Oaxaca En Mente / Oaxaca On My Mind - Part 3

PART 3 OF 5 PARTS

LANGUAGE SCHOOL
I don’t recall when I first realized the sheer genius of building my travel adventures around language school. The first of many advantages is the cost of the Spanish classes. Instruction in Latin America, obviously by native speakers, is typically a fraction of the cost of comparable classes here at home. Even for private, one-on-one sessions.

Another factor is that if one takes advantage of lodging provided by a language school—usually a choice between a dorm-style room in the school and a home stay with a nearby family—that cost, too, is a fraction of what one would pay for a room in even a modest hotel.

My home-stay family in Boquete, Panama

Thirdly, a benefit that’s especially valuable when you're traveling solo, attending language school affords you a ready-made circle of friends and a very flexible array of extra-curricular activities to choose from. Cooking classes, salsa dancing, volunteer service and any number of excursions ranging from in-town walks to entire weekends in the boonies.

  You either put together an intelligible
  request or you go without that cerveza.

One of my Spanish school cohorts

So far, I’ve built trips around language schools in Panama, Cuba and several times in Mexico.

When you want to get really good at a language, it takes a lot of work, a lot of discipline. Of course there’s learning all the grammar, memorizing the conjugations, growing your vocabulary. But once you’ve laid that foundation, nothing cements it and builds your confidence like being totally immersed in the language. Sink or swim; you either put together an intelligible request or you go without that cerveza. 

The quality of teaching I’ve seen in my language schools has varied greatly. Stands to reason most of the instructors have been young people—usually in their 20s to early 30s. And few of them have had the presence, not to mention the knowledge and experience, to be super effective teachers.

If you go this route, I encourage you to be as clear as you can up front with the school director about what you want to accomplish. I’ve found myself in a few unproductive classes where either I was placed in a group of students not at my level, or the instructor wasted time on material I’d already mastered.

Learning a language is exhausting. Be sure not to, as I have, schedule so many hours of instruction every day that you burn out. Balance is key. For example, I now know to ask for one or two hours a day of formal classroom instruction and a couple more hours of more relaxing, real-world practice—what I call “learning on the fly.”

Frida and I visit the textiles museum

       The goal...is to abandon myself
       to the rhythm of the conversation.

That is, doing some sort of activity—like exploring the area, meeting locals or simply sitting and chatting over coffee or a beer—with a teacher who knows how to engage you and then lets you talk. Not every teacher can pull that off, steering and correcting you without interrupting the flow of conversation.

The goal, at least at my advanced level, is to abandon myself to the rhythm of the conversation, to attain that magical flow where the process no longer involves any conscious translation or awareness of rules. Where my brain goes right from the idea to its expression—preferably in 95 percent correct Spanish. (Dare I aspire to my ultimate goal, to speak decent Mexican Spanish with no foreign accent? I can dream…)

My school in Oaxaca is Becari Manual Bravo, which I found on-line. It stood out from the dozens of other language schools in the city because the director was quick to show me that I was communicating with a real, smart, caring human being. (This is how I make many of my travel decisions—lodging, tours, services, etc.) 

Sandra Rivera Bennetts is a truly remarkable woman. I hear she and her sister founded Becari Language School years ago. Apparently, there was some kind of dust-up between them and they ended up splitting the school into two cooperating, yet separate campuses.

The first day I walk into the school’s airy inner courtyard, Sandra greets me like an old friend and administers the assessment exam to determine the level of my Spanish. No surprise, it shows I’m fairly advanced, but with weaknesses in the use of both the imperative and subjunctive voices.

Becari M. Bravo's airy courtyard, surrounded by classrooms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sure enough, on my first morning in the classroom, teacher Andrea starts mapping out the rules and usage guidelines for exactly those two skills. She's a thoughtful, well-prepared, engaging teacher. Over the next two weeks, with the help of both classroom drills and homework exercises, I learn to better understand both areas and, by the end of week one, I’m acing my homework. Now it’s just a matter of putting what I know into practice.

