsession with getting there “on time,”…most of the time. If you’re throwing a dinner party, knowing your guests’ pattern or perception of punctuality certainly assists. For example, if you want everyone to be there by 9:30 to sit down after drinks and snacks, you can tell some friends to be there at that hour, and others at 8:30. It might just work out perfectly according to your western notion of planning…but probably not, and in fact does a disservice to any wish you might have to alter your temporal worldview, in any event a most difficult goal to attain.
ATTIRE:
A jacket and tie is never absolutely necessary anywhere. Even at the most formal of functions there will be attendees dressed casually according to our imported standards, as their abilities dictate, yet neat and clean. Often middle and upper class men’s attire consists of slacks, collared shirt and leather jacket. It’s not unreasonable to expect foreigners to dress “up,” especially at a high end wedding or quince años, but don’t do the opposite to the extreme, anywhere. Jeans and a t-shirt show a lack of respect. Err on the side of formality. However, consider your surroundings. You can get away with casual clothing in the country at all times. As much as it’s obvious you’re a “güero,” you still don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb dressing too formal. Women: write to my wife for advice. She’s the one always on my case.
GIFTS:
Because many people attending social events still bring gifts which are shrink-wrapped with clear plastic onto a piece of hard board, after you have a couple of functions under your belt you’ll be able to discern what’s an appropriate gift from whom, since you will have seen people walking into parties with the contents of their gifts in clear view. You can also get a pretty good idea of the most popular gifts by checking the range of pre-wrapped items in store windows or in the housewares and appliances sections of supermarkets and departments stores. But it’s practically guaranteed that when it comes to receiving presents at your own large celebration, you’ll be in for some surprises. The most shocked we’ve been was at my wife’s fiftieth when a well known political appointee gave her a pair of plastic earrings. Livestock is frequently given at rural weddings, as are sheets, lamps, blenders, coffee makers, dishes, pots and pans, etc. Liquor, including mezcal both labeled and unmarked multi-liter bottles of small-operation production, is an acceptable and appreciated gift under certain circumstances. With jewelry it’s hard to go wrong. The most acceptable etiquette dictates that you bring your gift with you to the function. In fact at weddings and quince años the presentation of gifts is usually a formal ceremony complete with receiving line. But don’t expect a thank you note because it will never appear. In fact even an acknowledgement at some future time of the gift you’ve given is rarely forth-coming. However there’s nothing wrong with you showing your appreciation with a brief call if you are so inclined. Some behaviors not traditionally practiced in southern Mexico are indeed appreciated.
Rites of passage provide both an excuse for socializing and facilitate a primary means by which to reciprocate, the latter exemplifying how one can and is expected to kill 200 or more birds with one stone. But just remember the double corollary of the foregoing adage when residing in Oaxaca…you’re footing the bill for throwing those bashes, and when invited to 200 such functions, gifts are required for each one. You may just wind up coming out of retirement, having really come of age in Oaxaca.
Alvin and Arlene Starkman are passionate about Oaxaca. They endeavor to retain their reputation as proprietors of one of the most popular Oaxaca bed and breakfasts, Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). Casa Machaya, a founding member of the Oaxaca Bed and Breakfast Association, combines the attributes of quality Oaxaca hotels, with the characteristics of a more progressive and personalized Oaxaca lodging style: owners are on site 24 / 7 (it’s your accommodations … and our home), always available to guests as their personal resources, and willing to go that little bit extra to ensure value-added service.
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
It’s been said that the reason most Oaxacans hold down two jobs is that they need one to meet the financial demands of their day-to-day lives, and the other to attend to their social obligations. While at first blush such a statement seems if not incomprehensible then certainly exaggerated, after careful analysis within the context of how the lives of most expats in the city are expected to unfold as compared to their collective existence in the US or Canada, one finds a clear understanding and the truth of the proposition. And it goes a long way to answering the oft posed question “what do you mean you don’t have time to run your daily errands for god’s sake, you’re retired.”
Let’s say that the average age of foreign born retirees in the city is early 60’s (we tend to not wait until we’ve had heart attacks or been diagnosed with cancer to smarten up), and in our previous lives we worked either as professionals or as self-employed business persons, usually about 6 days or 70 hours a week for most of our adult lives. We looked for ways to get out of social obligations, too tired at week’s end to endure yet another family gathering, and there were never that many in any event, what with smaller families and a priority placed upon saving for retirement rather than spending by, as Horace once proposed, picking the flower of the day. Inviting another couple over or going out for dinner was the order of the day, and we did it perhaps twice a month. For the rest of our leisure time it was usually too much trouble to drive downtown to the theater or for gallery openings. We lead an insular nuclear family existence by and large, acceptable according to North American standards, in particular for those in northern climates who loathed stepping outside from November through March. After so many years of living for our children, by the time it was no longer necessary to do so we’d already been programmed to that lifestyle.
The Oaxacan way of life is the polar opposite of the Canadian and American experience. Not only do families still tend to be larger, but through compadrazgo (a type of fictive kinship whereby one extends the size of his family through the appointment of usually non-blood godparents at a broad range of rites of passage such as first communion, baptism, when a girl turns 15 [quince años], wedding, graduation, and so on) the number of compadres or extended family members one has conceivably continues to grow for decades, exponentially. Youth maintain an uncanny level of respect for the elderly. Inter-generational social gatherings are the rule rather than the exception, with entire families being invited to, for example anniversary and birthday parties of frequently even non-relatives. Thus through compadrazgo the number of social obligations increases, and with the expectation that entire families will attend, functions tend to be large in terms of the number of individuals present.
With respect to birthdays, often people are not actually “invited,” but rather there is an assumption that dates have been diarized, with the expectation that those in one’s loosely based social network will simply show up. While of late lifestyle has changed somewhat for the middle classes in terms of getting together with another couple or two for dinner without a formal reason for so doing, for most this is not yet the norm, and socializing occurs through celebrations only…all in all on a much more frequent basis than is the case with the “new generation.” With an extremely relaxed set of rules respecting attire for almost all functions given the diversity in terms of socio-economic classes of invitees, one is able to flit from a country birthday party to an urban wedding and vice versa with little if any concern with appropriate dress.
For the more formal affairs such as nuptials of urbanites, where invitations are in fact expected, they are hand-delivered no more than about 10 days in advance of the date. The mail is slow and unreliable, and too much advance warning means people might forget. Along with the invitation is a small “admittance ticket” indicating the number of attendees which are to be let in at the door. Not much notice is taken if 6 arrive to fill the complement of guests permitted and one or more were not those specifically identified on the invitation. It’s the number which is the main feature of the invitation, and often specific individuals are not named, but rather “y familia,” which effectively has no bounds in terms of which members should constitute the family. For functions in towns or villages, be they weddings, anniversaries, quince años, or local religious or secular celebrations, where no invitations are provided, one can attend with any number of friends or relatives, and additional tables are simply set up as guests arrive, this likely eventuality having been contemplated by the hosts in advance in terms of additional tables and chairs and sufficient quantity of food on hand.
Before focusing on foreign residents and social gatherings, let’s first deal with the change in lifestyle from a general perspective. You’re no longer too tired every evening or either contemplating or working on pending crises or commitments. Used to be you were exhausted after work on Friday, ran household chores on Saturday afternoon, were able to get out for 3 – 4 hours Saturday night, then did office work on Sunday afternoon and were reluctant to go out that evening, having to get an early start Monday morning. Everything seemed like a chore, especially when it meant fighting traffic for upwards of an hour or so to get downtown and then again to return home. Even the highway traffic to get to the mall was often too much of a bother. Here in Oaxaca, weekdays, weeknights and weekends there is a plethora of cultural events no more than a 10 – 15 minute drive from where you live in the city, generally boasting free or nominal admission. You’re paying, across the board, about 50% of what you’d been accustomed to spending to live north of the border. It’s never too cold and rarely too rainy or too hot. While it’s still true that you’re only as happy as your most unhappy child, at least to some extent with your progeny out of sight they’re more likely to be, at least more often, out of mind.
What to do with that time, energy and additional disposable income gets resolved in short order, as long as you spread your wings, learn a bit of Spanish, do not surround yourself with expats most of your waking hours and instead interact with native born shopkeepers, neighbors, service professionals, tradespeople and artisans in the villages. That is not to say you should live your rejuvenated life with your nose in the air shunning interaction with your fellow foreigners, but rather walk a healthy line. Be amenable to, at least when occasions present themselves, adapting to Oaxacan hours, meaning having comida (lunch) between 2:30 and 4:30 and cena (dinner) after 9. With your new-found potential for changing old patterns there is no rational reason for not attempting to do so.
What’s there to be political about in terms of socializing, one might reasonably ask. Accepting the foregoing assumptions apply to you, and given your ability and willingness to change old patterns given that the impediments for so doing have effectively disappeared, you must still take steps to “fit in.” Growing up in the western world you gradually learned from your parents, peers, educators and by mere osmosis about socializing mores. Without those decades and a support system behind you, as a recent transplantee a bit of assistance might just be the order of the day. Hence, three areas of concrete advice for when attending social functions, with additional assistance thrown in for good measure for when it’s your turn to be host:
TIME:
Some Oaxacans are punctual but most are not. Being invited for comida without a time specification means arriving anytime between 2:30 and 4, or thereabouts. Ask what time, naturally, but doing so doesn’t necessarily equate with an expectation that you’ll arrive around that time. Birthday comidas in particular, especially in the country, often meld nicely into the evening. If there’s hired entertainment for such functions, at times it won’t even begin until 5 or 6…but then again sometimes it will be over by then. Rarely if even will a cena begin before 8:30. Depending on patterns of alcohol consumption, dinner can extend until 2 - 4 the next morning. This means that arrival time can conceivably be up until perhaps 11, which leads to a general expectation that you’ll attend the cena after you’ve been to another social obligation for that same night. It’s often no excuse to apologize by saying you already have another commitment. If it’s a wedding or quince años, there’s usually an expectation all round of punctuality, but wandering in “late” won’t be looked down upon. There just isn’t that concern or western obsession with getting there “on time,”…most of the time. If you’re throwing a dinner party, knowing your guests’ pattern or perception of punctuality certainly assists. For example, if you want everyone to be there by 9:30 to sit down after drinks and snacks, you can tell some friends to be there at that hour, and others at 8:30. It might just work out perfectly according to your western notion of planning…but probably not, and in fact does a disservice to any wish you might have to alter your temporal worldview, in any event a most difficult goal to attain.
ATTIRE:
A jacket and tie is never absolutely necessary anywhere. Even at the most formal of functions there will be attendees dressed casually according to our imported standards, as their abilities dictate, yet neat and clean. Often middle and upper class men’s attire consists of slacks, collared shirt and leather jacket. It’s not unreasonable to expect foreigners to dress “up,” especially at a high end wedding or quince años, but don’t do the opposite to the extreme, anywhere. Jeans and a t-shirt show a lack of respect. Err on the side of formality. However, consider your surroundings. You can get away with casual clothing in the country at all times. As much as it’s obvious you’re a “güero,” you still don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb dressing too formal. Women: write to my wife for advice. She’s the one always on my case.
GIFTS:
Because many people attending social events still bring gifts which are shrink-wrapped with clear plastic onto a piece of hard board, after you have a couple of functions under your belt you’ll be able to discern what’s an appropriate gift from whom, since you will have seen people walking into parties with the contents of their gifts in clear view. You can also get a pretty good idea of the most popular gifts by checking the range of pre-wrapped items in store windows or in the housewares and appliances sections of supermarkets and departments stores. But it’s practically guaranteed that when it comes to receiving presents at your own large celebration, you’ll be in for some surprises. The most shocked we’ve been was at my wife’s fiftieth when a well known political appointee gave her a pair of plastic earrings. Livestock is frequently given at rural weddings, as are sheets, lamps, blenders, coffee makers, dishes, pots and pans, etc. Liquor, including mezcal both labeled and unmarked multi-liter bottles of small-operation production, is an acceptable and appreciated gift under certain circumstances. With jewelry it’s hard to go wrong. The most acceptable etiquette dictates that you bring your gift with you to the function. In fact at weddings and quince años the presentation of gifts is usually a formal ceremony complete with receiving line. But don’t expect a thank you note because it will never appear. In fact even an acknowledgement at some future time of the gift you’ve given is rarely forth-coming. However there’s nothing wrong with you showing your appreciation with a brief call if you are so inclined. Some behaviors not traditionally practiced in southern Mexico are indeed appreciated.
Rites of passage provide both an excuse for socializing and facilitate a primary means by which to reciprocate, the latter exemplifying how one can and is expected to kill 200 or more birds with one stone. But just remember the double corollary of the foregoing adage when residing in Oaxaca…you’re footing the bill for throwing those bashes, and when invited to 200 such functions, gifts are required for each one. You may just wind up coming out of retirement, having really come of age in Oaxaca.
Alvin and Arlene Starkman are passionate about Oaxaca. They endeavor to retain their reputation as proprietors of one of the most popular Oaxaca bed and breakfasts, Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). Casa Machaya, a founding member of the Oaxaca Bed and Breakfast Association, combines the attributes of quality Oaxaca hotels, with the characteristics of a more progressive and personalized Oaxaca lodging style: owners are on site 24 / 7 (it’s your accommodations … and our home), always available to guests as their personal resources, and willing to go that little bit extra to ensure value-added service.
11/17/2008
Traveling light to Oaxaca?
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
First-time travelers to Oaxaca, as well as return visitors and snowbirds, can all help to improve the financial lot of many struggling residents, aside from simply visiting the city and spending.
It’s a fact that tourism has indeed returned to the central valleys of the state of Oaxaca. But as a result of the US economic crisis in 2008, so have many Oaxacans: Oaxacan immigrants, documented and otherwise, had previously been eking out a modest existence north of the border, often wiring money back to their motherland on a regular basis to help out parents, children and extended family members in need. With fewer available jobs, the people flow has now been reversed. Oaxacans are coming back to their native soil. The economic implications are twofold:
1) There are now more Oaxacans vying for work which continues to be a scarce commodity.
2) With fewer Oaxacans working in the US, less money is being sent home.
Many hotel and B & B guests arrive with two suitcases … one filled with their clothes and toiletries, which fits snuggly inside a larger one. The latter is used for the flight back home, to pack up purchases such as rugs and other textiles, black pottery and a variety of different ceramic pieces, alebrijes, and more traditional fine art. That larger suitcase need not be brought down empty. Those who have already been sensitized to Oaxaca’s economic plight sometimes ask what they can bring to leave behind, filling their second piece of luggage with used clothing, pencils and pens, T – shirts and caps with logos of their local sports teams, and much more. And then there are the travelers with young children who recognize that by the time the next summer arrives in their hometowns, the kids will have outgrown virtually everything they’ve brought down for them to wear. Here in Oaxaca they find new homes for shoes, shorts, jeans, dresses and shirts.
Within less than an hour’s drive from downtown Oaxaca, townspeople in marginal communities subsist on tortillas, beans and rice, with meat and poultry reserved for only the most special of occasion. Medical clinics and dental facilities are often stocked with inadequate equipment, instruments and supplies, and schools lack books. Even the brightest students and those with the most drive and desire are denied the opportunity to complete their secondary education because the cost of transportation to attend high school in the larger centers is prohibitive relative to the means of their families.
