Last Monday we didn't really have any plans so we (The Normans, the Roesberry, and us) decided to go see a church with a restored organ that is in a little village with a big name that is hard to pronounce, Tlacochahuaya and the little village of San MarcosTlapazola where they make red pottery. This little village is a Zapotec village and a large percentage of the people still dress in the traditional Zapotec clothing, and not just the older generation. Most of them still speak Zapotec also, it would be very hard to learn, there are a lot of conjoined sounds and almost clicks. Some people say it is similar to Chinese, I'm not sure.
This area is pretty famous for pottery, they have barro (clay) negra, which is more decorative and is very pretty black pottery. I would compare it to the Santo Domingo pottery in New Mexico, they have green pottery, more utilitarian, not everyone likes it. (I do, I love the color, and the rawness or crudity of it, I cant wait to visit the place they make it). And the red pottery, again it is much more utilitarian or useful. It is made for cooking etc. Below is a link where you can read all about the women who make the red clay pottery, these are the very women and the shop where we went, the best part of our trip was visiting with them. The oldest Sister told us she had been to Arizona, she had gone to demonstrate her pottery techniques and had seen the Grand Canyon, we told here we lived close to there, they were delightful women. We have found the people here to be such happy and delightful people, so many of them have so little and yet are so happy and generous.
I bought a beautiful casserole type pot, I love it, to me so much of the charm is the fact that it is all hand made, with out a wheel, they build and oven each time they fire, each pot is a bit different and a little bit crude and all are so individual, I think they are kind of like us, draw from that what you will.
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| This is a picture of us with the Women of The Barro Rojo |
I say the best part of our trip was visiting with the Sisters who made the pottery but I am not certain, we also had to take a detour, I have to admit that Brother John Norman is an excellent Chauffeur, as well as a good sport, he takes a lot of guff from all of us back seat drivers. He got us where we wanted to go and back with no problemas! And we saw some lovely sights on the way. Sometimes it is like stepping back in time as we traverse the narrow, dirt, country roads and see the donkey carts in the fields or the herders with their goats or cattle heading home, and it is always fun because someone always has to stop for pictures or has a story to tell.
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| Herding goats and cattle down the streets of town! |
The organ was also pretty cool, the church had been restored, but not restored to it's original condition, although it was still really cool, we met some other tourists there, they were from Mexico City, they had also lived in New York, they were fun to talk to and very friendly, it is so much fun to meet and visit with people and share a little of the gospel with people and tell them what we are doing in Mexico and why we live here, people are always so curios when they find out 3 gringo couples live in Oaxca.
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| Us, the Normans, and The Roesberrys in front of the restored organ, notice the painting on the cielings, they also have been restored. It is so beautiful! |
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| You can see some of the painting on the walls and ceiling as well as the flowers still decorating the chapel, when we arrived there were several Zapotec women cleaning the church. In the photo below you can see one of them cleaning, I don't think she was very happy that dad took her picture. |
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| The ceiling of the church, the painting is so detailed and beautiful, this church does not have the dark oppressive feeling that so many of the big ones in Mexico City had. |
The temple has been a little slow again this week, maybe everyone has the after Christmas blues or they are trying to get back into the swing of things, although here the holidays are really barely officially over this week. So maybe next week things will pick back up. We did have one late session scheduled by one of the local stakes and we had 20 people in that session, but they were hoping for 30 and enough of their own workers that only the missionaries would have to stay late. We were busy Saturday with 4 busses, we had 90 youth for baptisms and the rest were adults. We had a great day, we were really organized, everything ran like clockwork, all the sessions were on time and everyone seemed to be very happy and content. I think again the credit goes to Brother Norman, he organizes things as the Recorder and it was one of the smoothest days I have seen thus far. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that dad was coordinator for part of the day! It is so much better to be busy, time goes by so much faster and it just feels better to be productive.
Remember we told you about caroling at Christmas time? Well we did make it on a news station, it is Noticias.net, an internet news station, here is the link that goes right to the article, and shows us singing and the interview with the 2 cute missionaries, it is in Spanish but it is still pretty fun, and you now have (wink,wink) famous, professional (remember we got paid with water bottles) singing, missionary, parents\grandparents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE2PDwk29yg
That is probably more than enough for today, remember to love each other and be good to each other, we love you more than you can even imagine. I saw a quote today that has made me think and wanted to pass it along, it is by Marvin J. Ashton "If we could look into each other's hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. I think this is so very true, I find our more and more that each person has their own road to travel and their own set of difficulties and because of the life they have lived and are living what to one may seem like a tiny hill to another is a giant mountain. So be kind, helpful, and loving to all you meet, you never know when your smile might be someone's saving grace. Much love until next week.
www.oaxacadream.com/articles/craft.10.html
That is probably more than enough for today, remember to love each other and be good to each other, we love you more than you can even imagine. I saw a quote today that has made me think and wanted to pass it along, it is by Marvin J. Ashton "If we could look into each other's hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. I think this is so very true, I find our more and more that each person has their own road to travel and their own set of difficulties and because of the life they have lived and are living what to one may seem like a tiny hill to another is a giant mountain. So be kind, helpful, and loving to all you meet, you never know when your smile might be someone's saving grace. Much love until next week.
www.oaxacadream.com/articles/craft.10.html
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