here are a few pictures from this past week.

on saturday we went to the zocalo, or city center. the zocalo includes government buildings, the palacio nacional, a cathedral, etc. we ate at a restaurant above the zocalo; hence the entire square was before us.


inside the palacio nacional, which holds much of the countrys history, including narrative murals by diego rivera and the room where the countrys first congress met.


the courtyard at the palacio nacional. ive lately become very interested in architectural photography and framing.

and now onto work! one of the streets by matlapa. i feel like this community is very mixed. the problems with drugs and abuse are rampant, but you have houses for the wealthy next to houses for the poor. sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference from the outside.

view of the neighborhood from matlapa. here you can see some of the poorer sections of the area.
fatima (who took this photo) and vani (who is in this photo) wanted to try using my camera after we played volleyball at the park around the corner from matlapa. as you can see here, it is often difficult to tell the difference between the kids who come to matlapa and other ordinary mexican children. i have learned that poverty can often only be seen in the details, like the girls who wear the same ripped tennis shoes every day or the child who, when we talk about "family" words in english and practice them by drawing, says he cannot possibly draw his entire family because he lives with fifteen other people. the poverty here sometimes is less in-your-face than in other places i have visited, like in india, but it is simply well disguised.