My other main expectation of my Spanish learning is to have unstructured time just chatting with a teacher and perhaps other locals. That hope is met in expert fashion by my two other teachers. Each morning at 11:00 my second teacher, Frida, leads me on a one- to two-hour walk, exploring some of the central city’s interesting, artsy barrios. We also take a couple of half-day excursions to natural wonders and craft artisans’ workshops in nearby villages.

A pottery artisan demonstrates her technique

And my 2:00 PM “class” is a conversation session with Gary, who's really good at sustaining a dialogue about a wide range of topics. Another reason he’s such a good teacher is that he’s a student of language himself. We talk about the nuances and curiosities of language in general and Spanish in particular. He’s also a great storyteller, knowledgeable beyond his years not just in the language, but also in Mexican and Oaxaca history, arts and culture.

Gary and I converse in the courtyard

It’s a wonderful and, I think, effective two weeks of polishing my Spanish. Becari M. Bravo is far and away the best language school I've attended. With their capable help, I think I've jacked up both my level of proficiency and my confidence at least a notch. Perhaps the best measure of success is that for the whole time I speak very, very little English. A true immersion experience.

Stay tuned! My next post in the series, Food and Drink, should be landing here in the next day or two.

Oaxaca En Mente / Oaxaca On My Mind - Part 2

PART 2 OF 5 PARTS

DIA DE MUERTOS
When I walk into the airport terminal, signs of Oaxaca’s early preparations for Día de Muertos are already evident. Even the narrow corridor from the arrival gate to Mexican customs and immigration is lined with art depicting one aspect or another of the occasion.

 
As I get settled in la Casa Conzatti and check out the hotel’s immediate surroundings, vendors are already selling bunches of golden cempasuchitl (marigolds) and fuchsia cresta de gallo (cock’s comb), the two flowers considered staples in decorating for the holiday.

Many families and some shops, including my hotel, are starting to build their altars, the often-multi-tiered displays of flowers, food and drink, and religious symbols thought to encourage and welcome home departed loved ones.

As the week unfolds and the radius of my exploring widens, I see more and more altars going up, from a simple four-foot circle of marigold petals and a couple of photos on the floor to seven-level extravaganzas designed, as one person explained, to represent the seven stages of a soul’s journey to a state of eternal rest.

In front of some shops what looks like truckloads of flowers get dropped on the sidewalk. Soon, the shops will be festooned in them, peopled with life-size or even gigantic catrina skeleton figures, and their façades even painted with special Día de Muertos murals.

The catrinas are sometimes arranged in real-life settings, like sitting on a bench reading a newspaper or making out with a partner. One huge one—about three stories tall—goes up overnight to loom over the Alcalá, the central historic district’s all-pedestrian street.

As the pivotal days of the celebration, November first and second, approach, the big Santo Domingo Church is putting the finishing touches on its massive outdoor altar. With seven levels and two large marigold arches, the thing extends at least 50 feet wide.

Even our school, Becari Manuel Bravo, builds an altar. I help trim the bushels of cempasuchitl, while teachers and other students pitch in to build the framework and arrange the other, non-floral elements: skeletons, candles, a Virgin of Guadalupe figure, Pan de Muertos—a special Day-of-the-Dead bread—fruit, and even bottles of Coke and mezcal.

I and a couple of other students have brought photos of deceased loved ones—in my case, my parents—to put on the finished altar. I think Mom and Dad would be pleased. Especially Dad, who would have loved to take his yen for learning Spanish this far.

      By mid-week, it looks like about
      a quarter of the people I see are
      skeletons or zombies. 

The atmosphere in the central city seems to be building to some kind of crescendo. I wander across what look to be spontaneous parades, with people walking and dancing, some of them animating 15-foot paper mache figures, in all kinds of costumes, and moving to the boom and blare of brass bands. I discover that some of these dazzling processions are just folks celebrating weddings.

The main parade, the Magna Comparsa, takes place every year on October 27. Starting at El Llano, the large park about two blocks from my hotel, it winds through town for a couple of miles, pulsing with music and dance.

