Puebla ... mole poblano, Volkswagen factory, telavera (ceramics) and the Popo Vulcano towering nearby. My 2nd Mexican outing led to this charming, cramped city, 2 hours drive from Mexico City. It took my neighbourly friend Alexandra and myself a good 20 minutes to find the turn-off to the fancy design hotel La Purificadora (spacy, alla fresca, glass staircases, great breakfast, location somewhat odd next to a shopping centre-cinema complex with a lovely garden).

We tried out a restaurant recommended to me (La Conjura, not exciting), came upon a lovely museum, which luckily was still open due to the ¨noche de los museos¨ and joined the crowds on the zocalo (main square). We had a very decent dinner with the obligatory mole poblano in an inner courtyard restaurant, whose walls were covered in naive paintings.

It was Buen Fin weekend (which has become a shopping weekend due to nation-wide discounts), so the next day´s pleasure of finding the Uriarte Ceramics Store was much enhanced. It´s quite a hike, though still in what is called the centro historic. You are well rewarded after spotting the fabulous tiled facade and entering into an interior courtyard with tile-covered walls and a display of their wonderful pottery (I was in heaven).

Because the Museo Bello y Gonzalez was closed - and because Puebla is charming - I shall go there again!

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead - not the movie)

It's that time of the year in Mexico (1-2nd November). The Day of the Dead, when everybody gathers at the cemetery to have a jolly good time with the loved ones gone. It's a weekend in fact, with the first night dedicated to the children who passed away. A work colleague and I headed to San Andres Mixquic, still part of D.F. (Mexico City), though it does not seem like it is. Amazingly enough, a photo I've used in one of my collages is indeed a night shot of the cemetery in that village. One more reason to drive there! Orange flowers are most prominent in the ceremony (my favourite colour) - another reason to check out Dia de los Muertos! We passed through canal-riddled Xochimilco and after a few traffic jams in the various hamlets - with their cemeteries and surrounding market stands full of people wanting to connect with the dead - we made it to Mixquic. 

It's a pretty ugly place, but for the main church - baroque overload - and its charming burial grounds. I said a little prayer for Mum. Most of the village had turned into a market stand fiesta, offering trinkets, silly gadgets, Christmas decorations and flowers, not to forget the food, food, food! It was packed, but I was glad to see that crowd control emergency planning has been taken care of (see photo). I find it attractive to turn remembrance into something cheerful and social. It takes the sourly, protestant sting out of dealing with the dead. 

We did not stay until the evening to watch a see of lit candles, but returned to the big city instead, to have a proper meal. 

Addis to Kolumsa

Long time no blog. Early October I went to Ethiopia for the first time. For the "Wheat for Food Security in Africa" Conference. Addis is a big building site - given the little that I saw of this 4-million city lying on a plateau as high up as Mexico City. The hotel was surrounded by emerging highrise buildings. In fact, I shared the hotel car with Chinese construction workers, who are building the hotel's next wing.

One of the Conference days was reserved for a field trip to Kolumsa, the national agricultural research station for wheat.  Getting out of Addis takes a while - very spread out - we passed a brand new light industrial zone built by the Chinese and then you enter an almost European countryside. Wide vistas of mellow, green plains surrounded by hills. The teff (local grain) fields are turned into handsome waves by the wind. We stopped by a farmer, with his two hectares of wheat, to learn how he was doing, wheat-wise. He held his own, surrounded by two busloads of agricultural researchers. At Kolumsa, we were given a good show, which included the presentation of a small mechanisation project funded by the German Government. Apparently, once you get to 2 hectares, oxen & plough won't do anymore and a small tractor would come in handy, to save time, labour and livestock maintenance costs. The drive back provided a good dose of Addis traffic jams. All in all, a lovely trip!

Brief: My take on the risk of another food crisis

Chapingo: A Local Outing

This week, a CIMMYT outing took us to Chapingo, the campus of Mexico's major agricultural university, 20 minutes from the CIMMYT campus. It is housed in a lovely hacienda, complete with grand inner courtyard. Not only can you visit the Diego Rivera-decorated ex-chapel - surely the only chapel worldwide to feature communist symbols - but also the newly renovated Agricultural Museum, which combines exhibits of ancient farmers' implements with contemporary artists' interpretations of pottery/ceramic arts, which depict rural scenes.

There is something intriguingly naive about Mexican Art. The colors, the shapes, the subjects ... there is much humour, a comics dimension, often a political or social meaning - you know, art with a message, with a socialist state flavor sometimes. The Rivera (ex)chapel amazes with its references to the Sixtine Chapel and Renaissancy symbolism of fertility, translated into easily readable, beautiful coloured wall sections. Very nice buttocks, too, as the male among females on the outer wall attests to.

As a digestif, do enjoy the Mexican take on recycling.