How to Find Love at Mexico City’s Markets

How to Find Love at Mexico City’s Markets

Jun 8, 2012 | #booknews

Love to find that perfect travel memory? Love authentic handcrafts? Head for Mexico City's markets.

Markets inspired much of the atmostphere I wrote into THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY, the romantic thriller and modern Cinderella story. The sights, sounds, and temptations of Mexico City's markets helped drive the novel's authenticity.

Mexico City's markets

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Find more than souvenirs

Mexico City’s markets are where you can fall in love with the country’s culture, people-watch both buyers and sellers, and find some of the best street food, too. Just watch your purse/backpack/wallet. Like every big city, Mexico City has its share of clever pickpockets, even in the best markets.

Related: The Lost Chapter of THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY

Each market has its own flavor and specialty items and everyone I know has their favorites. These are mine.

Bazaar Sabado

Bazaar Sabado art

Samples of handicrafts available at Bazaar Sabado. Courtesy http://elbazaarsabado.com/mx/#expositores

A straight shot down the big Periferico highway from the upscale Lomas de Chapultepec area, San Angel is the most colonial of all the Mexico City neighborhoods, with old Spanish architecture and a charm that makes you want to stay and explore. The market—Saturdays only--is located on the edge of the Plaza San Jacinto and spills outside the building, making it an interesting but fairly well contained exploration. This is the place for very high quality (prices reflect that, too) glassware, metalcrafts, mosaics, artwork, etc. There are several restaurants nearby with great food, too. The market's website gives more information.

The main building is organized like a US antiques mall, with vendors in stalls surrounding the building’s courtyard. My favorite purchases there have been beautiful laquerware and cedar carvings of a village, including different churches. Alas, the dog ate the carvings (no kidding) and when I went back the vendor wasn’t there. The rule here, as with all Mexican markets: if you see it and like it, buy it NOW. You probably won’t see it again. These are pieces of art, not mass market products.

I’m also kicking myself for never having bought any of the glass mosaic pieces—candle hurricane lamps, bowls, etc-- that are a feature of this market, so if you go, let me know.

Jardin del Arte

Jardin del Arte Mexico City

Photo by Agustin Valero - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9070692

“They waded into the sea of paintings that was Jardin del Arte.”

This quote from THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY says it all. This Sunday market is devoted to paintings of all sizes and shapes and is one of my favorite weekend places. It is held in a park at the northeast end of Rio Lerma (on Saturdays there are ballroom dancing events where older couples come out and dance to big band sounds.) Artists whose paintings are sold for thousands in galleries come with the lesser pieces which you can buy for a fraction of their worth.

Then there are the unknown artists with one or two unique items, the artists who make a living selling the predictable Mexican village scene of a house, a girl, and a donkey, and the rest who make this a feast for the art lover.

On the fringes of the park there are vendors who sell art supplies—every size and shape of canvas and type of paint and pastel. I knew one American woman who bought several paintings every weekend for a year and opened a gallery in the US with them. No doubt she jump-started many a Mexican artist’s career.

Related: Read Chapters 1 & 2 of THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY

Mercado de Jamaica

Photo courtesy Leigh Thelmadatter, https://creativehandsofmexicodotorg.wordpress.com/

This is where people buy their voodoo stuff, I was told. Be careful if you go.

And yes, I saw the voodoo candles and statues of Santa Muerto, the saint of death idolized by drug cartels. Bottles of herbs and pamphlets with incantations. I bought a candle with special coins guaranteed to enhance the wealth of my family . . . still waiting to see the results.

Bu this sprawling market is also where the best Halloween/Day of the Dead costumes are sold, as well as flowers, food, pets, fabrics, household pots and pans, and just about anything else you can expect a Mexico City householder to use. Here’s a wonderful description of the market by Mexico City-based artist Jim Johnston.

Don't miss out! Get your free copy of the Insider's Guide to the Best of Mexico. Free download here.

Cuidadela

The market at Balderas

Photo courtesy Leigh Thelmadatter, https://creativehandsofmexicodotorg.wordpress.com/

This downtown city market is a warren of vendor stalls with a big selection of handicrafts and household goods. It is big but the quality is a notch below Bazaar Sabado and the pickpockets are more in evidence. Expect more aggressive vendors, too.

My best purchase there was a ¾ size guitar for $40 that was well-crafted with a nice solid sound, perfect for a son learning a new instrument. We still have it, many years later.

