All in the Family in Oaxaca

Street lamps spread their light over the cobblestones as the sun sank into the Sierra Madre. It was our first evening in Oaxaca, and our family was headed for the Zocalo, the central plaza. Sweethearts strolled arm-in-arm down the avenue, the picture of contentment, but I was anxious. We’d been in Oaxaca just three hours, and I worried about whether my husband and daughter would like it.

In the weeks leading up to our trip last August, it had been the subject of much debate. “Mexico with a 4-year-old?” some friends asked incredulously. “What if she eats the wrong thing? How will you entertain her? Aren’t you worried about crime?” Even my husband Frank felt that we were taking a big risk by choosing Oaxaca for a family vacation. As we ripped through guidebooks and tallied the pros and cons, we couldn’t know that a big plus would be coming home with a new understanding of what “family” means.

People who knew the area were encouraging. They said that Oaxaca, high in the mountains about 300 miles south of Mexico City, is a cosmopolitan state capital of 300,000. The climate is temperate; the rainy season, May to October, brings brief afternoon showers. The compact downtown is easy to walk around, and the Zocalo and the adjacent main shopping street are closed to traffic, so children can amble safely. As for crime--tourists are advised to guard against pickpockets in crowds, but Oaxaca doesn’t have Mexico City’s problem of violent crime. We walked or took taxis everywhere, even into the countryside, without a worry.

Oaxaca boasts Spanish colonial architecture and convivial cafes, but it gets its distinctive character from its large Indian population; two-thirds of Oaxacans are Zapotec, Mixtec or other indigenous peoples. “And Mexicans love children,” said one friend who grew up there. “Your daughter will be welcome everywhere!” For me, that clinched it.

But one look at Frank’s face as we neared the plaza told me that for him, the jury was still out. His eyebrows arched skeptically when an old woman wrapped in a grimy shawl extended a trembling hand to beg for pesos.

Half the city seemed to be congregating in the Zocalo. A six-piece band was playing “Cielito Lindo.” Adults chatted while children scampered around the gingerbread gazebo. “Chapulins! Chapulins!” chanted two girls walking back and forth with trays of fried grasshoppers. “They eat real bugs?” Marina asked with alarm. By the end of the week we would venture to taste the crispy snacks, but that first night we could only stare.

Food had been our biggest fear: What was safe, and could we find familiar menu items for Marina? Drinking bottled water and avoiding uncooked vegetables turned out to be precaution enough. We ate well, from the ample breakfast buffet at our hotel, to pizza and elegant dinners. True to Mexico’s reputation for being child-friendly, restaurants accommodated Marina with small portions of simple dishes such as spaghetti and chicken.

That first night, we had dinner at El Asador Vasco, an elegant second-floor restaurant with tables on a long balcony overlooking the Zocalo. The food was fine, but even better was the opera-box view of the action below. Through most of the meal, Marina kept her face pressed between the bars of the balcony, watching the promenaders, children and musicians.

After dinner, we bought ice cream cones and wandered over to the cathedral end of the plaza. Teenagers were playing with huge, sausage-shaped balloons, hitting them high into the air, where they seemed to hover over the darkened rooftops before drifting slowly down. There, in the moonlight, an expression of pure delight appeared on Marina’s face. “Let’s stay here forever,” she said.

Our days fell into a comfortable pattern. After breakfast at our hotel, the Mision de los Angeles, we spent the mornings and early afternoons exploring, then returned to the hotel for a dip in the pool and a drink at the poolside bar. By then we were ready for dinner and a stroll through the Zocalo, which we never tired of.

One of our first trips was to the nearby ruins of Monte Alban, the ancient Zapotec capital and one of Mexico’s major archeological treasures. While we watched children scrambling up and down the ruins, playing in any number of European and Asian languages, we adults stood awe-struck, trying to imagine the vast, empty spaces teeming with Zapotec life in 600 BC. Spend one morning in Monte Alban, and you’ll never think of “American” civilization the same way again.

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Back in Oaxaca, after lunch, we got a look at the future of Zapotec culture. At the Museum of Contemporary Art, we discovered a children’s art class. On a shady patio, boys and girls sat around long tables working intently with clay and paint. Their friendly teacher encouraged Marina to participate, explaining that visitors can sign up for a day or a semester.

