An interesting walk to the centre today. The "maroon and white" taxis were staging a protest. (There are also Yellow and Blue & White taxis). They had parked their cars in the all the intersections on the northern side of town preventing any traffic from getting through. No police or any other form of authority to be seen anywhere. The streets were crowded with people who had abandoned buses and cars and were making their way to work on foot. Quite a different atmosphere from my usual walk to the centre. Another thing I have noticed is the number of school groups having what appear to be their graduation photos taken. Gowns, mortar boards and lots of giggling teenagers. Summer holidays start in a weeks time so this is the end of their school year. Not sure what happened on Tuesday but the kids were certainly hyped up. They seemed to be on a "red cordial high". An 8 year old challenged me to a game of chess. Probably been 35 years since I last played. It came down to the wire but I eventually called "Checkmate". Embarrassment avoided. Spoke with Director of the centre today and picked up a new job. All the kids supported by the centre, 600+, have to be photographed. 4 photos of each child. Put my hand up for the job. I start on Thursday. This is going to be interesting. On Wednesday Natalie and I decided to head to Villa de Etla where they have a Wednesday market. It's about 17km from Oaxaca and we were led to believe that they ran collectivo mini buses there and back. Got to the bus stop but couldn't see a bus anywhere. Spoke to a couple of taxi drivers and discovered there were no buses and the only way was by taxi. In we jumped and then stopped about a 100 m up the road to pick up an old lady. These taxis pick up and drop off passengers along the way . At one stage there 5 passengers plus the driver in a car with 5 seats. Very cosy. Got to Etla and the market was in full swing. Not huge but a wide variety of goods. Lots of fruit and vegetable and I was amazed at how fresh it all looked. Wandered up and down the stalls and thru a few steets of the town. Picked up a roast chicken and found a lovely little park, complete with rotunda, where we had lunch. And finished this off with some wonderful home made ice cream from one of the stall holders. Then called into the Etla Bar & Billiards Centre for a cold beer. I love the way Mexicans enjoy their beer icy cold, just like us Aussies. It was an interesting place and the local version of 8 Ball is quite different to ours. Taxi home, dinner at a local Japanese restaurant and called by the bottle shop where you get 2 Coronas for 20 pesos. ($1.50). Well Thursday at the centre and the photography project started. Needless to say the task of getting primary school students to write their name, age and favourite colour on a piece of paper and then hold that paper whilst they have 4 photos taken, each a different pose, is somewhat challenging. 20 down, 600 to go. I think this could be a long 2-3 weeks!