UPON ARRIVAL TO LA NATIVIDAD

I sat in the back of a car driven by the municipal president of a mountain town in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico - La Natividad. After speeding out of the only city I might call familiar, where the only faces I could even recognize were, that survival instinct tapped on its pilot light. Not that I assumed I would encounter trouble, but I had thrown any sort of control out the window - off the mountain top - across the border. Needless to say, my trust was in this guy's hands.

I felt sick a little (great timing). Muy bien! On a side note, I learned yesterday, that sarcasm in one's second language is tough. Anyways, we sped around corners, each one shaking my headache, removing my guard. Okay, I'll go ahead and say the word scared might be slightly appropriate for what I was feeling as we whipped through the mountains.

With that said, as we entered the clouds, my head and mindset were appropriately cloudly. I'd traveled to many remote places before, but this was the first time I was really by myself... with civilization behind us, I was on this journey whether I felt uneasy or not. There was fear, sure, but this is the type of adventure that I was looking for - right?

4 HOURS LATER:

I'm still in this surreality, but I am fortunate enough to get a glimpse into this world. From my perspective, it seems torn between time periods. While there's a TV and internet in this house (the municipal president, after joking that I'd be sleeping on the street for the night, was hosting me in his home), the walls around me are made of adobe. The house seems to be having a similar cultural clash that I am... what I mean, is that I too feel out of place... while these people obviously appreciate my actions, my intentions, my being here, I still am left feeling a little bit like an imperialist coming into their town to "help" without their prior asking for it. It's a little awkward, but more than anything, it's humbling...

Speaking of which ... I sat across from two guys my age (the president's sons) while I ate dinner (a meal that was filled with that home cooked vibe), thinking, what can I say about my life that won't sound condescending or so foreign that they won't even understand. Again, that wierd juxtaposition of culture and lifestyle was in affect: they wore brand name t-shirts, were texting, and talked about their emailing habits, yet were boiling water on the stove for a shower and hadnt traveled further than the city of Oaxaca...

A DAY LATER:

Okay, I think I can say I went from a bit timid, to lost, to outsider, to respected, to in awe, to befriended over the course of a little more than a day. Where I just was, was pretty amazing... from the people to the location to my personal experience.

I should clarify what Im actually doing:

Im working with a community called La Natividad in La Sierra Norte (the mountains north of the city about 2 hours), finishing up a project that another volunteer was working on.  Along with 7 teenage girls, she was documenting their investigation or experience with talking to workers from the old mine in the town.  The group I'm with is called the Union of Community Museums, and this community's museum is all about the mine, which was until recently their main livelihood and a source for jobs all around the Sierra Norte.  The other volunteer had recorded some interviews with the girls and the ex-miners. My task is pretty much to get more footage, and make a brief film about the importance of recording the history of the mine, and its general centrality to the town,  I see it as the girls' and the town´s project, and I'm simply a helpful hand!

Today I went around the town with the girls doing more interviews, and we went for a brief tour of the mining facilities, which are still in use, but not the mine itself. It was really quite interesting, and SO very outside of my control. I eventually was driven to a nearby town where i jumped in a taxi (with 6 other people) for a packed, yet super cheap (less than $4) ride 2 hours back to Oaxaca... 3 people in the front of a stick shift taxi is, well, I´ll say, interesting.

Overall, at this point, I think I can say that I have exceeded my expectations (pretty much within 36 hours) of how eye opening, fresh, and intriguing my experience volunteering here would be.  For me, I checked my control at the gate, and took off for lo que sea. Now, I feel responsible for tackling the task of editing a short film to the best of my ability - not for me, but for this community. And that, I believe, is what I came here to do.