Mark's Visit

So here is a quick recap of what I have been up to these past few days-

Thursday- Mark arrived at 10pm!

Friday- Hike up Estribo (the mountain I live on) in the morning and exploring Patzcuaro during the afternoon. Highlights include: giant agave plants, crazy blue bugs, and Spanish colonial adobe buildings.

Saturday- (See picture below at Church and above). Mark, the gang, and I went to the Volcano Paracutin. It is about a two hour drive from here around winding crazy roads but definitely vale la pena (worth the pain). Paracutin is a volcano that erupted in 1943 and is considered one of the world's seven natural wonders. The story goes that one day a farmer was working in his field when he came across a giant crack in the earth that was spewing gas. Two weeks later the volcano Paracutin had grown from the grown. Two towns were completely destroyed by the volcano. The only thing that remains is a Church (The picture below and above). It was really cool to be able to climb around on the lava and explore the Church. It is pretty amazing that lava left so much of the Church intact. The altar was amazingly not harmed by the lava- so many people leave offerings there. We didn't get to go all the way to the volcano because it was 7 hour horseback ride... but exploring the lava was pretty cool.

On the way back we stopped at national park in Uruapan. The park was centered around a river that was full of cool waterfalls. Another cool feature was that the pathways around the river had these amazing water elements- like fountains and water running along the sides. It was very cool.

Sunday- We went on Purepecha Pyramid tour in Tzintzuntzan and Ihuatzio(See Mark pictured above).

Monday- We jumped on a bus and went to the lovely city of Morelia. Since it was a Monday most of the "good" museums were closed... but we did get to see the Museum of Judicial Power AND the Museum of 16th century religious art (aka the crucifix museum). Do I know how to show Mark a good time or what?

Tuesday- We spent the last day doing what most Mexican tourists do- Go to the Island of Janitzio. As expected it was pretty touristy... there was a Mariachi band on the boat ride over that serenaded us and LOTS of store selling stuff. It was a lovely way to end a great trip.

*I am slowly adding all the pictures from Mark's trip to my Flickr account (see link on the right). So be sure to check them out!

** Also, since I have already written about most of these sites before I didn't want to bore everyone again. But if you are curious about a location you can check out my older posts!

It's been awhile..

Sorry it's been so long since I was able to update. Mark was in town :) and just left this morning at 3:30am :(. Sadly, I can't post a whole lot because I have to get up early tomorrow to be in Cuanajo by 8am, but here a few shots from our hike up Estribo (you can see Janitzio in the background) and our adventures around the Paracutin Volcano one of the world's seven natural wonders!

A few highlights from today:

Whew, it was a busy day. We did 42 Maternal Health Surveys in Quiroga and then went to 3 hours of Mass!
Ok, seeing as I am not Catholic, perhaps this should be explained further. Veronica, one of the outreach workers, invited us to come to mass with her. It was a combination of what I imagine a normal Catholic mass being and a modern service (with dancing and an electric keyboard). Veronica was one of the women who led the dances and she read a few bible versus and prayers. The dances were fun... but, the two homilies and readings in Spanish and Latin were a little dry. I guess I have been spoiled with my one hour Presbyterian services and didn't realize that Mass was going to be >3 hours. We made a break for it at the three hour mark when communion started....

Also, MARK IS COMING TOMORROW! I am sooo excited. It also means I may not post for a while, pero quien sabes?

La Isla de Picanda

Today Joanne, Katrina, and I went to the Island of Picanda (one of four) in Lake Patzcuaro. Picanda is considered a Purepecha community because all of the residents still speak the Purepecha language and most understand Purepecha better than Spanish. The island does have electricity, but no running fresh water system.
Getting to Picanda from Patzcuaro is quite an adventure. It is about a 30 minute Combi ride through curvy mountain roads to the muelle (dock). Then you basically find someone to take you across in their fishing boat. Let's just say that the curvy roads and sitting on the floor of a fishing boat was not the best for motion sickness, but thank god for Dramamine.
Once we arrived in Picanda we went on a search for women who had a child less than five years old to participate in our birthing survey. For such a small island we were able to do a large number of surveys- which was great. Since most of the women understood Purepecha better than Spanish, Margarita helped translate the survey that I gave in Spanish into Purepecha. Tantos lenguas!
What an exciting and exhausting day!

