Beach, Village + Urban Living in Oaxaca October 2021 Issue ...

[Pages:20]The Eye

Beach, Village + Urban Living in Oaxaca October 2021 Issue 111 FREE

hen I was growing up, gym class was

Wtreated as a less important subject than math or English. It was grouped in with art and woodworking (which I wish I had taken). It was a class you would skip without being worried about falling behind and many girls I know routinely came up with reasons for being excused from it. However, in the real world, skills learned in gym class are incredibly useful: it forces people to get out of their physical comfort zones, and it teaches teamwork, discipline, and communication.

On a larger scale, sports unites or separates groups, depending on whether you are a glass half-full or halfempty kind of person. The swell of stadium calls and passionate allegiances to teams have led to violent riots but also to emotional triumphs that have lifted people up and improved their lives.

One such moment is happening as I write this. With the Taliban in Afghanistan returning to power, the world watches helplessly to see how this will play out. Women will most likely be prevented from working (except as teachers and nurses), they will be restricted to womenonly spaces at university and I assume limited in the subjects they are allowed to learn. You can bet they won't be allowed to play sports where any aggressiveness might be displayed, a challenge to the meek silent demeanor the Taliban wants to force upon women. In the face of this, members of the Afghanistan women's junior football (soccer) team and their families have fled to neighbouring Pakistan.

The international organization Football for Peace worked out the arrangements; Fawad Chaudry, Pakistan's information minister, tweeted that the team had entered Pakistan at the Torkham border crossing and were met by a representative of the Pakistan Football Federation. The news service Reuters later published a photo taken at the PFF headquarters in Lahore of the 81 people involved ? the team, their families, and their coaches; another 34 people are expected shortly.

When it comes to communities where girls and women are restricted in public life, sports can have an effective social impact. Girls who play sports tend to have higher self-esteem, continue further in education, and I would also posit that they learn to value their bodies as actionbased, rather than through the sexualized lens of the media and social media.

My philosophy has always been "If you want to help a community support the education of its women." I think I can take that one step further and include supporting its sports teams.

See you next month,

Jane

Salt Available at Caf? Juanita

Editor: Jane Bauer Copy Editor: Deborah Van Hoewyk

Writers: Jan Chaiken, Marcia Chaiken, Julie Etra, Randy Jackson, Carole Reedy, Alvin

Starkman, Deborah Van Hoewyk, Kary Vannice

Cover Image: Grafissimo Photography/Art: Various Artists

Distribution: Renee Biernacki, Maggie Winter Layout: Jane Bauer

Opinions and words are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Eye.

We welcome submissions and input. To get involved send us an email. TheEyeHuatulco@

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In This Issue

Mexico's Olympians: Bringing Home the Bronze By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken Page 6

A "Trashy" Olympic Scandal By Kary Vannice Page 8

Day of the Dead Page 9

World Surf League Visits Mexico for the 2020-21 Championship Tour By Julie Etra Page 10

Fall Finds: Ten New Books By Old Friends By Carole Reedy Page 12

Mexico City Olympics - 1968 By Randy Jackson Page 14

Play Ball! Play Mesoamerican Ball! Play Ulama! By Deborah Van Hoewyk Page 16

Alcoholism Impacts a Quasi-Developing Nation By Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D. Page 18

EDITORIAL PAGE 3



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Remember if you came to Huatulco and didn't eat with Do?a Celia, you didn't come to Huatulco!

dona.celia24@ /sandra_avalos78@ TELS: 958 583 4876 O CEL: 958 116 4006 WhatsApp: 9585874089

Mexico's Olympians: Bringing Home the Bronze

By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

he 2020 summer Olympic

TG a m e s w a s o n e o f t h e strangest in modern history. They were played in 2021 in Tokyo after a year's delay due to the raging coronavirus, with spectators banned from the events and Japanese residents outside the venues loudly protesting the games. The demanding circumstances took their toll on many athletes; the Olympians from Mexico were not exceptions.

Mexico's athletes seem to thrive on crowds cheering them on. The best previous Mexican Olympic performances occurred in their own Mexico City in 1964, with stands packed with their screaming fans; they reaped 9 medals, three gold, three silver and three bronze. The next best was in 1984 in Los Angeles, a city rich with people with Mexican roots cheering in Spanish; they won six medals, two gold, three silver and one bronze.

Tokyo 2020 was, for the Mexican Olympians, at best "average." Lacking fans rooting them on, they brought home four medals, all bronze. Only one medal was in a sport that ranks high in Mexico, football, or as those north of the border say, soccer.

Soccer is more a part of life than just a game in Mexico. It's common to see boys, still toddlers unsteady on their feet, kicking balls all over the country. Fans are fiercely loyal to their teams and the clubs supporting them.

Although Mexico has competed in soccer in just five Olympic Games, they have brought home two medals, a gold from London and the bronze this year. Perhaps the lack of spectators worked in favor of the Mexico team in Tokyo, since they faced off against the Japanese team for the bronze. If the stadium had been packed with fans from Japan, the results might have been different from the win by Mexico with a 3-0 score.

More surprising than Team Mexico's medal in soccer was the bronze taken by Alejandra Valencia and Luis Alvarez in the mixed doubles archery competition. To bring home the bronze, the team bested first Germany, 6-2, then shut out Britain (6-0). They lost to South Korea (which has won the gold 14 times). But in their final round, competing with the team from Turkey, they scored 6?2.

