Oaxaca is known for its artists and art museums.  One of its famous painters is Rudolfo Morales and one of his large paintings hangs in a Oaxaca museum.  It also includes a room of black images which took iconic cultural  figures and then exchanged heads creating entertaining, new images.  There art art galleries around Oaxaca and one of our favorites has new artists on display.     

In between art museums and galleries there is a need for cups of good Oaxaca coffee, cafe americano.  Cafes have been pleasant places to meet long time friends, such as Charles, "Carlos" and Roshni from California who are long time visitors to Oaxaca.

The Oaxaca Lending Library is our prrimary source for books and learning.  Mary Randall was one of the persons we first met in Oaxaca and she remains a wonderful source for Oaxaca history.  Through the library we have gone on archaeological tours and this year it was to Zaachila and an historic church ruin in Cuilapan.  Inside a tomb at Zaachila there are images depicting the "under-world" through which one can communicate with deceased family members.  The "turtle man" is a medium for such communication.  The community of Zaachila is highly protective of this site because past archaeological discoveries have been removed from the community to the National Museum in Mexico City.

There are modern day digs going on in Oaxaca and, once again, they're just outside of our apartment building.  From the roof we've been observing the progress.  There is no end of chisels, sledge hammers, shovels and wheelbarrows.  There are jackhammers and stone cutting saws and cement mixers.  The manual labor is intricate and precise as well as pure muscle.  It will be stunning when completed but not before we leave.                                   

Every Saturday is wedding day in Oaxaca and some of the elaborate weddings take place in Santo Domingo church and the bride and groom and the wedding party parade down the street with "monos", puppets on stilts, and a band.