Week 5: Exploring Our Interests

Group photo from our weekend away!

Buenas tardes family and friends! Kristina and Amalia here to share our fifth week in Oaxaca with you!  Lately, we've filled our time with field trips, class sessions, and visits to local organizations.  As Caroline and Madeleine mentioned in the previous post, we started this week off with a relaxing and refreshing weekend away from the city. When we returned, we had a day off from classes on Monday because of Mexican Constitution Day celebrations.  There were even more fireworks than usual!

After the holiday, we had our normal schedule of Spanish in the morning and classes with Oliver and Jonathan at SURCO in the afternoon.  Many of us have new Spanish teachers this week, giving us the opportunity to practice and learn from a different spanish speaker.  In our afternoon classes, we have been discussing the history of Neoliberalism in a global context, and then focusing in on how this concept has changed Mexican society. On Wednesday, we began to work more in-depth on our independent student projects (ISP), and discover more about our topics of interest. We were assigned a project to go to a place that would be pertinent to our ISP topic, and observe the surroundings, using all of our senses to describe these places. We had to develop interview questions to ask someone involved, and record our experiences.  Kristina visited a local organic market, called Pochote, and spoke with one of the vendors about his experience growing and selling ecologically-farmed produce.  Fidel, the farmer, gave her some useful preliminary information to start looking deeper into her ISP topic of alternative agricultural practices in the state of Oaxaca.  

Pochote Market 

We usually have a field excursion on Thursday, but since we missed a day of Spanish on Monday, we had our regular spanish class in the morning.  In the afternoon, the group visited COMI (Centro de Orientación del Migrante de Oaxaca), a migrant shelter in Oaxaca City. This project provides resources for Central American and Mexican migrants who are traveling north in search of better living conditions and work opportunities. They provide material items such as food, clothes, and toiletries as well as a place to sleep. They also help migrants find temporary work in Oaxaca if they are staying for an extended period of time. This resource is important for migrants as they are able to learn more about their rights in Mexico, and receive advice about how to stay safe and healthy while traveling north.  Some of the students were so inspired by COMI's work that they decided to focus their ISP on migrant justice and partner with this organization.

Artwork by Espacio Zapata

This weekend, we worked on our Literature Reviews for our ISP topics to gain more background knowledge about our areas of interest before conducting interviews.  We are also studying for Spanish in preparation for our final exam next week!  On Friday, our 6-week intensive Spanish courses will come to a close.  To take a break from homework this weekend, a few of us participated in a practice called Vibration Therapy.  Along with Cara and Elyse, Kristina attended a one-hour session on Sunday morning.  Roberto, the Vibration Therapy specialist, led us through a meditation session using a wide variety of objects that produce soothing sounds.  The purpose of this practice is to meditate and, using the vibrations from the sound, release negative energy or vibrations.  It was a unique and relaxing way to start off the morning!

This weekend, some students also worked with Espacio Zapata, a local artist collective that focuses on political artwork.  See the photo to the left to check out the stenciling project that they completed this weekend.

We are resting up on this beautiful Sunday evening in preparation for the busy week we have ahead of us!

Until next week,

Kristina & Amalia