Every visitor to the city of Oaxaca has the potential to make a significant contribution to the economic amelioration of residents of towns and villages in the central valleys, apart from buying handicrafts and art.
We all have much more clothing than we need. Just look in your closet or in that chest of drawers in the basement. You might even find your daughter’s old pair of eyeglasses from two prescriptions ago, useless to you but invaluable to a downtown optometrist with ties to villages with children whose parents have no money to buy glasses. Dig out that gift from your mother-in-law --- the sweater that’s far too gaudy, or the T – shirt she brought for you on her trip to Turkey three years ago, still in the plastic wrapper. Do you really think that as you get older it’s realistic for you to actually start exercising as you did before, and that you’ll actually lose that paunch and fit into those size 32 jeans? How long do you think it will take for those shirts with Saturday Night Fever collars to come back into style? Here in Oaxaca they’ve never gone out of style.
The reluctance to personally distribute what you can no longer use is understandable. Certainly filling up a couple of green garbage bags in the course of your annual spring cleaning and then taking them to the local clothing drop box is easier, and the anonymity which comes with it is somehow preferable. It precludes any possibility of that feeling of discomfort that often results from directly confronting differences in economic status. But for those Oaxacans in need, all contributions are welcomed and tremendously appreciated.
Bring whatever you can. And if you’re not a packrat, there are other ways you can help:
1) Ask your neighbors and relatives. They’ll be happy to use the new-found closet space.
2) If you’re a medical or dental professional, search the shelves in your storage cabinet for instruments that have become obsolete for your state-of-the-art practice.
3) If you’re a manufacturer with over-runs, or wholesaler, jobber or retailer with stock that you just can’t move, consider packing up whatever will fit into that extra suitcase.
Not knowing what to do with it once you land in Oaxaca is certainly a legitimate, but not insurmountable concern. Again, there are several options:
1) The manager of your hotel or B & B might assist in distributing clothing to members of his cleaning staff who in all likelihood are of extremely modest means, or might suggest that some items be given to one of several local charities such as Estancia Fraternidad or Casa de La Mujer.
2) If you plan to tour some of the craft villages, your tour guide or driver might be able to assist you, although residents of the more popular and consequently successful towns such as Teotitlán del Valle and San Martín Tilcajete might not be the ones to whom your generosity should be directed. Consider spending part of a day getting away from the more traditional tourist sights, perhaps venturing into the hills and tiny communities, the inhabitants of which are predominantly campesinos. This affords an opportunity to see first hand the modest lifestyles of most Oaxacans and experience the “real” Mexico. Your chauffeur should be happy to accommodate, and you can distribute goods as and to whom you wish.
3) Drop your donation by the Oaxaca Lending Library on Calle Pino Suarez. Its volunteers are involved in a number of outreach projects.
4) Contact me and I’d be honored to come by your accommodations, pick up whatever you have, and ensure that it goes to good use.
Regular visitors to the city and the numerous returning snowbirds are afforded an even better and easier opportunity to help. Consider leaving your entire Oaxaca wardrobe and all your toiletries in Oaxaca, permanently. Remember, you still have more than enough to wear at home, and already having bathroom items awaiting you upon your return to Oaxaca can be quite convenient, especially in light of airline restrictions regarding sprays and bottles.
Pack it all up in a few boxes, or better yet buy an inexpensive chest of drawers to store your belongings, like I did about a dozen years ago when I was a frequent visitor to the city. Toss in a few bars of soap or pieces of cedar to keep it all fresh smelling. Then impose upon one of your Oaxacan or expat friends to keep it for you in a closet, corner or storage room. For your subsequent visits to the city all you’ll be bringing down will be two suitcases filled with treasures for those in need. And remember, with all that Oaxaca has to offer shoppers, craft collectors and art aficionados, there’s never a risk that you’ll return north with empty luggage.
Alvin Starkman has a Masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law Schoo in Toronto. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, tours couples and families to the ruins, craft villages, market towns and more off the beaten track destinations, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience, providing Oaxaca accommodations which combine the comfort and service of Oaxaca hotels with the personal touch of quaint country inn style lodging. You can arrange for Alvin to pick up the contents of your extra suitcase by emailing him at oaxacadream@hotmail.com.
First-time travelers to Oaxaca, as well as return visitors and snowbirds, can all help to improve the financial lot of many struggling residents, aside from simply visiting the city and spending.
It’s a fact that tourism has indeed returned to the central valleys of the state of Oaxaca. But as a result of the US economic crisis in 2008, so have many Oaxacans: Oaxacan immigrants, documented and otherwise, had previously been eking out a modest existence north of the border, often wiring money back to their motherland on a regular basis to help out parents, children and extended family members in need. With fewer available jobs, the people flow has now been reversed. Oaxacans are coming back to their native soil. The economic implications are twofold:
1) There are now more Oaxacans vying for work which continues to be a scarce commodity.
2) With fewer Oaxacans working in the US, less money is being sent home.
Many hotel and B & B guests arrive with two suitcases … one filled with their clothes and toiletries, which fits snuggly inside a larger one. The latter is used for the flight back home, to pack up purchases such as rugs and other textiles, black pottery and a variety of different ceramic pieces, alebrijes, and more traditional fine art. That larger suitcase need not be brought down empty. Those who have already been sensitized to Oaxaca’s economic plight sometimes ask what they can bring to leave behind, filling their second piece of luggage with used clothing, pencils and pens, T – shirts and caps with logos of their local sports teams, and much more. And then there are the travelers with young children who recognize that by the time the next summer arrives in their hometowns, the kids will have outgrown virtually everything they’ve brought down for them to wear. Here in Oaxaca they find new homes for shoes, shorts, jeans, dresses and shirts.
Within less than an hour’s drive from downtown Oaxaca, townspeople in marginal communities subsist on tortillas, beans and rice, with meat and poultry reserved for only the most special of occasion. Medical clinics and dental facilities are often stocked with inadequate equipment, instruments and supplies, and schools lack books. Even the brightest students and those with the most drive and desire are denied the opportunity to complete their secondary education because the cost of transportation to attend high school in the larger centers is prohibitive relative to the means of their families.
Every visitor to the city of Oaxaca has the potential to make a significant contribution to the economic amelioration of residents of towns and villages in the central valleys, apart from buying handicrafts and art.
We all have much more clothing than we need. Just look in your closet or in that chest of drawers in the basement. You might even find your daughter’s old pair of eyeglasses from two prescriptions ago, useless to you but invaluable to a downtown optometrist with ties to villages with children whose parents have no money to buy glasses. Dig out that gift from your mother-in-law --- the sweater that’s far too gaudy, or the T – shirt she brought for you on her trip to Turkey three years ago, still in the plastic wrapper. Do you really think that as you get older it’s realistic for you to actually start exercising as you did before, and that you’ll actually lose that paunch and fit into those size 32 jeans? How long do you think it will take for those shirts with Saturday Night Fever collars to come back into style? Here in Oaxaca they’ve never gone out of style.
The reluctance to personally distribute what you can no longer use is understandable. Certainly filling up a couple of green garbage bags in the course of your annual spring cleaning and then taking them to the local clothing drop box is easier, and the anonymity which comes with it is somehow preferable. It precludes any possibility of that feeling of discomfort that often results from directly confronting differences in economic status. But for those Oaxacans in need, all contributions are welcomed and tremendously appreciated.
Bring whatever you can. And if you’re not a packrat, there are other ways you can help:
1) Ask your neighbors and relatives. They’ll be happy to use the new-found closet space.
2) If you’re a medical or dental professional, search the shelves in your storage cabinet for instruments that have become obsolete for your state-of-the-art practice.
3) If you’re a manufacturer with over-runs, or wholesaler, jobber or retailer with stock that you just can’t move, consider packing up whatever will fit into that extra suitcase.
Not knowing what to do with it once you land in Oaxaca is certainly a legitimate, but not insurmountable concern. Again, there are several options:
1) The manager of your hotel or B & B might assist in distributing clothing to members of his cleaning staff who in all likelihood are of extremely modest means, or might suggest that some items be given to one of several local charities such as Estancia Fraternidad or Casa de La Mujer.
2) If you plan to tour some of the craft villages, your tour guide or driver might be able to assist you, although residents of the more popular and consequently successful towns such as Teotitlán del Valle and San Martín Tilcajete might not be the ones to whom your generosity should be directed. Consider spending part of a day getting away from the more traditional tourist sights, perhaps venturing into the hills and tiny communities, the inhabitants of which are predominantly campesinos. This affords an opportunity to see first hand the modest lifestyles of most Oaxacans and experience the “real” Mexico. Your chauffeur should be happy to accommodate, and you can distribute goods as and to whom you wish.
3) Drop your donation by the Oaxaca Lending Library on Calle Pino Suarez. Its volunteers are involved in a number of outreach projects.
4) Contact me and I’d be honored to come by your accommodations, pick up whatever you have, and ensure that it goes to good use.
Regular visitors to the city and the numerous returning snowbirds are afforded an even better and easier opportunity to help. Consider leaving your entire Oaxaca wardrobe and all your toiletries in Oaxaca, permanently. Remember, you still have more than enough to wear at home, and already having bathroom items awaiting you upon your return to Oaxaca can be quite convenient, especially in light of airline restrictions regarding sprays and bottles.
Pack it all up in a few boxes, or better yet buy an inexpensive chest of drawers to store your belongings, like I did about a dozen years ago when I was a frequent visitor to the city. Toss in a few bars of soap or pieces of cedar to keep it all fresh smelling. Then impose upon one of your Oaxacan or expat friends to keep it for you in a closet, corner or storage room. For your subsequent visits to the city all you’ll be bringing down will be two suitcases filled with treasures for those in need. And remember, with all that Oaxaca has to offer shoppers, craft collectors and art aficionados, there’s never a risk that you’ll return north with empty luggage.
Alvin Starkman has a Masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law Schoo in Toronto. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, tours couples and families to the ruins, craft villages, market towns and more off the beaten track destinations, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience, providing Oaxaca accommodations which combine the comfort and service of Oaxaca hotels with the personal touch of quaint country inn style lodging. You can arrange for Alvin to pick up the contents of your extra suitcase by emailing him at oaxacadream@hotmail.com.
11/05/2008
Guadua, Puerto Escondido: Oaxaca restaurant review
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Guadua ranks arguably as the best restaurant and bar in Puerto Escondido in terms of both ambiance, and quality and creativity of fare. In fact for this reviewer it’s a full notch above the rest.
The restaurant’s designer has done an impeccable job of creating an atmosphere fitting a bistro on the beach, yet with class and subtlety, and a conspicuous lack of that all-too-prevalent and overpowering nautical paraphernalia. No walking over an arched mini-bridge onto these sturdy hardwood planked floor boards. With its full open concept, there’s nary a wall to hang a dolphin, a net, or an oversized photo of the owner’s big catch. While structurally a palapa, the configuration is more than simply functional cross beams and uprights supporting palm leaf; posts are erected at aesthetically pleasing and unusual angles, worthy of note in Architectural Digest. Lighting, while somewhat dim for late night dining, is provided by bulbs dangling inside smartly strung over-sized patterned burlap balls.
Waiters are quick to welcome, take your drink order and arrive back with a basket of warm, multi-grain hand-sliced loaf. The recorded music consists of tasteful Latin-style new age, but only until the fifty-something Cuban-born troubadour sets up with his companion off to a corner to serenade with familiar soft rock and the odd Spanish tune. Otherwise there’s the sound of the surf, with the sand virtually at your feet and ocean merely yards away.
Our first appetizer was tuna timbal with couscous, consisting of chilled and properly fluffed couscous lightly tossed with cucumber, purple onion, avocado and diced fresh tuna marinated in garlic ginger soya sauce. Each ingredient retained its distinctive flavor. The soya was used sufficiently sparingly so as to not overpower. Equally impressive for its ability to showcase each component was the eggplant bruschetta … a purée with roasted tomato, melted Roquefort and homemade mayonnaise, over the requisite thick rounds of toast.
The seared white fish baked in rosemary butter was prepared to perfection, and arrived with sides of salad and mashed potatoes. My long pasta with parmesan and cream cheese with cracked cardamom was cooked to the optimum degree of doneness, but required a bit of doctoring to bring out the Indian spice. The tuna loin lived up to its “rare on the inside” billing, often a struggle to achieve when dining in southern Mexico. Once again the marinade, a teriyaki, was well understated.
We completed our cena with snifters of Torres 10 brandy, and shared the lemon pie frozen to perfect consistency, with hibiscus flower coulis, and then a personal size dark chocolate cake filled with melted white chocolate, accompanied by vanilla ice cream and cacao brandy sauce.
The menu selections at Guadua cover all the usual bases, so there’s little if any likelihood you’ll have difficulty finding offerings which call out to the palate. But the expected ends there. Whether it’s the guacamole with grasshoppers or grilled vegetables with balsamic vinegar from the appetizers; arugula salad mixed with slices of parmesan, fig and lemon olive oil vinaigrette; a burger or baguette; tomato dill soup with sautéed shrimp; a filet mignón basted with green pepper brandy cream sauce; or the more standard seafood selections, each is accented with its own Guadua touch.
With tip and taxes included, appetizers, soups, salads and lighter fare range from 50 to 100 pesos; and entrées from 100 to 160 pesos. Hard to beat? I thought so too!
Guadua
Tamaulipas esq. con Zona Federal
Col. Brisas de Zicatela
Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca
Tel: (954) 107-9524
Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). They provide guests with a unique Oaxaca accommodation style which combines the service and comfort of a Oaxaca hotel, with lodging style characterized by quaintness and personal touch. Alvin received his masters in social anthropology in 1978, and his law degree in 1984. Thereafter he was a litigator in Toronto until taking early retirement. He and his family were frequent visitors to Oaxaca between 1991 and when they became permanent residents in 2004. Alvin reviews restaurants, writes about life and cultural traditions in Oaxaca, tours couples and families to the craft villages, ruins, towns and their market days and other sights, and is a special consultant to documentary film production companies.
Guadua ranks arguably as the best restaurant and bar in Puerto Escondido in terms of both ambiance, and quality and creativity of fare. In fact for this reviewer it’s a full notch above the rest.
The restaurant’s designer has done an impeccable job of creating an atmosphere fitting a bistro on the beach, yet with class and subtlety, and a conspicuous lack of that all-too-prevalent and overpowering nautical paraphernalia. No walking over an arched mini-bridge onto these sturdy hardwood planked floor boards. With its full open concept, there’s nary a wall to hang a dolphin, a net, or an oversized photo of the owner’s big catch. While structurally a palapa, the configuration is more than simply functional cross beams and uprights supporting palm leaf; posts are erected at aesthetically pleasing and unusual angles, worthy of note in Architectural Digest. Lighting, while somewhat dim for late night dining, is provided by bulbs dangling inside smartly strung over-sized patterned burlap balls.
