“I thought I have lived THE international experience in France, that I had experienced traveling alone and being fearless. Indeed being out of my country for the first time by myself, was it, but getting into the hidden but not that hidden corners of the most representative cultural regions of my country, has been one of my most spiritual and fun experiences and trips ever.
I went to Chiapas and Oaxaca in 2017 for my thesis project, an entrepreneurship idea, that was about combining Mayan and Chinantecan embroidery with fashion and customization.
Despite the project trip that was only for research and to prove that embroidery could work in ordinary textiles, it finished teaching me about my “calling” or my purpose.
This was the second time I was in Chiapas, but with a different objective. The last time I went I was discovering Mexico with my ex-boyfriend from France, and I thought coming back to this place that was once a dream accomplished from my bucket list, could cause me depression.
I found a local who was part of UNESCO and was a leader from the communities of Los Altos, the most representative communities of Chiapas for embroidery and agreed to have a tour to these communities to speak about my project.
He took me to the highest mountains in Chiapas, to the jungle and to native huts where I learned how to get thread from wool, and to weave it to tell stories. As I was pleased to discover more about my ancestral roots, and from the magic of Chiapas, it was also a challenge to being accepted and welcomed at the home of these people to make them listen to my thesis project. Even though Tzotzil and Tzeltal communities are part of the wide variety of cultures from my country, I’m almost a foreigner in this region. The native people of this region speak Tzeltal, an ancient Mayan language, which was the first time I heard of it. One of my favorites communities was San Juan Cancuc, this Mayan community, is located 1,427 meters high from the sea, it’s so rich in vegetation, white roses and multiple colored flowers blossom naturally from land as well as cacao and coffee trees. The embroidery of this region looks kind of simple, colored rectangles on fabric, but it is so mystic.
I got so much knowledge from this place that I didn’t want to leave to Oaxaca. Oaxaca was my second part of this trip, and I didn’t know anything, and haven’t been there before.
Arriving to Oaxaca wasn’t a good beginning, I arrived to a hostel, that took me half an hour walking to get to it. In contrast with my hostel in Chiapas there was no nice room, no tasty breakfast and not known places. I had only contacted two persons to talk about my project and therefore I had no tour or no schedule for the rest of the days as I had in Chiapas. While I was thinking all this and complaining inside of me, a funny Argentinean guy and a nice Mexican girl appeared at my room, they asked me if I wanted to go out for dinner with them. I had the best milk chocolate and quesadillas ever, and this was because Oaxaca is the home of the best chocolate in Mexico and also for quesadilla cheese “quesillo”. The next day I met up with Elisema, a woman that shares this passion for her ancestors in textiles and transmit it through her own style for fashion in clothes.
She told me about her family and her story of when she started to make clothes with Chinanteca touches. She inspired me to continue with my trip and thesis project and to discover more about her culture. I went in the afternoon to try Caldo de Piedra, an ancestral recipe that her parents and ancestors prepared, that over time, began to be prepared exclusively for men, as a way to make a gift to the women of the community, and honor them. This is more than a soup, it’s a spiritual dish that some compare it with temazcal, as it uses hot stones to be prepared. After my spiritual culinary experience, and with bags full of souvenirs and clothes that I bought at Elisema’s boutique, I took a taxi back to my hostel with no idea that with a simple hitch my trip could change. Fortunately, I took a taxi with a very nice driver, that was kind of a protector angel for me. When checking all my stuff in the taxi, I realized my wallet wasn’t in my bag, and told this to the taxi driver. He could have asked me to leave out of his car, but instead of that, he accepted to come back to the restaurant to look for my wallet. A man had got into the taxi, because it was a collective taxi, like a bus, and while I was anxious about my wallet, I dared to ask the taxi driver and the man to leave the car to come back to the restaurant to get my wallet back, despite I couldn’t find it back. During the return, I called Elisema that was at the restaurant, and she told me that my wallet had fallen to the floor and some people that were walking down the street took it and gave it to her. I guess this was the best feeling of the trip.
Once I got back, I went for some drinks with Mitzi, the Mexican girl I met at the hostel and Patrick, a guy from Manchester. I had for the first time mezcal at Oaxaca, and I’m sure the taste is different in Oaxaca, where it is from, than drinking it in a different place.
Mezcal and the summer air of Oaxaca has something that brings you joy and freedom, that by the end of the night it found me walking down the streets of Oaxaca with around 20 foreign guys guiding them to a club. This was something also the foreigners I met at the hostel kept mentioning the next days about my leadership.
I could continue with more funny stories about this trip, that more than make me laugh when I think of them is reminding myself how this took the best of me, took out my fears and the lack of confidence I was experimenting before doing the trip and how amazing it is that you can also escape from the ordinary, meet people from around the world and discover unknown places with them in your own country.”