San Vicente Lachixio is a village 3 hours away from Oaxaca City, to the south of Zimatlan. When I first arrived in Oaxaca I introduced myself to Nicandro, one of the community development projects organizer. After interviewing him, he said ‘you should talk to Domingo’ he is from a town that conserves many of their food traditions.
Domingo Torres, a Centeotl staff member, invited me to visit his community of San Vicente Lachixio, where most if not all children have Zapotec as their first language. This village has high rates of migration, by Domingo’s estimates, about 40% of the population migrates at some point in their lives. In effect, all the families I had contact with during my 3-day visit had a relative who presently was, or had been in the US.
San Vicente is very different from Zimatlan. It’s an area covered by pine forest. People cultivate corn but there’s also production of peaches, cherries, apples, and pears. When I heard that a wide variety of wild mushrooms grow in the area I made sure to visit. Mushrooms are amazing creatures. Not only do they play an important role in decomposing matter and making nutrients available to plants, they are tasty too.
I spent three days with Julia (Domingo’s wife) and their 4 children, cooking, talking, eating and playing chess. One day we went to a family owned field to harvest the corn spared by some kind of wild animal that destroyed most of the crop. Apparently, it’s a small dog size animal that feeds at night in packs. Domingo’s family was very upset about the ruined crop.
All the food we ate in San Vicente was made in clay pots and over a wood fire. Although many of the families have Lorena stoves, which reduce indoor air pollution and the amount of fuel needed (to decrease deforestation) Julia’s family is still working on building one. The effect of the smoke was intolerable even though I spent at the most, an hour near the fire. Feeling how irritated my eyes become after a few minutes, I can only imagine the effects the smoke must have on women and children who spend hours around it.
Many of the dishes Domingo’s wife, Julia, made, were completely new to me and many only have a name in Zapotec. Curiously, most were vegetarian and had a base of grounded roasted corn or beans that made a mole, or a thick sauce. Among the dishes we had were yucu yadzaa(Zapotec writers out there, sorry for the spelling) made with corn, peppers and spices. Another dish was erze made with finely metate grounded beans and wild mushrooms. I am still trying to find out what kinds of mushrooms those are. Another blue mushroom, called cuil is eaten roasted, with lemon and salt.
Another dish we had was barbacoa the chivo, goat roasted in an underground oven. The goat is cooked with spices and wrapped in avocado leaves. It’s one of the most delicious dishes I know.
Domingo expressed that he wished to be able to write Zapotec because as far as he knew, there was no written form specific to his community. A large area of Oaxaca, from el Istmo to the valleys and the Southern Sierra has Zapotec speakers. However, the different dialects vary enormously. For example, grasshopper in one dialect in the valley is gusharu, but it’s xedzdhu in San Vicente. I remember these words because Xedzhu is the nickname I gave Jaciel, Domingo’s 3 year old son.
By chance, a few weeks before visiting San Vicente, I met Michael Swanton, an American linguist who specializes in the Mixted language. He put me in touch with Mark Sicoli, a Dutch linguist researching the Zapotec of the Southern Sierra, where Domingo is from. Mark has recently finished work related to the writing of the Zapotec and is developing a dictionary to be published next year. He emailed us some of his work on the alphabet and Domingo has used this information to start writing stories to conserve the oral tradition of his town. He is also interested in integrating the formal knowledge of Zapotec into the curriculum of the local bilingual school. I am still struggling with counting from 1 to 10, but this is the first step to making my dream of learning Zapotec a reality.
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