Air: The air seemed to be very polluted and dirty. This could easily be attributed to the amount of traffic and large buses there. It was nothing visible but you could just feel it over time. If you were out walking for a while, your throat would slowly start to hurt and get scratchy. Also this is a little gross but a clear sign, we all noticed that whenever we would blow our noses it was always black and dirty, from breathing in dirtier air than we are used to. This is understandable for the size of the city that it is. I don't live in a city at home so it's not as congested. Also the size of the streets makes traffic more congested in Oaxaca.
A Side Note: Streets- streets there, especially around the center of the city were extremely narrow. Traffic would just idle because the flow was never steady. Also I am pretty sure the city of Oaxaca has the tiniest sidewalks in the world. A lot of the streets were in poor conditions to begin with, with lots of holes in them. It made it dangerous then because some of the sidewalks were not even wide enough for one person so you would have to walk in the street. Also the sidewalks were not very accessible. I did see some handicapped ramps on some sidewalks but then a tree or pole would be in front of the ramp, or the sidewalk wouldn't even be wide enough for a wheelchair so what was the point.
Garbage: You did not have to walk for to see garbage on the streets in Oaxaca. Not so much in the center, historic, touristy area, but everywhere else you would always see garbage on the streets. All sorts of garbage, just individual items, and what looks like bags of garbage just sitting on the side of the street. Within our neighborhood was a large raised footpath with grass on both sides, this was an extremely popular place for garbage. At first I was disgusted but then it just saddened me. Disposing of garbage properly should be such an easy thing and I wondered why it wasn't done. I did a little bit of research and it looks like there is a very backwards system of collection where garbage trucks will come by but you dump your garbage into the truck, they don't do it. It must be easier for some to do then others because you would see places where garbage was on the street, but then you would see places like SURCO. At SURCO all of their trash was separated into recyclables, paper, and compost. All of the garbage made me think that somehow the health of the people is being affected. It saddens me to think that something so simple as properly disposing of garbage could be hurting the health of a city.
Stray Dogs: Stray dogs were just about everywhere. People also had dogs as pets and would sometimes keep them on their roves for protection but most of the dogs that I saw were stray dogs. None were ever aggressive or seemed to be dangerous but they were just everywhere. There were tons in our neighborhood and all around the raised footpath. There were not a lot in the center of town by the Zocalo and the markets. There were also a lot in Arrazola. It was slightly interesting because you would see the most interesting looking dogs because all different breeds were interbreeding and creating some interesting mutts. However, with stray dogs comes dog poop everywhere. The dogs go the bathroom in the streets and then people are walking around outside and breathing that in, which is not healthy at all. I've seen a lot of stray dogs before when I was in Costa Rica and the idea still mystifies me. I would like to know how it all started and how did these dogs start multiplying so quickly. It was very sad to see these dogs every day without homes, a lot of them pregnant, and they would all be searching through garbage for food. They are so not taken care of at all that we saw 2 dead dogs on the side of the road one time. I love animals so it was really heart-breaking.
My dog: I did not mean to do this at all but I sort of took one of the stray dogs under my wing. He lived around our neighborhood and I would see him often. He would stay far behind us and follow us at times. So I decided to give him a name. I named him Pedrro, a mix of Pedro and perro. He was the cutest little dog and it really seemed like he learned his name and responded to it. Whenever we would be walking outside, especially when it would be starting to get darker, he would always show up to be our guard dog and walk with us back and forth to our houses. I honestly think he recognized us. He would be far down a street and see us and I would think it was him so I would call his name and he would come happily running towards us with his tail wagging. You could easily tell that all that these animals want is love and attention. I was even able to snap some pictures of my cutie the last night there. Whenever we would walk he would listen to my commands and sometimes he would stop to smell some garbage so I would keep walking and then just look back and clap my hands and he would come running. It was sad to leave him our last night there and I now keep his picture on my wall. The condition of these dogs is bad for both the health of the people living near them and the health of the dogs themselves.
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| My love Pedrro. |
- Lindsay
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