You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2016.
Yesterday we went back to San Martin Tilcajete for its fair of alebrijes. About twenty artists had booths all around its center, and in the middle, people sat at a long table painting alebrijes. Munchkin asked if we could do it and we said no, we wanted to go to San Bartolo before the end of the day and anyway, we were already planning to go to a four-hour alebrijes-painting workshop the next day (today, Sunday). She asked again later. By then, we’d given up on the plan of going to San Bartolo, so we said yes, reluctantly. Ten minutes later I told her it was a fantastic idea. I was painting. The soreness in my shoulder disappeared, Donald Trump vanished from my mind, and it was just me, a paintbrush, and this sea turtle.
Munchkin made a penguin and Joy made a flamingo. Pretty good for our first foray into this art form!
And yes, we are about to go to a four-hour workshop and do it some more. Munchkin also wants to learn how to carve them, but that opportunity is harder to find.
Apparently, the craze for these beautiful little sculptures is causing deforestation of the copal tree. We will have to help plant more.
The part-of-a-house we’ve rented is in a really good location in a quiet neighborhood, it has a lot of outdoor space, it has a cistern that guarantees a steady water supply in Oaxaca’s uncertain water system, and the rent is cheap (about $450/month–sorry, San Francisco folks–don’t faint). But it was kind of dismal, to use Munchkin’s word the day we looked at it. She had begun to picture us in the other place we were on the verge of taking, and doesn’t take kindly to these last-minute changes, so she was predisposed to dislike it, but I had to agree. Dirty curtains, drab stained paint, rusty metal, insufficient light, “serviceable” (i.e., ugly) linoleum. Luxurious by Oaxacans’ standards (yes, some houses here have gorgeous tile floors–but plenty of others have dirt), and a perfectly fine place to live, but still . . . a bit dismal, yes.
The long buffet would be better in the kitchen, we thought, and the television would be better hidden in a closet; watching telenovelas (soap operas) would be good Spanish practice, but otherwise the TV serves no function. The plaid sofa and its matching thing, which we call The Thing because “incomprehensible, overlarge combination of coffee table, side table, and armchair” is too long, were probably going to be here to stay.
This was the munchkin’s room. I’ve seen cheap motel rooms that were cheerier.
I did not take pictures of the cockroaches, but there were several our first couple of days, some dead, some alive. Shudder.
However, the landlord offered to paint it any colors we chose, which was huge. We told him it was due for fumigation and he got on it. Lightbulbs, lamps, sheets, and curtains are easily acquired, and we hired someone to give it a top-to-bottom cleaning. So the transformation began.
We told Munchkin we’d get her a desk (her first) and a bedside table, and confirmed with the landlord that she could paint one wall with a mural (he is really a very easygoing guy). She picked colors for her room . . .
. . . and soon the desk was ready. It looked even better against a purple wall. (The left wall got plain white to prepare for the mural.)
Inexplicably but serendipitously, this pasta poster was on sale at the Museum of Philately. (She liked the curtains that were already there. I don’t, much, but it’s her room.)
We requested yellow and orange paint for the living room, purple and yellow for my and Joy’s room, and blue for the hallway. This is Mexico–no one blinked. We got these pretty striped curtains for two small windows, and Joy had the great idea of jazzing up the drab ceiling-to-floor curtains in our room with ribbons (we’re going to buy more). The hummingbird alebrije was a birthday present for Joy.
The painter forgot to touch up the rusty spots in the kitchen, so yesterday, Joy did it. And she and Munchkin painted the little shelves we got for art supplies. They, the desk, a big table for doing art on, a smaller table for our room and computer time, and two new chairs cost a total of about $265. (This is sounding like a Better Homes and Gardens article. “She turned a corrugated plastic shed into a nursery for her triplets for only $350!”)
Some tin animals for the walls, a tablecloth, one handwoven rug we’ll be taking home to San Francisco–visible in the background here–
–a few plants, and the crowning touch that I put up yesterday, several strings of papel picado (cut paper), and the de-dismalfication process is complete. It’s quite a cozy, pretty home now.
Even the plaid sofa and Thing look rather charming in their new context. Katy, as the munchkin has dubbed our Catrina alebrije, rules over the realm and she approves.
I made a thing! I’m learning how oil pastels work. They seemed like the right medium for this saturated color and light, seen in the Don Cenobio Hotel in the town of Mitla.
We went to the Guelaguetza last night! The festival actually lasts officially for a week and unofficially for several weeks beforehand, since Mexico doesn’t hold a week-long party when a month-long party will do. Oaxaca has the highest percentage and variety of indigenous people of any state in the country, and the Guelaguetza celebrates the many local traditions from all over the state: handcrafts, food, music, dance, religious rituals. So we have been going to parades and artisans’ booths and so on, but the cherry on top is the three-hour performance of traditional dances at the beautiful stadium designed specifically for the festival.