There are costumes and paraphernalia representing every corner of the state and every cultural heritage. The energy is incredible. The strains of one band conjoin with, then give way to those of the next. We spectators, many of us with cameras held high, press out onto the street where volunteers struggle to clear the parade route.

The next morning, right in the middle of my daily walk to school, a block-long artisans’ market has popped up along Calle Alcalá, under a tent that spans the entire street, from the imposing wall of the Botanical Garden to structures on the other side. You either have to walk through a teeming gauntlet of vendors and shoppers or go a couple blocks out of your way.

Down at Plaza de Santo Domingo, it seems like something festive is going on at just about any hour of the day. There are food, art and handicrafts vendors; street performers; people laughing, dancing or just strolling; and make-up artists, dozens and dozens of make-up artists. And they’re all busy. By mid-week, it looks like about a quarter of the people I see are skeletons or zombies.

And at night, Santo Domingo is humming even louder, with music, dancing, pop-up celebrations of one kind or another…even some super-flamboyant trans folks dressed and made-up to the nines.

One of the central intentions of my vision for the trip was to visit a cemetery, both during the day to observe families’ preparation of loved ones’ tombs and during the night of November first, when they gather around the graves to share remembrances, play music and sing, and maybe enjoy a picnic.

As I did a decade ago in the small mountain village of Naolinco, in Veracruz, I also wanted to buy an armload of flowers and leave one or two stems on graves that look abandoned. (I don’t know why this idea so appealed to me; maybe it was a way of giving some purpose to my intrusion besides just gawking and stealing a photo.)

But the cemetery experience in Oaxaca proves very different from the one I enjoyed in Naolinco. The first small one I checked out, in the Xochimilco barrio, was pretty depressing. Very little color besides lifeless shades of gray; many of the graves in severe disrepair, if not derelict; only a handful of people there tending to them.

     I poke my head in and see three
     generations of the family, all smiling
     and saying ¡Bienvenidos! 

Another big difference, I figure, is simply that Naolinco is a village of 20,000 inhabitants; Oaxaca is a city roughly 40 times bigger. I shouldn’t expect to walk down the street and be invited into people’s homes for tamales and horchata, or a shot of mezcal.

Still, I do get one such invitation in Oaxaca. I’m walking along a side street and pass a home with its door open and a beautiful altar inside. I poke my head in and there are three generations of the family, all smiling and saying ¡Bienvenidos! No tamale, but I chat for a few minutes with grandma, mom and daughter about the parents/grandparents pictured on their altar, and leave feeling blessed, both for the friendly welcome and my command of the language.

The next day I walk about a mile to the main cemetery, El Panteon San Miguel. I’d read and heard that it's been closed since the severe earthquake five years ago which damaged many of the mausolea. The guard tells me, oh no, we’re open every day until 8:00 PM.

So, on the night of Todos Santos, All Saints Day, I return. The cemetery, about the size of four city blocks, is crowded, but not with the people I’d expected. Instead of families communing with their departed, it’s mostly folks like me, there, apparently, just to witness this most intimate of Día de Muertos traditions.

Nonetheless, I do manage to buy a big bunch of flowers and do my thing, lending a spot of color and paying at least token respects to about twenty forgotten souls.

 

 

I observe—from a distance—the few families who are there to connect with spirits of their difuntos. As they gather around flower-swathed, candle-lit graves, some are quietly talking, perhaps sharing memories. Others are playing music. A few people look like they're praying.

As I reflect on the whole Day of the Dead experience in Oaxaca, I realize that these unforgettable sights and sounds—and the emotions they stir—capture for me the depth and breadth of Mexican culture as no other experience has. 

It's the rich tapestry of all the different regional cultures coming together;
a spiritual energy that embraces, rather than fears, death; the enviable cohesiveness of families; a tangible sense of pride in place and patrimony; and the irrepressible joy that Mexicans, like few other nationalities, bring to it all. 

Stay tuned! My next post in the series, Language School, should be landing here in the next day or two. 

