Set up and the opening for a show of my work from this year opened last night at the Museo Ex-Convento.   Many friends, strangers, contacts, and even some of the kids in my class came to the opening, which made me feel very good.  Jose Hernandez-Claire gave me a very nice welcome speech, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to get to know him this year.

The show is open from now through July 16, 2009 daily except Mondays.

I don’t remember the first time I ever saw the Internet, however I do remember attempting to introduce my Great Uncle Patti to the Internet a few years ago at his home in Florida.  Unfortunately, he was more interested in the small green power light on the side of the laptop than the actual Internet for some reason that day.

Missy and I have been working for about a month and a half with a group of women and men here in Guadalajara, who are forming a cooperative of Otomi artisans, to eventually sell their beautiful products worldwide.  The women, who are indigenous Otomi from the central Mexican state of Querétaro, sell homemade potato chips in the city center, but are highly skilled weavers and embroiderers.
On each of their bi-weekly meetings, I have been shooting hundreds of pictures and recording several hours of video, and Missy has begun designing a beautiful website for the group, which we got to show off this past week.  Not only was this the first time the group had ever seen the Internet, but they got to see it on a site about themselves.  I also realized they may be some of the few people in the world that skipped web 1.0 and started with 2.0.
Missy made a short presentation to the group, who seemed to love the logo for the site, called MNINI, which is the name of a gathering place in their Pueblo, and giggled while watching their video interviews.  We have a lot of work left on the site, including more photography, video, design and information gathering, but it is well on its way.
Above is a video of our presentation of the site to them.

Today, Missy and I went with Danielle to the Cerro de Cuatro, a hill named for the towers of Channel 4 television that sit at its top.  It is one of the poorest neighborhoods and is where many of the Otomi families live.  For several months, Danielle and other organizers have been working with a group of Otomi artisans who are forming a cooperative that will enable them to sell their embroidered arts internationally.

It was incredibly exciting to be a part of this group.  I shot video during their meeting, where a lawyer was present to help draft up a contract.  The women are dedicated and organized and this was so wonderful to see.  Missy will be designing a website for them, and I’ll be working on a short video story about them, and their plans for the cooperative.

Later in the day, I decided to find a bike shop, because my saddle has been sliding downwards everytime I ride, and with long legs, the bike was nearly impossible to ride with no leg extension.  I took it to a little “living room” (literally) bike shop where two guys sat around a pile of bikes, wheels and parts and fashioned a shim from a Pepsi bottle that worked like magic.  How I love Mexican ingenuity.  To set the scene in this “shop” we were surrounded by the following things.  Metal fans on high with no guard, several kittens, some eggs, two slices of bread soaking in the Pepsi that was poured out of the bottle that was used to fix my bike, a TV, several ripped up chairs, and an assortment of bike parts lying around.

Later on the way to Spanish tutoring, I met Jaime, who is a freelance garbage collector.  Today he was moving old computer monitors and chairs from a building downtown.  Nice guy, hard worker.  I’m going to add him to my collection of street worker photos.

This weekend is the start of a 4-day holiday in Mexico for the 16 de Septiembre independence celebration which happens on Monday night and into Tuesday.  Crowds are expected to be huge downtown, and we’re looking forward to it.

Off to see a photo exhibit at a nearby museum today (Saturday).