Mixing the old with the new

We had an interesting weekend.  Saturday was the kind of day we anticipated when we came here.  Sunday was not.

On Saturday we visited the rug making town of Teotitlán del Valle (where I ate the Diablito ice cream).  It is a 45-minute bus ride from Oaxaca, in the middle of a dry, rural valley.  The community owns all of the land in the town and the fields around it.  A council grants inhabitants the right to use the land.  But it is not entirely Socialist, since the inhabitants keep what they earn.  Judging from the size and appearance of houses, there is plenty of discrepancy between who has how much.

We visited the compound where Celestino and his parents live.  They raise chickens and sheep, grow cactus and fruit trees, and, of course, make rugs.  They also have access to land outside the town, where they farm alfalfa and other crops, and raise some cattle.  I'm sure there are a dozen other activities happening on their land that we didn't see.

Celestino and both of his parents make rugs.  Each person has his own loom.  They use wool dyed with natural materials.  Each pattern tells a story.  Here are some pictures of the process.

Grinding the Cochineal bug to make red die.

Drying freshly dyed yarn.  Before the Spanish arrived, they used cotton, not wool.

Celestino's mother putting yarn on a spindle

At her loom

At his loom 

At his(?) loom

Finished rugs, each telling a story

It is hard to fathom the amount of work that goes into a single rug.  Leaving aside spinning and dying the wool, it can take five months of solid work to weave one of the big rugs, and several days for the small, bath-mat sized rugs.  In that context, the rugs are not expensive.  But they do cost a lot - up to several thousand dollars each.  We did not buy one yet, but Natalie and I plan to go back without the kids (who got a little bored) to pick one out.  A smaller one, no doubt.

Then, on Sunday, we did something not all visitors to Oaxaca do.  I will let the pictures tell the story.

Paint Ball!

For the record, by the time Max got hit in the face, I was long out.  I was hit in the head by our friend Diocelina, who was hiding in a tree. --Harrison