Traveler Profile: abarto | Matador

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Screen name:

Age:

27

Gender:

Female

If you must know:

I'm single

Travel status:

Putting down roots

Hometown:

Amherst, Massachusetts

Currently in:

Charlestown, Massachusetts

Expert Oaxaca, Mexico

I fell in love with Oaxaca when I first went there as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. After graduating in 2004 I came back to teach English. In addition to teaching, I've worked free-lance writer and translator and as the Resident Advisor for the LanguageCorps program. Please come visit Oaxaca. Whatever you may have heard, it is not dangerous and the people welcome tourists. I can give you the straight dope everything from teaching English to where to find the best mole and the cheapest handicrafts.

Matador Travel Writer: Articles (1)

Writer Bio: View Articles (1)

Anna Barto's writing has appeared in Transitions Abroad, Artist-at-Large,
Developingwords.org, Another Day in Paradise, and Zócalo Literary Quarterly. She is currently an MFA student at Emerson College.

Favorite places I've been:

Havana, Baracoa, Cuba, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Chiaps, Barcelona

Places I want to go to:

I'm more attracted to off the beaten track or "developing" destinations. I feel a pull toward southeast Asia, North and East Africa. But I'll gladly go anywhere! Thinking about going to Ghana this year.

About me:

I grew up between the opposite worlds of Amherst Massachusetts (where it's still cool to be a hippie) and Scottsdale, Arizona (think Republicans and Palm trees). This was great preparation for a life of travel. To this day I have yet to experience a greater culture shock! I was also one of the last US students at the University of Havana before Bush tightened the travel ban to Cuba in 2004. I just moved back stateside from Oaxaca, Mexico, where I worked as an EFL teacher and as coordinator for LanguageCorps Mexico. This fall I will be starting my MFA in creative writing at Emerson College, Boston.h

Profile URL:

http://matadortravel.com/travel-community/abarto

Read more about abarto

I'm fired up on:

Besides travel, I'm into: cats, cooking (especially spicy food), learning languages, international education, spirituality, ecotourism, community-based business, reading, writing fiction and creative non-fiction, raising funds for the Nuestra Hogar Nazaret children's home in the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca.

Tunes I rock out to:

Shakira, Orishas, Jaguares, Celia Cruz, La Ley

Travel style:

I like to travel slow and soak in the sensory experience

Quote:

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness -- all foes to real understanding. -Mark Twain

Sports I do:

hiking, horseback riding, basketball

Favorite artist(s):

Rudolfo Morales

Favorite books:

Las Batallas en el Desierto, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Memorias del Porvenir, and anything by Carlos Fuentes, Wallace Stegner, Jane Austin, Viginia Wolf, Nabokov

Who I'd like to meet on my travels:

Shakira, Subcomandante Marcos

I want to make a difference by:

writing about people of other cultures as human beings and not generalizations, promoting sustainable tourism and community-based business development in the "third" world

Languages spoken, other than English:

Spanish, and I'm working on French

I felt the most immersed in a foreign culture when:

I'm the only white person at the party.

Why I travel:

I feel most alive when I'm exploring a new environment

Ideal place to watch the sunrise:

On the Havana Malecón

Ideal place to watch the sunset:

The Arizona desert after it rains

Before I die I'd like to:

Write a book, or two, or ten.

Let's collaborate:

I'm always looking for places to publish my work. In addition to straight travel pieces I write creative travel narratives. I'm also interested in translating little known Latin American writers into English.

My links:

My blog about every day life in Oaxaca: http://www.developingwords.org/mexico/anna
Zócalo Magazine, Oaxaca's English-language Literary Quarterly: http://www.zocalomag.com
http://www.artist-at-large.com
http://www.languagecorps.com
My friend Tara's blog about life in the Peace Corps in Honduras: http://elcolorverde.blogspot.com

Post New Comment

by First Light | 2008/01/02

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS FOR THE SANTHAL CHILDREN TO TEACH ENGLISH ...

by daniel | 2007/05/18

HI, HOW ARE U? I GOT YOUR PROFILE, I JUST WANT TO GIVE YOU INVITATION TO EXPERIENCE TRAVELLING IN MY COUNTRY

by xz | 2007/04/12

powerful writing!

by Davj515 | 2007/02/06

Just wanted to see how things were going in Oaxaca...i'm planning on spending some time in Puerto Escondido this summer working in medical clinics and just wanted to hear what you had to say about it. Thanks

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by abarto | 2007/02/06

Things are back to normal on the surface. The APPO has periodic marches and the police trot out the barbed wire barricades around the zocalo. I feel torn because I like to see the economy recovering but I don't like to see dissent violently repressed. You'll love Puerto Escondido. It's mostly escaped development, no high rise hotels on the beach like in Huatulco, attracts younger, more bohemian tourists.

Bunker Hill Days

By abarto | Location: United States | 06/20/08 | Pics: 4

Even in my brand new “Charlestown Townies” T-shirt, I couldn't help feeling like a poseur at last Sunday’s Bunker Hill Days parade. While the parade is officially intended to commemorate the revolutionary Battle of Bunker Hill, it is really a celebration of Charlestown’s working class Irish...

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They Also Weep

By abarto | Location: Mexico | 04/12/07 | Pics: 1

Shortly after our arrival in Santiago Nundichi, Don Aureliano asked us to visit his father who was ill. Don Aureliano is tall for a Mixtec man. His face, shaded by a white flat-brimmed sombrero, is gentle and serious. The community looks up to him, the same as his father, Don Jose. Both have been...

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Home to Betaza

By abarto | Location: Mexico | 01/30/07 | Pics: 2

Betaza means wind in Zapotec. The village was named for the wind that sweeps the sierra, hissing through the pines and coffee plants. I hear the wind in the voices of the people, in the gentle sibilated tones of their language. We went to San Sebastian de Betaza (the Christian prefix the mark of the...

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