Bii Dauu

Our group spent the week in Teotitlan del Valle working with Bii Dauu, a collective of Zapotec weavers. The group cultivates many of their own plants to create natural dyes. Using these dyes, they color the yarn for their traditional tapetas (rugs), bufandas (scarves), and bolsas(purses), among other things. We spent the week working on the huerto (the field) and watching various demonstrations about the dying and weaving processes.


Relaxing in the Huerto on the last day. From left:
Andres(the land donor), Renna, Carey, Juan Carlos (Bii Dauu member),
Maggie, Javier (Bii Dauu Member), Erin, Molly, Meg (click on any picture to enlarge)

Over the course of five days, we learned a great deal about not only agriculture and art, but community and friendship as well.

Bii Dauu was created in 2004, and has continued to evolve ever since. Their main goals are to use all natural dyes in their products to protect both the environment and the health of the people in the community. While they do grow many of the plants used in their dyes, they hope to continue to expand the range of what they are cultivating. Currently, they grow the nopal cactus, on which the cochinilla insects live. These insects are used to make red dyes. Bii Dauu also grows pericon, which is used to make yellow, and pomegranates, which are used to make yellow, green, or black dye. All of these plants are grown in the huerto, a small plot of land that was donated by a family member of a group associate. We spent the week learning about and helping to tend to these plants.

Our days began early with a light breakfast at 6:15, after which we headed out to the huerto to begin learning and working with Juan Carlos, one of our main guides, Mariano, the president of Bii Dauu, and many others. We spent several mornings making compost, watering plants, and

preparing the biofertilizer--a mix of garlic, alfalfa, chiles, and aloe that helps repel insects and keep the vegetation healthy. At 10:30, we would go back to our houses for our first lunch--usually a large, delicious, traditional Oaxacan meal. We would rest or spend time with our homestay families until 1:00, when we would meet at the Bii Dauu headquarters to have two hours of demonstrations. At 3:00, it was time to go back to our houses for our second lunch of the day--another delicious meal during which we spoke with our families and learned about their culture. After another short rest, we would return to the huerto to finish up the day´s work. One afternoon, we used this time to visit the town´s new recycling center and help them sort their plastic and glass. At 7:00, we finished off the day with dinner at home, after which we went to bed tired, happy, and incredibly full.

Although the work itself was enjoyable, it wouldn´t have been nearly the same without the incredible personalities of the Bii Dauu members. Our group of seven quickly bonded with them, leading to a week of laughter and sharing. Many of them were eager to learn English, giving us the opportunity to teach them many words, both serious and funny. A day of work in the huerto would not have been complete without our sing-a-longs, sometimes accompanied by the guitar sounds of Juan Carlos. One of the group members, Gervasio, told us that the best part about working with a group is that you get to laugh all of the time. After this week, we certainly agree. These people showed us that work doesn´t always have to be a painful thing or an obstacle to accomplish before you get to have a good time. It doesn´t have to be all about efficiency or flawlessness. With the right attitude, work can be a fun way to connect with your group and strengthen your community. We all built friendships with the members of Bii Dauu that we hope will last throughout our stay in Oaxaca and thereafter.

The lesson we learned about laughter led us to consider the fundamental element of a group such as Bii Dauu--community. We talked about this concept frequently in our Anthropology class, so our questions and ideas about it were still fresh in our minds as we headed into the week. What we found in Teotitlan was a community fortilized by people with a common goal: the health of the people and land as well as the preservation of their culture. For most of the Bii Dauu members, Spanish was their second language. They primarily spoke Zapoteca, their ancestral tongue which is no longer taught in schools. For them, it is very important to preserve this language, as it holds so much of their culture. They teach it to their children, hoping that it will be carried on. This is just one example of the many ways in which they work to strengthen their community.

On the last day, the members threw us a grand fiesta, complete with singing, gifts, and more food than we´d ever seen in our lives. All of the traditional staples were there--tamales(made with a chicken that Liz helped to prepare!), tortillas, atole(corn milk), pozole soup, salsa, and more. After enjoying the delicious comida, we gave them a small presentation, for which we had all prepared speeches in Spanish. For us, our families had prepared various gifts to commemorate our time in Teotitlan. We sat around for several hours afterward, singing American and Mexican songs and joking about the week that had passed. We left feeling both sad and satisfied, knowing we had learned alot but not being quite ready to go.

