estoy en oaxaca!

I have made it to Oaxaca, a day later than anticipated, but I made it! Yesterday I missed the connection flight between Mexico City and Oaxaca. I had an hour between the flights and now I know that it takes about two hours to get through immigration, get tickets, and get to the flight. Many serendipitous (sp?!) things have happened though. When I got off the plane in Mexico City I was feeling overwhelmed and a bit doubtful of my capabilities to navigate the airport and really to navagate the globe on this travel adventure. Everything became a blur, the people, the spanish streaming out of the speakers, until my eye caught a pendelton coat sitting on a chair. Next to the coat were two Native women, and elder in a wheelchair and a younger woman with beautiful large abalone earrings. I was drawn to them and I introduced myself to the elder and learned about her travels as the Chairperson of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers (http://www.grandmotherscouncil.com/). Talk about Indigenous Solidarity! Agnes Baker-Pilgrim was very sweet and her and her daughter where excited about my travels and said that they would pray for me, send blessings my way. The daughter said she had been looking around feeling like she would see someone she knows or see a Native. ¨Must have been you!¨ It was so good to connect with these women and have warm hugs and smiles. Ahhh I thought, everything is going the way it is meant to.

Indigenous Solidarity, by the way, is the focus of my Bonderman travels. A very round-about way of introducing my theme, I know, but I will write more about this theme later. I should also mention that at DFW airport in Texas a business man college-football-player-back-in-the-day man who asked me about where I was going and why I have such a gigantic backpack happened to be Comanche. He guessed that I was either Latina or Native American, and said that people often think he is Latino.

But back to the Mexico city airport. I was sent from desk to desk and gate to gate. All of the flights to Oaxaca were booked for the day, and the woman at the Mexicana airlines desk told me to talk to American Airlines about a place to stay because it was their fault for giving me only and hour when I needed two. I wound up with no charge for my flight the next day, but nowhere to stay. I thought okay, I can sleep in the airport, I can do this...

To be continued (sorry!) It is 8.30 pm and I really don´t want to stay out much longer since it is dark outside. My bed is a short walk from this internet cafe, so I will be safe walking back (no worries mom) and I will finish the blog tomorrow.