In Puerto Escondido
(University of Minnesota public health students are writing about their experiences abroad this summer.)
By Dominique Lopez-Stickney
Writing from Oaxaca, Mexico
I have been in Oaxaca, Mexico for 3 weeks now working with a home for older adults and taking Spanish classes. This past weekend some friends and I went to Puerto Escondido for a few days, which is a beach town on the Pacific coast. We left the day before the striking teachers and others were supposed to close the roads leading into town, but I don’t think it actually happened. From these three weeks being here, the city has changed very much. Businesses have been staying closed or closing early to avoid targets from those protesting.
Additionally, the teachers have taken over several radio stations in the city and have been broadcasting from them. For the past two nights in my neighborhood, the radio stations the teachers overtook have been blaring along with shouting, banging, and road blocks of cement blocks and burning trash. Those I talk to here do not support what the teachers are doing though- to demand higher wages and to force the current governor to resign, the city has suffered. There is graffiti everywhere and stolen busses & city-owned cars block street ways, and some businesses have been vandalized... On a lighter note, we are all leaving this weekend to a town about 3 hours away to attend an annual cultural festival. The town is only about 900 people, but for this cultural festival they contract bands to play round clock, and as a friend told me, relatives from the US come to this village to celebrate for the weekend- there will be some who only speak English though their relatives only speak the indigenous language. I have a bit more than a week left here to complete my work at the home for older adults before heading home.
Below is a link to multiple articles that more thoroughly explain the situation here if you are interested:
www.newsalerts.com/full/bbe/mexico-teachers-clash-with-police.html