 | Tristan's trip to the Mixteca | |
| Tristan's trip to the Mixteca | |
Here follows a brief account of what I did when I went out on a three day trip with Milpas staff to the Mixteca region. Milpas is a Mexican NGO that works with rural youth, and I am volunteering with them to help set up an electronic communication project (i.e. setting up a website, listserver, database and other netty stuff). This is mainly to show off the pictures - if you want a fuller account, let me know and I'll send on the email I prepared.
It all started when I got a bus out to a small town called Tlaxiaco out in the middle of the countryside. We then took a trip in a Beetle taxi with Jesus painted on its inside roof, and headed out past fields full of oxen through the mountainous terrain to the town of Nujo.
After lunch there we had a meeting with the local youth group in which Francisco and Nelson outlined what FOJO plans to do over the next few years. [FOJO is the Foro de Jovenes de Oaxaca (Oaxacan Youth Forum to you) and is an organisation set up by Milpas to promote links between youth groups in the state]
Anyway, the next day we started out bright and early and dropped in to the local INI (Instituto Nacional Indigena) office to chat to the director about the FOJO and arrange to be given some air time on their radio station to promote it. We also went to see a Catholic school for girls and then after a lot more driving we ended up in the largeish town of Huajapan de Leon, where we stood around on a hilltop with some Mixtec ruins and I failed to use the camera's self-timer twice.
While in H de L, we also went to the local office of the FIOB (Binational Oaxacan Indigenous Front - a group who supports local families in Oaxaca and also those who've emigrated to the US for work) and dropped in on the only company that provides internet access in the town to check out their facilities and rates for when we roll out FOJO's electronic communication project. We then drove on to the joint town of Tlatotepec/Huitlan Plumas
The next day we drove on to a very small community at the bottom of a valley near Huitlan Plumas where we went to discuss one of Milpas's reforestation programmes. There were some spectacular views along the way, but then unfortunately my camera ran out of memory, so there's no record of the project meeting or of sampling the delights of village life such as beer and mezcal with breakfast!
Tristan, October 2000.
