Oaxaca - In Other Words

One of the books I read as background research for this blog was Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico (2001) by the English travel journalist, Isabella Tree.  Isabella travelled to Oaxaca, as well as Chiapas, Patzcuaro and the Sierra Madre, where she went beyond the usual tourist/traveller experiences, in an attempt to understand the complex and, apparently, contradictory nature of Mexican culture.  I found her book very informative and entertaining and I would definitely recommend it.

I've come across quite a few new words/phrases, both in Tree's book and elsewhere, as I've been researching about Oaxaca and Mexico.  I've chosen some of these, by coincidence all beginning with the letter 'M', which touch on important areas of Oaxacan and Mexican culture.

México profundo

Benito Juarez, 26th President of Mexico

In many ways, Oaxaca is the very definition of México profundo or 'Deep Mexico'. Something I've learned about Mexico is that, rather than thinking of it as a single, united country, it's more useful to think of Mexico as a patchwork of cultures and experiences, many of which wouldn't conform to outsiders' stereotypes of what Mexico is or should be.

Even the capital, Mexico City, isn't exactly typical of Mexico and, by all accounts, if you want to see the real Mexico, a country of charros (Mexican cowboys), tequila and mariachi music, it's better to go to Mexico's second-biggest city, Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state.

Oaxaca is the other side of Mexico - a state where 58% of the population is indigenous and where some of the Zapotec, Mixtec, Mixe, Zoque, Mazateco, Chinanteco, Popaloco etc. people don't speak Spanish. An estimated 15% of Mexico's population is indigenous and almost half of Mexico's indigenous people live in Oaxaca.

It's hardly surprising then that Mexico's first indigenous President, Benito Juárez (President from 1858 to 1864) was from Oaxaca.  He famously proclaimed that:

No hay indios en México, somos todos Mexicanos
There are no Indians in Mexico, we are all Mexicans

Whilst it's noble political statement, I can't help thinking he was brushing indigenous culture under the carpet.

Mezcal

Mezcal bottles with worms

Oaxaca is the biggest producer of Mezcal, a distilled alcoholic drink made from Maguey, a kind of agave plant which is native to Mexico and the southern United States.  Mezcal was mostly used in religious ceremonies, before it became another commodity, for sale in duty-free shops all over the world.  The most famous form of Mezcal is tequila, which is made from the 'blue agave' and produced in Jalisco, as mentioned above.

During her travels to Mexico, Isabella Tree spent some time with the Huichol people of the Sierra Madre in Zacatecas state.  Another M word I can share is Mara'akame, a Huichol word meaning 'elder', often interpreted as 'shaman' and Huichol religious beliefs, more than those of any other indigenous group in Mexico, have attracted the attention of people outside Mexico, because of their use of peyote, a cactus that contains mescaline and induces hallucinations and psychedelic 'trips'.

Tree herself consumed peyote as part of a religious ceremony overseen by a Mara'akame and many other Westerners, writers and poets like Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg and Carlos Castaneda, have travelled to Mexico seeking enlightenment and inspiration from this magical plant.

Despite the name, Mezcal doesn't contain mescaline, as peyote does, although people believe that eating the worm at the bottom of the Mezcal bottle will induce an hallucinogenic trip!

For many years, after the 1910 revolution and the introduction of a new constitution in 1917, religion was officially off the agenda for the newly-secular Mexico.  Shortly after his trip to Liberia in the 1930's (see my blog post about this) Graham Greene was sponsored by the Catholic Church to visit Mexico and report back on the Mexican government's secularisation campaign and suspected rights abuses against practising Catholics.  His book, The Lawless Roads, records his experience in Mexico and he was also inspired to write a novel, The Power and the Glory which featured an alcoholic priest.  Not surprisingly, this didn't go down so well with his sponsors in the Vatican!

Interior of church in Oaxaca, by einalem

Despite the lack of official support, religious practice seems to have survived in Mexico and Catholicism has remained in a strong position, where Protestantism has made more inroads in other, traditionally-Catholic countries, like Brazil.  Nevertheless, Mexico's Protestant population has also increased in recent years, especially in far-flung corners of the country, like Quintana Roo and Chiapas.  Mexico's 'other Christian' population currently stands at about 10% (compared to around 40% in Brazil).

