The end of our second-last day in Cholula, and while the excitement about Oaxaca is building, so is sadness at leaving. One settles so easily into little routines and habits that then disappear entirely, from knowing exactly which point on the dial of the stove to prepare my tea in the morning, to the habit of peeping out of the bedroom window whenever I go in, looking up at the church on the pyramid.
Today we had our final lunch at Recaudo, a place that the Gentleman Friend is very fond of, and I am generally positive towards. Then to our beloved Bartolo, where the owner gave us a little packet of biscuits as a gift.
Otherwise it was a working day, of course. I was struggling with finalising a document that has to go to press in the next couple of days so it is ready after Eid, and which has had a rather rocky journey on its way to my computer. It’s sent off though, and hopefully will not be back. Much of my work, zombie-like, keeps staggering back to its feet until someone drives that final merciful stake through the heart.
I listened to an interesting episode of New Books Network, from their anthropology stream. It was an interview with an anthropologist, Tania Li, who wrote a monograph (titled Land’s End) about an Sulawesi highlands community which, over the course of her 20 years with, invented capitalism.
Troubling news from Pakistan’s northwest. I’m really concerned about what is happening there, it feels like a recipe for absolute disaster.