I also got a Bruce the shark piñata for my daughter’s Nemo-themed birthday party that was nearly impossible to break (Daddy had to cut it open with a penknife before the kids could get the candy inside!)

This is a great place for embroidered tablecloths and talavera, the heavy painted pottery from Puebla. Many vendors will take custom orders and deliver the finished tableware to your house. If you aren't ready to buy, ask for the vendor's card (tarjeta) so you'll know how to find them when you are.

Insurgentes

Otomi embroidered cloth

Photo courtesy Anne Damon, Zinnia Folk Arts, www.ZinniaFolkArts.com

This upscale market on the Reforma side of the Zona Rosa is the best place for jewelry and the beautiful embroidered cloth by the Otomi Indians. It is near the Plaza des Angeles, a wonderful (and pricey) antiques mall with Spanish Colonial china, furniture, and artwork. (I have a soft spot in my heart for this place because I once left my car unlocked all day in front of it and the car was wholly untouched when I returned. A small urban miracle.)

The Insurgentes market can be a tight crawl; the vendors are squeezed together and the aisles between the rows of stalls are narrow. Most sell sterling silver jewelry and weigh an item before giving you a price. Stall owners can usually be found with a cloth polishing their silver inventory and will want to show you more items than what is on display. Lots of good copies of Tiffany, Louis Vuitton and TOUS jewelry but the Mexican-designed necklaces, rings, and bracelets can be breath-taking, especially those with semi-precious stones.

The Otomi cloth is unique, embroidered with big animals, many of which are imaginary. The thread is often one color, making a big statement that looks very modern, although some are multicolored. Vendors at the market generally sell pieces big enough to be a bedspread—for $300 and up—as well as pillow covers, table runners, and place mat-sized pieces. Ask to see more than what is displayed; almost all fabric vendors will have more folded up and stacked somewhere. So You Think You Can Dance TV host Cat Deeley had a pile of Otomi pillows on her patio in InStyle magazine. If you can't get to the market, find these beautiful textiles at Zinnia Folk Art, which always has a wonderful selection.

Coyoacan

Photo courtesy Alex Fisher

Photo courtesy Alex Fisher

Photo courtesy Alex Fisher

Photo courtesy Alex Fisher

The market in Coyoacan, near the bright blue Frida Khalo museum, is worth a stop if you are in the area. Coyoacan was among the first of the Mexico City’s neighborhoods to rbe named as one of Mexico’s Barrios Magicos (Magic Neighborhoods) due to its  tree-lined cobblestone streets, colonial-era homes, and rich cultural history. It's got great local produce, as well as as a carnival of street food, including chapulines (fried grasshoppers.)

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Mexico City's markets

The Girl on the Other Side of the Earth

The Girl on the Other Side of the Earth

May 29, 2012 | #truestory

When my daughter was little I wanted to give her a sense of her place in the world. We got a globe and calculated the exact opposite spot if one drew a straight line through the center of the earth from where we were.  We hit China.

We started to tell each other stories about a Chinese girl who lived across the earth from us.  She would be my daughter's exact age, of course, and we wondered what she'd be doing. What clothes would she wear? What season was it for her? What food would she like to eat? If it was bedtime for my daughter was it morning for the girl in China?

Each time our family moved, we imagined a new girl on the other side of the earth from wherever we found ourselves. The globe has some pen marks on it now and we weren't terribly geographically precise, but we still talk about where is the girl on the other side of the earth from us and what she is doing that is the same or different. Which was the whole point of the exercise, I think.

Right now, she's a girl in Indonesia.

Where is that girl across the earth from you?

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Wicked Culture

May 24, 2012 | #EmiliaCruz

A stroll through an outdoor book fair lining Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma boulevard a few months ago gave me the inspiration for the third novel in the Emilia Cruz mystery series. Most of the vendor stalls offered beautiful art books but what caught my eye was a cheaply printed pamphlet adorned with a drawing of a muerte skeleton figure wearing a long robe and holding a set of scales and a globe.

The dark side is alive and well . . .

Mexico's Santa Muerte

Santa Muerte has become a cult figure in Mexico and is increasingly hailed as the patron saint of drug gangs, cartels, and violence. The saint is always a muerte, or skeleton figure, in a long robe with a hood. Sometimes Santa Muerte has a halo or a crown and carries either scales or a long scythe akin to the Grim Reaper. There are also images that meld Santa Muerte with the Virgin of Guadalupe. Murders associated with the cult of Santa Muerte made headlines last month when three people were killed in a ritual dedicated to the saint in northern Mexico.