Fortunately, the members of Bii Dauu missed us as much as we missed them. This Monday, back in the city, we were scheduled to give a presentation to the rest of our group about our week in Teotitlan. As we were preparing to start, Mariano and Juan Carlos walked in with Margarita and Procoro, two other group members. They had come all the way from their pueblo to see our presentation. It meant a lot to us that they took the time to come, and we hope to return to visit them in the near future.

Making funny faces(well, some of us) in the Bii Dauu headquarters. From left, top: Javier, Renna, Molly, Mariano(the president, whose head is poking out in the back), Meg, Carey, Erin, Liz, Maggie, Rafaela; Bottom: Fausto, Procoro, Gervasio, Chucho

La Soledad

Click on any photo to enlarge
For our Service-Learning week, Hannah, Jesse, Andrea, Kiren and Keith chose, to work with Centeotl, a community organization, located in Zimatlan, about 45 minutes south of Oaxaca city. Our work week would be spent in the Sierra Sur mountains, within the hidden village of La Soledad.

Upon arrival in La Soledad on Monday we were expected to give a presentation to the La Soledad community and the focus has something to do with water. We were all a bit uneasy at we were going to be doing in the coming week. Following weeks of working with Gustavo Esteva, the idea of a bunch of American college students trying to help a community through a development organization (Centeotl) seemed to go against everything we had been discussing and understanding. We arrived in Zimatlan, where we would be spending our nights, and went to bed unsure of what the week would bring.

Monday morning (and then every morning!) we arose and headed to the market, a block-long gymnasium type building with pigeons roosting in the crossbars of the high ceiling. Navigating our way through the stalls of veggies and fruits, which at this time in the morning were just opening, we sat down at a counter and ordered hot chocolate y pan dulce (sweet bread for dipping), a common way to start the day off around here. After eating some eggs (huevos rancheros and huevos mexicanos) and feeling quite stuffed, we walked across town to the Centeotl headquarters, passing through the large and newly renovated zocalo, a hub for social interactions throughout the day.

Arriving at Centeotl, we were greeted by Nicandro, our guide for the week. Nicandro and Chuy, the director for Centeotl, gave a Power-Point about Centeotl and its commitment to conserving natural resources in villages and helping them build community autonomy and solvency through different projects.

After the introduction, we all piled into a silver camionetta (pickup truck), and we left for La Soledad. Winding up along the river into the mountains, the air dusty with the red soil kicked up by the truck, it was clear that this was the height of the dry season; the trees were bare, gnarled, and sparse, the cornfields were fallow with last years dry stalks standing up at angles, and the river was barely flowing. After winding back and forth up a hill, we arrived at on a concrete platform built into the hill and surrounded by small, mostly one-story houses, a medical center, a community jail (empty), a store, and some other buildings. This was La Soledad, nestled along a fairly steep tributary running down to the river, with homes extending far up the mountainsides, connected by footpaths.

"The group", the community members working with Centeotl, had been expecting us, and came to greet us as we hopped out of the truck. Fifteen women, all very short with deep tan and tough skin, wearing teal blue aprons and skirts with jelly sandals, and two men, also short with cowboy-style hats greeted each of us with a hand shake and a “Buenos dias”. Nicandro told them that we “don’t eat people” and everyone laughed.

First we toured their community and the projects that they have been working on. Dodging burro poop on the winding paths, we noticed many composting toilets (dry bathrooms), one of the Centeotl projects. We came upon a field planted with amaranth, a protein rich grain, another Centeotly supported project. Fish ponds were also constructed to raise mojarra, a type of bass, used for their own consumption as well as a source of income. The community also has a reforestation project complete with a shade house to grow tree seedings. Many of the trees have been lost to clearning to grow crops or harvested for firewood. Finally, we stopped at the taller de jugetes (toy workshop), where children and adults alike make and paint wooden birds and butterflies to sell.
We spent the rest of the day and the next day split into two teams with the villagers to explore and document the water sources of the community or “ojos de agua”, the eyes of water. We took many pictures of the “ojos de agua” and the surrounding area. Upon arrival back at the hotel, we debriefed and talked about how the people were very aware of what was going on with their water, the importance of keeping it clean and the impact of deforestation.