Waiters are quick to welcome, take your drink order and arrive back with a basket of warm, multi-grain hand-sliced loaf. The recorded music consists of tasteful Latin-style new age, but only until the fifty-something Cuban-born troubadour sets up with his companion off to a corner to serenade with familiar soft rock and the odd Spanish tune. Otherwise there’s the sound of the surf, with the sand virtually at your feet and ocean merely yards away.
Our first appetizer was tuna timbal with couscous, consisting of chilled and properly fluffed couscous lightly tossed with cucumber, purple onion, avocado and diced fresh tuna marinated in garlic ginger soya sauce. Each ingredient retained its distinctive flavor. The soya was used sufficiently sparingly so as to not overpower. Equally impressive for its ability to showcase each component was the eggplant bruschetta … a purée with roasted tomato, melted Roquefort and homemade mayonnaise, over the requisite thick rounds of toast.
The seared white fish baked in rosemary butter was prepared to perfection, and arrived with sides of salad and mashed potatoes. My long pasta with parmesan and cream cheese with cracked cardamom was cooked to the optimum degree of doneness, but required a bit of doctoring to bring out the Indian spice. The tuna loin lived up to its “rare on the inside” billing, often a struggle to achieve when dining in southern Mexico. Once again the marinade, a teriyaki, was well understated.
We completed our cena with snifters of Torres 10 brandy, and shared the lemon pie frozen to perfect consistency, with hibiscus flower coulis, and then a personal size dark chocolate cake filled with melted white chocolate, accompanied by vanilla ice cream and cacao brandy sauce.
The menu selections at Guadua cover all the usual bases, so there’s little if any likelihood you’ll have difficulty finding offerings which call out to the palate. But the expected ends there. Whether it’s the guacamole with grasshoppers or grilled vegetables with balsamic vinegar from the appetizers; arugula salad mixed with slices of parmesan, fig and lemon olive oil vinaigrette; a burger or baguette; tomato dill soup with sautéed shrimp; a filet mignón basted with green pepper brandy cream sauce; or the more standard seafood selections, each is accented with its own Guadua touch.
With tip and taxes included, appetizers, soups, salads and lighter fare range from 50 to 100 pesos; and entrées from 100 to 160 pesos. Hard to beat? I thought so too!
Guadua
Tamaulipas esq. con Zona Federal
Col. Brisas de Zicatela
Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca
Tel: (954) 107-9524
Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). They provide guests with a unique Oaxaca accommodation style which combines the service and comfort of a Oaxaca hotel, with lodging style characterized by quaintness and personal touch. Alvin received his masters in social anthropology in 1978, and his law degree in 1984. Thereafter he was a litigator in Toronto until taking early retirement. He and his family were frequent visitors to Oaxaca between 1991 and when they became permanent residents in 2004. Alvin reviews restaurants, writes about life and cultural traditions in Oaxaca, tours couples and families to the craft villages, ruins, towns and their market days and other sights, and is a special consultant to documentary film production companies.
10/28/2008
Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico
Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico
From October 31st through November 2nd, the city is taken over by fireworks, altar building, native music and dance performances, religious processions, masquerade parades (comparsas), art openings, food festival (Mole de Caderas) and midnight cemetery vigils.
From October 31st through November 2nd, the city is taken over by fireworks, altar building, native music and dance performances, religious processions, masquerade parades (comparsas), art openings, food festival (Mole de Caderas) and midnight cemetery vigils.
9/15/2008
Enrique Flores: Philanthropic Oaxacan artist has the golden touch
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Enrique Flores is one of the most prolific Mexican artists of his generation. Of course having been mentored by the late great master of contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, hasn’t hurt; nor has the fact that two of Oaxaca’s most prominent art galleries, Indigo and Arte de Oaxaca, were his patrons for many years. But there’s no substitute for hard work, talent, and vision, each characterizing Flores.
Flores has been exhibiting his work throughout Mexico and the United States since 1985. By the early 1990’s he began receiving global recognition as a significant force on the Latin American art scene, with exhibits in Japan in 1992, and Holland the following year. Heineken commissioned him to paint two murals for a US promotional campaign aimed at attracting Mexican-American consumers. His stylizing of indigenous Mexican women, as well as the distinctiveness of his work were brought to the attention of art aficionados in the 1994 publication, Arte y Alma de Oaxaca (Art and Soul of Oaxaca), supported by the Fine Art Gallery of New York; and in the 1998 landmark book, Imagenes y Colores de Oaxaca (Images and Colors of Oaxaca). He illustrated a well-received children’s book, published in both Spanish and English by The Children’s Press, Pájaros de la Cosecha (Birds of the Harvest).
Flores was born in Huitzo, in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, on July 1, 1963. He started painting during his junior high school days in the late 70’s. By 1980 his formal training had begun, studying drawing with Jesús Vásquez in Oaxaca while attending high school. In 1981 he entered Oaxaca’s highly respected School of Fine Arts. The following year he was off to an art college in Mexico City: “But my goal had been to get into La Escuela de Pintura y Escultura,” Flores recounts. “Even though I had a recommendation from Rufino Tamayo, I wasn’t accepted because I didn’t have all my high school credits. However, all worked out for the best because a friend introduced me to Rodolfo Morales.” They developed a close relationship. Flores would regularly go to Morales’ studio in Coyoacan to chat and watch him at work, while Morales was pleased to have a young protégé upon whom he was able to impart technical advice.
Upon his return to Oaxaca from the nation’s capital, Flores entered Taller Rufino Tamayo (Rufino Tamayo Workshop), where he was able to live in one of the small studio apartments while enrolled in a two year apprenticeship. He then studied under Maestro Juan Alcázar. Not wanting to commute between Huitzo and Oaxaca, he found a flat in downtown Oaxaca. In 1988, after studying under Alcázar for three years, Flores returned to Huitzo, and has remained there ever since. When Morales moved back to his hometown of Ocotlán in the late 80’s, the friendship was rekindled, with Flores meeting with Morales in Ocotlán, and periodically when Morales would be in Oaxaca.
“Sure Morales was my primary mentor over the years,” Flores readily acknowledges, “but his work has provided a significant stimulus for well over half of the artists in Oaxaca. However if you examine my work carefully, it should become apparent that I’m a student of a number of the impressionists, in particular Monet and Gauguin. I consider them to be very strong influences in my work; just look at my use of color.” But ask Flores for a single name, and enigmatic Flemish painter Hieronymus (Geronimo) Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516) immediately rolls off his tongue. Enrique’s extraordinary melding of influences then becomes apparent.
Despite the elements and styles which some of his works have in common with those of Morales, the impressionists, and certainly Bosch, as a student of the human condition Flores clearly derives his inspiration from a much broader array of sources … studying cultures both past and present in his homeland, and contemporary society elsewhere. For example while studying in Japan he began experimenting with oriental forms and indicia of culture such as Eastern deities. He incorporated this knowledge and his own continuous personal growth into his Oaxacan works: “I did a fair bit of pencil and watercolor sketches in my notebooks during that era. And even today I still occasionally refer back to those drawings when looking for something a bit different or while I’m struggling with how to express myself in a particular work. At times I’ve juxtaposed constituents of Japanese society with Mexican themes and traditions.
Over a period of about ten years Flores spent two or three months annually in Montana, using the break from his home environment as a means of both rejuvenating and advancing his creativity. But it’s been his constant presence in the Mixteca which has been his most significant ongoing inspiration. He explains: “Huitzo was historically the frontier between the Mixtec and Zapotec cultures, so we have at least three distinct groups, the Mixtec, the Zapotec and right here in Huitzo there’s a combination of the two.” The implications? In this basket of cultures there is the richness of three worldviews, customs including dress, dance and other manifestations of culture, and perhaps more importantly for an artist such as Flores, differences in physique --- facial structure, stature, hair texture, comport, etc.
Flores recognizes the debt of gratitude owed to those who have shaped his creative forces, and in turn his success. It’s shown in how he returns to the community all that he has received, and more, through his philanthropic gestures. He regularly donates pieces to benefit art auctions. While occasionally requesting a percentage of revenue of sales of his pieces to help defray costs, on a regular basis he outright donates his works: “If a city or town has what I consider to be a charity extremely worthy of assistance, and I know that the particular market won’t support lucrative sale prices at auction, then I have no hesitation in simply giving my works to the organizers.”
In acknowledging his profound indebtedness to the likes of Morales, Alcázar and others who have generously provided their time and counsel, Flores responds in kind, giving of himself in whatever way he can to the younger generation of Oaxacan artists. There are regularly between four and six students from the School of Fine Arts working and studying with him in his workshop: “They’re welcome to come to my facility to work on their own projects, ask my advice, and simply observe how I work, and pitch in. In many cases since there’s insufficient equipment at the university relative to the number of students enrolled in the fine arts program, and since most of the students are of modest means and simply don’t own what they need, I let them use anything I have. My only rules are that on Saturday afternoon at the end of the work week, my shop is left clean and in order, and that my equipment is kept in good condition.” While Flores’ water colors and oils don’t generally require high end or expensive tools of the trade, the same does not hold true of the costly machinery and other products needed to produce lithographs and engravings.
The Flores golden touch is more than a lucky lot in life as a result of having been tutored by the masters, the exposure he’s received through art books and in excess of one hundred gallery exhibitions, and for close to a quarter of a century his knack for producing what has been attracting the buying public: Enrique Flores has always had a clear vision of what he wants to achieve.
At only 45, most of Flores’ career has yet to unfold. His workshop has been a long-term project, started in 1998. In true Oaxacan fashion, construction has progressed in phases. But he’s already managed to build a modern, high-ceilinged domed complex where most of his work is carried out. Although larger and better equipped than most such workshops in the state, Flores intends to proceed with further expansion, clearly a labor of love. He plans to add a building exclusively for ceramics, since while a gifted ceramicist in his own right, without a kiln and other equipment he must travel to Oaxaca to use a colleague’s facility. He also wants to expand his relatively new lithograph operation, which will require building out from the existing structure.
But it will be Enrique Flores’ final two projects, already on the horizon, which will set him apart from most, and contribute to the legacy he will leave to the next generation of Oaxacan artists, and ultimately art collectors everywhere. Flores proposes to build small apartment units to house art students; and to open a gallery on the premises showcasing his own, but more importantly the works of talented and promising young artists struggling for exposure … once again giving back in the same way he received.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a film consultant, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), combining the comfort and service of a Oaxaca hotel with the lodging style of a quaint country inn .
Enrique Flores is one of the most prolific Mexican artists of his generation. Of course having been mentored by the late great master of contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, hasn’t hurt; nor has the fact that two of Oaxaca’s most prominent art galleries, Indigo and Arte de Oaxaca, were his patrons for many years. But there’s no substitute for hard work, talent, and vision, each characterizing Flores.
Flores has been exhibiting his work throughout Mexico and the United States since 1985. By the early 1990’s he began receiving global recognition as a significant force on the Latin American art scene, with exhibits in Japan in 1992, and Holland the following year. Heineken commissioned him to paint two murals for a US promotional campaign aimed at attracting Mexican-American consumers. His stylizing of indigenous Mexican women, as well as the distinctiveness of his work were brought to the attention of art aficionados in the 1994 publication, Arte y Alma de Oaxaca (Art and Soul of Oaxaca), supported by the Fine Art Gallery of New York; and in the 1998 landmark book, Imagenes y Colores de Oaxaca (Images and Colors of Oaxaca). He illustrated a well-received children’s book, published in both Spanish and English by The Children’s Press, Pájaros de la Cosecha (Birds of the Harvest).
Flores was born in Huitzo, in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, on July 1, 1963. He started painting during his junior high school days in the late 70’s. By 1980 his formal training had begun, studying drawing with Jesús Vásquez in Oaxaca while attending high school. In 1981 he entered Oaxaca’s highly respected School of Fine Arts. The following year he was off to an art college in Mexico City: “But my goal had been to get into La Escuela de Pintura y Escultura,” Flores recounts. “Even though I had a recommendation from Rufino Tamayo, I wasn’t accepted because I didn’t have all my high school credits. However, all worked out for the best because a friend introduced me to Rodolfo Morales.” They developed a close relationship. Flores would regularly go to Morales’ studio in Coyoacan to chat and watch him at work, while Morales was pleased to have a young protégé upon whom he was able to impart technical advice.
Upon his return to Oaxaca from the nation’s capital, Flores entered Taller Rufino Tamayo (Rufino Tamayo Workshop), where he was able to live in one of the small studio apartments while enrolled in a two year apprenticeship. He then studied under Maestro Juan Alcázar. Not wanting to commute between Huitzo and Oaxaca, he found a flat in downtown Oaxaca. In 1988, after studying under Alcázar for three years, Flores returned to Huitzo, and has remained there ever since. When Morales moved back to his hometown of Ocotlán in the late 80’s, the friendship was rekindled, with Flores meeting with Morales in Ocotlán, and periodically when Morales would be in Oaxaca.
“Sure Morales was my primary mentor over the years,” Flores readily acknowledges, “but his work has provided a significant stimulus for well over half of the artists in Oaxaca. However if you examine my work carefully, it should become apparent that I’m a student of a number of the impressionists, in particular Monet and Gauguin. I consider them to be very strong influences in my work; just look at my use of color.” But ask Flores for a single name, and enigmatic Flemish painter Hieronymus (Geronimo) Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516) immediately rolls off his tongue. Enrique’s extraordinary melding of influences then becomes apparent.
Despite the elements and styles which some of his works have in common with those of Morales, the impressionists, and certainly Bosch, as a student of the human condition Flores clearly derives his inspiration from a much broader array of sources … studying cultures both past and present in his homeland, and contemporary society elsewhere. For example while studying in Japan he began experimenting with oriental forms and indicia of culture such as Eastern deities. He incorporated this knowledge and his own continuous personal growth into his Oaxacan works: “I did a fair bit of pencil and watercolor sketches in my notebooks during that era. And even today I still occasionally refer back to those drawings when looking for something a bit different or while I’m struggling with how to express myself in a particular work. At times I’ve juxtaposed constituents of Japanese society with Mexican themes and traditions.
Over a period of about ten years Flores spent two or three months annually in Montana, using the break from his home environment as a means of both rejuvenating and advancing his creativity. But it’s been his constant presence in the Mixteca which has been his most significant ongoing inspiration. He explains: “Huitzo was historically the frontier between the Mixtec and Zapotec cultures, so we have at least three distinct groups, the Mixtec, the Zapotec and right here in Huitzo there’s a combination of the two.” The implications? In this basket of cultures there is the richness of three worldviews, customs including dress, dance and other manifestations of culture, and perhaps more importantly for an artist such as Flores, differences in physique --- facial structure, stature, hair texture, comport, etc.
Flores recognizes the debt of gratitude owed to those who have shaped his creative forces, and in turn his success. It’s shown in how he returns to the community all that he has received, and more, through his philanthropic gestures. He regularly donates pieces to benefit art auctions. While occasionally requesting a percentage of revenue of sales of his pieces to help defray costs, on a regular basis he outright donates his works: “If a city or town has what I consider to be a charity extremely worthy of assistance, and I know that the particular market won’t support lucrative sale prices at auction, then I have no hesitation in simply giving my works to the organizers.”
