El Tremor in Oaxaca

Thank goodness for the internet, for social media, for all those thousand and one ways that we can stay in touch with one another and know that people are OK or people need help and that we can reach out and support them in the midst of natural disasters.  I mean it's been flood in Houston and fires here at home in the Pacific Northwest and now an earthquake off the coast of Southern Mexico.

Well not any old earthquake, the biggest one in 100 years.

I remember reading (I think maybe in Diana Kennedy's tome on Oaxacan cooking) that  in Oaxaca people believe in an animating force that makes our heart beat, that makes the foam froth on the tejate, and that makes the earth tremble. Earthquake -  they call it terremoto in Spanish, the earth that moves or el tremor, the little trembling. Thankfully most everyone I know in Oaxaca (with one nagging little exception whom I have not heard from) is OK. I think this is code for we are fine physically and our homes are intact (but maybe we just went through something literally earth shattering and are a little freaked out). My friend Jane Robison said she never felt anything quite like it in her 25 years of living in Oaxaca. So there's that. Plus over 1,000 aftershocks since Thursday.

Hardest hit was the city of Juchitan down in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, famous for it's floral embroidery, it's muxes, it's wind farms and more. Thousands without electricity and a thousand homes destroyed plus lots of damage to schools and churches.  The artist Francisco Toledo has set up a donation fund to help Juchitan. Click here to find out what you can do to help. Our thoughts are with the people of Oaxaca.

(top photo from ruins of Mitla bottom photo weaving by the artist Annie Albers)