The little pamphlet that I found was a collection of prayers to the Saint of Death, including a prayer to bring in money, a curse against jealous people and a prayer to dominate a husband, an invocation for a man not to look at any other woman, and a prayer to make a man forget another woman. In the next book,  Emilia will read the wrong prayer, of course . .

Papua New Guinea's Sanguma

A spiritualism known as sanguma in this remote Pacific nation is widespread and most homicides in the country are thought to be related to it. 85% of the population lives in rural communities where belief in black magic is especially strong and passed down through generations through storytelling. Illnesses, sudden death by natural causes and other unexpected developments are often thought to be the result of sanguma. As a result, to erase the black magic, villagers often kill someone accused of being a sorcerer. Check out this report from ISP for more.

Haiti's voodoo

Voodoo was acclaimed as a real religion in Haiti and revolves around in a distant and unknowable creator god, Bondyè. According to Wikipedia, Bondyè doesn't intercede in human affairs but has a set of lesser dieties called Iwa who direct specific aspects of life.  Adherents to voodoo "cultivate personal relationships" with the lwa through offerings, personal altars and devotional objects, and elaborate ceremonies of music and dance, which are the means for possession by an Iwa. Supposedly being possessed by a diety is something to be desired.

Hmm. Creepy stuff. Time to go to church and light a candle.

Rude in Any Culture

May 22, 2012 | #noticed

Back when I started this blog, I talked about what it means to be a World Citizen, someone who can go anywhere because they understand and embrace the culture in which they find themselves. I identified a few things that go into the making of a World Citizen and Manners was one of them.

Related: The Right Fork

Manners differ considerably from place to place. Often rudeness is one culture is the norm in another. Differing views of standing in a line, for example. But some things are universal.

If you're a World Citizen, you shouldn't find yourself doing any of the following:  6 things that are Rude in Any Culture.

  •  Defacing national monuments or historic sites, including taking "souvenirs" which could prove to be significant artifacts, like, oh, the Elgin Marbles.
  •  Performing acts of personal hygiene in public, including urinating, picking one's nose, clipping fingernails with the teeth, etc. One can never explain such actions in a way that is flattering.
  •  Talking in a theater, unless the movie is Ricky Horror Picture Show.
  •  Putting feet up on a table or other furniture unless invited. It implies disdain for others' possessions.
  •  Smoking in areas where signs are posted that say--in any language--"No Smoking."
  •  Overreliance on the word "fuck," which is now a virtually global swear word, except possibly in France which is rude enough to stick to the time-honored merde.
rude in any culture

Finding my Audience

May 14, 2012 | #booknews

Who do I write for?

This was a simple question posed to me a couple of months before The Hidden Light of Mexico City was released and it was simple to answer.

Me.

Well, not just a readership of one! But when I started writing, it was for myself and all my girlfriends in Mexico City who watched the dance of Mexico's social classes and wondered what would happen to the country in which we'd invested so much of ourselves.

We were smart, educated, and capable women from different countries: the US, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Australia, etc. Although we had different nationalities, we had one thing in common: we were all from cultures that embraced and practiced gender equality.

All of us found that wasn't the case in Mexico, although I hope things have improved since then. But at the time, we often found ourselves talking about people and situations we encountered in Mexico City that made us uncomfortable because inequality was so tolerated.

These conversations really inspired me, at first to write a non-fiction book, and then later to change it to a novel that would entertain as it informed.

My readers are

  • Interested in current events
  • Curious about the rest of the world, especially Mexico
  • Appreciative of a good action story
  • Likes a bit of spice, too

Does that describe you?

 

The Art of Casco Viejo

The Art of Casco Viejo

May 14, 2012 | #noticed

Panama's old city, known as Casco Viejo, is located on a small peninsula that juts into the Pacific. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site with a warren of narrow streets and old buildings that were once the elegant homes of Spanish conquistadors. Over the years, the area was wracked by the sea and poverty and much of it became a slum. More recently, Casco Viejo has undergone a renaissance. A few shops and restaurants and boutique hotels have opened and most of the historic buildings are being renovated.

