Jan & Steve's México Report - #7

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Jan & Steve's México Report #7 November 25

EIGHTY-FIVE WEEKS
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

As I write this, the symphonic cacophony of traffic sounds, drift through my open office window. It's 10 p.m. and traffic is at a standstill in the street below. The traffic cops have retired to their squad car, but continue to direct traffic by repeating "adelante, adelante, adelante, adelante" over their loudspeaker (literally, "move on, move on"). This will continue for another hour or so, with the occasional interruption by the passing tamale vendor on bicycle yelling "tamales" over and over again, while blowing his steam whistle. Just another night in Mexico City.

All of this has become quite normal. For example, our microwave oven, another perfectly normal thing, died. The repairmen in Mexico pick up and deliver, at no extra charge! But, when returning our microwave, they kept explaining to me how "it doesn't work...but it's now somehow better than it was." Obviously, I was loosing something in the translation, so I called a friend and asked her to translate. She confirmed that the microwave is BETTER than it was before. I didn't know that microwave ovens, in general, needed improvement, so I asked her to clarify. After passing the phone back and forth, I learned that they couldn't get a replacement magnetron tube (the thing that generates the microwave energy) so they forced a magnetron from a big commercial microwave into our unit! And, now the bad part? They couldn't get the power settings to work with this beast of a magnetron, so we only have high power...which is now a lot higher than it used to be!

Like I said, it's all becoming quite normal, which is one of the many reasons why it has been fantastic having houseguests these past couple of weeks! Visitors remind you of what you used to consider normal. Things like traffic congestion spanning the majority of the day, or driving like an idiot in that congestion…

My brother Bill and his wife Sharon spent a week with us and were impressed that in a year and a half of driving in Mexico, I have only had one accident. People claim that Mexico has a lower incidence of traffic accidents that most European countries, but I believe that is because people leave the scene of the accident, like for example, the taxi driver who hit me.

We took Bill and Sharon to the Las Brisas resort in Acapulco, where we had a private swimming pool just for our two rooms! Las Brisas was built in 1957 and well, it's pink. Very Pink. I was calling it the Barbie Hotel. Everything is pink and white, from the rooms to the poolside umbrellas, to the Jeep that takes you to your room--everything. And, in the spirit of privacy, all room service is delivered to a "magic door" built into an exterior wall of your room. Each morning, your side of the magic door opens to reveal a nice complimentary breakfast.

Bill and Sharon arrived the day after my dear friend Mike left. He came down to visit, specifically for the Day of the Dead celebrations. This holiday pre-dates the Spanish conquest and until recently was more popular here than Christmas. We drove down to the small Oaxacan village of Teotitlan del Valle and stayed in the guest cottage our rug-friend Fidel owns...it's just a couple of blocks from the town cemetery, how fortunate!

Yes, where else to celebrate Day of the Dead but in a cemetery? The celebration starts on November 1, when the souls of loved ones arrive as fireworks explode to welcome them. The souls stay in each family's home for 24 hours, then at the sound of fireworks, each family walks their souls back to the cemetery and says "goodbye" to them for another year.

When Mike and I arrived at the cemetery, the beer and mescal vendor had already taken her prime position by the cemetery gates, and two mariachi bands were standing against the cemetery wall, waiting for band members to arrive and tourists outnumbered locals by a ratio of about five-to-one. I was going to write the evening off as a loss, when I saw that as it became dark, the tourists left. By dusk, there were only Mike and I, and a couple of other foreigners.

I struck up a conversation with a man about my age, who grew up in Teotitlan, and now lives in California. He introduced me to his mother. This tiny Zapotec woman was drinking mescal as if it was going out of style. During our short conversation, she downed five shot glasses of the stuff and offered some to me. I wasn't going to drink but the son asked me to toast his father. Yes, he and his mother were sitting on his father's grave. Suddenly, it all made sense. The spirits of your loved ones fill your house for a day. Family and friends visit, sharing stories about those who have passed on. Everyone is happy. Then, you have to part with them all over again, the following night. I was honored to be drinking with them.

Before Mike's whirlwind tour of Oaxaca, I spent a week in the gulf coast state of Veracruz, building houses with Habitat for Humanity. This is the BIG annual project that former President Jimmy Carter actually works on. The project was so big, that 5,000 volunteers built 150 homes, in a week!

The first morning on the job site was inspiring. They set up a circus tent, just to feed us breakfast. The PA system played a mixture of Spanish and English tunes. We got to work right away and soon I found myself running back and forth coordinating our efforts with the other houses connected to ours. I was even able to use my pigeon-Spanish to help get things done! It was in the upper 80's or low 90's every day, but we were fortunate to have a few wispy clouds to block the sun each afternoon.