The land of the hummingbirds

Sunday, the gang and I went to the pueblo of Tzintzuntzan, which in Purepecha means the "land of the hummingbirds". Although this site is a lot more touristy than the Yacatas (Pyramids) in Ihuatzio, they were still pretty cool. Plus you can see the storage room where they kept the severed heads of their enemies. Fun fact: The Purepecha were never conquered by the Aztecs, like many other indigenous groups in Mexico. This is probably because their ability to craft metal gave them an advantage over their enemies to the east. Tzintzuntzan was the Purepecha capital up until the arrival of the Spanish in Michoacan. Although the Yacatas were blown up by the Spanish in search of gold, they were reconstructed in the 1940s and are still quite a site.

Also, fun fact: Don Vasco de Quiroga, who was a member of the second Spanish Audiencia that was sent to govern new Spain (after the crazy gold-loving conquistadors), was a follower of Thomas Moore. So he tried to create a utopian society with the indigenous people around the lake where each pueblo was not in competition with one another, but instead responsible for a specific craft. For example, Tzintzuntzan is famous for its green pottery. I am not sure how Utopian it was, but the different crafts still remain today.

Another interesting site in Tzintzuntzan is their church. The church and monastary were first built by Don Vasco and are home to the oldest olive trees in the new world! The church is also home to a growing Jesus! Yep, that's right, a figure of Jesus that is supposedly growing (See top picture). the Jesus is made out of a paste mixture of corn cobs and water and then is painted. The story goes that ever since he has been in the church he has been growing. He even broke the end of his glass enclosure, so an addition was made to accommodate him. As you can see in the picture, his head has to be elevated and there is an addition onto the case (the side closest to the camera) to make more room for Jesus.

Copper and Catholicism

Today was pretty exciting. In the morning we went to a nurses meeting for work. There were about twenty nurses that came, which was a great turn out. After the meeting. Joanne, Katrina, and I ventured to Santa Clara de Cobre- which is known for their hand made copper products. There were so many beautiful things it was hard not to buy everything. Although, I did purchase a very cool pitcher and mirror.
On our way back home we ran into a parade on our street! There was a band, fireworks, balloons, and of course... Jesus (?) From what we could gather, they were moving the statue of Jesus from the church of San Francisco downtown to various neighborhoods in Patzcuaro for the whole week in honor of St. Daniel (?) And so, Jesus's first stop was in our barrio of Calvario. It was a lot of fun to march with the parade and I think the band got a real kick out of us being there.

In other news, I also got bitten by a fire ant.

An Update Haiku

We had a hail storm.
Cuanajo- to give surveys
two sheep, our neighbors

Fuimos a la playa!

This past weekend Joanne, Katrina, Jessie, and I went to beautiful Zihuatanejo! It was a much needed retreat from rainy mountainous Patzcuaro. Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa are about 3.5 hours away by car. So early Saturday morning we loaded into Nacho's van and took the new tool road (que chido!) to the beach. The drive through the Sierra Madre mountains was absolutely amazing See picture above). Mile after mile of lush beautiful mountains intersected by an occasional stream or lake. The land looked so untouched and pure - I felt like a was Pizarro discovering a beautiful new world (except I wasn't weilding corruption or disease and I was on a highway...). Which brings we to my next point, driving. The highways in Mexico seem to have 1.5 lanes in each direction which means that there is room for a car to move over to let another car pass... it sounds good in theory but in practice when this passing is happening in two oppossing directions it leads to intense games of chicken and some pretty scary scenarios. I learned very quickly that it was better if I didn't watch the road.
Once we safely arrived at our destination we grabbed lunch and hoped in the water. Summer in Zihautanejo is brutally hot, so we quickly learned that going in the water often is a must. Zihuatanejo is the quant, cheaper, more mexican sister to the resort town of Ixtapa. So we were able to find a nice, cheap hotel right on Playa Madera. Zihuatanejo is actually a giant harbor with lots of beaches which is great because you can walk almost anywhere and explore.
On Sunday we went to the Island of Ixtapa (not to be confused with the country club beach town of Ixtapa- too many manicured road medians). The island of Ixtapa is amazing! You can only get there by boat and they have no electricity - just four lovely beaches and a few restaurants (unclear how one keeps food fresh without electricity, but we didn't want to know). We got there pretty early on Sunday which was great because we were the only people in the water for a while when we went snorkeling. There is a pretty extensive coral reef just off the beach so we rented gear on the island and jumped in (literally)! There were lots of fish of all sizes and colors and I even got to hold a starfish- very cool! The rest of the day was spent exploring the other beaches on the island - one was a "natural" aka nude beach although we didn't realize that before we went and no was there, so we didn't follow the nude rule. The other beaches didn't have any coral, but where they lacked in coral they made up for in Jellyfish (ouch!). We ended the evening at a Salsa bar- which was highly entertaining, especially when they did a Michael Jackson tribute.
Overall I had an amazing time, but I am happy to be back in cool Patzcuaro. For those of you who were worried - I only got a little sunburnt which is surprising given my ability to fry quickly. I would like to thank my bottle of 30 sunscreen and my giant Target beach hat for helping make this possible.

