Before we arrived in Oaxaca, the U.S. Embassy had warned our group that the Oaxacan teacher strike was becoming quite dangerous, and traveling to Oaxaca would be an adventure. Every year the teachers from the region take home in the local zocalo and protest low wages. This year the same protest began about a month ago, but because this is an election year, the governor of Oaxaca did not feel that the strike was appropriate and on June 14th in the early monring while the teachers were asleep sent the local police with tear gas to remove the teachers from the area. 11 people were killed that day, and the strike has not ended. We went to the zocalo to see the destruction and talk to some teachers. Here are some pictures of what I saw. The whole downtown region is a mess, and the teachers are threatening to close down the government offices for election day coming up in a week. As teachers, we were a bit sentimental about what was going on. Hopefully, all will PAN (get it...hahahahaha) out...
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