The two groups visited a total of eight springs, in some cases bushwacking down steep slopes in order to find the springs. Many time during out long hikes, we would sit and rest and chat – there was no hurry. Through this, the villagers' hospitality became more and more evident.

As we talked, began to recognize that through our presence in the village and our interest in the community projects, we were shining a light on how much the people had already accomplished. We realized that what we thought would be a “presentation” would now be a conversation with the community. Through conversation two very different cultures could learn from each other, a necessity for peace and understanding in this increasingly globalized world.

Wednesday is market day in Zimatlan and the streets are closed for blocks and villagers come from all over to set up stands. We did not go to La Soledad because the entire village came to Zimatlan for market day. We spotted some women from La Soledad, who were bursting with excitement to see us.

We spent the rest of the day and deep in to the night working on our “presentation” for the community the next day. We created a poster with all the pictures of the 10 different springs we had visited with a topographical map of the area in the middle. Reforestation in La Soledad is of the utmost importance in order to keep a steady supply of groundwater, but due to soil conditions, villagers only had a narrow window of time in which to plant. A second poster was created illustrating the use of compost from the dry toilets to produce healthier and stronger trees that could lengthen their growing season.

As we talked about our “presentation” we came to see our role in the community as a reason for the community to come together and talk about their water and the future. Although conditions were not dire right now, there was an overwhelming chance that they will only get worse.

On Thursday we learned to make tortiallas. Evidently, when you are able to make a tortilla that puffs up while cooking, you are ready to be married. Then we entered the toy workshop and painted birds and butterflies for 4 hours. After comida, it was time for the community meeting. Our role was to share what we had seen and to get the conversation going. We spoke about what we heard from the community members, what we saw, and about our experiences. We also shared with them our visit to San Andres Huajapam, a reforestation projects that reinvigorated their wells in only five years. As the discussion came to a close, Tia Rica, a woman in the village, stood up and spoke passionately about the need for La Soledad to come together and start planning and implementing these projects right now. Nicandro did a wonderful job of connecting everything together and spoke about identifying next steps with the community. The atmosphere was moving, and after we were done one of the women asked if she could keep the "Abono es Bueno" poster to share with other community members.



We returned for our last day in a whirlwind of tortilla making, painting the birds and butterflies and shared a huge feast with fresh mojarra fish from the community tanks. We were invited to return the community and will attend a communion there March 15th.



On top of the beautiful experience of getting to know the people of La Soledad, our time in this community was the perfect end to Gustavo Esteva's class. We learned about a different form of development. Organizations like Centeotl worked to develop community autonomy, as opposed to developing integration into the "globalized world".

Some more photos:

VIDA NUEVA

For our service learning week our group went to Teotitlan de Valle where we lived with the women of Vida Nueva and their families. Vida Nueva is a weaving and natural healing cooperative that was started in 1996 and is comprised of Zapotec women.



The temazcal at Vida Nueva (click to enlarge photos)

The mission of Vida Nueva is to create economic opportunities for women, to serve their community, and to preserve their Zapotec heritage.

We went with the initial expectation of building a temazcal. We stripped bamboo for the frame and collected river stones that would heat the temazcal. However, much of the work was completed by two people experienced with adobe and this type of building. Much of our week was spent with the women of Vida Nueva who welcomed our group into their homes and lives, showing us the true spirit of Zapotec hospitality.

Over the course of the week, we took part in the building of the temazcal and learning about the natural healing process. Most of all we experienced what it mean to be part of a Zapotec family and community.

Pastora, the founder of Vida Nueva, is also a curandera, a traditional healer, who taught us about natural healing and led a group limpia for us. A limpia is one of the natural healing practices that has been practiced for countless years in indigenous communities in Oaxaca to purge negative energy. She also introduced us to the practice of temazcal. A temazcal is a traditional type of steam bath that is used for both healing and ritual purposes. It is a small square structure with one entrance made out of stone and adobe. A fire heats volcanic rocks, which are then doused in cold water to create steam. After exiting we were wrapped in layers of blankets and rested until our body slowly reached normal temperature. After, we were taken care of by our host mothers and the experience was unbelievably cleansing.

