Man, check out that paint job! This is in a place called San Martín Tilcajete as I recall. We went to look for alebrijes. Anyway, this house left no doubt as to the ubicación of the hoity-toitey residents. The gate might be my favorite part, especially becasue it's like a preview, or a menu, because you can hear the noises of the all the animals featured going on behind the gate. And more!
All the places we've gone to outside of City of Oaxaca have been quite a bit more rural. The typical house seems to be the family compound behind a gate with a few buildings around a central plaza that has cows, burros, lots of turkeys and turkey babies, maybe some chickens and maybe a dog. And probably something burning. It's pretty cool.
You can also see one of the neighbors and a bit of the countryside. It's really pretty except for the HUGE SPIDERS draped over anything horizontal. I tried to take a picture but it didn't express their menace. They are as big as my hand and all crowded together in their webs over everything.

AMIBA

I just thought, since I am here at the internet pero sans camera cord and, thus, unable to put up pictures and worthwhile blog posts, that I would link to this super cool website.
http://mediorural.xunta.es/externos/intergal/publica/ga/bovino.htm
I met a girl in Madrid who works for them, she is a veterinarian from Portugal and she goes around and makes sure that people who have these special breeds specific to Portugal know how to take care of them. I thought it was great. So here you can see all the special cows and chickens of Portugal.

Other Stuff

I forgot to say what I drew for everybody. For Gramma Ines I drew an accordion, and poker chips and cards. For Gramma Nana I drew some jewlery and a piece of fur and I wanted to draw Starwars because I remember watching it for the first time there but I couldn´t think of how, so I did her steps instead because I liked her steps. For Pop I drew music because he would sing the papering the parlour song and a book because he gave me that book of dragon paper airplanes that I never made because I liked them too much. For Grampa Pete I also drew a book and an icecream sundae and a baseball and a basketball. I realized that it is a great shame that he never got to live next door to William and Maddie like Gramma because they are really the grandchildren he was waiting for, but that's okay I told him about it. Then for Gramma Audrey I drew roses and Tessa and a donkey. And an airplane. And then for Uncle Terry I drew tools, because I think he liked that kind of thing. Anyway. So here is me and Joel. I am eating a Paleta, which I like a lot and he is making juice. Which he likes a lot. It was very exciting when our landlady asked us if we wanted one. She said it real caush', like, "You guys probably wouldn´t want a blender, would you?" and I think Joel fainted. Anyway, for Caddy I drew her laying on her back, and her cheeseball and a car wheel and mom's butt.

Noche de Muertos

Here is an altar that they made in the old Palacio for Frida. Apparently this year is her 100 anniversary? Birthday? Deathday? Anyway, it is pretty impressive. A little bigger than our humble altar. Or that of our landlady, which we got to go see. We barely ever see her so when she was out watering the other day I stuck my head over the edge and said hey, and how is it and did she make an alter? And she said yes and I asked if we could give her a candle to put on it? And she said sure. And she came up and we showed off ours, because we are very proud of it, and then we went down and saw hers which had the proper three levels and everything, but no walnuts so we said, oh, we have extra of those, do you want some? And she said, Okay, we'll do an exchange and she gave us a bread baby and I went up to get the walnuts and gave her those and then she gave us a sugar skull and then I was afraid to give her anything else because we were going to end up just putting our altar downstairs and hers upstairs.
But it was very nice. I really like her. And it was a good thing Flor, the lady from the school we are going to, told us that you could do that and it was a nice gesture to offer people things. Later than night when we went to Señora Claudia's house she was explaining stuff about her altar to us and I told Flor about it and she said that traditionally people buy enough stuff for their own altars and then have a pile of other stuff that they bring over to relatives houses when they visit. So everybody ends up exchanging gifts.
We also ate tons of sweet things that she had made, like miquatole which looks like white cheese but is really tastes like compressed cream of wheat, hot chocolate with eggyolk bread (chocolate caliente y pan de yema), calabaza en dulce which is pumpkin cooked in a sugar reduction sauce and ends up black and tastes like molasses, arroz con leche (rice pudding) and finally tehocotes which are little apples done up like the pumpkin. And we saw the borlas (red flowers) and sempasuches (marigolds) and all that. It was great. And here is our own little altar. I put Gramma Ines and Gramma Nana and Pop and Gramma Audrey and Grampa Pete and Caddy and Uncle Terry.
After the food we went to the general cemetary (panteón) with Flor and some other students to see her parents. That is where we saw the creepy big grave (pictured above) in the center of the cemetary and the coolest grave I've ever seen, which is the big hand reaching out of the ground. There were some really tasteless ones as well. Then we followed around a couple of street parties where people were dressed in very scary masks and had hired bands and went around dancing and asking for food or mezcal from the houses. It was great.