In acknowledging his profound indebtedness to the likes of Morales, Alcázar and others who have generously provided their time and counsel, Flores responds in kind, giving of himself in whatever way he can to the younger generation of Oaxacan artists. There are regularly between four and six students from the School of Fine Arts working and studying with him in his workshop: “They’re welcome to come to my facility to work on their own projects, ask my advice, and simply observe how I work, and pitch in. In many cases since there’s insufficient equipment at the university relative to the number of students enrolled in the fine arts program, and since most of the students are of modest means and simply don’t own what they need, I let them use anything I have. My only rules are that on Saturday afternoon at the end of the work week, my shop is left clean and in order, and that my equipment is kept in good condition.” While Flores’ water colors and oils don’t generally require high end or expensive tools of the trade, the same does not hold true of the costly machinery and other products needed to produce lithographs and engravings.
The Flores golden touch is more than a lucky lot in life as a result of having been tutored by the masters, the exposure he’s received through art books and in excess of one hundred gallery exhibitions, and for close to a quarter of a century his knack for producing what has been attracting the buying public: Enrique Flores has always had a clear vision of what he wants to achieve.
At only 45, most of Flores’ career has yet to unfold. His workshop has been a long-term project, started in 1998. In true Oaxacan fashion, construction has progressed in phases. But he’s already managed to build a modern, high-ceilinged domed complex where most of his work is carried out. Although larger and better equipped than most such workshops in the state, Flores intends to proceed with further expansion, clearly a labor of love. He plans to add a building exclusively for ceramics, since while a gifted ceramicist in his own right, without a kiln and other equipment he must travel to Oaxaca to use a colleague’s facility. He also wants to expand his relatively new lithograph operation, which will require building out from the existing structure.
But it will be Enrique Flores’ final two projects, already on the horizon, which will set him apart from most, and contribute to the legacy he will leave to the next generation of Oaxacan artists, and ultimately art collectors everywhere. Flores proposes to build small apartment units to house art students; and to open a gallery on the premises showcasing his own, but more importantly the works of talented and promising young artists struggling for exposure … once again giving back in the same way he received.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a film consultant, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), combining the comfort and service of a Oaxaca hotel with the lodging style of a quaint country inn .
8/28/2008
Short Essays on Rural Oaxaca Mezcal Production ... Part I: Focus on Hilarino Olivera Cruz
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
The rural mezcal producers of Oaxaca keep the tradition as pure as it was centuries ago. They pepper the villages and roadsides where tourists rarely venture. Their operations are a far cry from those of Benevá, Oro de Oaxaca, the brands of the Chagoya family, and the few designer labels vying with one another to corner the Manhattan sipping market.
Hilarino Olivera Cruz has a small fábrica de mezcal (mezcal “factory”) near his hometown village of San Lorenzo Albarradas, about an hour and a quarter drive from the city of Oaxaca, en route to Hierve el Agua. But he and his wife María Sara don’t just produce mezcal. They can’t afford to rely on distilling alone to eke out their modest, working class existence. Out of the same premises they operate a tiny restaurant, El Tigre, without the benefit of electricity, employing their daughter-in-law Alma; María Sara also has a door-to-door Avon-style sales business from which she earns perhaps $50 or $70 a month; Hilarino together with their eldest son Claudio, Alma’s husband, run a dump truck; and as is the custom with most craft-producing and other cottage industry families, they have their fields of milpa to tend, yielding corn for making tortillas, tamales and like products used to provide for personal consumption, and in the case of the Olivera family, also for restaurant use.
On the one hand hard working mezcaleros such as Hilarino are not permitted to export commercially, since they are not members of the regulatory body known as COMERCAM, yet on the other they struggle to maintain the artisanal, or pure, traditional hands-on nature of production, and resist the adulteration of their spirit through modern processing methods including the use of chemical additives … for everyone’s benefit.
You won’t find Hilarino flogging his mezcal in downtown Oaxaca with the aid of heavily made-up, attractive, smiling teenage girls offering free tastings. Nor will you encounter him when taking a Sunday tour bus to Mitla or Tlacolula, and sauntering up to a fine oak bar for samples of cremas (sweet, mezcal-based products), jovens (un-aged mezcal) or what’s represented to be five or ten-year-old añejos. The photo op that’s provided will appear quaint enough, but won’t come close to revealing the true history of the tradition, or the present reality of the struggle of the rural producer.
Hilarino’s market is not the tourist trade, but rather residents of Oaxaca, Mitla, the nearby Mixe region, and of course his own community. The same as it was for his great-grandparents: “I remember the stories my parents and grandparents would tell, about how it actually was way back then,” Hilarino reveals. “They were campesinos. They would harvest mainly wild agave known as tobalá. A caravan would set out, comprised of perhaps 10 or 15 mules or donkeys and an equal number of people helping out. Cousins, aunts and uncles would organize themselves and take the mezcal on what would be like a trade route, in pottery or metal receptacles, down into the valley and up throughout the mountains. Each animal would carry 3 containers, one on each side and another on top. My relatives would be gone for anywhere between a couple of days and two weeks, often returning home with 2 or 3 less mules … that’s how hard the journey was. Of course now it’s much easier.”
Easier is a relative term. Then it took two or three days to pulverize the baked agave prior to fermentation, hammering it with a wooden mallet made of tree burl. Now it’s crushed by a horse or mule reluctantly pulling a multi-ton limestone wheel over it for a couple of hours, persuaded with the assistance of a crop-like piece of leather, or simply a stick … and then it’s time for the next batch.
Hilarino began learning how to make mezcal when he was about seven years old. Out of economic necessity he moved with his family to Mexico City at age 11, and remained there for the next 15 years. Upon return to Oaxaca some 14 years ago he built and opened his current facility, the mezcal operation with adjoining eatery. Initially his father worked the business with him, but about four years ago the elder Olivera opened up his own restaurant beside his son’s, and since then they’ve been competitors of sorts. Hilarino explains: “But my father can’t produce mezcal on his own, since I’m the one with the equipment (clay and brick still with copper attachments, pine fermenting vats, limestone wheel and ring for crushing, and beast of burden), so when he has a batch of agave he wants to process, we work out an arrangement for him to use my production facility.” In fact one of Hilarino’s brothers does the same thing, buying agave and renting Hilarino’s premises to produce, and then selling to his own customers. Occasionally others from the village make similar arrangements with him.
Hilarino distills roughly 500 liters of mezcal a month. His average sale is about 5 liters. He owns a few different pieces of land upon which he has 5,000 plants, with exclusively the espadín variety of agave under cultivation. At least 90% of the mezcal produced in the state is espadín, the rest comprising mainly wild varieties.
The agave on Hilarino’s fields is sufficient to service his regular trade. But occasionally an out-of-state client will request a large quantity of mezcal, perhaps 800 – 1,000 liters. “When this happens,” he confesses, “I have to go out and buy mature plants from a neighbor, since I simply can’t harvest my agave whenever a special order comes in. I have to wait those 8 – 10 years until the plants in a particular field are ready to be harvested.” But the finished product maintains its quality and character, since Hilarino remains the producer, using his own equipment and particular recipe, and the agave, albeit not from his own fields, comes from the same San Lorenzo Albarradas micro-climate.
It’s such cooperation between local producers, together with a united voice, which is required to ensure that small-scale, traditional production of quality mezcal continues. To this end Hilarino has recently joined the ninety-member association, Fabricantes y Expendedores del Tradicional Mezcal Oaxaqueño A.C.. Its function, at least in the estimation of Hilarino, is to maintain the artisanal nature of the industry; resist the move towards increased industrialization and the ability of large producers to label any spirit produced with or containing additives, as mezcal; and provide small producers with an opportunity to have their products exposed to and promoted in a wider marketplace.
But the reality is that the big producers and exporters of mezcal in Oaxaca need the mom and pop operations much more so than the latter need the former. Why? Because the little guy will always continue to survive by selling his mezcal in his local market, using the centuries old production technique, while the exporter relies on that age old tradition for his marketing … and it’s kept alive not through his 21st century innovations and “improvements” to productions methods, but rather by the Hilarinos in the state.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights (including into the mountains for mezcal tastings and learning about traditional production methods) , and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), combining the comfort and service of a Oaxaca hotel with the lodging style of a quaint country inn .
The rural mezcal producers of Oaxaca keep the tradition as pure as it was centuries ago. They pepper the villages and roadsides where tourists rarely venture. Their operations are a far cry from those of Benevá, Oro de Oaxaca, the brands of the Chagoya family, and the few designer labels vying with one another to corner the Manhattan sipping market.
Hilarino Olivera Cruz has a small fábrica de mezcal (mezcal “factory”) near his hometown village of San Lorenzo Albarradas, about an hour and a quarter drive from the city of Oaxaca, en route to Hierve el Agua. But he and his wife María Sara don’t just produce mezcal. They can’t afford to rely on distilling alone to eke out their modest, working class existence. Out of the same premises they operate a tiny restaurant, El Tigre, without the benefit of electricity, employing their daughter-in-law Alma; María Sara also has a door-to-door Avon-style sales business from which she earns perhaps $50 or $70 a month; Hilarino together with their eldest son Claudio, Alma’s husband, run a dump truck; and as is the custom with most craft-producing and other cottage industry families, they have their fields of milpa to tend, yielding corn for making tortillas, tamales and like products used to provide for personal consumption, and in the case of the Olivera family, also for restaurant use.
On the one hand hard working mezcaleros such as Hilarino are not permitted to export commercially, since they are not members of the regulatory body known as COMERCAM, yet on the other they struggle to maintain the artisanal, or pure, traditional hands-on nature of production, and resist the adulteration of their spirit through modern processing methods including the use of chemical additives … for everyone’s benefit.
You won’t find Hilarino flogging his mezcal in downtown Oaxaca with the aid of heavily made-up, attractive, smiling teenage girls offering free tastings. Nor will you encounter him when taking a Sunday tour bus to Mitla or Tlacolula, and sauntering up to a fine oak bar for samples of cremas (sweet, mezcal-based products), jovens (un-aged mezcal) or what’s represented to be five or ten-year-old añejos. The photo op that’s provided will appear quaint enough, but won’t come close to revealing the true history of the tradition, or the present reality of the struggle of the rural producer.
Hilarino’s market is not the tourist trade, but rather residents of Oaxaca, Mitla, the nearby Mixe region, and of course his own community. The same as it was for his great-grandparents: “I remember the stories my parents and grandparents would tell, about how it actually was way back then,” Hilarino reveals. “They were campesinos. They would harvest mainly wild agave known as tobalá. A caravan would set out, comprised of perhaps 10 or 15 mules or donkeys and an equal number of people helping out. Cousins, aunts and uncles would organize themselves and take the mezcal on what would be like a trade route, in pottery or metal receptacles, down into the valley and up throughout the mountains. Each animal would carry 3 containers, one on each side and another on top. My relatives would be gone for anywhere between a couple of days and two weeks, often returning home with 2 or 3 less mules … that’s how hard the journey was. Of course now it’s much easier.”
Easier is a relative term. Then it took two or three days to pulverize the baked agave prior to fermentation, hammering it with a wooden mallet made of tree burl. Now it’s crushed by a horse or mule reluctantly pulling a multi-ton limestone wheel over it for a couple of hours, persuaded with the assistance of a crop-like piece of leather, or simply a stick … and then it’s time for the next batch.
Hilarino began learning how to make mezcal when he was about seven years old. Out of economic necessity he moved with his family to Mexico City at age 11, and remained there for the next 15 years. Upon return to Oaxaca some 14 years ago he built and opened his current facility, the mezcal operation with adjoining eatery. Initially his father worked the business with him, but about four years ago the elder Olivera opened up his own restaurant beside his son’s, and since then they’ve been competitors of sorts. Hilarino explains: “But my father can’t produce mezcal on his own, since I’m the one with the equipment (clay and brick still with copper attachments, pine fermenting vats, limestone wheel and ring for crushing, and beast of burden), so when he has a batch of agave he wants to process, we work out an arrangement for him to use my production facility.” In fact one of Hilarino’s brothers does the same thing, buying agave and renting Hilarino’s premises to produce, and then selling to his own customers. Occasionally others from the village make similar arrangements with him.
Hilarino distills roughly 500 liters of mezcal a month. His average sale is about 5 liters. He owns a few different pieces of land upon which he has 5,000 plants, with exclusively the espadín variety of agave under cultivation. At least 90% of the mezcal produced in the state is espadín, the rest comprising mainly wild varieties.
The agave on Hilarino’s fields is sufficient to service his regular trade. But occasionally an out-of-state client will request a large quantity of mezcal, perhaps 800 – 1,000 liters. “When this happens,” he confesses, “I have to go out and buy mature plants from a neighbor, since I simply can’t harvest my agave whenever a special order comes in. I have to wait those 8 – 10 years until the plants in a particular field are ready to be harvested.” But the finished product maintains its quality and character, since Hilarino remains the producer, using his own equipment and particular recipe, and the agave, albeit not from his own fields, comes from the same San Lorenzo Albarradas micro-climate.
It’s such cooperation between local producers, together with a united voice, which is required to ensure that small-scale, traditional production of quality mezcal continues. To this end Hilarino has recently joined the ninety-member association, Fabricantes y Expendedores del Tradicional Mezcal Oaxaqueño A.C.. Its function, at least in the estimation of Hilarino, is to maintain the artisanal nature of the industry; resist the move towards increased industrialization and the ability of large producers to label any spirit produced with or containing additives, as mezcal; and provide small producers with an opportunity to have their products exposed to and promoted in a wider marketplace.
But the reality is that the big producers and exporters of mezcal in Oaxaca need the mom and pop operations much more so than the latter need the former. Why? Because the little guy will always continue to survive by selling his mezcal in his local market, using the centuries old production technique, while the exporter relies on that age old tradition for his marketing … and it’s kept alive not through his 21st century innovations and “improvements” to productions methods, but rather by the Hilarinos in the state.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights (including into the mountains for mezcal tastings and learning about traditional production methods) , and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), combining the comfort and service of a Oaxaca hotel with the lodging style of a quaint country inn .
8/15/2008
El Tigre: restaurant in Oaxaca is as authentic as they get
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
It’ll cost María Sara and her husband Hilarino about $7,000 USD to get electricity for their tiny, roadside eatery, located about an hour outside of the City of Oaxaca. It’s feasible only if they can get some of their neighbors to chip in. But that would detract from the allure of their restaurant: fresh meats delivered to the premises daily and kept cool in an insulated box; hours of operation governed by nature; no stove or oven, nor subtle din of an electric fridge; and no TV revisiting Mexico’s last soccer triumph.
El Tigre is about the last vestige of Old Mexico you’ll encounter on a visit to Oaxaca, while at the same time as comfortable, accommodating, and safe for North American gastrointestinal tracts as you’ll find in the finest white linen restaurants in the downtown core. Sure, the wood-burning hearth over which all of their daily offerings are prepared, produces distracting smoke from time to time. And it’s doubtful that the blocks of ice cooling the Coke, Fanta and Corona will keep the beverages as cold as most are accustomed. But save and except for these shortcomings, if you’re heading to Mitla, or out towards Hierve el Agua, a visit to El Tigre is not to be missed.
