Cisterns in Zaulta, Puebla

In stark contrast to my Saturday and Sunday spent in Mexico City, Monday I was in two rural communities in Zautla in the Sierra Norte of Puebla (about a 3 hour drive). Both communities, El Tepeyac and Zayolapan were involved in projects that gave money to women in the community to build cisterns. The only available water comes from a long tube and a couple hoses that run into the towns. Generally there is water flowing once every 3 days, but it is sometimes as infrequent as every 15 days. Thus, the main focus of the project was to construct cisterns that could be filled with rain water and with water from the tube to give people a more reliable source of water or at least the chance to store water when available. My boss tends to attract children in these small communities and I seem to attract stares as tower over everyone else.

Pictures from Zayolapan....
Pictures from El Tepeyac ........

Most of the people living in Zayolapan and El Tepeyac have family businesses making small pots that are then sold in nearby San Miguel. While we were visiting the cisterns, we passed several homes where the pots were being fired in large wood-burning ovens.

One of my favorite things about fall in Mexico.....the thousands of tiny yellow flowers that blanket the countryside

Birthday Weekend in Mexico City

For my birthday weekend, I met up with some other volunteers in Mexico City. On Saturday morning, we re-visited Casa Azul, the house where Frida Kahlo was born and spent many years. Day of the Dead is over, but many of the museums still have their alters up (which is why you are going to see some more day of the dead things in this post).

We then went down to Xochimilco, a delegation in the Southern part of the city. Our 1st stop was at the Dolores Olmedo Museum. In short, she was a very, very rich woman that collected art from around the world and financed a lot of Diego Riveras work. Her house, the museum, is filled with art from around the world, as well as several rooms dedicated to Riveras art and 1 room of Frida’s paintings. Peacocks freely roam the grounds of the estate. There is also a fenced in area with a lot of Xoloescuintle, a hairless (and I my eyes, ugly) Aztec dog. It was amazing how much they looked like their statue.

We then went to what is probably the most famous attraction in Xochimilco, the canals. Back when the Aztecs were still living in Mexico City, the canals contained a series of floating gardens, used to cultivate crops. Now it features lots and lots of boats filled with people, beer, mariachis, food, and vendors of all kinds. None of the boats have motors and all are pushed by hand, kinda like a Mexican gondola.

On Sunday, we all headed our own ways and I finally made it up to the Basilica de Guadalupe, the most visited Catholic site in all of Mexico and 2nd most visited in the world. The Virgin Guadalupe is one of the most important religious icons in all of Mexico and her image appears on everything around the country. At the site, you can visit the new basilica, the old basilica, and climb Tepeyac Hill to another church and see the site where the Virgin appeared in front of Juan Diego on December 12, 1531. Pilgrimages are made every year around the 12th of December, and even though I visited in November, they had already started to arrive.

Inside the new Basilica

The old and the new

My last stop was Tlatelolco and the Plaza de las tres cultras (Plaza of the 3 Cultures). In the plaza, you have Aztec ruins, a Spanish church, and a modern Mexican building. The plaza was also the site of the student demonstrations in 1968 that ended in bloodshed, just before Mexico hosted the Olympic Games.