It took a while for Christianity to catch on in Oaxaca and these days there are slightly fewer Catholics and slightly more Protestants in Oaxaca than the national averages.  I didn't come across a lot of information about indigenous religious practises in Oaxaca, although I'm sure indigenous religious beliefs still permeate Oaxacan life - my impression was more of a general ambivalence to religion in the state, which perhaps reflects a wider national trend where church attendance is pretty low, even if people are nominally Christian.

Muxe

LGBT pride in Mexico City by Carlos Mejía Greene

I came across this Zapotec word when I was reading about Isabella Tree's experiences partying with the transsexual community in Oaxaca.  The word muxe (pronounced moo-shey) is believed to have derived from the Spanish word mujer meaning 'woman' and is the word used to describe Oaxaca's 'third sex', i.e. women who were born male.

Another important M word that's relevant is machismo and Mexican men are famous for their macho image, just as Mexican women are supposed to be beautiful, passive and all-suffering.  Oaxaca seems to buck the trend and, in an interesting narrative about her time there, Tree explains how it's the women who are in the driving seat in Oaxaca, not the men.

As well as having a refreshingly open attitude towards gender roles, indigenous cultures in Mexico also seem to take a much more relaxed view of sexuality and are, generally speaking, more tolerant of same-sex couples.  The situation for LGBT people in Mexico is improving all the time, but there is still a long way to go for same-sex couples to be given the same rights as male-female partners and incidents of violence against LGBT people remains pretty high.

Coahuila on the border with the USA was the first Mexican state to legalise same-sex partnerships and Oaxaca saw its first same-sex marriage in 2013. To date, only the government of Mexico City provides any legal framework for a change of gender identity, although states like Oaxaca, with large indigenous populations have tolerated the existence of muxe for many years.

Image credits:

The image of Benito Juarez is from Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image of the Mezcal bottles is from the Finnish version of Wikipedia and was shared using the Creative Commons license by Suvi Korhonen (user: Suviko) - you can see more information about the image on its Wikicommons page.  

The interior of the church in Oaxaca was taken by my fellow countrywoman and Flickr member, einalem - you can see more of her Oaxaca photos on her photo stream.

The photo from LGBT pride in Mexico City was taken by Carlos Mejía Greene, a native of the city who now lives in Canada.  You can see more of Carlos' photos on his Flickr account.

Thanks to Suvi, Einalem and Carlos for sharing these images with us using the Creative Commons license.  

Liberia - The Way to Africa

As well as reading literature that comes from the place I'm blogging about, I also quite often read travel books by adventurers, mostly European or US citizens, who have ventured out into the great unknown! 

For Liberia, I've read two travel books - the first was Chasing the Devil: On Foot through Africa's Killing Fields (2010) by Tim Butcher, a former correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, who reported from Liberia in 2003, during some of her darkest hours - the second Journey without Maps (1936) by Graham Greene, the famous writer, adventurer and MI5 operative, who travelled to Sierra Leone and Liberia, during his first trip outside Europe. 

I really loved Butcher's first book, Blood River: A Journey into Africa's Broken Heart (2007), which records his journey through Congo-Kinshasa, following in the footsteps of the explorer, Henry Morton Stanley.  Chasing the Devil is Butcher's second book and I also really enjoyed his depiction of Sierra Leone and Liberia, as he walked on foot through both countries, following a journey made by Graham Greene and his cousin Barbara. 

Scenes around Liberia by Tweefur

I find Graham Greene a fascinating character and I've read one of his novels, The Quiet American (1955) set in Vietnam.  He seemed to travel everywhere and I have a feeling I'll be running into the work of Graham Greene (and perhaps, Tim Butcher) as I research for future blog posts.  It was interesting comparing the two works following the same route, to see how much or little had changed in Liberia in the seventy years that separated Greene and Butcher's journeys.  Here are a few of the things that I've noted:

Sierra Leone - a country in reverse?

One of the greatest symbols of 'modernity' and the Industrial revolution is the train.  I was fascinated to learn that, whilst Graham Greene travelled by train to Pendembu - the start of his walk in Sierra Leone - seventy years later, Butcher couldn't do this journey by train, as the train system in Sierra Leone no longer functions. 

As a symbol of 'progress', the disappearance of the train system makes me wonder whether or not Sierra Leone is going backwards, instead of forwards?  Mind you, we also ditched much of the regional rail network in Ireland, once the British left - it doesn't necessarily mean we went backwards or stopped progressing, we just did what we could afford and I guess, for the government of Sierra Leone, it must be the same reason?