You’ll be warmly greeted by María Sara and her daughter-in-law Alma. Conceivably Hilarino will be there as well. He runs the mezcal operation alongside the restaurant, the implication being that if you order mezcal, it’s on the house.
But you’re stopping for the food and the open air ambience and basically nothing more. There’s no menu, so you’d better either have a minimal knowledge of Spanish, or read on and take notes. Each morning María cooks up a different stew, be it beef in green sauce, pork in red, or something similar. Otherwise the standard choices available every day are quite simple: grilled chorizo (Oaxacan sausage); a plate of cecina (sliced pork lightly dusted with chili); tasajo (thinly sliced beef); eggs, either scrambled alone or with chorizo, or fried; quesadillas; and memelitas. María is used to this writer bringing by North American tourists, who have often commented that it was the best meal they’ve had in Oaxaca. You can ask for anything to be cooked on the comal, over open flame, sans lard, oil or butter.
The accompaniments are sliced tomato and onion (disinfected), boiled black beans, and freshly made salsa with garlic, chili, tomato, and little more, served hot off the grill in its molcajete, the pestle and mortar used in preparation. You’ll generally see a pot of simmering corn kernels being softened and readied for the next day’s grinding into a masa for making tortillas. And yes, of course the tortillas, made with hand-ground cornmeal and prepared on the comal before your eyes complement every order.
Since 1994 El Tigre has been serving the surrounding communities, the odd visitor en route to and from to Hierve el Agua, and those in transit between Oaxaca and the district known as the Mixe. The main attraction for many Mexicans is the mezcal produced on site by Hilarino, using the age old traditional techniques of his grandparents and their forebears. But for those who yearn for a taste of down-to-earth, unadulterated southern Mexico, El Tigre is a must --- uniquely Oaxacan, and as fresh and flavorful as you can get.
El Tigre is open 7 days from morning until 7 pm, Sundays until 2. It’s along highway 190, perhaps a 15 minute drive beyond Mitla, on the left hand side about a half mile before you get to the San Lorenzo Albarradas cutoff which takes you to the bubbling springs.
Alvin Starkman has a masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, takes tours to the sights, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience which combines the comfort and service of a large downtown Oaxaca hotel, with the personal touch and quaintness of a country inn. Alvin consistently receives cudos from his touring clients after a visit to El Tigre.
It’ll cost María Sara and her husband Hilarino about $7,000 USD to get electricity for their tiny, roadside eatery, located about an hour outside of the City of Oaxaca. It’s feasible only if they can get some of their neighbors to chip in. But that would detract from the allure of their restaurant: fresh meats delivered to the premises daily and kept cool in an insulated box; hours of operation governed by nature; no stove or oven, nor subtle din of an electric fridge; and no TV revisiting Mexico’s last soccer triumph.
El Tigre is about the last vestige of Old Mexico you’ll encounter on a visit to Oaxaca, while at the same time as comfortable, accommodating, and safe for North American gastrointestinal tracts as you’ll find in the finest white linen restaurants in the downtown core. Sure, the wood-burning hearth over which all of their daily offerings are prepared, produces distracting smoke from time to time. And it’s doubtful that the blocks of ice cooling the Coke, Fanta and Corona will keep the beverages as cold as most are accustomed. But save and except for these shortcomings, if you’re heading to Mitla, or out towards Hierve el Agua, a visit to El Tigre is not to be missed.
You’ll be warmly greeted by María Sara and her daughter-in-law Alma. Conceivably Hilarino will be there as well. He runs the mezcal operation alongside the restaurant, the implication being that if you order mezcal, it’s on the house.
But you’re stopping for the food and the open air ambience and basically nothing more. There’s no menu, so you’d better either have a minimal knowledge of Spanish, or read on and take notes. Each morning María cooks up a different stew, be it beef in green sauce, pork in red, or something similar. Otherwise the standard choices available every day are quite simple: grilled chorizo (Oaxacan sausage); a plate of cecina (sliced pork lightly dusted with chili); tasajo (thinly sliced beef); eggs, either scrambled alone or with chorizo, or fried; quesadillas; and memelitas. María is used to this writer bringing by North American tourists, who have often commented that it was the best meal they’ve had in Oaxaca. You can ask for anything to be cooked on the comal, over open flame, sans lard, oil or butter.
The accompaniments are sliced tomato and onion (disinfected), boiled black beans, and freshly made salsa with garlic, chili, tomato, and little more, served hot off the grill in its molcajete, the pestle and mortar used in preparation. You’ll generally see a pot of simmering corn kernels being softened and readied for the next day’s grinding into a masa for making tortillas. And yes, of course the tortillas, made with hand-ground cornmeal and prepared on the comal before your eyes complement every order.
Since 1994 El Tigre has been serving the surrounding communities, the odd visitor en route to and from to Hierve el Agua, and those in transit between Oaxaca and the district known as the Mixe. The main attraction for many Mexicans is the mezcal produced on site by Hilarino, using the age old traditional techniques of his grandparents and their forebears. But for those who yearn for a taste of down-to-earth, unadulterated southern Mexico, El Tigre is a must --- uniquely Oaxacan, and as fresh and flavorful as you can get.
El Tigre is open 7 days from morning until 7 pm, Sundays until 2. It’s along highway 190, perhaps a 15 minute drive beyond Mitla, on the left hand side about a half mile before you get to the San Lorenzo Albarradas cutoff which takes you to the bubbling springs.
Alvin Starkman has a masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, takes tours to the sights, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience which combines the comfort and service of a large downtown Oaxaca hotel, with the personal touch and quaintness of a country inn. Alvin consistently receives cudos from his touring clients after a visit to El Tigre.
8/13/2008
The Allure of Oaxaca, Mexico, for Snowbirds
THE ALLURE OF OAXACA, MEXICO, FOR SNOWBIRDS
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Oaxaca has two main advantages over other southern destinations for snowbirds. First, you can explore one of the most culturally rich regions in Latin America, and then if the mood strikes, hop a plane, and in 35 minutes be relaxing on a sandy beach sipping margaritas. Second, there is enough of an expat presence in the city to enable a vacationer to spend part of the time with other Anglophones if inclined, and the balance with native Mexicans.
Oaxaca (wah – HAW – kah) is one of Mexico’s southernmost states. Its capital, the city of Oaxaca, has a population upwards of 400,000, brimming with Old World charm. A UNESCO world heritage site, the city and central valleys are filled with pre-Hispanic ruins, 16th century churches, colorful market towns and craft villages, art galleries and museums, and renowned cuisine. In 2006 Oaxaca was named one of the ten most important travel destinations, worldwide.
Begin a visit by spending the first couple of days downtown, wandering the zócalo, the city’s central square, lined with outdoor cafés and balconied restaurants. There you’ll soak up the live music of mariachis, marimbas and Latin dance bands. From the street vendors you’ll preview the array of local crafts you’ll have an opportunity to purchase in the villages. Marvel at the exquisite colonial architecture, centuries old artistic wrought ironwork, and green limestone block construction.
Be sure to walk up Garcia Vigil street to Los Arquitos, the 18th century aqueduct where you’ll encounter quaint restaurants, dwellings, and a weekend organic market. Down the street drop by the home where the first indigenous president of Mexico, Oaxaca’s own Benito Juarez lived. During his rule, Juarez succeeded in separating church and state, the ultimate marker being his declaration that all church marriages were invalid.
The Cathedral at the north end of the zócalo, La Soledad a few blocks west, and Santa Domingo a short walk up the city’s main pedestrian walkway, are the three must-see Dominican churches, in their grandeur and refurbished glory. The Santa Domingo Cultural Centre adjoining the church has impressive displays covering various historical periods, well laid out in several halls. The ethno-botanical gardens behind the complex, showcasing cactus, succulents and trees all native to the region, offers an English tour three times weekly. The Rufino Tamayo Museum of Pre-Hispanic Art is the other major museum for both archaeology aficionados and those with an eye for early aesthetics. It represents the collection donated by Tamayo, a grand master of Mexican art and one of the state’s native sons.
Oaxaca boasts over 50 galleries and artist studios, representing the fruits of a rich, longstanding tradition. One can easily spend an entire vacation exploring the artistic community. Not a week seems to go by when there is not a new opening, a benefit auction, or an opportunity to stop and chat with an impressive young artist and perhaps get invited to his workshop for a peek at his latest yet unfinished works. About a half hour’s drive outside of the city you’ll be awe-struck by the San Agustín Center for The Arts, with rotating displays, housed in a magestic 19th century textile mill. Then tour the nearby hand-made paper factory. Both are located in a lush, panoramic rural setting, the brainchild of contemporary Oaxacan artist and philanthropist Francisco Toledo.
The state’s 16 distinct ancestral cultures, maintained through innumerable colorful fiestas throughout the year, have contributed to a broad diversity of gastronomic traditions, highlighted by unique ingredient combinations and distinctly flavored dishes. The most well-known of the seven moles --- rich and unusually flavored sauces --- is mole negro which combines tomato, a variety of chilis, and chocolate. Other regional plates include a dozen varieties of both sweet and zesty tamales; the tlayuda (an oversized crispy tortilla topped with refried beans, lettuce, tomato, cheese and a selection of beef, pork or sausage); the parrillada (a medley of grilled cheeses, meats and vegetables brought to the table in a sizzling hibachi ); and barbacoa (goat or sheep cooked in an in-ground oven). Then of course there’s Oaxaca’s more exotic fare, seasoned fried grasshoppers, a typical snack, and gusano worm, used to make salsas and as a chaser for spirits.
With such culinary greatness it’s no surprise that a number of cooking schools have sprung up over the last couple of decades. Novice cooks, seasoned chefs and restauranteurs from around the globe converge on the city to take classes. Internationally acclaimed Oaxacan chef Pilar Cabrera believes it’s important for students to get into the local marketplace where fresh ingredients are purchased, as part of the learning experience: “I first take my class to the market, where Oaxacans have traditionally bought their ingredients, to teach about the characteristics and variety of foodstuffs, substitutes for produce hard to find back home, and simply as a part of a full immersion cultural experience.” Ms. Cabrera offers private, semi-private and group lessons, as well as full-week intensive courses.
For your initial visit to the city, try to incorporate a Sunday. While most days of the week have rural town marketplaces, Sunday at Tlacolula is by far the best example of a bustling indigenous market with pageantry not to be missed. En route, the 2,000 year old cypress at Santa María el Tule, is worth a stop. It’s purportedly the world’s largest tree. Then enter the rug town of Teotitlán del Valle, and visit the home and workshop of Porfirio Santiago. Porfirio, together with wife Gloria and family, explain the manufacturing process, religiously followed in the village since 1535, starting with carding of raw wool, spinning, coloring using natural dyes from fruit, nuts, mosses, the añil plant (brilliant indigo), and the cochineal insect, and finally weaving intricate Zapotec designs on locally produced pine looms.
The Zapotecs have been one of the state’s pre-dominant cultures for over 2,000 years, and in many towns and villages remain a strong presence today, with native tongue still spoken. One of the vestiges of Zapotec society is the ruin at Mitla, encountered along the same route. Mitla is unique because of its multi-ton limestone lintels, estimated 100,000 hand carved stones used to form friezes in various geometric designs, the remains of pictographs which tell family genealogies, and its tombs. Mitla is second only to the most noted ruin in the state, Monte Albán, a 15 minute drive from Oaxaca.
On another day, head out from the city in a different direction, starting with a visit to the black pottery village of San Bartolo Coyotepec. At the workshop of Doña Rosa you’ll have an opportunity to learn from her son, Don Valente, who has been making pottery without a wheel and using only rudimentary tools produced in the village, for 70 years. Then at San Martín Tilcajete you’ll have an opportunity to see demonstrations of a pre-Hispanic woodcarving tradition. The families in this village carve fanciful animals and paint them with the most vibrant of colors. The workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles is noteworthy for the quality of carving and use of natural paints made from tree bark and sap, pomegranate, honey, berries, leaves and other substances produced by mother earth.
You can easily spend a full day down the road in Ocotlán. Aside from its Friday market, visit the workshops of the Aguilar sisters who make painted clay figures depicting townspeople in their regional dress, market scenes, biblical stories and amusing sexual images. Their cousin, Apolinar Aguilar, hand-forges knives and cutlery utilizing the 16th century Toledo, Spain technique. He works with only recycled metals and other materials, using a stone and clay hearth. His workshop was enlisted to make the swords used in the 1980s feature film Conan the Barbarian. In the centre of town you’ll have an opportunity to learn about another late great master of Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales. His works are on display in the town museum, and at his Foundation located in his family’s typical courtyard style colonial home. The most impressive example of his work is the large fresco mural which can be viewed in a government building at one end of the square.
There are several more sights you can visit along each of these and other routes. For example, consider the church and monastery at Cuilapam; the cotton textile village at Santo Tomás Jalieza where women weave using a back strap loom; a series of 16th century churches found along what’s known as the Domincan Route; numerous other ruins representing the remains of diverse cultures spanding millenia; cave paintings; petrified waterfalls and bubbling natural springs in an exquisite mountain setting at Hierve el Agua; and mezcal factories where you can witness the centuries old method of producing the spirit. The agave plant is baked in a pit and then pulverizing using a mule dragging a limestone wheel over it, in preparation for fermentation. A wood-burning still is utilized in the final phase of production. Once you get out of the central valleys, up into the mountains and then down into the tropical regions leading to both the Pacific and Caribbean, the variety of native crafts and traditions, marvels of nature and other sights become endless.
While cultural attractions are clearly a major draw to the region, the state is not without sand and surf. The Pacific beach resort towns of Huatulco and Puerto Escondido are a short flight or a very scenic drive from the state capital, enabling vacationers to split their holiday time between two distinctly different experiences.
After an initial tour of the capital, consider more extended visits as part of a retirement plan. Contact with other Canadians and Americans is easily facilitated through the English language library, one of the largest in the country. Through it one can meet other expats in a relaxed and welcoming environment, and become part of the various outreach programs, card and other game groups, monthly dinner get-togethers, the garden club, frequent excursions, and much more. However, since expats reside throughout the various neighborhoods and close-by villages, and not in any select community or development, those with winter residency in Oaxaca are readily accepted as part of the broader Oaxacan community.
The allure of Oaxaca is much more than the year round warm climate, modest cost of living and broad range of available activities … it’s the welcoming nature of its people.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology from York University in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a successful career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a documentary film consultant, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ) .
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Oaxaca has two main advantages over other southern destinations for snowbirds. First, you can explore one of the most culturally rich regions in Latin America, and then if the mood strikes, hop a plane, and in 35 minutes be relaxing on a sandy beach sipping margaritas. Second, there is enough of an expat presence in the city to enable a vacationer to spend part of the time with other Anglophones if inclined, and the balance with native Mexicans.