Corrugated iron barriers surround renovation sites and become the canvas for ugly grafitti. Except for the corner that turned construction barriers into an art installation. Here is some wonderful street art from a very unexpected place  All photos copyright Carmen Amato, April 2012.

Casco Viejo

Construction artwork signed by E. Sanchez Perez


Casco Viejo

Dooorways painted on construction barriers signed by B. Santana


Casco Viejo

Painting on construction barrier entitled Edificios del Casco


Casco Viejo

Painted trash cans near construction site in Casco Viejo


Casco Viejo

Giant fish painted on construction barrier hides plumbing materials

Casco Viejo

Padre Ricardo and the Sacristy of Santa Clara

Padre Ricardo and the Sacristy of Santa Clara

May 3, 2012 | #thrillers, #truestory

The Hidden Light of Mexico City contains a number of references from my own experiences in Mexico City.  I've already written about the  class struggle of simply standing in a line but also wanted to share a sadder, more compelling event that helped shape the book's narrative through the character of Father Santiago.

Related: Read HIDDEN LIGHT'S First 2 Chapters

Father Richard

Father Richard Junius--or Padre Ricardo--was the pastor at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Mexico City when I lived there.  He was an Oblate Missionary who had been in Mexico for years, ministering mostly to the rural poor.  St. Patrick's was a sizeable urban parish  in a fairly tough neighborhood. It was the only designated English-speaking church in the city.

Fr Richard Junius

Years ago the church had sold off the school building next door. Funds from the sale  were held in escrow by the diocese for maintenance of the church and attached rectory.  The previous pastor had been removed due to a number of misconducts; when Father Richard arrived we were all cautiously hopeful that the new priest would set things right.

St. Patrick's sacristy was a place I came to know well; the ladies of the parish cleaned it up for the incoming priest, removing layers of grime and polishing the few silver items the church possessed. My son was an altar server and I remade and cleaned all of the altar server vestments, hanging them in the room's small closet.  The description of the sacristy of the church of Santa Clara in The Hidden Light of Mexico City is based on St. Patrick's.

 

Father Richard was old and patient and tireless in his efforts to reach out to the local community and deal with their family issues. He made his new English-speaking congregation aware of prison irregularities in Mexico and didn't flinch when an armed drug addict, stoned out of his mind, walked through the church and accosted him on the altar during midnight Mass.  He spent nothing on his clothing, wearing threadbare corduroy pants and sweaters that became the fictional Father Santiago's wardrobe. 

Controversy

Father Richard had spent most of his time in Mexico in rural areas. Now in Mexico City, he seemed naive in the midst of Mexico's spiraling crime and drug war. 

Twice he was assaulted and robbed while alone in the church counting  the Sunday collection. When parishioners insisted that the funds be handled differently, he disagreed, adamant that church funds were solely his responsibility and that he would not close the church at any time. 

He lent a substantial amount from the maintenance funds to an unscrupulous businessman man who never repaid the loan. Father Richard contracted for the bathroom repair without consulting with the parish council. Again, funds disappeared. The job was left half done and toilets didn't flush.

Never afraid of controversy, he petitioned the bishop to change the church's status from English-speaking to multi-lingual. The move angered some of the original congregation, but was welcomed by local families.

Much of the English-speaking congregation moved on, angered by his financial floundering. Several years later I was to learn that he'd been murdered.

A violent death

In August 2007, Father Richard was found stripped, tortured, bound and strangled to death in his bedroom in the rectory of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mexico City.  His body was found the morning after a fire had broken out in the basement of the church late at night.  Initial Mexican news reports speculated that the death was a result of "sexual misconduct," and downplayed the fire as well as the theft of several items from the church.  The charges were heatedly denied by Catholic Church officials in Mexico, thousands of faithful, and the  Oblates, according to the Catholic News Agency.

Other reports of his death noted that he'd been in conflict with the owner of  a bar near the church whom Father Richard had publicly called out for serving alcohol to minors. The Oblate website reported that "many believe that the brutal crime was in retaliation for Fr. Ricardo’s efforts to impede the drug traffic and the sale of alcohol to minors in the neighborhood. He had reported to the police that such activities were taking place in a building near the corner of the parish church."

