You Can Take a Girl From Her Hoops, But You Can't Keep Her From Making More

The universe has, once again, provided. Alex and I were wandering around this afternoon, completely directionless, hoping to find a store that sells tubing that I could use to make hula hoops. I remained hopeful, but Alex was trying to be more realistic. We didn't know the Spanish word for the tubing so we couldn't ask anyone for help locating it. Moreover, stores in Oaxaca are extremely specialized -- there's a store, for example, that just sells cooking oil. Another sells corn tortillas (but not flour...you have to somewhere else for those). And then, there it was, sitting in the window of a store that sells generators and grinding machines: a large coil of 3/4" polyethylene tubing. They even had the right sized insert couplers. We bought enough to make three hoops and had them cut the tubing on the spot. After another adventure I managed to track down several different colors of electrical tape. And, now, dumdadum, we have hula hoops!

Dia de los Muertos

Dia de los Muertos was pretty awesome down here. There were altars made of sugar cane and marigolds. The altars were covered with offerings for the returning spirits of dead relatives. As per tradition, the offerings are tailored to what the dead relative liked when alive -- i.e, many altars had Coca Cola, cigarettes, whiskey and mezcal. And there were so many comparsas (lively bands parading down the street followed by throngs of costumed dancers) that you could jump from one to another nearly every block. We also visited the old "general" cemetery. It's ringed with walls of graves, each of which gets a candle on Dia de los Muertos. Everyone spoke in hushed tones. It was quite beautiful. In contrast to the solemn atmosphere inside the cemetery, there was a full on carnival (rides, food, carnival games) just outside the cemetery walls. One thing that's very clear when you're living down here is that Oaxacans don't miss an opportunity to celebrate. You can find our slideshow here.