Oaxaca (wah – HAW – kah) is one of Mexico’s southernmost states. Its capital, the city of Oaxaca, has a population upwards of 400,000, brimming with Old World charm. A UNESCO world heritage site, the city and central valleys are filled with pre-Hispanic ruins, 16th century churches, colorful market towns and craft villages, art galleries and museums, and renowned cuisine. In 2006 Oaxaca was named one of the ten most important travel destinations, worldwide.
Begin a visit by spending the first couple of days downtown, wandering the zócalo, the city’s central square, lined with outdoor cafés and balconied restaurants. There you’ll soak up the live music of mariachis, marimbas and Latin dance bands. From the street vendors you’ll preview the array of local crafts you’ll have an opportunity to purchase in the villages. Marvel at the exquisite colonial architecture, centuries old artistic wrought ironwork, and green limestone block construction.
Be sure to walk up Garcia Vigil street to Los Arquitos, the 18th century aqueduct where you’ll encounter quaint restaurants, dwellings, and a weekend organic market. Down the street drop by the home where the first indigenous president of Mexico, Oaxaca’s own Benito Juarez lived. During his rule, Juarez succeeded in separating church and state, the ultimate marker being his declaration that all church marriages were invalid.
The Cathedral at the north end of the zócalo, La Soledad a few blocks west, and Santa Domingo a short walk up the city’s main pedestrian walkway, are the three must-see Dominican churches, in their grandeur and refurbished glory. The Santa Domingo Cultural Centre adjoining the church has impressive displays covering various historical periods, well laid out in several halls. The ethno-botanical gardens behind the complex, showcasing cactus, succulents and trees all native to the region, offers an English tour three times weekly. The Rufino Tamayo Museum of Pre-Hispanic Art is the other major museum for both archaeology aficionados and those with an eye for early aesthetics. It represents the collection donated by Tamayo, a grand master of Mexican art and one of the state’s native sons.
Oaxaca boasts over 50 galleries and artist studios, representing the fruits of a rich, longstanding tradition. One can easily spend an entire vacation exploring the artistic community. Not a week seems to go by when there is not a new opening, a benefit auction, or an opportunity to stop and chat with an impressive young artist and perhaps get invited to his workshop for a peek at his latest yet unfinished works. About a half hour’s drive outside of the city you’ll be awe-struck by the San Agustín Center for The Arts, with rotating displays, housed in a magestic 19th century textile mill. Then tour the nearby hand-made paper factory. Both are located in a lush, panoramic rural setting, the brainchild of contemporary Oaxacan artist and philanthropist Francisco Toledo.
The state’s 16 distinct ancestral cultures, maintained through innumerable colorful fiestas throughout the year, have contributed to a broad diversity of gastronomic traditions, highlighted by unique ingredient combinations and distinctly flavored dishes. The most well-known of the seven moles --- rich and unusually flavored sauces --- is mole negro which combines tomato, a variety of chilis, and chocolate. Other regional plates include a dozen varieties of both sweet and zesty tamales; the tlayuda (an oversized crispy tortilla topped with refried beans, lettuce, tomato, cheese and a selection of beef, pork or sausage); the parrillada (a medley of grilled cheeses, meats and vegetables brought to the table in a sizzling hibachi ); and barbacoa (goat or sheep cooked in an in-ground oven). Then of course there’s Oaxaca’s more exotic fare, seasoned fried grasshoppers, a typical snack, and gusano worm, used to make salsas and as a chaser for spirits.
With such culinary greatness it’s no surprise that a number of cooking schools have sprung up over the last couple of decades. Novice cooks, seasoned chefs and restauranteurs from around the globe converge on the city to take classes. Internationally acclaimed Oaxacan chef Pilar Cabrera believes it’s important for students to get into the local marketplace where fresh ingredients are purchased, as part of the learning experience: “I first take my class to the market, where Oaxacans have traditionally bought their ingredients, to teach about the characteristics and variety of foodstuffs, substitutes for produce hard to find back home, and simply as a part of a full immersion cultural experience.” Ms. Cabrera offers private, semi-private and group lessons, as well as full-week intensive courses.
For your initial visit to the city, try to incorporate a Sunday. While most days of the week have rural town marketplaces, Sunday at Tlacolula is by far the best example of a bustling indigenous market with pageantry not to be missed. En route, the 2,000 year old cypress at Santa María el Tule, is worth a stop. It’s purportedly the world’s largest tree. Then enter the rug town of Teotitlán del Valle, and visit the home and workshop of Porfirio Santiago. Porfirio, together with wife Gloria and family, explain the manufacturing process, religiously followed in the village since 1535, starting with carding of raw wool, spinning, coloring using natural dyes from fruit, nuts, mosses, the añil plant (brilliant indigo), and the cochineal insect, and finally weaving intricate Zapotec designs on locally produced pine looms.
The Zapotecs have been one of the state’s pre-dominant cultures for over 2,000 years, and in many towns and villages remain a strong presence today, with native tongue still spoken. One of the vestiges of Zapotec society is the ruin at Mitla, encountered along the same route. Mitla is unique because of its multi-ton limestone lintels, estimated 100,000 hand carved stones used to form friezes in various geometric designs, the remains of pictographs which tell family genealogies, and its tombs. Mitla is second only to the most noted ruin in the state, Monte Albán, a 15 minute drive from Oaxaca.
On another day, head out from the city in a different direction, starting with a visit to the black pottery village of San Bartolo Coyotepec. At the workshop of Doña Rosa you’ll have an opportunity to learn from her son, Don Valente, who has been making pottery without a wheel and using only rudimentary tools produced in the village, for 70 years. Then at San Martín Tilcajete you’ll have an opportunity to see demonstrations of a pre-Hispanic woodcarving tradition. The families in this village carve fanciful animals and paint them with the most vibrant of colors. The workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles is noteworthy for the quality of carving and use of natural paints made from tree bark and sap, pomegranate, honey, berries, leaves and other substances produced by mother earth.
You can easily spend a full day down the road in Ocotlán. Aside from its Friday market, visit the workshops of the Aguilar sisters who make painted clay figures depicting townspeople in their regional dress, market scenes, biblical stories and amusing sexual images. Their cousin, Apolinar Aguilar, hand-forges knives and cutlery utilizing the 16th century Toledo, Spain technique. He works with only recycled metals and other materials, using a stone and clay hearth. His workshop was enlisted to make the swords used in the 1980s feature film Conan the Barbarian. In the centre of town you’ll have an opportunity to learn about another late great master of Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales. His works are on display in the town museum, and at his Foundation located in his family’s typical courtyard style colonial home. The most impressive example of his work is the large fresco mural which can be viewed in a government building at one end of the square.
There are several more sights you can visit along each of these and other routes. For example, consider the church and monastery at Cuilapam; the cotton textile village at Santo Tomás Jalieza where women weave using a back strap loom; a series of 16th century churches found along what’s known as the Domincan Route; numerous other ruins representing the remains of diverse cultures spanding millenia; cave paintings; petrified waterfalls and bubbling natural springs in an exquisite mountain setting at Hierve el Agua; and mezcal factories where you can witness the centuries old method of producing the spirit. The agave plant is baked in a pit and then pulverizing using a mule dragging a limestone wheel over it, in preparation for fermentation. A wood-burning still is utilized in the final phase of production. Once you get out of the central valleys, up into the mountains and then down into the tropical regions leading to both the Pacific and Caribbean, the variety of native crafts and traditions, marvels of nature and other sights become endless.
While cultural attractions are clearly a major draw to the region, the state is not without sand and surf. The Pacific beach resort towns of Huatulco and Puerto Escondido are a short flight or a very scenic drive from the state capital, enabling vacationers to split their holiday time between two distinctly different experiences.
After an initial tour of the capital, consider more extended visits as part of a retirement plan. Contact with other Canadians and Americans is easily facilitated through the English language library, one of the largest in the country. Through it one can meet other expats in a relaxed and welcoming environment, and become part of the various outreach programs, card and other game groups, monthly dinner get-togethers, the garden club, frequent excursions, and much more. However, since expats reside throughout the various neighborhoods and close-by villages, and not in any select community or development, those with winter residency in Oaxaca are readily accepted as part of the broader Oaxacan community.
The allure of Oaxaca is much more than the year round warm climate, modest cost of living and broad range of available activities … it’s the welcoming nature of its people.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology from York University in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a successful career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a documentary film consultant, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ) .
8/10/2008
Manuel Reyes: sculptor, painter and renaissance man from the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca
Alvin Starkman, M.A. LL.B.
Artist Manuel Reyes aspires to exhibit his work in art galleries in Oaxaca and Mexico City. Give him that exposure over the next couple of years, and there’s little doubt his genius will be known in New York, Chicago, and further abroad. American, Canadian and European art collectors are already tapping their Mexican networks to figure out how to make their way to his modest home and workshop in the village of Yanhuitlan, an hour and a half outside of the city of Oaxaca, to marvel at his artistry … and buy it up.
Reyes was born in Mexico City (d.o.b. 20/12/72) to Oaxacan parents. He balks at any suggestion that he is not pure Oaxacan: “My parents are from the Mixteca Alta, right in this region of the state, and I’ve always considered myself a Oaxacan. That’s my heritage, my birthright. I just happen to have been born out of state. While I’ve had training from some of the grand masters of Mexican art, I’ve developed a large part of my artistic style from watching and speaking to local artists right here in the Mixteca.”
Reyes began studying art in 1990. He attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas in Xochimilco, Mexico City. He moved to Cuernavaca in 1995, where he was mentored by the likes of Roger Von Gunten, Joy Laville, Francisco Lastra and Juan Soriano. He studied predominantly seriography, sculpture and painting. In 2003 Reyes returned to the Mixteca, and has since then re-established his roots. “The lessons I learned through my formal training have been invaluable, but I gain inspiration and have adopted techniques not solely from my maestros, to whom I owe a great deal, but also from the artists and craftspeople of the Oaxacan district of Nochixtlán.”
Reyes works together with his wife Maricela, a gifted artist in her own right. In fact their six-year-old daughter Natalia does ceramics with her mother, and painting with Manuel. “Some of our pieces are not only inspired by Natalia, but she actually participates in their creation. Look at this oil mixed with sand on canvas, with its fanciful and childlike figures. Natalia actually began the piece, and I just brought to fruition what was in her mind and she had already begun to put to paper.”
“My main influences are Rufino Tamayo for my painting, and Maribel Portela for my sculpture,” he continues. “But what I’ve learned from the people of my culture has been invaluable to my work … the use of a wood-burning kiln made of mud and brick, about the different kinds of clays for sculpting --- many of which are available in Oaxaca --- and how to mix different kinds of soils to create a broad range of paint colors and tones, and textures. In the end my pieces are products of my local environment, or at times made from materials I’ve sourced from other parts of the country.”
While Reyes obtains his clays from many different areas, most are from four main locales: a riverbed about a kilometer from his home, upstate at Huajuapan de León, the town of Santa María Cuquila, and from Zacatecas, northwest of the nation’s capital. Each compound has different qualities. His Zacatecan clay is strong and has a sandy texture, making it suitable for sculpting his large, almost life-size human figures; more utilitarian pieces such as plates and cups are made with earth from Cuquila; pieces which he intends to burnish are sculpted from clay from Huajuapan de León; and he mixes local soil with the Zacatecan earth to yield a more malleable and easily workable clay.
For colors, Reyes often looks to other parts of the nation so as to enable him to obtain the variety he needs. “That painting hanging in our kitchen provides a good example of the range of colors I derive from combining different earths. Many of my paints come from the environment. I brought a kilo of clay from Chihuahua and used it to make paint for that male figure looking skyward. That white is an oxide.” Indeed the breadth of colors he is able to create for use on both his sculptures and his paintings is remarkable.
Manuel’s canvases are generally “mixed technique” as he refers to them, a combination of oil, acrylic and natural earth. Depending on the inspiration for a particular work, and the imagery he seeks to convey, the order and manner of application and the texture and origin of the soil applied, will vary.
Reyes goes on to explain the sexual imagery captured in many pieces from his current crop of sculptures: “I’ve been doing a fair number with nude males since 2005, not initially by specific design, but rather because that’s what is often depicted in pre-Hispanic art and representations of day-to-day activities, and that’s the kind of work that I’ve enjoyed doing over the past three years. When you look at the earliest Zapotec clay figures, and in fact those dating to Olmec and earlier times, that’s what my ancestors were creating. A number of sculptures portray hope and prayer as well, so much a part of ancient times, with head looking upward to the heavens and hands raised.” When questioned about the over-representation in his figures of males with dangling phalluses, Reyes points to a couple of female pieces: “Look at that female warrior over there. But notice the belt I made for her, with penises hanging from it, her trophies.”
Reyes readily acknowledges that this is still a business, his livelihood, and when gay male collectors began taking an interest in this phase of his artistic development, it motivated him to continue with it and further experiment with the theme of male sexuality as depicted in the codices and sculptures of earlier civilizations.
But Manuel’s work also reflects his personal interests and passions, his reverence for Oaxaca’s present day rich cultural traditions, and his eclecticism whereby he’s prepared to push the outer boundary of what’s traditionally considered art, at times combining aestheticism with pure functionality: “I know a really good carpenter here in Yanhuitlan, and thought of combining our two trades, sort of as a fun project. I asked him to make me a cabinet with shelves and doors. I painted it and then put six mask tiles, each with a fair bit of relief, on the door panels. It came out really funky and a collector bought it within a couple of weeks of when I’d finished it.
Reyes has begun experimenting with masks as an art form. Their use at fiestas and for parades is common practice in Oaxaca, the tradition dating back perhaps 3,000 years, when permanent settlements were first established in the region. He pays tribute to the ritualistic use of masks with one of his sculptures, a marcher holding a mask in front of his face, still a common sight at Oaxacan celebrations today.
On a recent visit to Reyes’ home, the music of Lou Reed was playing. Rock, blues and other genres of the 60’s and 70’s are included in this extraordinary man’s list of delights. And of course, they are reflected in his work. He’s created clay painted figures of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, simply as a way of paying homage to some of his rock idols. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven was the inspiration for one of his more “traditional” sculptures, with four men each climbing up a rung of a ladder made of reinforced steel covered with twine, each step framed by horn-shaped clouds.
More recently Reyes has become interested in depicting vestiges of the material culture of his indigenous forebears, combining his gift as a skilled artist with the work of an applied archaeologist. For example he recently found a potsherd with a painted design, and through extrapolation has created an entire, accurately crafted three-footed vessel.
Through his art, Manuel Reyes is continually looking for new modes of self-expression, while at the same time reflecting on diverse cultures, both present-day and of the near and distant past. He’s a true renaissance man whose golden touch will undoubtedly, over time, become appreciated by an increased following. The exhibitions of his work in Huajuapan de León and at the Museo del Arte Popular in San Bartolo Coyotepec where one piece remains on permanent display, pale compared to what’s in store for Manuel … and art aficionados around the globe.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a successful career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin, while still a good-standing member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, now resides with his wife Arlene in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a consultant to documentary film companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), providing the comfort and service of lodging in a Oaxaca hotel, with the personal touch of a quaint country inn.
