Ixtepec

I, the expatslacker, live in Ixtepec, in the region of the Isthmus, in the state of Oaxaca, in Mexico. It is a small city, population around 25,000 people. There is not much to do here, the local young people call is tristepec. The word triste means sad in Spanish, it is not so much sad as boring. The closest nearby big city is Juchitan with around 80,000 people and it is where I go about once a month to do some real shopping.
It is located at the 16th latitude, so it is pretty far south. Even though it is located nearby the pacific the area is pretty arid. The number of days that it is hot: 364. The number of days it is not hot but still pretty damn warm: 1. The only truly unbearable time is during the rainy season in the spring, it is not so rainy as it is humid. The rest of the year the dry heat is not so oppressive if you are out of the sun.
Before I moved to Ixtepec I lived in Shanghai for 7 years. The contrasts between a sleepy backwater Mexican town and one of the most dynamic cities on earth, of course, could not be more extreme. So why did I move here? I suppose I got the 7 year itch, except not in marriage but in lifestyle. You can never quite get away from people in Shanghai, you literally have to travel half the day to get to a place where there are not as many people, and even then there is a sense of crowdedness. Even the forests in the state park on Chongming island seem somehow artificial. It so happened one day I recieved an email from this university inviting me to apply. My resume is online so it is not uncommon to receive some inquiries but most were from within China. Mexico offered something truly new and unique. A chance to be closer to the states, a different culture but one a little more accessible, another language to conquer (more on that later), and what seems to be a safe place to raise my sons.
The school I work at is the University of the Isthmus, here is its web page. http://www.unistmo.edu.mx/ixte.htm
There are actually 2 sister universities, one in Ixtepec and one in Tehuantepec. It is a fairly small state university. Even though the web page is in Spanish I recommend taking a virtual tour of the school.
The people of this region are primarily a mixture of Zapotec, who were the original inhabitants, with many having some Spanish lineage, and people of other regions of Mexico. The languages spoken are Spanish and Zapoteca. Interestingly, Zapoteca is a tonal language like Chinese. I fled China to get away from my linguistic difficulties based on that fact and here I find the same thing. Luckily, everyone speaks Spanish so I do not need to learn Zapoteca. Of course, I need to learn Spanish, but as I mentioned before that will be covered in a seperate post.