Oaxaca is one of the most diverse cities in Mexico, with a variety of religions, a rich history and unique culture. Many students travel to different countries over summer break to visit family and friends. Often, these traveling students don’t talk about their experiences from their travels. However, by sharing travel experiences, it can help people learn what’s in the country, what they can do there or where to go if they decide to go on vacation.
Jazmin Martinez goes to Oaxaca, Mexico almost every year for the summer after school lets out. She flies there on a plane to visit her grandparents with her brother, Jesus Martinez.
Socially, Oaxaca is different from Kalamazoo. Everyone is close or connected in Kalamazoo, but they don’t communicate so much to each other. In Oaxaca, if everyone knows each other, everyone would talk to each other.
“Here, we know each other, but we don’t talk to each other,” said Martinez.
In Oaxaca, there are many fields of different crops and seeds around the area, filled with fresh and tasty food.
“You could go into anyone’s field and get their own food from the person who planted those seeds,” said Martinez.
Jazmin says that foods in Oaxaca are much fresher than Kalamazoo. There are so many fresh foods you just have to try. For example Oaxaca’s tortillas are so fresh and taste like corn while store-bought tortillas in Michigan just taste like flour.
According to the article A guide to Mexican fruits: When, where and why buy them, written by Bethany Platanella of the Mexico News Daily, “When fruits ripen naturally, they’re full of nutrients and flavor that are otherwise lost in the artificial maturation process.” The fruits from Oaxaca are fresh, grown from fields farmed by people and places that aren’t like Kalamazoo.
When Martinez visits Mexican stores, she isn’t only getting what she wants, she also buys gifts for her relatives. When Martinez is not with her grandparents in Mexico, she spends her free time shopping for her parents, buying things that she couldn’t find in Kalamazoo.
“Sometimes my mom asks for earrings since the earrings are so much different from there,” said Martinez.
Martinez also goes to different cities in Mexico. She goes to their temples to see how cool they are. She’s also been trying to go to as many soccer games as she can with her grandmother.
“My family is really into soccer,” said Martinez, “and both my cousins play for a league in Mexico, so my grandma and I try to make it to most of their games, and the soccer game vibes there are just a lot more fun because it’s sometimes unserious and funny and that’s why I try to go, to get a laugh and then there’s like more professional games I try to go to when in Mexico City but it gets full quickly.”
The U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Consular Affairs in a Mexico Travel Advisory advises travelers to,“Exercise increased caution when traveling to Oaxaca.” Oaxaca’s roads range from well-maintained toll roads to poorly maintained, with little to no official cemented roads.
“Once you get into the little towns, there are no roads,” said Martinez.
Martinez said that the roads differ between Mexico and Kalamazoo, because here there are almost no roads everywhere unless it’s private property or just in the South, but in Mexico, there are main roads, but in Mexican towns, there are either dirt roads or no dirt roads at all.
“Going to Mexico and spending such a long time there, summer showed me how different life in the U.S. and Mexico are,” Martinez continued. “It’s a completely different lifestyle and gives you a different perspective and feeling when you’re there. It makes me want to stay there. Life for me there is 100x better and real.”