Artist Manuel Reyes aspires to exhibit his work in art galleries in Oaxaca and Mexico City. Give him that exposure over the next couple of years, and there’s little doubt his genius will be known in New York, Chicago, and further abroad. American, Canadian and European art collectors are already tapping their Mexican networks to figure out how to make their way to his modest home and workshop in the village of Yanhuitlan, an hour and a half outside of the city of Oaxaca, to marvel at his artistry … and buy it up.
Reyes was born in Mexico City (d.o.b. 20/12/72) to Oaxacan parents. He balks at any suggestion that he is not pure Oaxacan: “My parents are from the Mixteca Alta, right in this region of the state, and I’ve always considered myself a Oaxacan. That’s my heritage, my birthright. I just happen to have been born out of state. While I’ve had training from some of the grand masters of Mexican art, I’ve developed a large part of my artistic style from watching and speaking to local artists right here in the Mixteca.”
Reyes began studying art in 1990. He attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas in Xochimilco, Mexico City. He moved to Cuernavaca in 1995, where he was mentored by the likes of Roger Von Gunten, Joy Laville, Francisco Lastra and Juan Soriano. He studied predominantly seriography, sculpture and painting. In 2003 Reyes returned to the Mixteca, and has since then re-established his roots. “The lessons I learned through my formal training have been invaluable, but I gain inspiration and have adopted techniques not solely from my maestros, to whom I owe a great deal, but also from the artists and craftspeople of the Oaxacan district of Nochixtlán.”
Reyes works together with his wife Maricela, a gifted artist in her own right. In fact their six-year-old daughter Natalia does ceramics with her mother, and painting with Manuel. “Some of our pieces are not only inspired by Natalia, but she actually participates in their creation. Look at this oil mixed with sand on canvas, with its fanciful and childlike figures. Natalia actually began the piece, and I just brought to fruition what was in her mind and she had already begun to put to paper.”
“My main influences are Rufino Tamayo for my painting, and Maribel Portela for my sculpture,” he continues. “But what I’ve learned from the people of my culture has been invaluable to my work … the use of a wood-burning kiln made of mud and brick, about the different kinds of clays for sculpting --- many of which are available in Oaxaca --- and how to mix different kinds of soils to create a broad range of paint colors and tones, and textures. In the end my pieces are products of my local environment, or at times made from materials I’ve sourced from other parts of the country.”
While Reyes obtains his clays from many different areas, most are from four main locales: a riverbed about a kilometer from his home, upstate at Huajuapan de León, the town of Santa María Cuquila, and from Zacatecas, northwest of the nation’s capital. Each compound has different qualities. His Zacatecan clay is strong and has a sandy texture, making it suitable for sculpting his large, almost life-size human figures; more utilitarian pieces such as plates and cups are made with earth from Cuquila; pieces which he intends to burnish are sculpted from clay from Huajuapan de León; and he mixes local soil with the Zacatecan earth to yield a more malleable and easily workable clay.
For colors, Reyes often looks to other parts of the nation so as to enable him to obtain the variety he needs. “That painting hanging in our kitchen provides a good example of the range of colors I derive from combining different earths. Many of my paints come from the environment. I brought a kilo of clay from Chihuahua and used it to make paint for that male figure looking skyward. That white is an oxide.” Indeed the breadth of colors he is able to create for use on both his sculptures and his paintings is remarkable.
Manuel’s canvases are generally “mixed technique” as he refers to them, a combination of oil, acrylic and natural earth. Depending on the inspiration for a particular work, and the imagery he seeks to convey, the order and manner of application and the texture and origin of the soil applied, will vary.
Reyes goes on to explain the sexual imagery captured in many pieces from his current crop of sculptures: “I’ve been doing a fair number with nude males since 2005, not initially by specific design, but rather because that’s what is often depicted in pre-Hispanic art and representations of day-to-day activities, and that’s the kind of work that I’ve enjoyed doing over the past three years. When you look at the earliest Zapotec clay figures, and in fact those dating to Olmec and earlier times, that’s what my ancestors were creating. A number of sculptures portray hope and prayer as well, so much a part of ancient times, with head looking upward to the heavens and hands raised.” When questioned about the over-representation in his figures of males with dangling phalluses, Reyes points to a couple of female pieces: “Look at that female warrior over there. But notice the belt I made for her, with penises hanging from it, her trophies.”
Reyes readily acknowledges that this is still a business, his livelihood, and when gay male collectors began taking an interest in this phase of his artistic development, it motivated him to continue with it and further experiment with the theme of male sexuality as depicted in the codices and sculptures of earlier civilizations.
But Manuel’s work also reflects his personal interests and passions, his reverence for Oaxaca’s present day rich cultural traditions, and his eclecticism whereby he’s prepared to push the outer boundary of what’s traditionally considered art, at times combining aestheticism with pure functionality: “I know a really good carpenter here in Yanhuitlan, and thought of combining our two trades, sort of as a fun project. I asked him to make me a cabinet with shelves and doors. I painted it and then put six mask tiles, each with a fair bit of relief, on the door panels. It came out really funky and a collector bought it within a couple of weeks of when I’d finished it.
Reyes has begun experimenting with masks as an art form. Their use at fiestas and for parades is common practice in Oaxaca, the tradition dating back perhaps 3,000 years, when permanent settlements were first established in the region. He pays tribute to the ritualistic use of masks with one of his sculptures, a marcher holding a mask in front of his face, still a common sight at Oaxacan celebrations today.
On a recent visit to Reyes’ home, the music of Lou Reed was playing. Rock, blues and other genres of the 60’s and 70’s are included in this extraordinary man’s list of delights. And of course, they are reflected in his work. He’s created clay painted figures of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, simply as a way of paying homage to some of his rock idols. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven was the inspiration for one of his more “traditional” sculptures, with four men each climbing up a rung of a ladder made of reinforced steel covered with twine, each step framed by horn-shaped clouds.
More recently Reyes has become interested in depicting vestiges of the material culture of his indigenous forebears, combining his gift as a skilled artist with the work of an applied archaeologist. For example he recently found a potsherd with a painted design, and through extrapolation has created an entire, accurately crafted three-footed vessel.
Through his art, Manuel Reyes is continually looking for new modes of self-expression, while at the same time reflecting on diverse cultures, both present-day and of the near and distant past. He’s a true renaissance man whose golden touch will undoubtedly, over time, become appreciated by an increased following. The exhibitions of his work in Huajuapan de León and at the Museo del Arte Popular in San Bartolo Coyotepec where one piece remains on permanent display, pale compared to what’s in store for Manuel … and art aficionados around the globe.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a successful career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin, while still a good-standing member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, now resides with his wife Arlene in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a consultant to documentary film companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), providing the comfort and service of lodging in a Oaxaca hotel, with the personal touch of a quaint country inn.
7/21/2008
Motorcycles, scooters, Oaxaca and surviving
MOTORCYCLES, SCOOTERS, OAXACA AND SURVIVING
Cautionary note: The third week of May, 2008, Hertz in Oaxaca changed its downtown location from a side-street, to the main drag, the pedestrian walkway known as Alcalá, about a block and a half up from the zócalo. The new digs are larger and storefront. However, in one of the windows are parked four or five 125 cc scooters for rent, at the very reasonable price of 250 pesos per day. The Hertz management are good people whom I’ve known for years. However, travelers and should take extra precautions if contemplating renting a scooter. The temptation is now right in front of you. Bombing around downtown Oaxaca or on the nearby highways is very different from renting a motorbike in Cancun, The Dominican Republic, Puerto Escondido and other beach resorts. It’s much more dangerous in my opinion, so be forewarned and make sure you exercise added caution if you’re a novice or lack a lot of experience, yet still insist on renting. In the space of one year, in motorcycle accidents one acquaintance has been killed, and another ended up confined permanently to a wheelchair … and these were experienced, Oaxacan cyclists. In Oaxaca, rules of the road are different, and in any event are not enforced very often; at many intersections there are no traffic lights or stop or yield signs, so you just have to know; frequently traffic lights don’t work (especially during rainy season); it appears to me that most motorists are uninsured (insurance is optional in the state); and, impaired driving is a much greater problem here than in the US or Canada. While penal reform now exists in Oaxaca, its implementation is proceeding very slowly, and here in the city we are still subject to a Napoleonic / inquisitorial regime … meaning that if you get in an accident and someone is injured, even if you believe it’s not your fault, you could end up behind bars, if only for a brief period of time. Please, be careful. To date I've been riding my motorcycle in Oaxaca without incident, but am vigilent at all times, to the extreme.
Alvin Starkman
Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast
http://www.oaxacadream.com
Alvin & Arlene Starkman
Sierra Nevada 164
Col. Loma Linda
Oaxaca, Oaxaca 68024 Mexico
Cautionary note: The third week of May, 2008, Hertz in Oaxaca changed its downtown location from a side-street, to the main drag, the pedestrian walkway known as Alcalá, about a block and a half up from the zócalo. The new digs are larger and storefront. However, in one of the windows are parked four or five 125 cc scooters for rent, at the very reasonable price of 250 pesos per day. The Hertz management are good people whom I’ve known for years. However, travelers and should take extra precautions if contemplating renting a scooter. The temptation is now right in front of you. Bombing around downtown Oaxaca or on the nearby highways is very different from renting a motorbike in Cancun, The Dominican Republic, Puerto Escondido and other beach resorts. It’s much more dangerous in my opinion, so be forewarned and make sure you exercise added caution if you’re a novice or lack a lot of experience, yet still insist on renting. In the space of one year, in motorcycle accidents one acquaintance has been killed, and another ended up confined permanently to a wheelchair … and these were experienced, Oaxacan cyclists. In Oaxaca, rules of the road are different, and in any event are not enforced very often; at many intersections there are no traffic lights or stop or yield signs, so you just have to know; frequently traffic lights don’t work (especially during rainy season); it appears to me that most motorists are uninsured (insurance is optional in the state); and, impaired driving is a much greater problem here than in the US or Canada. While penal reform now exists in Oaxaca, its implementation is proceeding very slowly, and here in the city we are still subject to a Napoleonic / inquisitorial regime … meaning that if you get in an accident and someone is injured, even if you believe it’s not your fault, you could end up behind bars, if only for a brief period of time. Please, be careful. To date I've been riding my motorcycle in Oaxaca without incident, but am vigilent at all times, to the extreme.
Alvin Starkman
Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast
http://www.oaxacadream.com
Alvin & Arlene Starkman
Sierra Nevada 164
Col. Loma Linda
Oaxaca, Oaxaca 68024 Mexico
7/20/2008
Rainy season in Oaxaca
STORMY WEATHER: RAINY SEASON IN OAXACA
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
From May until well past summer’s end, Oaxaca can be subject to extreme weather patterns. While we’ve all experienced torrential downpours and damaging winds, here in southern Mexico the region’s utility delivery systems ---which at the best of times have lacked quality control and are now (mostly) outdated---make for storms which affect most of us in ways we have seldom if every experienced. Whether you’re at an internet café, in the comfort of your hotel room or home, on the road or in a restaurant, Oaxaca’s meteorological marvels will impact you in new and different ways.
Rainwaters may wash out roadways in lower-lying areas, and as a result you may experience traffic delays. Road closures and virtually impassable conditions may dictate that you make alternate plans for or perhaps just delay a couple of days that anticipated trek up to the Sierra for a weekend ecotour. The sheer volume of precipitation flowing down steep inclines in a brief period of time coupled with the clogging effect of debris are contributing factors.
Depending on wind direction, occupants of homes, offices and retail establishments may find themselves mopping up. The use of weatherstripping is the exception rather than the norm. So be patient if the level of service you expect is not forthcoming when climatic conditions curtail the ability of your waiter or salesperson to attend to your needs. Oaxacans tend to “go with the flow,” after having endured months of draught and the resultant periodic shortages of water for daily predominantly commercial consumption, and challenges to maintaining crops and gardens. It’s part of the cyclical nature of life, and we quickly become stoic about tolerating and adapting to such temporary natural occurrences…even the minor earth tremors (something different to tell the folks back home).
But it’s the impact that the storms have on electricity that is stunning, both while the skies are thundering and for perhaps 12 hours after the last bolt of lightning has illuminated the cerros. One television may be out of commission while another in the same household may be working, but without sound. The computer may not come on after the fireworks have subsided, yet the lights are on. Some bulbs may be operating at full capacity, while others are not…they may function at a reduced candlelight level, or may simply flicker. One phone may work, another not. The refrigerator may be operating but not the microwave. Causes? For one, Oaxaca lacks a sophistocated regulatory framework which might otherwise control matters such as gauge of electrical wire and overloading of circuits. While “obra suspendida” notices (stop work orders) are not uncommon, they result more from a failure to submit basic drawings to the authorities, than from the substance of the construction.
Your reward for tolerance and understanding is the knowledge that soon all will return to normal, and when you are able to get out on the road you may be blessed with a triple rainbow…it’s all part of the magic of Oaxaca. The city will appear fresh, ultra clean, and have a green tinge to it, many buildings having been constructed of pale green cantera stone mined from local quarries, the cantera taking on deeper tones after a rain. Oaxaca has been called the City of Jade because of this phenomenon.
Rains and their temporary effects on services ought not to put a damper on one’s Oaxacan travel plans for this time of year. The color of the hills and mountains changes from nondescript beige to brilliant green, the temperature range is pleasant at both extremes, and the fiestas are plentiful and filled with unmatched pageantry. Keep your vacation itinerary in tact and you won’t be disappointed. For $1 you can always pick up a rain poncho on the street. Most of my pre-residency Oaxaca travel experiences were throughout the summer, and yet here I am, a Oaxacan looking forward to whatever comes my way.
Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene offers a unique Oaxaca accommodations experience, as owners of Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a member of the Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast Association (http://www.oaxacabedandbreakfast.org). Alvin received his masters in social anthropology in 1978, and his law degree in 1984. Thereafter he was a litigator in Toronto until taking early retirement. He and his family were frequent visitors to Oaxaca between 1991 and when they became permanent residents in 2004.
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
From May until well past summer’s end, Oaxaca can be subject to extreme weather patterns. While we’ve all experienced torrential downpours and damaging winds, here in southern Mexico the region’s utility delivery systems ---which at the best of times have lacked quality control and are now (mostly) outdated---make for storms which affect most of us in ways we have seldom if every experienced. Whether you’re at an internet café, in the comfort of your hotel room or home, on the road or in a restaurant, Oaxaca’s meteorological marvels will impact you in new and different ways.
Rainwaters may wash out roadways in lower-lying areas, and as a result you may experience traffic delays. Road closures and virtually impassable conditions may dictate that you make alternate plans for or perhaps just delay a couple of days that anticipated trek up to the Sierra for a weekend ecotour. The sheer volume of precipitation flowing down steep inclines in a brief period of time coupled with the clogging effect of debris are contributing factors.