From the family

Fr. Richard's cousin got in touch with me in April 2016 as a result of this blog post. In an exchange of emails, she related how she was informed by the Oblate Provincial in Belleville, Illinois that Fr. Richard was murdered:

"After I explained my connection, the Provincial began hesitantly stating, "I don't even know how to say this." When I asked what he needed to say, he responded that Father Richard had been murdered between the Saturday night Mass of Anticipation and the early Sunday morning Mass. I later heard that his sister expected his body to be returned to Eagle Pass for burial near the grave of his cousin, my uncle Father Bernard C. Junius, OMI. Sadly, the Mexican authorities buried the body quickly in Mexico City.
 
Prior to his death, Father Richard had written a lengthy letter to my uncle Paul explaining all of the activities he was involved in - a thrift store, a radio show, marrying Spanish and Anglo couples. His passion for service and love of those he served threaded through the letter. His death seemed like the waste of a true servant of the people."
 

Catching his killer

Father Richard was 79 at the time of his death and only a month away from celebrating his 50th anniversary as a priest.  To my knowledge, his murderer has never been brought to justice and the official record remains death by misadventure.
 
Not content with that, I wrote "The Angler," a novella based on the murder of Father Richard. In "The Angler," Detective Emilia Cruz, the first female police detective in Acapulco, faces a similar crime. This time, the murder is solved.
 

The Angler by Carmen Amato

 

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sacristy

Why Read a Book About Mexico Now

Apr 23, 2012 | #booknews, #thrillers

Reading about Mexico now is a mix of highs and lows. Fiction can't substitute for facts but it can lead us to become interested enough in an issue to find out what is really going on.  That is the impact I hope The Hidden Light of Mexico City can have.

The press release says:

 The classic Cinderella story moves to Mexico against a backdrop of government corruption, drug cartel violence, and pending presidential elections.  The Hidden Light of Mexico City's raw exposé of Mexico’s rigid class society makes this political thriller a must-read before America’s next debate over immigration.

Why is this important

What's happening today is Mexico is fairly staggering.  As reported by The New York Times, based on Mexican Government statistics released in January, over 47,000 people have been killed in the country's crackdown against the cartels.  It's common knowledge that many are dead as the result of competition between rival cartels. Other dead are those who were transiting cartel territory as they tried to immigrate and were pressed into service to the cartels and then killed.  Stories of the "disappeared" and mass graves remind me of news reports of Cambodia back in the day, of "The Killing Fields" movie.

The killing fields are spilling over onto America's doorstep. Last September the New York Times published an interactive map showing Mexican drug cartel reach across the border and a map of US drug seizures from Mexican cartel shipments to the US.  Disturbing, hardhitting.

CNN's  recent series is even more compelling. The reporting takes us from a walk through a cemetary in drug kingpin El Chapo's home state of Sinaloa, to a cold hard look at the numbers, to the search for those missing amid the violence.

Mexico's drug war isn't just about the fight between the cartels and the military, about political will to stamp out evil or even about guns and agents moving across the US-Mexican border. More than anything, it is about a people and a culture under attack.

This is where fiction can help tell a vital story, by imagining the lives of those living through the struggle, making them breathe and love and cry and fight. Fiction can hold attention and provoke emotion in a way that the news might not.

Update 2016

The numbers of those missing or known dead in Mexico continues to rise. The re-arrest of El Chapo kept the various cartels at each others' throats in the quest to dominate drug routes into the ever-voracious US, and violence continues in many parts of Mexico.

Whatever the US presidential election holds for us, the US-Mexico relationship is back on the agenda after having been eclipsed for quite some time by the Middle East. The southern border, immigration, and undocumented folks are likely to be addressed one way or another. If fiction can help focus attention on improving relations between these critical neighbors, so much the better.

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A tale of Mexico: the school bus and the thriller

A tale of Mexico: the school bus and the thriller

Apr 10, 2012 | #booknews, #thrillers

THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY is a political thriller, with characters based on many people I met in Mexico City.

And a bus.

The setting

Let me set this up for you.

Our house was at the start of the school bus route going home. My children had a 10 minute ride. In the morning; they'd be the last to be picked up for a short ride through Chapultepec Park to the American School. To give you an idea of the student body, one of the other students was the son of a Mexican diputado. His bodyguards rode in an unmarked follow car. We never saw the bodyguards in the afternoon; I presume the chauffeur picked up the child like so many other children who attended that school.

One afternoon, a late model sedan parked near our house. A woman got out of the back seat, wearing a stylish dress, heels and ropes of gold chain. She introduced herself as Marit and said that her children rode the same school bus as my children.

