Arrival

Welcome to this year's blog! I've been in Mexico for three weeks already and it has just flown by. The first part was in language school in Cuernavaca. The short story of that is that the school was not very good and I didn't learn much there but the woman and her daughters who I lived with became family and they made the time in Cuernavaca worthwhile.
Part two was 10 days with Sergio Magaña studying and practicing Aztec/Nahual traditions/ceremonies, etc. It was a full immersion and I will be processing all of it for a long time. He is an astounding teacher, I learned so much and deepened my understanding and love for this country.

Now - I am back "home" in Oaxaca. It felt like coming home yesterday and I was greeted as such by the family I have been staying with for the past 4 years. There was a fiesta at the language school. When I arrived there were traditional dancers, lots of food and friends who, like me, return here annually.

If you are reading this then you are familiar with the Oaxaca Acupuncture Project that I have been working on for almost a year, since the acupuncture healing exchange tour last year. All of this work, the fundraising, the logistics, the manual, the supply gathering, the many details are coming to fruition this week. If you are reading this you have helped support this project, by your financial or silent auction donations, by your support of me, Rico, and Julia in many other forms. Thank you! I have been moved to tears numerous times by the support and generosity of my community. You are changing people's lives!

If you are reading this you should also know that I am writing on an ipad and might make a lot of errors on this touchscreen. This ipad has been having issues and occasionally shutting down the internet in the middle of writing. I will not be spell-checking or dealing with grammatical issues. I'm working hard enough on my Spanish grammer right now!

Today I did the first local shopping and already discovered things that I will have to return for to the super-mercado. Tomorrow Rico and I will go to the Mercado Abastos and look for messenger bags for each of the promotores to carry their supplies. This mercado is incredibly large, city blocks of chaos and opportunity to be lost. I'll write about it tomorrow.

Rico arrives tonight. I am excited to share Oaxaca with him. This blog might be my only outlet for English for a while as he has assured me that we will only speak Spanish for the next month. I know enough now to know that I can converse yet my grammer is horrific. I have faith that it will all improve in another month.

I will try to figure out how to upload photos onto this blog. If that doesn't happen I will create an album when I get bck to my regular computer. Better than that, Rico will make a short documentary of the project and my current plan is to have a party and show it and/ or post it on youtube. Somehow you'll get the visuals.