After each group performs, the dancers throw bread, bananas, chocolate, baskets, whisk brooms, etc. into the crowd. Munchkin scored one of the tortillas used for tlayudas. They are the driest, most boring tortillas I’ve ever tasted, and it turns out they grow on you after a while. Maybe I’ll even order a tlayuda now.
The entire crowd sings along when the group from La Mixteca comes on. “Canción Mixteca” is a love song to one’s native land, wherever that might be–wave a hat and join in! “Quisiera llorar, quisiera morir, de sentimiento” (I want to cry, I want to die, of emotion).
I encountered an unwanted export today: big-box customer service (that really should be in scare quotes). In contrast to the generally helpful-but-not-pushy attitude one gets in small shops, the big chains have clearly absorbed the business model of most of their U.S. counterparts: training your staff to be knowledgeable and helpful about your products is a waste of money.
Chadraui is a big supermarket with a bit of everything else, like Kmart or Target would be if their main focus were groceries. I popped in this morning to get aluminum foil and a nail brush. I roved up and down the “health and beauty” section for a while, then went to the counter, where three young women had nothing to do, 9:15 a.m. being a pretty quiet time. There are a couple of words for brush and I don’t know which one is correct, so in Spanish, I said, “I’m looking for a brush”–using the word for hairbrush or toothbrush–“for cleaning your fingernails . . . ,” and mimed the act. She cut me off with a nod, saying “lima.”
“Una lima?” I said, to make sure I had it right.
She nodded.
“Dónde están?” I asked.
She pointed over a few aisles and said “Acesorios.” I couldn’t tell what aisle she meant and they weren’t numbered, so I asked if she meant where a man was standing, and she said yes.
Over to the man, who was stocking shelves. Nothing much there except shampoo. I waved at her, and she came around the counter and over to me with a faint air of being where she shouldn’t be–do you suppose they are penalized for leaving their post? I followed her to the next aisle over, where she pointed down the aisle about three meters, said, “Acesorios,” and beat it back to the counter.
It was true, there were about 150 accessories there; I’d bypassed them because they all looked hair-related. A few weren’t, but none of them appeared to be a nail brush, and none of the empty hooks, as far as I could tell, said “lima.” Even though I was exasperated that she couldn’t be bothered to come a few feet farther and show me the item I was looking for, I was determined to look thoroughly, which took awhile. I did find a faux-Frozen “Juego de Manicura” with a tiny little brush. It looked like a good scrubbing would break it in two, so I passed. Fortunately, I could find the aluminum foil all by myself.
When I got home, I looked up lima and it is not a nail brush. It’s a nail file.
I suppose it’s expensive to train bored, minimally-paid, non-career-track employees about where everything is. It’s cheaper to have the bare minimum of staff at the cash registers and drum into their heads that they should not leave to show a customer a product than to train them to walk the customer to the exact location, go find someone else if they can’t find it, follow up with the customer to ask if it was the right item, and give a friendly “I’m so sorry!” if they come up empty. But I’ll go to a nail salon later today, where I’ll get a friendly greeting from someone who is probably the owner, she’ll listen to my description properly, and if she can’t sell me a whatever-it’s-called, she will tell me three places that can, with detailed directions about how to get there.
(Haga clic aquí para leer esta entrada en español)
I finished reading Maya’s Notebook! What a good book. It deals with drug addiction, the 1973 coup in Chile, police corruption and crime in Las Vegas, post-traumatic stress disorder, prostitution–but it isn’t an “issues novel.” It’s about growing up and love, family and the power of certain places: in particular, Chiloé, a Chilean island.
Isabel Allende’s characters and places could teach me or any writer a lot about the art of description. She can draw three personalities in one paragraph. For example, look at this portrait of the narrator Maya, her grandfather, and her grandmother:
If I start talking about my Popo, there’s no way to shut me up. I explained to Manuel that I owe my taste for books and considerable vocabulary to my Nini, but I owe my grandfather the rest. My Nini made me study by force, saying that “the letter enters with blood,” or something barbarous like that, but he turned studying into a game. One of those games consisted of opening the dictionary at random, putting a finger blindly on a word and guessing the meaning. We also played idiotic questions: Why does the rain fall down, Popo? Because if it fell up, it would wet your panties, Maya. Why is glass transparent? To confuse the flies. Why do you have hands that are black on top and pink underneath, Popo? Because there wasn’t enough paint. And so we would go on, until my grandmother would lose her patience and begin howling. (58, my translation)
I told my daughter about the questions game and now we play it too.
I love Allende’s talent for weaving humor together with serious issues. Here a government tries to recover the body of a drowned man:
They brought helicopters, sent boats, threw nets and let two divers down to the bottom of the sea, which did not find the drowned man, but they recovered a motorcycle from 1930, encrusted with mollusks, like a Surrealist sculpture, which will be the most valuable piece in our island’s museum. (437, my translation)
Reading a novel in Spanish is a good way to learn the language, as is living in Mexico for a while, but I will need something else. A class, to give me training in grammar. A self-imposed lesson in all of the forms and expressions of “poner”: poner, ponerse, disponer, puesto . . . After having looked up so many of these verbs and expressions on the way to finishing this book, I believe that if I understood all of them, the world of Spanish would open to me. They’re everywhere.
