Tuesday, June 30, 2009
A rare day in Patzcuaro
Major news- it didn't rain today! We had clear skies all day AND all night! Which made beautiful weather for going out with Veronica, an outreach worker at the organization. We took the combi to the pueblo of Santa Anna which was about a twenty minute ride. Santa Anna is a mestizo community that is situated very close to where I live on the mountain because it is in the valley below, but it takes a while to get there by bus. When I asked Veronica what the pueblo was famous for (because many towns around the lake have a handicraft that they are famous for) she said- fiestas! Which, I guess is also very important. Veronica and I were conducting a survey about nursing practices and inviting the nurses to attend an information session about the enfermera parterra (nurse midwife) session that our organization is holding in July. Once we got to the town Veronica asked a person where all the nurses lived and we plotted our journey from there- it was very grass roots. One nurse wasn't home, so we waited outside her house for twenty minutes hoping she would return (which she didn't). This house didn't have a doorbell and there was a gate that was removed from the property, so Veronica yelled "Senora, Senora" until the neighbor yelled at us and said "La senora no esta aqui", so then we waited.
We also visited the "Imms/Opportunidades" clinic which is a health care system set up by the Mexican government to manage health care for rural areas. Theses clinics are free if you live in the area the clinic serves. While not very large or impressive it serves a population that would normally have to travel to Patzcuaro to receive primary care- which is a good thing.
After my hike back home, my housemates and I made "stir fry" which was just kind of veggies, beef, rice, and an egg because we didn't actually have any spices. It was pretty tasty and we washed it down with Mango Smoothies because are mangoes were getting a little mushy and needed to be used. We enjoyed our meal on our patio to see the non-rainy sunset.
We are all celebrating the lack of rain today. If this keeps up I may even return home with a tan (or..er.. burn)! We are crediting the sun to the new intern Jessie who flew in from Chicago yesterday and brought the heatwave with her. Jessie is a little older than us and is living with Richard and Brenda for the summer. She just graduated nursing school and is going to train to be a nurse midwife. She is really the only intern who actually has practical skills so far to work in the clinic. She is very friendly and was a Spanish major, so she is great addition to our group.
Hasta luego!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
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.
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.
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