Museos y Mas

So I have been hitting up the Museos big time recently.

On Sunday I walked past a large old building that I always walk past in the centre of town, but is never open... turns out it is a really cool interactive museum. It was really flash... really fun for kids too... it had lots of International stuff, information on languages and diff cultures (aka Aboriginals of Aus). I enjoyed it a lot... there was a video though showing how humans are like animals... and then at the end it was showing animal cruelty.. really graphic and upsetting stuff, I was suprised a little due to the number of kids watching.. but I guess here the kids are tougher.

I had an issue, which was I didn{t have facial wash. You don{t need facial wash, you say... you{re in Mexico!
No, I say. This isn{t the depths of Africa. I think I am one of those travellers who always expects 3rd world countries to be a lot more 3rd world... Suva suprised me, Bangkok and Phnom Penh too. Now, Mexico is about as 1st world as it gets for these places.
American and corporation influence is unfortnately everywhere, even heading out of Oaxaca (in the opposite direction to which I came from Mexico city) the highway is littered with fast food chains, huge american supermarkets, Sam{s Club, Office Max, Sears, Walmart.. boy, did I get a fright! For a city that seems so traditional in the centre..... I find it sad because these will be driving out local businesses (except the fast food chains, which are really expensive).
Their is a doco about WALMART, the name which I can not currently recall but it is a really good documentary about how small American towns have closed down due to their domination... then there is {China Blue{ which shows how these companies buy so cheap in China.. at the expence of Chinese slave labour.

Back to this.. I ended up busing to one of the huge ones (off the highway, but close... the one where I stumbled across that first lost Saturday... the one with the rifles) and was shocked to find a row of sunblock (which few mexicans use), a row of roll on deod and then another of powered, a row of creams for the face and body.. but alas! No wash.
I find it interesting that this is one part of International culture that hasn{t cottoned on.
Next stop was heading up toward {Calle Comerical[ as I have named the highway. Although the Pre Highway has a large Uni that stretches quite a distance one one side of the street and then various cheap restaurants, 1000 internet cafes and papeleria - which is shops where you get all your pen and paper needs.

My next stop was the first huge complex at the end of this road (past the Uni sports fields where there where a lot of kids playing, people running and a weird amount of solo sneakers lying about), was Soriana... this chain is in Puerto V too. They lacked rifles but had, in the ringed off makeup section, facewash and I bought the cheaper Ponds option, which I was familiar with from my trip to Camb, where it is cheap due to being made nextdoor in Thailand. I guess in Latin America they make it next door in Guatemala... or Honduras.

Interesting side note: Although currently considered Central America, Mexico considers itself North America. I was thinking that the irony is that they don{t want to be associated with the majority of the poor neighbours, but USA doesn{t want to be associated with Mexico.. although they should probably start accepting, since Mexicans seem to be a large chunk of the population after a few moments in history (i.e Mexican labourers let in free in the past, and the other thing I{ve mentioned before about the states formally part of Mexico).

Great stories I{m coming up with today right?
On the bus ride home I was ackwardly trapped in the centre of the bus as more and more students crammed in.. so I ended up getting off about an hour past my stop.. just to avoid Trying to squeeze through everyone. It was a nervous trip, as the bus moved further and further in a direction that all I recognised is that we were moving AWAY from my house, and it was now pitch black outside. Anyway, I am alive.. with yet another failed bus trip story.

So back to the museos aka museums. Today I hit up Casa Juarez, which as the name suggests, was the house of Benito Juarez, who I THINK (my political Spánish is vague) was Governor of Oaxaca and the President of Mexico. He introduced the liberal ideas like seperating church and state, despite being heavily Catholic which I think people originally couldn{t understand. What I did pick up for sure is that I was in his house, which I think he lived in with his aunt and sisters becuase his parents died when he was three... but it may´ve been the house where he lived with his wife (who was the daughter of his servant masters, 20 years his junior) and 7 children (5 others died.. this was in 1850s ish) but due to there only being 2 bedrooms (and he must have been well off at this stage)... anyway, I was okay.. very smalll with not much there. I think I was
the only visitor of the day which must have been disappointing since I don{t pay the $3.70 entrance fee, thanks to my ID.

Next stop was the Stamp Museum. Random, I know. The first room had an International room which was cool, as they had a stamp from almost every country I think (I am thinking most because they had the Pacific Islands, Antartica, Bermuda and Sao Tome and Principe.. which really made me laugh). It took me ages to find the NZ one (they had a map on the ground and then numbers corresponding, colour coded with the region.. NZ was Green 13). I think I couldn{t find it coz it was so dull. Other countries had brilliant colours, for example I think was Angola who had 8 stamps dedicated to the year of the child.. with brightly coloured drawings of children), or Malaysia{s who was a large Monkey holding her baby and the baby{s face was the stamp....
Ready for what NZ{s was... a proud display of Maori Culture? NO. A pavlova or buzy bee? Wrong.
A dark photo of a girl asleep on an animal or something. It was a motherflippin NARNIA film stamp... not even LOTR. OHHHH the shame.

My Aussie friends are into Art and Design etc (the Mexican one of them{s cousin AND aunty both have beautiful art galleries here) found a Art library. It is SO beautiful! I am really impressed with the money and effort that goes into Art education here... the library is lots of small connecting rooms and there are two terraces, both with vine roofs - one with tables and a mini cafe, and the others where secondary students taking art sit and draw. I spent time both
today and yesterday looking through photo books... yesterday was this cute one called 1000 Families where a man travelled a lot of the world, took photos of families (GUESS HOW MANY?) and then included a few sentences. My fave was this this Central African family - SOO happy - who{s write up said that they have a grass house that isn{t very strong and they want to buy corrugated iron for their roof but they can{t go to town coz they wouldn{t be able to find their way back to their house! I wondered how many people the have interacted with before this photo crew landed outside their hard-to-find doorstep. I would love to do a book project like that... I was originally inspired by a book of different nationalities children{s dreams.. some are uplifting, some heartbreaking.

I haven{t gone to the social evening in a few weeks coz I have found the other students (aka Germans) a little... flat. But this week the aussies are going and 2 new Irish friends too...
Rausheen (which I remember coz it is a ghetto black name too) and Paurick. Both aren{t spelt correctly, but I am finding the celtic hard to master. They have GLORIous accents and are planning to spend a year working in NZ next year... I told them that theycould see the whole country in three weeks, but I guess they are still keen.

In other news, I was supposed to be back in Puerto Vallarta this weeek... for those keeping track.
I kind of don{t know my plans at this stage ... they keep changing.. I kind of want to be somewhere else for my birthday I guess... that was the inital plan, which changed because my school schedual has changed