1st Bi-annual Sabb Awards

If I were to give awards in these categories, the following would take the cake:

Best meal: Chiles en nogada
Best sunset: Playa de los muertos, Puerto Vallarta
Most random experience: Touring rural outhouses in Veracruz
Best night of debauchery: Salsa dancing with all of Susan's daughters, then paparazzi photo shoot
Best strolling musician: El Potro
Scariest moment: Waking up to see burglar's feet
Best hotel (excluding all-inclusive): Casa de los Dulces Suenos
Best movie: A Place Called Chiapas
Most fulfilling experience: Volunteering at CITAC
Best drink: Beso negro
Best ruins: Yaxchilan

Most revolutionary experience: Visiting the Zapatista community of Oventic
Best language school: Escuela mexicana
Most painful moment (actually hours): Horseback ride to Chamula
Best animal spotting: Crocodiles
Most nausea-inducing road: San Cristobal to Palenque
Best park: Parque Los Tecajetes, Xalapa
Most allergic moment: Cempasuchil fields
Best church: San Juan Chamula
Best live performance: Nebbia
Best visitors: Mom, Dad, and Jules

Congratulations to all the winners! Europe, it's your turn to compete.

Bienvenido

Welcome, Issac David! I'm so glad you're here!

EZLN

Two friends and I had the unique opportunity to visit the Zapatista community of Oventic. To learn more about the Zapatista movement, click here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation?wasRedirected=true

We weren't allowed to photograph any of the people there, but these are some of the beautiful murals found there.

Walking away from Oventic, I wondered:
Does there come a time when violence is the only option? Can good come of it? What role does education play in a social revolution?

Blessed art thou among women

For the past week or so, in preparation for the celebration of the Virgen of Guadalupe, not fifteen minutes go by without a religious procession passing through the main pedestrian street of San Cristobal. Some come with marching bands, others come yelling cheers that seem more appropriate for a football match than for the adoration of the mother of God, and the most impressive come running from distant towns carrying torches. Little boys are dressed as Juan Diego, the indigenous man to whom the Virgen appeared, and little girls are dressed as Guadalupe herself.
I have heard it said many times that before dating a Mexican man, you need to know that you'll always rank third: first will be his mother and second will be the Virgen of Guadalupe. Looking around at the magnitude of this celebration, that's not too hard to believe.
Speaking of girl power, happy birthday to my dear friend Jean, one of the most powerful girls I know!

Closet Zapatistas

Who knew?

Lost and Found

A couple of years ago, in a Peruvian marketplace, a saleswoman gifted me, along with my change, a small red and black seed to keep in my wallet. She assured me that by keeping it there, it would bring me luck in love and money. I did as I was told and continued to do so, despite not winning the lottery and definitely not being the poster child for "lucky in love."
As I packed for my sabbatical, the little red and black seed made the move from trendy Chicago wallet to floral Mexican coinpurse. But, about a month ago, in a cafe in Coatepec, I oh-so-gracefully tipped my purse and dumped all the contents of it onto the floor, including, I soon found out, the good luck charm. As many people rushed to help me recover my belongings (chivalry, by the way, is definitely not dead in Mexico), all I could think about was locating, on the patterned tile floor, the tiny South American seed. Too embarrassed to get down on my hands and knees and admit what I was looking for, I begrudgingly gave up the search, in the moment resigning myself to poverty and lonliness. For the next couple of days, each time I went to pay for something, I felt the absence of litle black and red.
As time passed, though, and my luck in love and money seemed to stay pretty much the same as always, I thought less and less about my Peruvian seed, until eventually, I forgot about it entirely. Until today, that is.
On a hike through the steamy Lancondon Jungle, Ulises, our guide, stopped to point out a special tree, the ormosia, which just happens to produce a certain red and black seed. Looking down, I saw that the ground was carpeted with them, only these were bigger and brighter than the one that I had been carrying around for so long. All that luck right there for the taking! I chose a nice, big, fat, shiny one and dropped it right in my purse.
I have had trouble believing it for a long time, but maybe it really is true that you have to lose something and let it go in order for it to come back to you, this time even bigger and better.

Despierta, Mary Beth, Despierta

For the 13 of her 31 years that I`ve known her (how can it be that long?), MB and I have had many adventures. On her natal day, I thought I'd list a few:
-Navigating the cheese section at Whole Foods
-Traveling to the Grand Canyon with a psychic
-Eating Chinese food in Mexico (not all of the adventures were the greatest of ideas)
-Being thrown off of a waterfall by raging rapids (why'd she go and break the camera?)
-Convincing Matt to go for bijotes (doesn't take much convincing)
-Watching her assault the waiter at Taj Mahal
-Compiling playlist after playlist
-Performing a mean rendition of Sinatra on a boat
-Reenacting the blue footed booby mating dance while dressed as aforementioned booby

Wishing you many more adventures! Happy birthday!