Today was “charging” day, so we pedal only to the nearest village which was Ichán, and then a little bit further to find a place to sleep. All the pedalling was uphill today. Nice oak forests are welcoming us after we left “civilization”.
Learning:
– that even very small village has a main square with some electric socket which we can use for charging our laptop and cell phone
– that people in Ichán aren't Mexicans but descendants of some aboriginal tribe and their women still wear beautiful colorful scarfs and skirts
– that adults in Ichán didn't pay much attention to us, but we were very interesting for local kids
– that the food markets in small places like this close around noon
Living:
~ we woke up when locals started walking around our tent (we hadn't found better place last night, so we put it almost in the middle of footpath, but nobody seemed to by annoyed by that)
~ we had a little argument about time for packing and time for writing the diary, but we solved it in peace
~ our goal for today was to charge batteries in our laptop and cell phone, so we stopped in the closest village Ichán; it was small but nice and we found there everything we needed - an electric socked on the main square, small market with fruit and vegetable, water in local purificadora (it was closed already but they were so nice and opened it only for us, but it also cost us something … 10 pesos :-))
~ around the noon small tornado came, covered everything in dust and twisted banners
~ while Baška was shopping and looking for water, I was writing the blog until kids came from school or church - some of them were interested in what I was doing on computer, I showed them our presentation about Slovakia; very soon I was surrounded by at least 20 kids, so this was my first presentation on public in “very-bad” Spanish. Kids were very interested in our bicycles too, but we felt we didn't have to be afraid of them stealing anything from us (it seems that this kind of behavior hasn't arrived here yet)
~ after we left this village, we found nice place to camp in oak forest on the top of the hill (at least we thought we were on the top, later we found out how big our mistake was...)
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy reading your blog and the format you write it! And I love your three categories. So today here is some new learning for both of us.
You wrote that you learned – "that people in Ichán aren't Mexicans but descendants of some aboriginal tribe …."
I think they might be upset to know they aren't Mexican. Actually they are the real Mexicans, right? The "new" Mexicans were invaders and conquerers from Spain and France and probably look like you and me.
We usually call them "indigenous" people of Mexico ( Or whatever country they live in from Mexico to Chile etc). You called them "aborigines" which is not quite correct. The term Aborigines is used for the native CANADIANS and AUSTRALIANS. (I didn't know it was used for the Canadians - I just googled and LEARNED that today)
(From Wikipedia)The pre-Columbian civilizations (The people who were already living there before Cristobal Colón (Christopher Columbus) in English - of what now is known as Mexico are usually divided in two regions: Mesoamerica, in reference to the cultural area in which several complex civilizations developed before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century.
The Maya civilization, though also influenced by other Mesoamerican civilizations, developed a vast cultural region in south-east Mexico and northern Central America, while the Zapotec and Mixtec culture dominated the valley of Oaxaca, and the Purepecha in western Mexico.
So depending on what area you are passing through, you are probably with MEXICANS of descendants of Mayan or Aztec peoples. As you know I teach and we have children who come to our schools whose home language is not Spanish, but Zapotec or Mixtec or one of the other "indigenous languages". They are Mexican because they live in Mexico, just as the Mexicans whose family came from Spain or other part of Europe are Mexican if they live in Mexico ….. and the indigenous people were there first.
: > ).
Hope this was helpful. Happy learning and traveling!
Thank you for corrections, I am glad that I could learn something new. When I wrote that they are not Mexicans, this wasn't probably the best term, I meant that they did look different to compare with the majority of people we met in Mexico so far. We heard this term "aboriginal people" in Canada too and I was quite surprised that they are using this term there (till that I thought that it was used only in Australia) and I actually like this word better than "indigenous" (just the sound of it), that's why I used it even though it isn't very accurate. And by Mexicans I meant descendants of Spaniards. So sorry for messing it up, next time I will try to be more careful and thank for your comment again :-).
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