The lives of the Vida Nueva women are invested completely in their families. They spend much of their days laboring tirelessly in their homes--preparing all of the food from scratch for the meals, washing all of the clothes by hand, tending to the animals, collecting firewood-- in order to keep day-to-day life sustainable. Every morning, we would go to the mercado with our mothers to purchase the ingredients, which would be made into our desayuna, comida and cena for each day. The trip to the mercado plays a large role in this community in the daily routine of the women of Teotitlan.

Another daily practice we experienced was tortilla making. On tortilla days we would wake up early to go and grind the corn. The corn kernels are ground with water, which transforms the corn into thick dough. The dough is then taken home and ground again with a mortar and the rolled into patties. The patties are then pressed and placed on a comal over a fire. Some of us also spent a whole day making tamales. The families themselves grew most of the ingredients for the tamales. The first step was to make tortillas and then we had to make the sauce filling and wash the leaves that held everything together. The sauce consists of gaujuilo chili, water, oja santa and masa blended together. Then we steamed them and twenty minutes later sat down to a huge feast.

Historically, in Teotitlan, men were the weavers of the tapetes and it has only been in the last 55 years that women have started weaving. Weaving serves as a main source of income for the women of Vida Nueva, but more importantly it carries the rich traditions of the Zapotec culture. The women take pride in their use of native plants and cochineal insects to create natural dyes, just as their ancestors did. They create a variety of colors, card and spin wool, use ancient designs, create new ones, and weave the beauty of their heritage into each rug. Each rug is 100% wool, and created entirely by hand, in a process that can take many days, weeks, or even months.

At the end of the week we shook hands for the last time. After exchanging our stories it felt like we could never return the favor they had given us. We had the experience to walk behind these women, to meet their community and see the changes that they are making. We heard of their struggles and their hopes while kneeling hours on hard dirt and over feasts of food they had grown themselves. We were reborn and crawled out of the temazcal to be wrapped and pampered by their strong hands. We had a fleeting glimpse of the world of mexico profundo and were nurtured by its raw and natural rhythm. We witnessed the time and emotion that went into their craft. We left with tears in our eyes, gratitude in our hearts and tamales in our stomachs.

Arielle, Hanna, Jordan, Lindsey, Mac, Mollie, and Natalie

Casita, Service Learning, and Geology on the Horizon

This week has marked the end of our first block of classes. In the absence of Gustavo’s lectures, we spent the week in meetings planning for next week’s service learning trips and hammering out the various directions and concerns of our Self Directed Learning Projects.

On Thursday we drove out to San Pablo Etla and visited “Casita” to learn about their work with alternative technologies. ‘Casita,’ meaning little house and was appropriately named for its’ size. Coming from different parts of Mexico and the US, the four people who started the workshop purchased land in a small community. They began building in Diamante, a community sandwiched between two municipalities, a busy highway, and the runoff of the mountains behind them. Christian, one of the four, walked with us and explained some of the problems he has observed, since joining the community 2 years ago. As we have seen in many other situations, water has been the source of many headaches here. While the roads were dry and dusty during our visit, when the rain comes the area floods and creates health hazards. Wedged between two municipalities, the small community lacks sufficient attention to receive essential basic resources. The community joined together and dug ditches to help alleviate the water problems. They also built a park from recycled materials and installed streetlights throughout the community.

The focus of Casita’s work extends beyond this community and across international borders. Their mission is to invent, build, and teach about bike machines and other alternatives, such as dry/composting toilets. They advocate for appropriate technologies that support autonomy and independence. The bicycles power water pumps and grinders as well as juicers and blenders. During our visit they made us comida and used their bike powered blender to mash the beans for the Tlyudas and then mix the watermelon and sugar to make delicious fresh smoothies. Though they showed us a short film about their history, we still had many questions about what they were doing and what their role was in the community. Unitierra, an alternative education group, hosted a series of videos that night that clarified these points of concern and explained Casita’s role.

We also had the opportunity to learn how to work with adobe. We chopped straw and used our feet to mix the adobe and then applied the adobe to the walls of their dry toilet.







