Oaxaca was awash in purple this week. The jacaranda trees were just losing their bloom, scattering petals on the sidewalk like lavender confetti, and the whole city was clothed in purple and white for Semana Santa, holy week before Easter.
Easter altar at the Monte Alban Hotel, downtown Oaxaca
Yanet and Manuel celebrated their first Valentines Day as a married couple last month, after seven years of dating. (Though here in Mexico, February 14 is the “Day of Friendship and Love,” softening the blow of what my friend Michelle calls “Singles Awareness Day” in el norte. But back to Yanet and Manuel, whose wedding must have surely been the highlight of the season in Teotitlán del Valle, just east of Oaxaca City.
Newlyweds Manuel and Yanet, Teotitlán del Valle
Sure, there may be fancier temazcal (sweatlodge) experiences here in Oaxaca. But would you get to lie naked in a sheet under a moonlit sky next to a curled-up dog, with accordion music wafting down from a nearby fiesta? Bet not.
A fancy temazcal, not ours
It’s already Revolution Day and I’m still recovering from Day of the Dead festivities November 1-3. For me this year, it encompassed three cemeteries, one featuring a full-blown party with mariachis and another a grave-decorating contest, a belated birthday celebration and guiding an all-day tour to the home a village family to learn about their traditions for the holiday.
The cemetery in San Antonino
At eight and with a personality as big as his voice, Mauricio is the next Mexico’s Got Talent. For now, he’s rocking a gig at his parents’ taco stand in Teotitlán del Valle, singing and dancing after he takes your order. It was all part of the magic at the town’s week-long holy festival that culminated in a jaw-dropping fireworks show on Sunday.
Mauricio el cantante
I’ll never look at TV news the same: while the camera doesn’t really lie, neither does it always paint a full picture of what’s happening around the world. Take Waco: it’s not all biker gang wars, though that certainly got big coverage. Or Oaxaca, whose election woes have been in the news.
The mood in the days leading up to June 7 mid-term elections was definitely uneasy: federal officials had said that the state of Oaxaca was their primary concern for election violence, primarily because the CNTE (Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación) teachers’ union Section 22 is actively militant here. One official was quoted as saying that even the narcotraficantes haven’t tried to stop elections before: this is a whole new level of protest threatened by the teachers.
Protesting teachers
The more time I spend in Mexico, the more dazed and confused I am re-entering life back in the U.S. Contract writing work, plus seeing family and friends, brings me back to Dallas several times a year. Part of me thrives on getting stuff done quickly and efficiently, shopping with incredible selection, and going into an office dressed in real clothes and shoes to meet with members of my work group. Another part of me is just plain freaked out now by north American life and culture.
To wit: television news, which these past few weeks has been fixated on deflated footballs, celebrity transgender transformation, the birth of an English princess and a violent biker gang war.
I shouldn’t even be surprised any more when the mundane turns to magic. It so often does in Mexico. So when an ordinary, unannounced weekend trip to Tehaucán to visit Tía Raquel y la familia turned into a double blowout fiesta, it was just validation that well, magic happens.
Tehuacán cathedral
I often forget to note Mexican fiesta days, so it came as a pleasant surprise when José said he’d take a whole day off for Good Friday. I’d been wanting to explore some of the Mixtec area – the land of the “people of the clouds” in its indigenous Nahuatl language — in the area northwest of Oaxaca City, which is a Zapotec region. We packed up José’s VW bug with camp stools, picnics for both breakfast and lunch, my English guidebook and tooled off by 7 a.m. on the cuota, or toll road, towards Nochixtlán (no-cheece-tlan’).
We three Susans always bought T-shirts and stuff with three women on them, but being corn goddesses trumps them all. Though honestly, these blocky-headed broads look as though the weavers were documenting a visitation from The Others, who came in peace bearing corn stalks. Wearing skirts, no less.
Embracing the Chaos 