Becca's World Travels: A Time to Plant and a Time to Uproot

There is “a time to plant and a time to uproot.” (Ecclesiastes 3:2)

So in between those times, there is a time to wait for the harvest and a time to pick the crop. We are in waiting. Waiting for school to start again, waiting for money to be raised, and also waiting for the rain to stop. Summer in Mexico is like winter in Oregon. It rains a lot. It’s beautiful, but not much work gets done. Rain is another excuse not to show up to appointments, classes, or work. Campaigning for local candidates also made it impossible to get any work done if we needed to speak to anyone in authority. It’s a season of waiting with a cup of hot cocoa listening to the rain on my tin roof. I am not complaining.

In this waiting season, I have learned to make tamales, got a new kitty, read several good books, had Rachel and Katie come to visit, improved at rock climbing, and have lost a few pounds in marathon training. Is this even work? I’m not sure, but according to Peace Corps goals, I am super succeeding goals 2 and 3, which deal with integration, and good representation of the US and Mexico. My visitors have learned new things about Mexico and greatly improved their perspectives while leaving good examples of hard working Americans. I’m totally integrated in my community, even though all they think I do is have visitors and travel. Some people think I’ve already been here for years because they are so used the “guera.”

Lindsay and I did some traveling to avoid the cold rainy weather and to aprovechar our waiting time. We went to Oaxaca city for 3 days and were complete tourists. Oaxaca is so far my favorite place in Mexico. We happened to be there for the Mezcal Feria and the annual Guelaguetza Festival (a style of dance) so the city was crowded and filled with fun festivities. One day we did the tourist thing and went on a guided tour of 5 local attractions: Tule (the world's widest tree), Teotitlan (where they make beautiful hand woven rugs), Mitla (ruins of an ancient civilization around 800 A.D.), el Hierve Agua (a beautiful place with mineral springs and petrified waterfall formations), and a Mezcal factory. We also went to Monte Alban to see the amazing ancient city. The food was absolutely amazing. Black mole is now my favorite. We ate and drank like kings for 3 days straight and never wanted to come back to rainy and gray Pachuca.

But we're back and things are good. Mineral del Chico will be receiving the title of Pueblo Mágico this week and that's super exciting! Now, we have even more to write about in our awesome guide book...

I don’t really have much else to report, so here are some pics to recap some of my time here: