life in ixtlan

we found a little comedor (place to eat) in the market, here in ixtlan. i love it, the food is delicious and it´s so cheap. lunch is about 2 dollars, and you get a soup or stew, with rice and tortillas, and cafe con leche. i´m eating meat too, because otherwise my choice is beans and rice all the time. it gets old after a while... the kids and ed are not eating any meat though, and they mostly have rice, beans, eggs, bread, tortillas, stuff like that.

another favorite place here is the juice bar. the kids and i love it. we can pick any combination of fresh fruit and vegetables, and they juice it or make a smoothie for us. it´s delicious, no added sugar, nothing but fruit, and milk in some cases. aiyana loves banana strawberry, i love papaya, and sena loves a smoothie made with bananas, papayas, milk, and granola. each portion is huge, and it costs under a dollar. and the woman making it is very nice and friendly towards us...

i´m starting to really like ixtlan. it´s a small community, of maybe 200 houses. the people here are of zapotec, mixtec and aztec origin. there are 3 ´gringo´ families: us, a british woman with 2 kids and a husband who works at the university, and an american family with 2 kids; the americans are geography and anthropology professors doing their research here. the university here is focused on forestry and environmental science, and it´s up in the mountains a short distance from ixtlan.

people here are very friendly, and really love kids. they want to pat sena and aiyana´s heads, and always smile at them or ask them their names. our kids are not used to this kind of attention, so they´re a bit shy... but they enjoy being here, and are getting used to the different ways of being.

it seems like everyone here knows each other; we deffinitely stand out, but i don´t feel self-conscious about it. so far, nobody asked us for money, or tried to sell us things we don´t want, as is the case in most tourist destinations (including the city of oaxaca). people here are not rich, but neither are they very poor. we didn´t see anyone sleeping on the streets, begging, or looking as though they don´t have enough to eat. i get a feeling that these people are humble and proud at the same time.

in ixtlan, as in the rest of latin america, it seems, they love music. loud music. music is blaring in the town square every night, and every car or bus we get on, unfailingly has some loud music playing. i like it, it makes things very lively.

my spanish is definitely improving, the kids are picking it up too, and sprinkle their sentences with spanish words once in a while. ed´s still looking for a tutor, and he´s doing his best talking to people at the market, on the street, etc. i´m the main interpretor so far, but soon enough the kids will take over, especially if they continue with kindergarten (aiyana´s going now too, today is her first day and she´s doing great...).

peace