Depending on wind direction, occupants of homes, offices and retail establishments may find themselves mopping up. The use of weatherstripping is the exception rather than the norm. So be patient if the level of service you expect is not forthcoming when climatic conditions curtail the ability of your waiter or salesperson to attend to your needs. Oaxacans tend to “go with the flow,” after having endured months of draught and the resultant periodic shortages of water for daily predominantly commercial consumption, and challenges to maintaining crops and gardens. It’s part of the cyclical nature of life, and we quickly become stoic about tolerating and adapting to such temporary natural occurrences…even the minor earth tremors (something different to tell the folks back home).
But it’s the impact that the storms have on electricity that is stunning, both while the skies are thundering and for perhaps 12 hours after the last bolt of lightning has illuminated the cerros. One television may be out of commission while another in the same household may be working, but without sound. The computer may not come on after the fireworks have subsided, yet the lights are on. Some bulbs may be operating at full capacity, while others are not…they may function at a reduced candlelight level, or may simply flicker. One phone may work, another not. The refrigerator may be operating but not the microwave. Causes? For one, Oaxaca lacks a sophistocated regulatory framework which might otherwise control matters such as gauge of electrical wire and overloading of circuits. While “obra suspendida” notices (stop work orders) are not uncommon, they result more from a failure to submit basic drawings to the authorities, than from the substance of the construction.
Your reward for tolerance and understanding is the knowledge that soon all will return to normal, and when you are able to get out on the road you may be blessed with a triple rainbow…it’s all part of the magic of Oaxaca. The city will appear fresh, ultra clean, and have a green tinge to it, many buildings having been constructed of pale green cantera stone mined from local quarries, the cantera taking on deeper tones after a rain. Oaxaca has been called the City of Jade because of this phenomenon.
Rains and their temporary effects on services ought not to put a damper on one’s Oaxacan travel plans for this time of year. The color of the hills and mountains changes from nondescript beige to brilliant green, the temperature range is pleasant at both extremes, and the fiestas are plentiful and filled with unmatched pageantry. Keep your vacation itinerary in tact and you won’t be disappointed. For $1 you can always pick up a rain poncho on the street. Most of my pre-residency Oaxaca travel experiences were throughout the summer, and yet here I am, a Oaxacan looking forward to whatever comes my way.
Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene offers a unique Oaxaca accommodations experience, as owners of Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a member of the Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast Association (http://www.oaxacabedandbreakfast.org). Alvin received his masters in social anthropology in 1978, and his law degree in 1984. Thereafter he was a litigator in Toronto until taking early retirement. He and his family were frequent visitors to Oaxaca between 1991 and when they became permanent residents in 2004.
Rules of the road in Oaxaca
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Give one example of an oxymoron. You guessed it. But just when you think you’re comfortable driving in this city, apparently without hardfast or enforced regulations, there you are, transito (a traffic cop) waving you over, giving you a ticket, removing your license plate or towing your vehicle. Watching and learning what other drivers do does not provide any comfort or assurance that you won’t end up paying a fine, perhaps with your car having vanished, or being honked at by other motorists. All I can do is offer some understanding and explanation, and the rest is up to you.
Let’s start with the premise that this particular local government employee isn’t paid all that well, and therefore has limited “resources,” in the multiple sense of the word. I’ve been told he earns about 6,000 pesos per month, and also that he earns about 2,000 pesos per month and relies on making the balance of his wages “on the street.” Keep this is mind, or search for your own statistics. One thing for sure is that he probably earns less than the average Oaxacan (about 65,000 pesos annually according to most recent statistics)…not like the law enforcement officers we know who retire in their fifties with good pensions to then start a second career in the security field.
I’m convinced that no one knows the traffic laws and that whatever is being enforced is done so haphazardly or on a whim. The point is that even when you think you’re doing the right thing or know the law, you may still be pulled over, fined or bear the wrath of irate motorists. What follows is a smattering of assistance for would-be Oaxacan drivers, constituting acceptable driving practices, not necessarily the law…nor what will keep you out of trouble. But over the past fifteen years I’ve only been pulled over three times…once for a u-turn in a major intersection, another time for driving without plates, and recently for simply not knowing what to do in the middle of a weird-looking intersection with even stranger traffic signals (to date not a single fine).
Keep in mind that frequently lanes aren’t clearly or at all marked, and lights aren’t always working, at least for one direction of traffic. When you see two or more transito directing in an intersection, do not assume that they’re working in unison. I recently saw one officer clipping his fingernails while apparently directing traffic. If it’s sunny and hot, a lone officer might seem invisible, and your only indication he’s around will be the sound of his whistle blowing…he’ll be out of the intersection, watching and directing traffic from under the awning of the building on the corner, in the shade.
WHO HAS THE RIGHT OF WAY?
Many intersections don’t have yield or stop signs, or lights. Most up and down big streets have the right of way, as do most major cross streets, but it’s a matter of learning over time which street is which, what constitutes a big or major one, and even once you’ve done so, being cautious upon entering every intersection because you don’t know if the other guy knows. At traffic lights, green has the right of way, but not immediately. You’re probably accustomed to driving in a jurisdiction where there’s a delay of a second or two between the other driver getting the red, and you getting the green. No so in Oaxaca. Before proceeding, edge out carefully to see how many drivers will be speeding through the red. They say that semáforos (traffic lights) are suggestive only, so at times there will be drivers stopping and then proceeding through a red. Though illegal, this is not an uncommon or unaccepted practice…it just happens, and I bet those going through reds in this context get into less accidents than drivers proceeding immediately upon seeing a green, or those going through unmarked intersections.
TURNING
You’re not supposed to turn right on a red after stopping if it’s safe to do so, unless there’s a sign with an arrow. Breach this one and you’ll be honked at more than for going straight through a red! Sometimes right lanes are reserved for right turns only, so watch for them, or understand why the guy behind you is honking when you obey the red light…there’s probably a green arrow somewhere telling you to turn right. The car on your left might also want to turn right. Regarding left turns, the same holds true. But more often there will be two or three lanes of traffic wanting to turn left, including you…but before making your left turn, ensure the driver to your left also plans to turn left, and not go straight. Buses seem to be allowed to turn whichever way they want from whichever lane they’re in, and because they’re bigger than you, be careful, if you can see them through their exhaust. Unless you plan to turn, the safest place to be and to avoid angry motorists is the middle lanes. On occasion you might even happen upon a far right lane reserved for left hand turns! But wait. Beginning in May, 2006, road “improvements” on the main east-west thoroughfare in the city, Niños Héroes de Chapúltepec, started to reach completion. Instead of there being the usual left hand turn lanes, we now have, a block before an intersection, traffic signals directing you to veer to the far left hand side of the roadway, cutting across oncoming traffic lanes. Then, when you reach the intersection where you want to turn left, there are additional traffic lights. It’s hard to explain the concept, the chaos and the danger to both drivers and pedestrians. Think of it as driving along a North American roadway, and then all of a sudden you have to become a British driver, but just for a block and a turn. The government placed officers at these new intersections to familiarize drivers with these new lanes, which is admirable…but these instructors of insanity are now gone, after the powers who be decided that Oaxacans are now familiar with the grid pattern, so what happens to non-Oaxacan drivers, such as tourists. Will Hertz now double its insurance premiums?
PARKING
You’ll learn to double park, even though you loathe those who do so and create the traffic backlogs. Sometimes tranisto blows his whistle, sometimes he starts giving you a ticket, or removing your plate, and sometimes he does nothing. Pick your spots, keep a passenger in your car who knows where to find you, and be quick. The vehicle you’re blocking will on balance be patient, since the driver was probably double parking an hour earlier. When parking close to a corner, the key is to do so on a street where cars can only turn in the other direction so there’s no chance of you getting clipped. You’re not supposed to do it, but most often it’s overlooked. However, if you’re close to the corner of a street onto which bus traffic turns, watch out because the bus won’t be able to make the turn, and transito will do whatever he can to remove your vehicle. Don’t worry much about barely making it into a parking spot, because Oaxacans seem to have a knack for getting out of small spaces. Watch for driveways since sometimes they’re pretty hard to see. In parking lots, take note of early closing hours.
SPEEDING
I don’t know the city speed limits, nor do the vast majority of Oaxacans. Topes (speed bumps) will dictate your speed, as will the driver behind you. Regarding the former, sometimes they’re marked and sometimes they’re not. Notice the number of repair shops for tires and springs, and signs for alignment and balancing. Attack the topes slowly, and if possible on an angle. Highways often have speed limits marked, but gauge your speed as you would in the city. While the toll-road warns of radar in operation, the only place I’ve ever seen it is on the road from Acapulco to Mexico City. However, you can be pulled over without radar, the fine is very stiff, you’d better have cash on hand, and recall that there’s no presumption of innocence.
AND REMEMBER
In Oaxaca to get a drivers’ license there is no road test or eye exam. You either take a written test or pay someone a bit of money, a very common practice.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sites, is a consultant to film production companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast (http://www.oaxacadream.com), a unique bed and breakfast experience.
Give one example of an oxymoron. You guessed it. But just when you think you’re comfortable driving in this city, apparently without hardfast or enforced regulations, there you are, transito (a traffic cop) waving you over, giving you a ticket, removing your license plate or towing your vehicle. Watching and learning what other drivers do does not provide any comfort or assurance that you won’t end up paying a fine, perhaps with your car having vanished, or being honked at by other motorists. All I can do is offer some understanding and explanation, and the rest is up to you.
Let’s start with the premise that this particular local government employee isn’t paid all that well, and therefore has limited “resources,” in the multiple sense of the word. I’ve been told he earns about 6,000 pesos per month, and also that he earns about 2,000 pesos per month and relies on making the balance of his wages “on the street.” Keep this is mind, or search for your own statistics. One thing for sure is that he probably earns less than the average Oaxacan (about 65,000 pesos annually according to most recent statistics)…not like the law enforcement officers we know who retire in their fifties with good pensions to then start a second career in the security field.
I’m convinced that no one knows the traffic laws and that whatever is being enforced is done so haphazardly or on a whim. The point is that even when you think you’re doing the right thing or know the law, you may still be pulled over, fined or bear the wrath of irate motorists. What follows is a smattering of assistance for would-be Oaxacan drivers, constituting acceptable driving practices, not necessarily the law…nor what will keep you out of trouble. But over the past fifteen years I’ve only been pulled over three times…once for a u-turn in a major intersection, another time for driving without plates, and recently for simply not knowing what to do in the middle of a weird-looking intersection with even stranger traffic signals (to date not a single fine).
Keep in mind that frequently lanes aren’t clearly or at all marked, and lights aren’t always working, at least for one direction of traffic. When you see two or more transito directing in an intersection, do not assume that they’re working in unison. I recently saw one officer clipping his fingernails while apparently directing traffic. If it’s sunny and hot, a lone officer might seem invisible, and your only indication he’s around will be the sound of his whistle blowing…he’ll be out of the intersection, watching and directing traffic from under the awning of the building on the corner, in the shade.
WHO HAS THE RIGHT OF WAY?
Many intersections don’t have yield or stop signs, or lights. Most up and down big streets have the right of way, as do most major cross streets, but it’s a matter of learning over time which street is which, what constitutes a big or major one, and even once you’ve done so, being cautious upon entering every intersection because you don’t know if the other guy knows. At traffic lights, green has the right of way, but not immediately. You’re probably accustomed to driving in a jurisdiction where there’s a delay of a second or two between the other driver getting the red, and you getting the green. No so in Oaxaca. Before proceeding, edge out carefully to see how many drivers will be speeding through the red. They say that semáforos (traffic lights) are suggestive only, so at times there will be drivers stopping and then proceeding through a red. Though illegal, this is not an uncommon or unaccepted practice…it just happens, and I bet those going through reds in this context get into less accidents than drivers proceeding immediately upon seeing a green, or those going through unmarked intersections.
TURNING
You’re not supposed to turn right on a red after stopping if it’s safe to do so, unless there’s a sign with an arrow. Breach this one and you’ll be honked at more than for going straight through a red! Sometimes right lanes are reserved for right turns only, so watch for them, or understand why the guy behind you is honking when you obey the red light…there’s probably a green arrow somewhere telling you to turn right. The car on your left might also want to turn right. Regarding left turns, the same holds true. But more often there will be two or three lanes of traffic wanting to turn left, including you…but before making your left turn, ensure the driver to your left also plans to turn left, and not go straight. Buses seem to be allowed to turn whichever way they want from whichever lane they’re in, and because they’re bigger than you, be careful, if you can see them through their exhaust. Unless you plan to turn, the safest place to be and to avoid angry motorists is the middle lanes. On occasion you might even happen upon a far right lane reserved for left hand turns! But wait. Beginning in May, 2006, road “improvements” on the main east-west thoroughfare in the city, Niños Héroes de Chapúltepec, started to reach completion. Instead of there being the usual left hand turn lanes, we now have, a block before an intersection, traffic signals directing you to veer to the far left hand side of the roadway, cutting across oncoming traffic lanes. Then, when you reach the intersection where you want to turn left, there are additional traffic lights. It’s hard to explain the concept, the chaos and the danger to both drivers and pedestrians. Think of it as driving along a North American roadway, and then all of a sudden you have to become a British driver, but just for a block and a turn. The government placed officers at these new intersections to familiarize drivers with these new lanes, which is admirable…but these instructors of insanity are now gone, after the powers who be decided that Oaxacans are now familiar with the grid pattern, so what happens to non-Oaxacan drivers, such as tourists. Will Hertz now double its insurance premiums?
PARKING
You’ll learn to double park, even though you loathe those who do so and create the traffic backlogs. Sometimes tranisto blows his whistle, sometimes he starts giving you a ticket, or removing your plate, and sometimes he does nothing. Pick your spots, keep a passenger in your car who knows where to find you, and be quick. The vehicle you’re blocking will on balance be patient, since the driver was probably double parking an hour earlier. When parking close to a corner, the key is to do so on a street where cars can only turn in the other direction so there’s no chance of you getting clipped. You’re not supposed to do it, but most often it’s overlooked. However, if you’re close to the corner of a street onto which bus traffic turns, watch out because the bus won’t be able to make the turn, and transito will do whatever he can to remove your vehicle. Don’t worry much about barely making it into a parking spot, because Oaxacans seem to have a knack for getting out of small spaces. Watch for driveways since sometimes they’re pretty hard to see. In parking lots, take note of early closing hours.
SPEEDING
I don’t know the city speed limits, nor do the vast majority of Oaxacans. Topes (speed bumps) will dictate your speed, as will the driver behind you. Regarding the former, sometimes they’re marked and sometimes they’re not. Notice the number of repair shops for tires and springs, and signs for alignment and balancing. Attack the topes slowly, and if possible on an angle. Highways often have speed limits marked, but gauge your speed as you would in the city. While the toll-road warns of radar in operation, the only place I’ve ever seen it is on the road from Acapulco to Mexico City. However, you can be pulled over without radar, the fine is very stiff, you’d better have cash on hand, and recall that there’s no presumption of innocence.
AND REMEMBER
In Oaxaca to get a drivers’ license there is no road test or eye exam. You either take a written test or pay someone a bit of money, a very common practice.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sites, is a consultant to film production companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast (http://www.oaxacadream.com), a unique bed and breakfast experience.
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