Mixing the tierra, lime, and straw to create adobe.










Leaving our memory behind as we created designs that were embedded in the adobe walls.










Friday was our last day at our language school, Solexico. We finished classes and indulged in a huge chocolate cake and school-wide rounds of “happy birthday” in Spanish, English, Dutch and German to celebrate the February birthdays of Jesse, Arielle and Macky. So while anthropology and Spanish have come to a close, an exciting week of service learning projects and the start of Geology await us on the horizon!
Wish us luck in Vida Nueva, Bii Dauu, and Centeotl!! On to our next adventure
Jess and Mac

Migration, Weaving, and Basketball

Hola family and friends! Maggie and Hannah B. will be your lovely blog writers for the week:

The city center (the zocalo) was buzzing all week in anticipation of the second annual APPO (La Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, a grassroots organization) congress. People from all over the state are convening to discuss the future of APPO and its horizontal structure of organization.

A woman grinding cochanilla, a small beetle
that thrives on Nopale, a cactus. The beetle is ground
and is used to dye the wool a beautiful red. (Click
on any photo to enlarge)

In addition, this was our last week of classes with Gustavo. The week included discussions about migration, Mexico´s deep culture of corn, and a definition of the common good. As usual he pushed us to think outside of our usual realm of ideas. We learned the effects of GMO (Genetically Modified) corn on the enormous bio diversity of corn in Mexico. Oaxaca is said to be the place where corn was first created. As we have been experiencing in our daily corn tortillas, we also talked about the role of corn as a staple food in Oaxaca. Gustavo also talked to us about the creation of a ´´common good´´ through friendship, which is a big theme in his lectures. Together with a few friends it is difficult, but possible, to share a definition of what a good life is. This takes time, and the definition is flexible.

Our final class, on Friday, was preceded by a two day stay in the village of Santa Ana de Valle. Our time there directly illustrated the drastic effects of globalization and migration on a Oaxacan village.

Learning to spin and card wool.

The livelihood of the village relies heavily on the revenues from the artisan rugs made there. Unfortunately the rug making is no longer a sufficient source of income, and one third of the population migrates both nationally and internationally. Many young people go to the United States or to Mexico City. Our main host in the village has several children in the USA and when he began his introduction of the town, he assured us that it was not a ghost town.

And we visited a curandera and students
were able to receive a "limpiar" or cleansing.

We all stayed in homes of the village. We visited a rug maker and saw a demonstration of the entire rug making process, from shearing the sheep, to dying the wool with ground up cactus larva, to the weaving process itself. A good sized rug takes a average of twelve full days and sells for a mere 900 pesos (about 80 dollars). We also visited the only traditional candle maker left in the town who demonstrated the process of creating highly ornate candles used for special occasions.
We ended our time there discussing the effects of migration on the town with Gustavo. He asked us what we would do if our lives had begun in this village, faced with the challenges of a dying craft and drastic population drop. We thanked him and said our formal goodbyes. However, he will be around assisting many of us in our independent projects, or even just to talk if we want.


These candles are made for religious ceremonies as well as used for when a man asks for a woman's hand in marriage.

We arrived back to the city Friday night, and Lindsey´s visiting boyfriend, Byron, made us a delicious meal of avocado salad, cheesey rice and tostadas to name a few of the many dishes. We were all very grateful. Afterwards, a few of us hoped on a bus and went to the beach for the weekend, which is where we are writing from now.

The day at Sta. Ana de Valle ended
with a spontaneous game of basketball with
some young men and boys from the pueblo.

Time in Oaxaca is flying by quickly. It is hard to think that one class has ended, and in a week, Spanish will also be over. We are still learning so much and will keep you posted on the coming weeks!!!!

Maggie and Hannah B.

Conversation, comida, and curanderos!

Hola from Oaxaca!

This week was full of conversation and great food. Monday in Gustavo's class we further discussed the political history of Oaxaca and Mexico as well as the Zapatistas and APPO. On Wednesday our conversation continued leading to a discussion regarding issues with genocide.