Although archery is hardly a major sport in Mexico, individual archers on Team Mexico had previously won a silver medal and two bronze at the summer games. However, this was the first competition in archery involving a team of two, a man and a woman, in which Mexico medaled. Of course, archery etiquette demands silence during key competition moments. So the absence of Alejandra's hometown rooters from Hermosillo and Luis's from Mexicali may have aided their focus ? although the fans were no doubt missed after the win.

Aremi Fuentes Zavala's bronze medal in the women's 76 kilogram (167 lb) weightlifting competition may help blow away the film industry stereotype of Mexican women as beautiful adornments clinging to the men in their lives. From Chiapas, a state where whole villages of women are the wage-earners and men are responsible for home and hearth, Fuentes, who is 5 feet 2 inches tall, also took the silver in women's 76 kilo weightlifting in the 2019 Pan American games in Lima. In interviews she exudes pride in being a strong woman.

Two other women Olympians from Mexico brought home the fourth bronze medal. Their event was synchronized diving from the 10 meter platform. For Alejandra Orozco, this was her second Olympic medal in the summer sport; her teammate, Gabriela Ag?ndez Garc?a was competing in her first Olympics. Both women are Armed Forces athletes stationed in Guadalajara. Both began as gymnasts at very early ages, which is evident in their performance both on the platform and while airborne.

Although at age 24, Orozco is two years older than Ag?ndez Garcia and at 1.58 meters high (5 feet 2 inches) is 0.02 meters (1 inch) taller, during their dives they appear to be almost identical twins. From the second their toes left the platform to the second their toes, gracefully pointed to the ceiling, disappeared into the water with minimal splash, they were so coordinated it was like seeing one diver and her mirror image piking and summersaulting.

Although all these splendid Olympians missed having inperson cheering spectators, people around the world and especially in Mexico were watching them via new technologies and applauding. And when the Summer Olympics will once again be held in Los Angeles in 2028, we can hope the cheering in Spanish will once again spur the Olympians from Mexico to more medals ? perhaps even bringing home the gold.

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A "Trashy" Olympic Scandal

By Kary Vannice

pile of garbage bags sparked

Aa very interesting (and very embarrassing) controversy for team Mexico at this year's Olympics ? a controversy that raised the question, are the Olympics really about patriotism and national pride or just another chance for athletes to compete and win worldwide fame?

How did something as mundane as a sack of trash lead to such a provocative question and spark a global debate? Well, to be fair, it was the contents of the bags that made headlines.

On July 29th, a female Mexican Olympic boxer posted a photo on her social media showing several sacks of trash thrown out by the Mexican softball team. The bags contained official Mexican Olympic team uniforms and training gear.

Along with the photo, she posted this quote:

"This uniform represents years of effort, sacrifice, and tears. All Mexican athletes yearn to wear it with dignity, and today the Mexican softball team sadly left it all in the garbage of the Olympic villages."

This act of disrespect was made much worse because 14 of the 15 women competing for the Mexican Olympic softball team were born in the United States.

In fact, Mexico qualified for its first-ever Olympic softball appearance by recruiting American collegiate athletes of Mexican descent, a practice that is totally legal according to the International Olympic Committee, which requires that athletes be citizens or nationals of the country they compete for. Athletes with dual or multiple citizenship can choose which country they want to represent and declare a transfer of allegiance specifically and only for the Olympic games. When the games are over, they can go right back to competing professionally or collegiately in their home country.

Because each of the 200 countries that participated in the Tokyo Games has its own laws governing citizenship and residency, countries wanting a better chance at an Olympic medal can easily bend the rules by actively seeking athletes from other countries who have ancestral ties to the country.

The United States, which has more professional athletes than any other country, is a prime hunting ground for Olympic athletic talent. Only the best of the best qualify to compete on the US Olympic team, but many who don't make the cut easily qualify to join the team of another country, where the talent pool isn't so deep or over-crowded.

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And that's exactly what happened in the case of Mexico's 2020 Olympic softball team, with all but one being born in the United States. This led one news outlet to publish an article titled "Mexico's Olympic softball team is made in the USA."

But what are the consequences of stacking a potentially winning team with players who are in it solely to compete and not to "bring home the gold"? How would the Mexican people have felt had the softball team won gold? Would they feel a sense of national pride knowing that 14 out of the 15 metals would go home to the United States and never touch down on Mexican soil? It's very unlikely.

It also seems quite clear that the women themselves felt more allegiance to the Olympics than to Mexico, eventually admitting that they threw out the team jerseys given them by the Mexican Olympic Committee to make room for bed comforters and quilts from their rooms at Olympic Village. Essentially, they favored souvenirs with six colored rings on them over the uniforms that sported the Mexican flag.

In an official statement (after becoming an international sports scandal), a representative of the softball team said that it was simply a matter of "too much cargo." Yet ESPN Mexico reported that sets of softball equipment, clothing from the opening ceremony, sneakers, and suitcases were also found in the garbage, begging the question, what's it worth to represent a country that's not your own in the greatest sports games on the planet? As it turns out, for some, not even the price of overweight luggage.

But to be fair, Mexico isn't the only country taking advantage of the transfer of allegiance rule. In the last Olympics, nearly 200 athletes competed for countries they were not born in. Two athletes have even won medals for two different countries in the history of the games!

Each individual must, for themselves, weigh the balance of national pride vs. the chance to compete at all costs. But it's a powerful statement that in 2016 the Olympic Committee formed the Refugee Olympic Team so that athletes who have been forcibly displaced from their home countries could still compete.

In this year's Olympics, 29 athletes from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Congo, Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iraq, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela competed for the Refugee Olympic Team in 12 events. They entered the Tokyo Olympic stadium under a united flag that represents refugees around the world, all 29 of them proving it's not the flag you stand under, but solidarity that matters most.

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