Throughout the city there were large, peaceful protests about the elections. I don't know how much you have all been following the news, so I'll give you a brief summary of what is happening. Mexico had their presidential elections in July. The two main candidates were Lopez Obrador and Calderon. Calderon is from the party called PAN, or the National Party of Action, and Obredor is of the PDR, the Revolutionary Democratic Party. Calderon was announced the winner by a small margin. However, many people believe that Obredor actually won and that there was fraud ie cheating either in the process of voting (like people paid to fill in empty ballots) or in the process of counting. The supporters of Obredor have taken to the streets in huge numbers, demonstrating their right of peaceful protest. They want the votes to be recounted throughout the country. So far, the judicial assembly has ordered that some votes be recounted, supposedly votes in regions where cheating was most likely. Of course the supporters of Obredor aren't satisfied with this, so they are still in the streets.
It was interesting to be in Mexico City, or the DF (Federal District) during the protests. While there is conflict around the protestors in other states of Mexico, most of the DF supports the PRD, so there wasn't any real conflict there. Also in the DF protestors aren't required to get a permit to demonstrate. Anyone can close any street for any reason whenever they want, or so I was told. The protestors have taken over the Zócalo, or central plaza, and many of the main streets in the city. They have set up their tents and they stay there day and night. It was quite impressive to see how well organized they were. There was plenty of food, and water, port-a-potties, and even organized social events. There were chess tournaments, miniature soccer courts, and carnival rides for the kids. There were speakers and musicians constantly on the bandstands. There was a concert of political Ska music in the Palace of the Revolution all day everyday the entire week we were there. Everything was very calm.
Not only was it interesting to see the people exercising their right to protest and stand up against what they believe to have been foul play in the elections, but it was also a great time to be in the city as a tourist. There were hardly any other tourists so we had the museums and other historical buildings to ourselves. We didn't have to wait in a single line and got to see everything we had planned, except the National Palace. It is right in the Zócalo and is a huge government building, so it was closed to the public.
While in the city we visited the Archeology Museum where we learned about the pre-Hispanic cultures in Mexico and got to see many of the artifacts they left. All week we had a wonderful tour guide who guided us through the museums and told us all about Mexico's past and present. We also visited the Castle where Maximilliano lived during his short stance as emperor of Mexico, appointed by Napoleon III and where the last battle of the Mexican-American war took place. During a free day, I went with some friends to see the National Museum of Art and the Museum of Diego Rivera where there is a HUGE mural called “Sueños de una tarde de domingo en la Alameda Central,” or “Dreams of a Sunday afternoon in the Central Alameda” (la Alameda is a park in Mexico City). The mural includes many important characters from the history of Mexico and it is as if they all came together to chat one afternoon in the park. The mural is totally full of faces, about half of which are famous. It was really incredible to see and to think about the amount of planning and talent and knowledge of the history had to go into making the mural. Looking at it demonstrated for us how little we know of the history of Mexico and inspired us to read the summary provided by my Lonely Planet guide.
While in the city we also visited the National Cathedral, the central plaza, and the palace of the arts. There we saw the Ballet Folklórico show, which was magnificent. It is a demonstration of many of the traditional dances from different parts of Mexico and periods in the country's history. The costumes where beautiful and the dancing was amazing. There was one that was an indigenous dance about hunting deer. The man who played the deer was spectacular. His control of his body, his strength, leaps, and imitation of a deer demonstrated his amazing dancing ability and physical condition.
In addition to our excursions in the city, we visited Taxco (pronounced Tasco) for a day and Teotihuacán for a day. Taxco was built as a silver mining town during the colonial period. Today, they still mine a little silver there and all the houses must have colonial exteriors. It is in the mountains south of the DF in the state of Guerrero. There is more silver jewelry there than the eyes can absorb. It was quite overwhelming. I did enjoy wandering around though, looking in the shops and exploring the winding streets. The whole town is on a mountain so the view from the higher streets was magnificent. I also liked poking around the Indian market there. It seemed more calm and I felt less like a greedy European descendent looking at the wares there than I did searching through the stores and stores of silver.
Spending the day at Teotihuacán was quite the experience as well. I've seen so many pictures of the famous pyramids, the Pirámide del Sol and the Pirámide de la Luna. I enjoyed climbing both and admiring the mountains and ruins below. It was as impressive as I'd expected; the number of photos I’ve seen didn’t dull the experience. A part of the site I had never heard of turned out to be the most impressive. There is another pyramid, called the Palace of Quetzalpapálotl, there that was already covered by earth by the time the Spaniards arrived. As a result, the statues and carvings along its stairs and on the facade remain intact (the Spaniards didn't know they were there to destroy them in order to get rid of the images of the Aztec gods). Now archeologists are uncovering the temple, little by little, and are finding heads of the gods, depictions of the creation of man, etc. It was truly incredible!
Now I am in Puebla, with my host family. In the house, live the mother, Rosa, the father, Adolfo, and the son, Moses, and me. Moses is 22. In total I think the family has 5 children, but Moses is the youngest and the only one who lives at home. He goes to the University of the Americas, which is next to Puebla in Cholula. He's studying law and speaks French, English. He studied in Paris for a year and spent a month or so in Nashville, TN. He has just started to teach classes of English and French this summer. Adolfo is an accountant. Other than that, I'm not sure exactly what he does for work. I think Rosa stays at home, but I don't actually know. Tonight I also met their daughter Minerva and her husband, Anuar, who just returned from a business trip in Veracruz. Minerva is a drug rep. and she has been working for a well-known company in Mexico for I think about 4 years. She just got promoted at her business conference. Apparently she is the first of her group of drug reps to be promoted. Everyone above her had wonderful things to say about her and what good work she does. Her parents were extremely proud to hear about the promotion.
The family also has two dogs, Corina and Kiriku, a pointer and a Chihuahua. They are both adorable even I hate to admit it the Chihuahua. I think I may have to give up my loathing of tiny dogs, to at least make space for Kiriku among the normal sized dogs I love.
That's all for now. Tomorrow we are meeting as a group to begin learning about Puebla.
Photos:
Mexico City:
1. Protests in the Zócalo, seen from above. The building is the National Palace.
2. Protestors in the Avenue of the Reform, a principal street in Mexico City.
3. VW bus decorated for the protests. Old VWs are very common here.
4. The famous Aztec sun calendar. Museum of Archeology.
5. Mayan god emerging from conch shell. Museum of Archeology. The Mayans believed the first humans were born from conch shells.
(More to come soon! The connection in my house is a bit slow, so I can only upload a few photos at a time).
No comments:
Post a Comment