We were lucky enough to enjoy a visit from Dr. Jean Harvey-Berino. She is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences and Professor in the Department of Medicine at UVM. She is also the head researcher and founder of Vtrim, a behavioral weight loss program. Jean was in Oaxaca doing research about different aspects of Oaxacan nutrition. Continuing with our group projects the food group accompanied Jean and Cynthia to a clinic on the other side of the city that offers care to low income patients and does medical outreach to rural communities. We learned a lot about how the face of food related diseases like hyper tension, obesity, and diabetes are changing due to an influx of the fast food lifestyle as a result of globalization. We also learned that many people in Oaxaca use traditional healers because they are still culturally relevant, often more accessible, and less expensive than conventional medicine.

Thursday for our weekly field trip we had a delicious comida at Gustavo's house in San Pueblo Etla about half an hour outside of the city. We took a tour of his and his neighbor's land where they have a substantial organic nursery as well as some goats, turkeys, and rabbits. Gustavo and his wife Nicole live in a beautiful adobe house which Nicole designed. We talked a bit about creating an alternative "good life" and how by development standards they are considered poor because they don't have a flushing toilet (they have a composting dry toilet) and they aren't hooked up to the water system (they get their water from a natural spring), but they live a more simple, sustainable, healthier life. Nicole prepared us a tremendous feast of tortellini, beets and carrots from her garden, deviled eggs, fresh salad (also from the garden), a multitude of other fresh creations, topped off with a mango pudding and fragrant coffee for dessert. Maybe now we are starting to grasp the concept of comida...After we were all sufficiently stuffed we discussed Gustavo's experience and opinions regarding health care.

Friday about half the group along with Cynthia and Jean traveled 3 hours outside the city to a town in the mountains to visit a curandero, a traditional healer. We learned about the concept of hot and cold foods, different methods of diagnosis using an egg, incense, or reading the pulse, and saw a temezcal- a sauna like structure which originated with pre-hispanic Indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica and often used after giving birth. It was an intensive and rich learning experience. This was an intense and rich learning experience.

Valentine's Day in Oaxaca is an occasion not to be missed! Between the hundreds of balloons that seemed to pave the streets, the traditional parades with big brass bands, and an abundance of couples, love was definitely in the air!

Water from Stone

Hello All!

Monday was a holiday here and we started our week on Tuesday. We are adjusting well to this new fascinating culture and our classes. Spanish classes are great fun. In Gustavo Esteva’s class this week we discussed the concept of communality and friendship. We learned the importance of the concept of friendship when forming community or a commons. What Gustavo conveyed is that friendship provides a base of relationships which provides a base for communality and common interests. It is through friendship that we begin to understand common interests and our own responsibility within our own community be it your town, organization, or your student compadres in Oaxaca.
On Thursday, we took a field trip to San Andres in Huyapan. In this small Zapotec community and growing bedroom community, we explored an area of land where the Zapotec owners are using techniques to reestablishing grown water into the aquifers down below. Amazingly, several men in the village have hand built long foot deep terraces (looks like topographic lines) all along the mountainside to slow down the torrential rains when they come which allows the water to seep in. They have also planted reed-like vegetation along some of the deeper earthen culverts that prevent erosion and again slow the pace of water runoff. Some of the water is captured in small ponds and is pumped into a green house in order to grow both tomatoes and native tree saplings of the area for reforestation. This center is a demonstration site where people from other villages come to learn different ways for restoring and sustaining sources of precious water in their communities.

Back in town, some of us visited an art opening on Friday. ASARO, a local graffiti collective, displayed a series of silk-screened t-shirts about Palestinian resistance. Their main idea is to pass on political messages to the community through their artwork.

Part of Gustavo’s syllabus includes a small group project. This week we broke off into groups and began the process of research. The five topics of the small groups include Oaxacan art, education, mobilization, food systems, and healthcare. As of now every group is defining their thesis and research methods. In the next month, groups will explore their questions through hands-on studies within the State of Oaxaca.

Tonight, Sunday, we are gathering for dinner at Mary Lou’s apartment to celebrate Jess’s and Ariel’s birthdays. Jess’s birthday was the 5th and Ariel’s is the 9th. Dinner gatherings are a good time to catch up and spend some quality with the community we are creating in Oaxaca.

Peace and warmth from south of the border. Hope everyone staying warm in the north!

Meg and Jordan