At least the doctors are friendly....

A quick recap of work last week:
Thursday and Friday was spent in meetings and doing the Clinic/Doctor entrevista (survey) that I helped design and translate. It was pretty exciting and a little stressful seeing the survey that I had worked on for a few works finally applied. On Thursday, Joanne, Katrina, and I went with Jacoba to two different clinics to start our surveys. The first location went pretty well, without any major Spanish or translating snaphos (sp?). Our second stop was the pueblo of Cuanajo which is about a 40 minute Combi ride from Patzcuaro and is famous for their hand carved wood furniture (fun fact). The Combi ride was quite at an adventure- at one point there were 23 people on the bus! The bus driver literally pulled out camp stools and buckets for people to sit on in the aisle, it was out of control.

Once we safely made it Caunajo we were in for a treat. The doctor at the IMSS/Oportunidades clinic was young talkative and we suspect very lonely. A quick note about IMSS/Oportunidades clinics before we discuss the overly friendly doctor: I/O clinics are free clinics in rural areas (generally one clinic serves multiple communities if they are close by) for people who are not covered by insurance (although Mexico does have a national health insurance system called Seguro Popular). The doctor at the clinic was very very very friendly and ended up talking to us for a very long time and giving us an exhow tensive tour of the clinic. We think he was so friendly because he was on his service year (required to gradate from Medical school) which means that for a year in between your medical school training and residency you live in needy community (rural or urban) and are basically on call at the clinic 24 hours a day. He showed us his little room which is inside the clinic where he has to live for a year. He probably was happy to talk to people around his age (he was 24). After our interview he even offered to drive us back home which was a nice a surprise after our ridiculous combi trip to Cuanajo.

NB: The pictures above are of a)mountains in Cuanajo, b) a new "to prevent the (swine) flu" poster at the clinic, and c) cows parading in front of the I/O Clinic in Cuanajo.

Mujer, Conoce y Cuida tu Cuerpo

Today was very exciting for two important reasons: 1) No rain AND 2)We got to go out and help with a lecture. Mexico has a really interesting (and famous) welfare program for women called "Oportunidades". (Actually NYC has created a similar welfare program based on the Mexican model called "Opportunity NYC" - how creative?!). It is an interesting program that gives women a cash allowance for doing a variety of things including keeping their children in school, keeping their house clean, having two paps or VIAs a year (talk about over screening?!), and going to one health lecture a month- this is where Mujeres Enlazadas comes in. The doctors and nurses at the IMMS/Oportunidades Clinics in the rural pueblos are responsible for presenting the lectures so they are very excited and welcoming when we offer to present a lecture. Today we presented the lecture "Mujere, Conoce y Cuida tu Cuerpo" (Woman, know and respect your body) twice to about 110 women in the town of Santa Ana. The presentation is a really great combination of physiological information as well as information about how you should love their bodies and how everyone is different but equally beautiful. I think it is a great lecture to bring to women in rural areas because many of them don't have high self worth, nor do they know very much about their bodies- so it is truly educational and empowering! Brenda and Jacoba do a really nice job of making the lecture light hearted, funny, empowering, and educational. One woman came up to Veronica and told her that she had given birth twice, but had no idea how her body worked and now she was going to respect it more- que chido!

Before and after the presentation we administered the birthing practices/ preferences survey that Katrina wrote. It was pretty intense administering a survey only in Spanish especially when there are lots of questions that ask "por que?" (why do you feel that way) but we survived and did about 25 surveys. Overall it was a great, but tiring day.