They lived at the end of the bus line, she explained, and while she wanted her son and daughter to have the experience of riding on a school bus, it took too long.  In future her children would get off at our house and be driven home by the chauffeur.

Related: Reads Chapters 1 & 2 of THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY

A tenuous friendship

We spoke a number of times after that, me in my jeans on the stoop and she in her designer clothes from the window of the car.  When she learned I was new to Mexico City she took it upon herself to give me a tour of the best shops and restaurants in our neighborhood. The children and I were invited to a midday meal with her husband and children.  The event included lunch at their house--about 15 minutes away--and a stop in the kitchen to view the 5 uniformed staff and present my compliments to the cook in her white jacket.

Related post: Swimming lessons or how he wound up in a thriller

Soon after, Marit came over for coffee before meeting the bus. Our housekeeper, a wonderful young woman whom we did not require to wear a uniform, met us in the living room.  I introduced them as I would any two people, using full names.  To my surprise Marit immediately addressed the housekeeper using a common nickname rather than the housekeeper's actual name. The grilling about work hours came next. It was an effective and not very subtle message: the housekeeper was getting above herself using her full name, not wearing a uniform, and leaving the kitchen instead of waiting to be assigned her work.

Related post: Itzel's story or how she came to be in my novel

Marit also called me the next day and took me to task for not making the housekeeper work more hours--a day maid should show up to work at 7:00 am at least. By asking the housekeeper to come at 10:00 I was only encouraging her to become lazy.  I should note here that my husband generally referred to the housekeeper as the "Mexican Tornado" for her amazing work ethic. Marit's words told me that there's a caste system in Mexico that bottles up more people than just the Mexican Tornado.  So escape it, people will mule drugs or risk an illegal crossing into the United States.  Or both.

Be careful, I'm a writer

There were no more coffee or lunches after that but the final break came when Marit called to ask if, as an American, I could get her maid a visa. The family wanted to go to Disneyworld and take their maid to look after the children in the evenings.

The visa process took too much time, Marit said.  If the maid had to stand in line at the US Embassy she'd miss work.

I replied that I had no ability to obtain a visa for her maid and I never heard from Marit again. The car no longer stopped in front of my house to pick up her children.

But I had stored up enough from her tone, mannerisms, and home tour to cast Marit as Selena de Vega and transpose her home and servants into the Vega home. There are some differences to be sure, but the social ladder that Marit showed me became the impossible mountain that fictional maid Luz de Maria must climb in THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY.

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Remembering Resistance

Remembering Resistance

Apr 3, 2012 | #noticed

In my travels, it has struck me that a culture reveals its true strength by what it chooses to remember and preserve.  Often that means museums, but it also means UNESCO World Heritage Sites, preserved or excated sites like Jordan's Petra or Italy's Pompeii, the music and folksongs and linguistic ideocyncracies that are gifts from one generation to another.

Sixty-five years after the end of WWII, here are a few thoughts on the way two countries have chosen to remember and preserve their resistance to Nazi occupation.

Norway

Norway's Hjemmefrontmuseum, located in Akershus Castle in Oslo, is a world-class museum that lays out the history of the April 1940 German invasion of Norway, the Norwegian military's spirited but overmatched defense, and the king's narrow escape to London where he established the legitimate Norwegian government in exile while the Quisling government ruled in Hitler's name.

In Norway, the shock of occupation  quickly gave way to anger and to an organized armed resistance effort. The British provided training, supplies, weapons, and clandestine transportation that became known as the Shetland Bus. Norwegian Resistance cells carried out commando raids and sabotage (the most famous actions being the destruction of the production capability of the Norsky Hydro heavy water plant--immortalized in the Kirk Douglas classic movie The Heroes of Telemark--that deprived the Nazi nuclear weapons development program of a vital component.)

The Norwegians' ability to survive in the country's wilderness areas and ski away from pursuit helped them survive to fight another day, but the death toll was high. The Germans retaliated with relentless hunts to find Resistance members and executed civilians in response to Resistance raids and destruction.

Resistance

What the museum revealed

The museum, in addition to being located in an impressive historic castle guarding the Oslo Fjord, wins major points for display, authenticity, and heart, with an excellent collection of everything related to the Resistance, from clandestine newspapers to hidden radios to the log-shaped containers used to drop supplies to Resistance cells in remote locations.

