Getting to know Oaxaca

We can hardly believe we have been in Oaxaca for over 4 months. After one week of orienting ourselves to the city and finding our apartment, we started Spanish classes at Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca (ICO). The school is located on the grounds of a former Hacienda and the owner, la dueña, is a quirky character who runs the place with what some would describe as an iron fist. For example when we first visited ICO and asked to sit in on a class, she told us absolutely not… there was no way. A few minutes later without explanation, we were shown into classes to observe the learning environment. This is just one example of the countless situations that come to pass, in which we don’t quite know what is happening. But it was the start of our relationship with ICO, its fabulous teachers, and our lovely compañeros (classmates) from around the world. 

Over our 9 weeks at the school, we came to love and appreciate the savvy of the school’s staff in teaching under the watchful eye of la dueña. We each had 3 teachers; our last instructor, Andrea, we shared for 5 weeks. At times we feel our Spanish skills growing exponentially and at times we feel incredibly discouraged. Learning a language humbles us and we find ourselves looking to the example of children who put themselves in positions of learning every day. 

Another perk of our school were the elective classes. Shey took cooking, photography, and salsa, and Anicka joined for a second week of salsa. The class brought us from the most basic, básico, steps all the way up to more complicated vueltos, turns. Our instructor, Roberto, can only be described as a suave gentleman; he is both gentle and firm, and makes you feel like you are a skilled dancer with him as the lead. In addition to dancing, he also took time to teach us about Spanish terms, the state of Oaxaca, and Mexican culture. After our week of lessons, we started attending weekly salsa sessions in a plaza and have become regulars. Our Tuesday night routine has become: light dinner, salsa dancing, and then street tacos and esquites or boiled, spiced corn with mayonnaise, queso, and limon in the park on the way home. Although ICO offers many great aspects, we decided to transition from this formal learning environment to private conversation practice, so we can solidify what we’ve already learned and have more time to speak. 

Outside of school, one element of life and Oaxaca that we have come to know is la lucha, the political struggle via demonstrations by various groups. On International Women’s Day, March 8, we watched a march to draw attention to violence towards women in Oaxaca, and in the country overall. This group walked through the streets of Oaxaca toward the main square. Most were peaceful and put up signs with reminders of missing or murdered women, and a few tagged buildings and broke windows. There have also been several instances of groups taking over buses and parking them to block traffic in major arteries. We have been impressed at the scale and organization of these groups. Two weeks ago we walked through the main square, or Zócalo, and came across hundreds of teachers who were camped out there advocating for higher wages. This area routinely hosts events and is typically teeming with musicians, tourists from Mexico and abroad, local families spending the evening, and vendors selling various wares and tasty food.

The state of Oaxaca is one of the poorest in Mexico, despite booming tourism to Oaxaca de Juarez (the largest city, where we live). The example of activism has been set by indigenous groups in the mountains, many of whom continue to reject Mexican policies and practices in their home communities, deciding instead that they will handle conflict and governance themselves. Some of these groups maintain that they have not been conquered; they continue to speak their native dialects rather than Spanish, and live according to their people’s customs. 

By this point we are finally starting to have a few steady friends, we have a system for buying our fruits and vegetables and then cleaning those fruits and vegetables, our neighbors wave to us or talk to us on the street, we attended our first birthday party, and we welcomed our first visitor, Virginia, at the end of May. We are learning an incredible amount about ourselves and about our relationship, and about how we want to move forward with our lives. Some days we are overwhelmed with this challenge, feeling at times like we’ve put ourselves back in a Covid-times bubble where the only people we can see or speak with are each other. But one day at a time, or paso a paso as they say here, we are settling into our life and finding some joy every day.