Living in Oaxaca

Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love a new country. ~ Anais Nin

So the other day I was talking with a classmate after class was over and she said something that I’d be thinking.  After we’d both mentioned we hadn’t been to the zocalo in a couple of days she said, “I’m starting to feel like I live here.”  It really feels like that for me, I’ve been here for three weeks, I have three weeks of language school left.  I’m in my apartment and my days are fairly standard at this point.  I get up, go to school and after school come home make some lunch, run some errands and go for a walk, then do some writing  and watch some Netflix.

Life is pretty standard and good.  Had a great dinner tonight, Tamale with Mole Negro, a margarita all with local ingredients and very traditional.  Really tasty and delicious and with tip, $12, you have to love Oaxaca.

We talked for a bit today in class about security and how safe people feel in Oaxaca.  In my class are all women, from 28 to 70 and everyone expressed that they felt pretty safe.  I point this out because people have expressed to me more fears about me being in Oaxaca than any other place I’ve ever traveled.  One of the other things I’m really impressed with about my classmates is that almost all of them are traveling alone.  Three women in their late 20’s and early 30’s and most impressively two older women in their 60’s and 70’s, on the road alone and fully living their lives, I really admire all of these women and I hope you do to.  More than that, I hope you’ll use them as inspiration to set out on your own if you’ve been letting that hold you back.

Oaxaca is an interesting place, walking home from dinner tonight the parks were full, people eating at the street food booths.  Kids rollerblading, playing volleyball, a band playing in the middle of the park.  Lot’s of families just having fun.  Hell, even a train rolling down the sidewalk.

It’s a pretty town in a complex way.  It’s an older city, with a history of earthquakes and poverty, there’s a real mix of new modern buildings, kept up historic old buildings and abandoned buildings with razor wire.  But I like it here.

Just a truck full of dugout canoes

Have a happy day my friends from my new temporary home in Oaxaca. ~ Rev Kane