Oaxaca En Mente / Oaxaca On My Mind

The Oaxaca Series
Instead of the tedious, chronologic journaling format that’s so common in people’s trip reports, I’ve decided to organize my Oaxaca posts by category, by the four main themes of my experience: 1) language school; 2) Day of the Dead; 3) food and drink; and 4) arts and handcrafts—and the following brief introduction to lay the groundwork. So here goes…

                    ~    •    ~    •   ~   

INTRODUCTION

I’d been wanting to visit Oaxaca for years.

Due to my ever-growing interest in Mexico—fueled in great part by my late-in-life quest for fluency in Spanish—I’ve managed to at least set foot in about half of the country’s 31 states.

From the arid lowlands of Sonora to the temperate, mile-high central plateau called the Valley of Mexico, to the upmarket tip of the Baja Peninsula, gateway to the Sea of Cortez; from the tropical Pacific coast string of beaches known as La Costa Grande to the cool, mountainous forests and unique Gulf Coast flavors of Veracruz. I’ve loved it all.

But Oaxaca, the furthest south of any of these climes, has always had its own special appeal. First of all, for the virtues everyone talks about: the food, the art and handcrafts, the mezcal.

But there’s also the state’s unique fusion of several indigenous cultures, whose colors, flavors and customs are ever-present in day-to-day life. Oaxaca City’s Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration—a blend of those pre-Columbian traditions with the European, Catholic traditions imposed by the invading Spaniards—is generally regarded as one of the most spectacular anywhere in Mexico.

I can see why the city’s such a popular destination for both Mexicans and world travelers. Part of the appeal is its apparent small scale. I’m seeing no buildings with more than two stories.

I learn that the reason for the buildings’ limited stature is a variation of the old saw, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Earthquakes are so common here that taller structures just aren’t considered safe. This is also the reason, I’m told, that building walls tend to be quite thick here.

The weather is ideal at this time of year. By late October the rainy season is all but over. Temperatures reach the mid-70s to 80 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and fall into the lower 60’s to mid-50s at night. Humidity’s low. With the city’s elevation just over 5,000 feet, the sun is powerful, but otherwise it’s a benign climate.

And a personal connection: Oaxaca, along the Pacific coast, is where my friend and compadre, Silverio, was born. He and his family, though he’s now a U.S. citizen, still hold the region’s traditions close to their hearts. I’ve always wanted to visit the state, if not the actual village, that’s so much a part of them.

So, last year, I was finally going to make it happen—a two-week trip to Oaxaca including the week-long celebration of Day of the Dead. I decided, as I often do when traveling in Latin America, to focus my activities on a language-learning objective. I enrolled in language school.

So it was all set. Then, as if that vision wasn’t perfect enough, my daughter, Amanda, asked if she could join me, enrolling in beginner’s Spanish. I was over the moon.

But COVID-19 put the kibosh on that dream.

RECLAIMING THE DREAM
This past spring, as it became evident that we were gradually, painfully moving past the pandemic, I decided to reclaim the dream. Only this time, sadly, Amanda wouldn’t be able to join me.

First, I made sure the language school I’d been in touch with, Becari Manuel Bravo, would still be a good fit for my ambitious pursuit of Spanish. Sandra, the school director, couldn’t have been any nicer or more helpful, offering to tailor an advanced program to my interests, and even recommending several possible hotel accommodations.

Well, I soon discovered that you don’t waltz into a Día-de-Muertos-week hotel reservation in Oaxaca city just four months ahead of time. I contacted all of Sandra’s suggestions and no fewer than 35 other hotels before I finally found an available room in a decent hotel.

Hotel Casa Conzatti

As for air connections, I was happy to find flights on the days I wanted—and at reasonable hours—for around $800 round-trip. Not a steal, but doable. And with just one stop each way—not in some city an acute angle and 1,500 miles away from a straight route—but right on the way, in Dallas / Fort Worth.

So, on Sunday, October 23, I’m up at 4:00 AM for my 6:30 flight, and the adventure begins.

Stay tuned! My next post in the series, Día de Muertos, should be landing here in the next day or two.