Every display was eye-catching and well explained, with many personal accounts woven into the factual information.  The museum belongs to the Norwegian Defense Forces and the Resistance is a proud part of Norway's military heritage.

As I wandered through the museum,  I found myself writing down bits and pieces of this fascinating national story and since have sought out memoirs of Resistance members, like Two Eggs on My Plate by Oluf Reid Olsen and We Die Alone by David Howarth. Touring the entire place took me over three hours both times that I have visited, not counting time spent in the bookshop.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the Dutch Resistance Museum, the Verzetsmuseum, was a different experience, reflecting that country's different wartime situation. The museum is located in a rowhouse in a busy Amsterdam commercial district. It is a small, modern gem which has won several awards. But the nature of the resistance in the Netherlands was mostly a nonviolent movement, with small cells operating independently. Some sabotage and counterintelligence activities took place late in the war, as the Allied invasion of Europe loomed.

What the museum revealed

The museum's permanent collection focused on how people endured the occupation. It took pains to point out the state of the country in the late 1930's and I was struck by the high percentage of Dutch who lived below the poverty line at the beginning of the war. Needless to say, things only got worse during the occupation.

ResistanceResistanceAs I paid my admission fee I was told that it would take at least 2 hours to tour.  But 20 minutes later, I had seen all the exhibits and was wondering if I'd missed a  door to the rest of the place.

But mostly I was struck by the feeling that the museum had hidden an apology. Despite the exhibits of life during the war, the nameless but courageous couriers, and the gut-wrenching stories of those who had to kill informants in order to save the members of their resistance cells, there was a sense of sadness rather than the daring and triumph of the museum in Oslo.

It was as if the Verzetsmuseum acknowledged that it lives in the shadow of the Anne Frank House, just a few miles away and stunningly and comprehensively preserved.  That is the definitive story of Dutch resistance, a resistance of the heart and mind.

I wonder if there will be a National Resistance Museum of Syria.

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The Kitchen UN

The Kitchen UN

Mar 26, 2012 | #truestory

Oslo in June is a wonderful place. Clouds scud across a cobalt sky and the harbor is thronged with boats, tourists, and the smell of lilacs. After months of Arctic winter grey, the city is stretching itself awake in the midnight sun. You stay up long after sunset at 11pm, wrapped in a blanket at a harborside cafe.

And there in a shop window, was the perfect souvenir--a row of blue and white spice jars with names of spices in Norwegian, looking like an Italian-worded set that my grandmother had. I imagined them in a row on my counter at home, their blue letters proclaiming my adventurousness. Every time I'd look at them I'd remember both Oslo in June and my grandmother's kitchen.

kitchen

But mostly I'd be looking at pottery shards in a soft-sided suitcase.

So I passed them up and I'm still kicking myself. Those little jars captured what Norway meant: the bluest sky in the world, the freshness of energy of a reborn place, an unexpected reminder of my grandmother.  And my kitchen really needed that final touch; something to go with the salad tongs from Kenya, coffee mugs from England, corkscrew from Australia, the framed menu from my Paris student days, the olive cutting board from Greece, and a truly antique Delft tile I couldn't afford, another from the tram stop at Binnenwatersloot where for once I wasn't lost, a tiny ceramic square from Rome inscribed with the blessing Pace e Bene.

A fourth tile hangs on the wall. Hardly a prized antique, it's a mass-produced tile with a color picture of a woman and child walking next to a walled village with "Rothenburg ob der Tauber" written on the bottom. I got it in an antiques shop in Virginia, in a box labelled "odd cups."

It took me back to the medieval village of Rothenburg, to a 1981 trip my mother and I took to West Germany and Austria. We embraced the beverages, the food, the architecture, the people, and the fine bed-and-breakfast establishments recommended by the publishers of Let's Go Europe. We climbed an Alp. rode a cable car, listened to Mozart in Salzburg, sang in the biergartens, and mourned at Dachau. And bought not one sourvenir.

So years later, I found myself paying the outrageous price of $12 for a chipped tile and exulting over such a bargain. Of couse I called my mother and she laughed as we remembered the beer, the wursts, and the rest of the trip. I smile every time I see that tile, knowing what a bond it represents.

The kitchen is the heart of the home. Maybe that's why so much of my kitchen tools are souvenirs from my travels.

Bene e Pace

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