An Afternoon Making Mole with My Jña Bida (Grandmother): A Zapotec Approach to Facilitation

Abstract

This chapter shares an afternoon spent cooking with a traditional Binnizá (Zapotec) dish known as Mole with my jña bida (grandmother). And what on the surface may seem like an everyday experience is actually an experiential learning encounter rich in consejos and enseñanzas (life lessons and teachings) that would forever influence my pedagogical approach. Some of the teachings I discuss in this chapter include everyday forms of practical decolonization (Milad Dokhanchi, .میلاد دخانچی Taiaiake Alfred: Practical Decolonialization [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq87xqSMrDw, April 9, 2012), while learning from my jña bida to look at failure, not as lack of success, but as a critical, if not vital step in learning and teaching process. Other topics covered will be actionism versus activism, accountability to community, how to be conscious of the impact of emotions in facilitation, as well as more Zapotec-specific ideas such as guendalisa (community work). Through my experience with my grandmother and other Elders I have learned how to be aware of different forms of learning and knowledge, such as embodied knowledge, experiential knowledges making me more cognizant of creating facilitation approaches that speak to an array of different learning strengths and styles. Moreover, these lived experiences have taught me how to both share and ground my facilitation praxis in Indigenous Zapotec epistemology in a way that resonates to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants.

Making our Binnizá food is an anchor to our culture, it reminds you of your people, your pueblo, memories of who you ate it with, it is about learning your responsibility of being in your pueblo while continuing to pass on our ancestors’ teachings to the next generation.

—Grandmother Lilia Cartas Guzman