Highlights from the rest of this week include:
Cooking with a crazy hot pepper.
We got a tiny hot pepper at the market - the man selling them must of thought we were crazy because we asked for the hottest one and then asked how much it cost and he said he would give it to us for free to try out (he was probably thinking - stupid gringas). So we cooked half of it with our veggie stirfry last night- WOW. It was hot, very hot. Our lips were burning the whole time. I was silly enough to wipe my eye (which was watering because it was so hot) and I got hot pepper around my eye - which proceeded to burn and get red and puffy so I looked like I had gotten into a fight or something. Needless to say, we will be using this pepper a little more sparingly next time.

TransAmerica
Quick plug for the movie I watched, TransAmerica. It was very funny, very interesting, and very enlightening. I thought it was great. You should watch it.

Fun facts:
Pandora AND Netflix don't allow Mexican IP addresses- que lastima.

Morelia- the land of balloons and cathedrals

Morelia was great... so great. This past weekend the gang hopped on a bus (not a combi- hooray!) and traveled to Morelia- Michoacan's capital. It is only about an hour away but it is worlds different. Downtown Morelia is so beautiful and cosmopolitan- I felt like I was in Europe! It seemed like there was beautiful church and a person selling balloons or bubbles on every corner.
We started off our tour with a walk through the famous Cathedral. It is made from Pink volcanic stone and is recognized as one of the most beautiful churches is Mexico. When we toured the inside there was a wedding going on- how crazy to get married in such a famous church full of goofy tourists! Actually there were a ton of weddings and quinceaneras going on in Morelia on the 4th of July. It was so fun to see all these girls and wedding parties all dressed up taking photographs around the city!
We saw soo much of Morelia in only one day! I don't want to bore you with all the details, but we went to the oldest college in the new world, a great modern art museum, a natural history museum, an aqua duct, and many many amazing churches. We even stumbled across a Mexican Baile Folklorico show going on in the plaza next to the main cathedral while we were eating the delicious traditional ice cream suggested in our tour book. It was so amazing to watch the traditional Mexican folk dances, as kids chased bubbles, and the lights of the city turned on.
For dinner we went to great place called San Miguelito. Since we were 4 girls, they sat us in the "Single ladies corner" where they have over 600 Saint Anthony dolls turned upside down- the Mexican ritual to be lucky in love. There was also a complex ritual that Jessie did which involves lighting a candle, circling Saint Anthony 13 times while stacking a coin after each turn, writing your dream man's qualities in a big book, and then putting your candle on the mantle while saying a prayer. I am not sure how well it works, but they have a wall full of marriage pictures that people have sent in to support their claims.
All and all it was a great 4th of July even if we didn't have any fireworks!
Check out the pictures on my Flickr page :)

Attack of the giant fly

I have been busy with lots of work the past few days. So I will give you the brief update.
Yesterday:
Joanne and I went to Santa Fe (a pueblo around the lake) with Margarita the outreach worker. It took about an hour to get there and we had to change buses mid-way through to reach our final destination. When we got to Santa Fe we met with the town jefe or mayor to make sure it was ok to administer our women's health surveys. Even though we got his approval not very many women wanted to do our survey because their was a fiesta going on in town that night and they needed to get ready. So we returned empty handed and little green with motion sickness after our combi ride through the mountains.
After we refreshed with scrambled eggs and veggies Brenda took us to Bodega- which is the Mexican Wal-Mart (literally). We explored and marveled at the cheap prices and got just about everything we needed except for peanut butter (What a great word in Spanish - Mantequilla de Cacahuate), which apparently is not very popular in Mexico- que lastima!

Today:
Today after Spanish we stopped at the street vendors in the market for a bite to eat. Three American girls exploring the taco stands was apparently such a spectacle. Every street vendor wanted to sell us their tacos or tortas and practice his English on the "pretty American girls". At least they were all very friendly- I suppose it could have been worse.
After lunch we went into "the office" to meet with Richard about our surveys. Richard has high hopes of getting them done and translated by next Wednesday so hopefully we can live up to his expectations. After our meeting we went out with the gang + Brenda and Jessie for dinner to a lovely Argentinian restaurant. I had Lasagna- I guess a little odd for Mexico, but mighty tasty. During dinner we discussed the paper I had written about Cesarean sections. It was a very lively discussion and it was great to add Brenda and Richard's first hand experience to the statistics I had written about. Jessie even suggested that I have it published! (I was so touched to get such positive feed back).

In other news there was a giant fly in my room last night that made a terrible buzzing noise. So I spent 30 minutes trying to kill it or get to fly out the window but it refused to land. It was so big and so loud... oh the terrors of Mexican insects!