Mexico City, part of the first week

It has been a good week. As I mentioned in the last post, I didn't have any school performances until Thursday. On Wednesday, I went with Alberto (our intrepid tour manager) and Inno to the school where Inno was performing. Here's a picture from her show:
It's a little blurry because she was teaching the kids a complex rhythm--and she was moving!

From that school, we went to meet Dina, who will help Alberto out as second tour manager. She'll be with me later this next week.

On Thursday, I had my first day of performances at Bilbao School, set in the hills above Mexico City, out of the pollution and noise. We considered doing one of the performances in the forest, but decided some of the fifth grade boys might be too rambunctious there. Still, we walked the 100 or so steps down to look at the possible site. Bilbao is a lovely school and the children enjoyed the stories, even when they didn't completely understand. Here's a bit of the school:

Alberto and I went to the Museum of Anthropology after that. It's enormous, so we only saw a portion (oh, and had a treat in the cafe--my flan was muy delicioso), including exhibits of Aztec and Incan civilizations. Outside, we saw the Voladores de Papantla, men in traditional costume who climb up a pole, spin it around, then jump off upside down but attached to ropes and still spinning. They play flutes and drums as they go lower and lower, until they touch the ground. This was once a ceremony for crop fertilization. Here they are climbing the pole:

And here they are at the top of the pole, beginning to spin it around:

Here they are spinning down:

And almost at the bottom:

I've never seen anything like this. It was fascinating!

This post is already much longer than I meant it to be. I'll write about Friday later.