Another good exercise is this one that you’re reading: translating some of the entries of this blog into Spanish. (Or, as in this case, writing it in Spanish and translating it into English.)
Corrections are welcome.
(Click here to read this post in English)
Terminé de leer El Cuaderno de Maya! Que bueno libro. Se trata de adicción a las drogas, el golpe en Chile en 1973, corrupción policial y crimen en Las Vegas, el trastorno por estrés postraumático, prostitución–pero no es una novela des <<asuntos>>. Es del crecimiento y el amor, la familia y el poder de ciertos lugares: particularmente, Chiloé, una isla de Chile.
Los caracteres y lugares de Isabel Allende podrían enseñar mucho a yo o cualquier escritor sobre el arte de descripción. Ella puede dibujar tres personalidades en un párrafo. Por ejemplo, mira este retrato de la narradora Maya, su abuelo, y su abuela:
Si empieza a hablar de mi Popo, no hay forma de callarme. Le expliqué a Manuel que a mi Nini le debo el gusto por los libros y un vocabulario nada despreciable, pero a mi abuelo le debo todo lo demás. Mi Nini me hacía estudiar a la fuerza, decía que <<la letra entre con sangre>>, o algo así de bárbaro, pero él convertía el estudio en juego. Uno de esos juegos consistía en abrir el diccionario al azar, poner el dedo a ciegas en una palabra y adivinar el significado. También jugábamos a las preguntas idiotas: ¿por qué la lluvia cae para abajo, Popo? Porque si cayera para arriba te mojaría los calzones, Maya. ¿Por qué el vidrio es transparente? Para confundir a las moscas. ¿Por qué tienes las manos negras por arriba y rosadas por abajo, Popo? Porque no alcanzó la pintura. Y así seguíamos hasta que mi abuela perdía la paciencia y empezaba a aullar. (58)
Le dije a mi hija sobre el juego de preguntas y ahora nosotras lo jugamos también.
Me encanta el talento de Allende por tejer humor junto con asuntos serios. Aquí un gobierno trata a recuperar el cuerpo de un hombre ahogado:
Trajeron helicópteros , mandaron botes, tiraron redes y bajaron dos buzos al fondo del mar, que no encontraron al ahogado, pero rescataron una motocicleta de 1930, incurstada de moluscos, como una escultura surrealista, que será la pieza más valiosa del museo de nuestra isla. (437)
Leer una novela en español es una buena manera de aprender la lengua, como es vivir un rato en México, pero yo necesitará algo más. Una clase, por darme entrenamiento en la gramática. Una lección autoimpuesta en todas las formas y expresiones de <<poner>>: poner, ponerse, disponer, puesto . . . Después había buscado tantos verbos y expresiones dichos en ruta de terminar este libro, creo que si entendía todo de ellos, el mundo de español me abriría. Ellos están en todas partes.
Otro buen ejercicio es este que estás leyendo: traducir algunas entradas de este blog a español. (O, como en este caso, escribirla en español y traducirla a inglés.)
Se agradecen las correciones.
My wife Joy is also blogging about Oaxaca. She takes great photos and is very funny. Check it out!
A funny thing about being in Mexico: although I’m not taking a class or working with a tutor at this time, just being here is giving a boost to a longtime project, that of reading Isabel Allende’s novel El Cuaderno de Maya in the original Spanish. I started reading it in 2013, I think, and I often joke that Allende has published three books in the time it’s taking me to work my way through this one. It’s the truth.
We own the English translation (Maya’s Notebook), and I could read it in a couple of days, but I worry that that would sap my motivation, and so I plod along in Spanish. Usually I read a couple pages at a time, once or twice a week, just enough to keep ahead of my weekly meeting with my Spanish teacher. Our hour is mostly spent in my reading a paragraph aloud in Spanish, then translating it into English, then our discussing any questions or mistranslations, and going off on various tangents of language, culture, or literature. Then we repeat. It is an e
xcellent way to learn the language. Guillermo brought in a couple different novels; one by Junot Diaz was just confusing, but when I’d read the first couple of paragraphs of Maya (which you can read here, or in English here), I was so captivated by the character’s voice that I didn’t want to stop. So we knew that that was the one.
Last summer, I set myself the goal of finishing the novel by the end of 2015, but could not keep up the necessary pace of 2-3 pages per day. But here in Mexico, I am motoring through at a pace of 10-12 pages at a sitting and have read about 80 pages in the past couple of weeks. It’s just so much easier now. I love her writing, and I can’t wait to find out what happens. And I have time. And Allende’s language is all around me.
Sermons in Stones 
The white supremacist lie
July 19, 2016 in neo-fascism, social commentary, white supremacy | 7 comments
Share this:
Like this: