We had a big week of shooting! We just hit the halfway point of our time here in Oaxaca, and it’s time to get as many shoots in as we can before it’s crunch time for editing.
On Wednesday we went to La Era, one of Moi’s family’s corn fields, where we filmed bulls plowing the field. This was the first of two plowings that takes place every harvest. We interviewed Moi’s dad, Antonio García Crúz, who spoke to us about the process of plowing with bulls. On Thursay we filmed Moi’s mom, Angélica Guzmán Martínez, making chocolate using the metate (grinding stone).
On Friday, we filmed Moi and his students in a demonstration of Moi’s Zapotec classes. Five students, representing a range of ages and including both boys and girls, showed up. In the class, Moi went over counting, greetings, and introductions with the students. After the demo, we showed the kids the ‘Word of the Day’ project on our tablet. It satisfying to see young people, our crucial audience, engage so well with the Instagram page. Moi would have the students point to a word so they could guess what it meant. Then he would swipe to the video of him speaking the word, and finally swipe again, for the final reveal where the word is depicted through an moving image. After the kids went through all the words, Moi asked them if they would like to be part of the project. The children all chose a word to say in order to contribute to the project.
On Saturday night, we stayed overnight in Tlacolula de Matamoros, so that we could wake up early the next morning to film the Sunday market before it became too crowded. We interviewed Moi’s mom, Angélica, about her experience selling garbanzo and black beans in the market.
The fellows are excited about the plethora of footage we’ve acquired this week, and even more excited to see what lies ahead!
