Janitzio y Ihuatzio

So much has happened since I last posted! I guess I should start where I left off. We did end up going to the organ festival, but it was more like a organ + crazy opera lady concert with a 20 person audience. It was interesting and fun I guess… Afterwords, we went to the bar (the only one in downtown!) where Katrina’s Spanish tutor owns. It was kind of fun, there was live music and since the owner knew us we got a discount and he talked to us about things we could do around town which was helpful. The singer was pretty funny and kept on singing to us at our table ( I guess since we were one of the few tables full he didn’t have very many options).
On Saturday, we had a meeting with nurses from Morelia in the morning which went really well. About 10 nurses came from Morelia and they gave really good feedback about our projects and they are interested in partnering with Brenda’s nurse-midwife training project which is really neat. They invited Brenda to come speak at big important meeting at the University in October which is pretty exciting.
After the meeting we headed to the docks and took a fairy to the island of Janitzio. (It’s the big rounded one you see in all of my pictures). The ride takes about half and hour and you get to see fishermen (Who are planted there for the tourists- haha I’m serious). Janitzio is a really big tourist attraction for people from D.F and within Mexico, so there are lots and lots of street vendors and stores selling the exact same souvenirs. We braved the tacky junk and rainstorm and climbed to the top. At the top, there is a giant statue of famous figure Don Jose Maria Morelos – think statue of liberty, only a little smaller. You can pay a few pesos to climb to the top inside of the statue. It is pretty neat and there are murals depicting his life inside the statue. Due to “fear issues” I only made it about half way up, but it was still kind of neat. After our hike to the top we decided to go off the beaten path on the way down (there is a main street that all the tourist use to go up to the top of the island). This was really neat. Janitzio is considered a Purepecha/Tarascan community so it was interesting to see many women in their traditional dresses speaking Purepecha. We found lots of neat views of the houses and a neat old cemetery (Sorry, there are lots of pictures of random buildings). We took a “convi” ( little bus) back to town and spent the rest of the evening watching Frida.
Today was another great adventure. We started off our day with a guided tour of Patzcuaro by Miguel Angel, a friend of Richard and Brenda and Mexican anthropologist. This was really neat and he pointed out lots of interesting architectural details around town that we probably wouldn’t have noticed. Like the crazy bathtub in the old convent or the fact that they used the Purepecha ruins to construct parts of the street after the Spanish came (there are lots of sunny pictures of Patzcuaro). After our tour we ate comida and hoped on another convi to Ihuartzio(30 minutes away). A little bit outside the town they have a really nicely preserved set of Yacatas (Purepecha pyramids). It was really neat because we were just walking on the road for a really long time, there weren’t really any houses or buildings in site except for the these cool (chido) stone walls, and then out the mist we see these really cool pyramids. It was so beautiful. It was a little rainy, we were the ONLY people there, there were lush mountains in the background, and the pyramids had a cool green moss growing on them- wow, it was really neat. After we got back to Patzcuaro we went over to Richard and Brenda’s for tacos and tostadas and to discuss the rest of the week. Tomorrow, Sean, the Vice-president (??) of Heartland Alliance is coming for a site visit- so this week will be very exciting but also hectic.

I have posted lots of (mostly rainy) pictures- so check them out if you are curious where the places I visited looked like.