To answer this question simple and easy. It’s behind those 4 lanes of freeway - or something similar. And yes, I have to cross them every day to take my bus home.
Once, i don’t forget my camera I’ll make more pictures (of ITESCA, and it’s surroundings)
Howevery, that’s it for now!
Seeing the world through the eyes of Estefania and Thomas
On Saturday it was time, me and my ‘cultura yaqui’ class went out on a school trip to explore the wide open fields of the Sonora desert and visit 7 of 8 big Yaqui villages.
The villages of the tribe Yaqui
The first stop on our list was the original Cocorit. It’s nothing like I expected. I went with an expectation in the trip that the villages would have something in common with the town Cocorit, which I met before. However, they are not even close to be similar. The original Cocorit, doesn’t has any ‘real’ roads. Not a too big population. In a few words it’s small… The main part of every village is build by a church an it belonging graveyard, such as the ‘party ground’.
The main Yaqui villages are: Cócorit, Bácum, Vícam, Tórim, Pótam, Rahun, Huírivis, and Béleb.
Their territory has an extension of 485,235 hectares in the municipalities of Guaymas, Bacum, Obregon and Empalme. This territory has three different zones: the mountain range (Bacatete sierra), the coastal area (the towns of Guasimas and Bahia de Lobos) and the valley.
The church
The most important part in any of those villages and also in Cocorit is the church. Remember the Yaquis adapted part of the catholic church into their lifestyle and religion. The most interesting thing is that the churches are always build ‘far’ away from the rest of the town. The reason for this is first of all the graveyards are located in front or next of the church and secondly, when the Yaquis make one of they big parties not the entire town gets annoyed. The parties get advertised in radio, newspaper and are fairly known.
The churches it self are kept simple, this is most likely do to the fact that all of those villages are fairly poor. By simple I mean they have unlike other churches I visited and saw in my life no colorful windows. But rather kept simple and not in some Gothic style for example. Apparently we didn’t have time or were not allowed to enter in any of those churches. Something that I regret…
A few more words to the graveyard: while traveling to all those graveyards one thing had they all in common: colorful flowers, mostly made out paper, so they last longer in the heat. And secondly white colored grave stones. This is something completely different then in Germany there you’ll see mostly marble stones in dark colors.
The religious practices of the Yaquis are a mixture of Indian and Catholic elements. An important part is played in their social structure by various “fraternities”, particularly that of the magicians and soothsayers, who on the one hand are medicine-men able to drive out evil spirits and on the other take part in religious festivals. Most social and religious rites involve dances, the best known of which is the Stag Dance (”danza del venado”). To the Yaqui and the related Mayo tribe the stag is sacred as the incantation of the forces of Good.
Health - meeting a wonder healer
While traveling down the road we encountered a site, that i would have never imagined to find. While traveling to Bicam, we came by a house of a so called: ‘Curandera’. Those ‘doctors, supposed to heal diseases and pain by giving massages or praying for the person in pain.
And in front of the house we’re over 20 cars with people waiting for their appointment - she even has clients out of the USA.
Later on, we got to experience that feeling of being health by massages on our own bodies. If it really works is something that i cant answer it this point. But it’s definitely a very interesting experience and culture.
While I got my massages, I was thinking: I must be the first German lying in this bed. Wrong, as the woman explained. There was a retired German professor living among the Yaquis and learning their way of life. I guess you never can be the first in anything
Probably the best way to describe the medicine is by shouting: ‘homeopathic’.
The people, the Yaqui
Talking about people and their way they life is probably nothing you should do, so we’ll keep it rather short.
The people, the tribe Yaqui are rather conservative when it comes to meet new people, at least that’s the feeling what I got. While my group was talking to them. The reason for that is probably that the older generation of Yaqui’s has seen a lot and went through some hard troubles. Remember the last fight or tiny revolution is not even 100 years back.
The children learn Yaqui just like Spanish in school. Eventhough most of the people we’ve talked to prefer Yaqui, at least as long as their under themselfs.
Kova head
Chonim hair
Yeka nose
Kumsakam eyebrows
Puusim eyes
Hoopem cheeks
Chau chin
Teeni mouth
Wok pusiam toes
Conclusion
Having met most of the Yaqui villages last week and having met the villages of the mayos. I think it wouldn’t be a wrong conclusion to say that those to tribes life pretty equal.
Both of them have roads out of stones, have trees for shade and have tiny stores selling coke. The mayor difference is most just their believe…
more pictures
Glossary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqui
http://www.pascuayaqui-nsn.gov/history_and_culture/language/index.shtml
It got a bit quite over the last few weeks in this log. There are many reasons for that one is that I switched to Ubuntu, and haven’t found a possibility to sync my cell-phone, on which I write a big part. There’s suppose to be a program, but this is just giving me head-aces, because it’ doesn’t let me fix the USB driver - or something similar. The internet was to slow till now to download a virtual-machine-software, but I guess with that I can use Windows to finally sync again - what a bother!
Did something else happen in my life so far? No, not really, but it is one month since I was at the migration, and therefore really looking forward to hear what they have to say and if my migration was successful.
My Spanish is slowly improving. Yes, till now I have never mentioned: that I have huge problems with learning the language. The big problem is that many, if not everybody wants to talk in English to me. My host-family doesn’t make any excuses either. English, English everywhere I look. D’oh, even the TV keeps on showing shows in English. What a Devilish circle.
I’ve not really encountered anything more. Except maybe, doing homework and enjoying the sun. Yep, we still have super, duper weather here in Ciudad Obregon. However, I managed it never to go to university in shorts. Yay, me!But it’s only fair to mention, that we had a couple of days on which I put on a sweater, at least till I arrived at school.
I would like to close this post with a simple, but important question. Why does Estefania never write anything in this Blog?
Best regards
Thomas
Yay, to me and everyone else who has just finished their first exam. There where still plenty of language problems, but luckily most of the test was about “the table of truth”, haeee. I’m not really sure if you translate it like that, but doesn’t matter.
Well, off i go to the next class, this time spanish. That’s going to become a though one! How was the pluar form of crisis? It’s crisis, because it’s a two syllable noun that ends in a -s preceeded by an unstressed vowel.
My learning Sheet for the human/ male body.
Till then and wish me good luck.
P.S. To the network department in my school, if you block certain websites, you should also block http-proxy pages…
P.S. Fannie good luck with your tests, I know that you haven’t had a lot of time to practice, because of my annoying questions about the spanish grammar.
I Think we all agree that I haven’t posted a lot over the last few weeks. The reason for that is - mostly - the weather and school. University has consumed a lot of my time and the weather makes me tired -really early.
So, yeah some quite funny things have happened in my first weeks of school. Since I’m still very limited to speak and understand Spanish, there were some major obstacles for me.
One day after school I wanted to ride with the bus home. For those that aren’t familiar with the bus system in Obregon, each time you enter into a bus you have to pay 5 pesos ( 3 pesos, if you have a special card) into a machine doesn’t return any change or accept bills.
There I was, not having enough change in the pocket - only 4,50$ pesos, exactly 50 cents missing.
D’oh.
What would you do, if you don’t know how to ask for change and there is a cloth store right next to the bus station? Yes, you enter into the cloth store and search for a piece of cloth, which price ends with a 9. Why nine? So you get at least one peso of change.
That’s exactly what I did. I’ve walked the rows up and down, up and down, till I found a nice looking shirt - that has a super price of 99$ pesos. Jackpot problem solved, but which size do I need. Just guess that’s what I thought, and did. Buying the shirt took 30 minutes, but it got me home and i once again noticed that without spanish you can’t survive in Obregon 