When the Greenes visited Sierra Leone, it was still a British colony, with all the trappings of 'civilisation' and a European-style infrastructure, as unsustainable as that may have been.  In the 1930's, Liberia was one of Africa's least explored countries, a real 'Heart of Darkness' and Butcher suspects that Greenes' trip may have been funded by an anti-slavery organisation, back in England, who wanted to find out what was really happening in Liberia's hinterland.  I'm sure the British government was also quite interested in this country neighbouring one of their colonies. 

The joys of travelling light

As well as 26 porters, three personal servants and a chef, the Greenes travelled with; six boxes of food, two beds and chairs and mosquito nets, three suitcases, a tent, two boxes of miscellaneous things, a bath, a bundle of blankets, a folding table, a money-box, a hammock.  I guess it wasn't easy to travel light in Africa in the 1930's, although I do think the bath was taking things a bit too far!  I'd also love to know what was in the boxes of miscellaneous things - no doubt a good deal of whiskey, if the rest of Greene's account is to be believed! 

By contrast, Butcher travelled with a voluntary companion, as well as a paid guide and driver and as much stuff as they could all carry between them.  In fairness to Graham Greene though, for most of the journey, he flouted the expectations of that time by walking through the jungle, rather than being carried by the native porters in a hammock, as most other Europeans would have done. 

Barbara who?

Scenes around Liberia by Tweefur

Butcher does a really good job at including Barbara Greene in Graham's story - considering that Graham barely mentions her at all in his book and you sometimes wonder what she was doing, whilst he was philosophising, admiring the breasts of native women and getting drunk?  Barbara wrote her own account of their journey, Too late to turn back which, if the title is anything to go by, suggests that she found the whole thing quite hard going! 

Having initially accepted Graham's proposal to accompany him to Africa, after a few too many glasses of champagne at a  wedding, Barbara eventually rose to the challenge and even took over the management of the trip, when Graham fell ill. 

Alarming digressions

Having finished Butchers incredibly readable and informative book, I was slightly apprehensive about tackling the eccentric and chaotic world of Greene.  It really struck me how awareness of the reader/audience is much more important nowadays, than it was in the time of Graham Greene.  Greene's book was well-written, because he was a great writer, but it was also rambling, full of anecdotes and digresses often enough to alarm the modern reader. 

By contrast, Butchers writing was 'tight' and on topic, cleverly blending several different strands of the story, to meet the expectations of a modern audience.  I guess the modern commercialisation of the Arts and literature means that the days of eccentricity and digression are over - the reader needs to be wholly involved at every moment, or else a book won't sell.  I can't help feeling that we've lost some of the disorder of a previous age, when writers were less focused on the market!

The Way to Africa

Scenes around Liberia by Tweefur

In total contrast to Butcher, who wanted to follow Greene's journey as closely as possible, Greene himself had no idea where his journey was going to end.  His original visa only allowed him to travel to the capital, Monrovia, through the western part of Liberia.  Instead, perhaps because he had a hidden agenda, he meandered through Lofa province, (French) Guinea and Nimba, eventually reaching the coast at Grand Bassa, now called Buchanan. 

Greene had the vague intention of finishing his journey on the coast at Sinoe (now called Greenville) in eastern Liberia, which was believed to be the centre of an illegal slave trade.  He cut his journey short because he couldn't bear the monotony of travelling through the jungle and because he was running out of money (not to mention whiskey!).  Butcher, on the other hand, obsessively followed Greene's original journey and knew exactly where he was going and how he intended to get there. 

For Greene, this wasn't just his 'way to Africa' but, in many regards, his way to the world.  Anyone who has lived abroad will recognise the importance of that first 'seminal' experience - when you're disorganised, miserable, experiencing culture shock - hopefully you learn from it and do a better job at planning the next trip!  The experience certainly toughened Greene up for later journeys, including his time spent in Sierra Leone, during the Second World War, as a British intelligence officer.  It also helped him cut his teeth, in terms of writing and he went on to write many, many more books and novels, which have informed and entertained countless millions ever since!

I look forward to Butcher's next book and I'm curious to see if he will follow the pattern set by his previous two works.  For Greene, alas, the way to Africa is no more!

Image credits:

For this blog post, I wanted to highlight the photography of Flickr member, tweefur aka Teri Weefur, who is originally from Monrovia, but now lives in Silver Spring, USA.  She has created an interesting set of photos called, Scenes around Liberia and she also has a website. 

Thanks Teri for sharing these images of Liberia, using the Creative Commons License.