Blog 2 – Oaxaca Culture & Creative Freedom

Read about the ins and outs of volunteering in Oaxaca from an artist. Hanna took the leap to intern abroad and it brought her to explore Oaxaca culture. She bloomed with creative freedom and got inspired with local experience.

After two months in Oaxaca, I felt very used to the culture. I knew all the local markets to buy my groceries, I knew a lot of people in the city, even waving to them as I made my walk commute to yoga every afternoon. The noises, the sights, the smells, all felt familiar and safe.

One night, I decided to download Bumble Friends, inspired to befriend more locals. I met a lovely girl named Marysol, and we immediately hit it off, talking about our lives over a shared brownie and coffee into the night. She took me and my roommate Maddie on an extensive food tour around the city, showing us niche Oaxacan foods including piedrazos, which are bread soaked in vinegar, with pickled vegetables and quesillo (Oaxacan cheese).

We laughed at the strange flavor combination and sipped our aguas frescas, enjoying the moments together sharing food. The food tour went on for three hours, as we walked all around the city drinking chocomiles (cold chocolate milk), empanadas amarillos (a huge tortilla with yellow mole inside), and so much more food. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it is to make friends here, and how willing the locals are to share their culture with me.

In terms of my internship, it’s been perfect for me. I’ve been tasked with working with 6 different businesses, helping them with their graphic design or illustration. So far, I’ve worked with Cafe Centrico, and I’ve created posters, menus, businesses cards, and more for them, all with my illustrative style. I’ve also worked for a vegan restaurant/cooking class, and I illustrated and designed their chocolate bar labels. My favorite project by far has been painting an indoor mural for a cafe called Oscuro Brebaje, where I had full creative freedom to draw my little characters on their wall. The team was so incredibly kind.

One day, as I was painting, I had the pleasure to sit down and eat with the entire team. We had the most delicious meal of chicken with red salsa, rice, champurrado (a hot maiz and cacao drink), elotes, and fresh sweet pan. I loved how the working people here take time to sit down and enjoy a meal together, to really get to know each other on a personal level.

For me, because I already had a lot of professional design experience, I appreciated that Adelante essentially let me figure out my own schedule. I worked with each client directly, choosing to give each business two weeks, and I could work from essentially wherever I wanted. It was so fun to be able to sit and work from different cafes every morning, sipping my mochas and enjoying the atmosphere as I created designs or illustrations.

A big challenge of living here has been figuring out public transportation. Buses and colectivos (shared taxis) are quite common here, but oftentimes I didn’t know which ones to get on and where they would take me. Since I’m not too familiar with the surrounding cities, it was a struggle knowing which surrounding pueblos I should visit, and how easy it would be to return. Eventually, I became pretty good at hailing taxis and colectivos on the main highway, but it was nerve-wracking at first.

The colectivos shove as many people in it as possible, which means two people sharing the passenger seat. I also had to ask my local friends for help with pricing so that the taxis didn’t give me the “gringo price” which means charging foreigners more money. I learned to order all the local taxis with the Didi app, because it has a fixed price beforehand. Eventually, I took the Citybus by myself which was pretty easy. It costs 8 pesos and they don’t have change, so I had to make sure I had sufficient change each time.

I will say it’s much easier to walk around now without Google Maps. Oaxaca Centro is pretty small in the grand scheme of things, so after the initial few weeks of getting to know the city, I got used to where everything was rather quickly.

I had to get used to some other small details as well. For example, there was no oven or dishwasher in the kitchen, and all of our water comes from a water jug because the tap water is unsafe to drink. For the first two months I’ve been brushing my teeth with bottled water, but I’m going to start weaning off of that because I feel my body has gotten used to it.

There is no washer and dryer in the unit either, which is fine because very close to the house there is a laundry service. You go there, drop off your bag of laundry, they weigh it for you, and they have it ready for you within the same day or the next day, folded and in a bag. It’s very cheap, usually coming to around $2.50-5.00 USD per load.

There are a lot of convenient services here in a similar way. For example, there are lots of flower stores with ready-to-purchase bouquets of flowers, and the workers will hand-write a note for you. There are also gift-wrapping stores. I brought a gift for a friend (a canvas and two bars of chocolate), plopped it on the front counter, and the employee wrapped it for me beautifully, for about $4.40 USD.

Overall, two months in, I feel my creativity blooming like never before. There are SO many talleres (workshops) to take in the city, whether it be for wood carving, cooking, pottery, chocolate making, cocktail making, or really anything you could think of. I took a cooking class with my boyfriend, Angel, who visited for a weekend, and a wood-carving class by myself. The art and graphic design culture is huge here. I see art students walking around in the street with their canvases or art prints, people urban sketching on the streets, artists painting murals everywhere. I feel deeply connected to Oaxaca’s slow, loving, artistic energy.

Read more of Hana’s adventures traveling through Oaxaca in her previous blog post: Oaxaca; Loving and Easy Going Culture