Wherever we went, people were welcoming. One day Marina spied a birthday party in the gardens of our hotel. A group of Oaxacan children was assembling beneath a huge Barney pinata hanging from an old laurel tree. When the host saw our curiosity, he invited us to join the fun, and soon Marina was swinging at the pinata and scrambling for candy with all the rest.

One day, we set out to buy a pinata for Marina. The taxi driver took us to a tiny shop near the hotel where the pinata maker was putting the finishing touches on a pot-bellied Wonder Woman. He explained that her odd shape would hold plenty of candy.

Everyone in Oaxaca seemed to be making something by hand. We often saw whole families working side by side. In the Mercado Benito Juarez, the Saturday crafts market downtown, we saw three generations of tinsmiths, woodcarvers and basket weavers, the elders guiding the youngsters learning their craft. Usually it’s a sign of poverty when children work. But in Oaxaca, we learned, it is natural for children to participate in the family business.

One day we got to visit a family of artisans at home. Our friend Matthew Brown, who lives in Oaxaca, took us to the nearby village of Teotitlan del Valle, known for its hand-woven rugs. When we arrived, Mercedes Montano Martinez was tending a small fire in her back yard. The Montanos are weavers and also make ornately decorated candles--not for tourists but for the community.

Mercedes greeted us warmly and introduced us to her husband, Perfecto Lazo Mendosa, teenage son, Jorge, and 11-year-old daughter, Eluisa. Like everyone in Teotitlan, they usually speak the Zapotec language. But Perfecto told us in Spanish (so Matthew could translate) that he was 15 when he learned candle-making from his 90-year-old uncle. Today the family provides candles for weddings and church fiestas. Eluisa is learning the craft by cutting and sorting the pieces of colored foil that will decorate the candles.

Hearing Oaxacans talk about family and watching them work, I sensed why children are so loved and accepted here. Each person, old and wrinkled or new and shiny, plays a part in the community’s life. Five hundred years after the Spanish conquest, the Indian ancestor spirits are still palpably present, reminding each person of his or her place in the cosmos.

The next day we drove to Mitla, “the place of the dead” 27 miles south of Oaxaca, where the red domes of a 16th century Dominican church rise from the ruins of a 5th century temple. Zapotecs built Mitla long before the Spaniards came, only to be overpowered by the neighboring Mixtecs. Today, the three cultures coexist, still speaking their own languages. As we wandered around the few walls that have outlasted the centuries in Mitla, I had a new appreciation for the power of language to survive where great stone monuments have crumbled.

Snack stands in Mitla were selling ices in such exotic flavors as rose, pomegranate and pear. We sat in the shade and sampled some of them. Oaxaca’s contrasts--the weight of the millenniums and the intense pleasures of the moment--suddenly made me feel that I’d slipped into another realm, a place where anything was possible.

We all seemed to have fallen under the spell. Late that afternoon, when we’d made our daily round of the Zocalo, we stopped in front of the cathedral. For a long moment Marina stared down at the flat, heavy slabs of stone under our feet. “Do you know what you’d see if we lifted up these stones?” she asked. I shook my head. “Clouds and airplanes!” she answered, with absolute conviction.

It wasn’t until the last day of our visit, as we floated through the ritual of a Zapotec sauna and herbal bath, that I realized Marina was right. There is something ephemeral under even the heaviest stones in Oaxaca--another world that moves quietly under the surface, flowing at its own pace.

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GUIDEBOOK

At Home in Oaxaca

Getting there: Mexicana and Aeromexico have both direct and connecting flights, LAX-Oaxaca; there are no nonstops. Round-trip fares begin at $424.

Where to stay: Mision de Los Angeles (telephone 011-52- 951-5-15-00, fax 011-52-951-5-16-80; $84 per night for two adults, one child), a resort-style hotel with pool, gardens, bar, restaurant; 15-minute walk from the Zocalo. Hotel Camino Real Oaxaca (tel. 011-52-951-6-06-11, fax 011-52-951-6-07-32; doubles, $165), all the serenity one would expect from a former convent.

Dining: El Asador Vasco, one flight up at Portal de Flores on the Zocalo; local tel. 44-7-55 (reservations advised). La Casita, 612 Avenida Hidalgo at Parque l’Alameda; tel. 6-29-17 (reservations advised). Catedral Restaurant & Bar, Calle Gardia Vigil at Avenida Morelos; tel. 6-32-85.

For more information: Mexican Government Tourism Office, 2401 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90057; tel. (213) 351-2069, fax (310) 203-8316.