I just returned from the isthmus region of Oaxaca where I was involved in a mission trip. We did health screenings at two elementary schools, one preschool, and a womens' micro-enterprise bank in the area around the city of Tehuantepec. My job for the week was finger pricks for anemia testing. Needless to say, I was not the most popular person around in the opinion of the school children. However, we did find some significant health problems and now these children will be able to get treatment. God's love was shown in action as well as in word.
At the preschool, the mothers made us a delicious lunch and although we had to sit on pre-school size chairs, the food was wonderful. At one of the elementary schools, the parents roasted a sheep in an underground pit and we had "barbacoa". Yum!
The city of Oaxaca is only 180 miles from the Pacific Ocean but it takes about 6 hours to get there. Since we were already almost there, the mission trip group took an afternoon off and went to the beach in Salina Cruz. Along with swimming we got to see fishermen getting ready to take their boats out for night fishing. In this photo the men are mending their nets. It was hard to believe that this was 2011 and not Biblical times with men mending their nets and Jesus walking by to call them to be fishers of men.
We stopped to see our friends the Bautista family. This family weaves beautiful rugs and treated us to a demonstration of how they dyed the wool with natural dyes, like pomegranate, tree bark, cocoons, moss, etc. Then they showed us how they weave the rugs on looms that are almost exactly as they have been for hundreds of years. The entire family is involved in this process. In the photo is Eugenia and her mother in law in traditional Zapotec dress.
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