Everything went well, until we started assembling the roofs. Everything is mounted to 2" rectangular metal tubing/beams, which spanned from wall to wall, and rested on top of the aerated cement block walls. We screwed 1/4" medium density fiberboard to the beams. The rest of the roof is then bolted to the beams. Fiberboard is essentially, compressed, recycled cardboard. We snapped chalk lines and warned people not to walk anywhere off the lines...still, five people fell through the roofs in our development. Luckily, none of the accidents happened on our three houses!

Before spending a week in Veracruz, Jan & I were in Oaxaca City a few days for International's annual conference. Like last year, I was the only man attending the activities designed to keep the wives happy while the conference was going on. However, unlike last year where they all went for manicures and pedicures, then did shoe shopping, this year we all toured ancient ruins and cathedrals. Much more my style...although my nails look terrible. ;-)

In July, we spent a few weekends exploring an area of the country with a unique history. The Mexican state of Hidalgo is very mountainous with large, pine forests. British citizens were brought in to work the mines, nearly 200 years ago and their influence is still felt in the former mining towns. Some of the buildings retain Cornish details, and well, the food is different. Imagine creating British dishes, with a lot of Mexican influence.

Jan & I were in a crafts market a while back, shopping for Christmas gifts, when I noticed that all of the blankets I liked had stickers on them saying "Hecho en Tlaxcala" (made in Tlaxcala). Since we tend to buy many of these blankets, I thought it would be worth it to find this Tlaxcala place and do our shopping there. Google displayed the search results in seconds, and soon I learned that Tlaxcala is Mexico's smallest state, Tlaxcala is also the name of the state capital (like all Mexican states) and it's only an hour or two away.

We didn't find any great deals on blankets in Tlaxcala, but we did find a quaint city and information about the upcoming "Noche Sin Dormer" the night when no one sleeps. The small village of Huamantla sprinkles their streets with carpets of colored sawdust. Using multiple layers of different colors, thanks to huge stencils. It takes literally all night for them to create these intricate colorful patterns down nearly every street in town. Then, after midnight mass ends at 1:30 in the morning, the sacred statue from the town is taken out of the church and led down nearly every street in town...destroying the carpets as they pass.

While not sleeping in Huamantla, we learned of a wild festival the following weekend. The running of the bulls!

Just to outdo Pamplona, Spain, the residents of Huamantla place 10 to 25 fighting bulls in a corral in the center of town. Moreover, unlike safe, sensible, Pamplona, they set off fireworks to scare the bulls out of the town center, allowing them to run down any street the bulls choose! The perimeter of the town is cordoned off with a patchwork of wood and metal fences, but anything goes in the city center. The residents of most streets create fences out of crate lumber and wire to keep the bulls and the drunken men, aka "bullfighters," in the street and not up against their houses.

Every balcony and roof is packed shoulder to shoulder with people cheering for the bulls. Many streets are closed off by grandstand seating built right on the street. This helps to keep the bulls within the center of town. We actually couldn't get in to see the festivities until our friend Lobel noticed a gap in a wood and sheet metal barrier. We all filed through, and sure enough, there we were, right in the street with our very own bull! As city folks, we don't often have the opportunity to be this close to a 1,000 pound bull. I reached for my camera as Jan and our friends climbed over to the sane side of the fence. It wasn't like I was alone with the bull. There were many drunkards taunting the animal, so I felt somewhat comfortable that I wouldn't be a prime target.

One of the "bullfighters" staggered up to the rear of the animal, reached down and grabbed its tail. Bulls, like most animals with tails, do not like this. As the bull turned to see what the hell was happening, the bullfighter assumed the pose most of us know from waterskiing, he braced his legs and held on! He nearly made one full revolution before he lost his hold on the tail. But, now he found himself face to face with a very unhappy bull.

We all thought the bull would kill him, right on the spot. The man was so drunk he didn't move, so the bull slowly walked up to him and lightly bumped the bullfighter with his head. The man simply collapsed on the ground, (I think a lot of tequila had something to do with it) and lay there. Then, the bull scooped down with his horns like a forklift and tossed the man about four feet into the air! His head was the first to hit with a hollow coconut sound. The entire crowd chased the bull away, down the street.

A few fellow bullfighters, stood the man up, put his cowboy hat on him, and he staggered off somewhere to sleep it off!

Thanks for reading

Jan & Steve