Valle del Maiz Festival and Parade

I guess you could say this fits right in
With the sounds theme.
This weekend has been the festival
Of the Valle del Maiz,
An annual festival that occurs
On the hillside that heads out to Queretaro.  
 

It coincides with the festival Santa Cruz
Which was  put off for a month,
because of the swine flu closures.
Never fear though, it began in earnest
At 5am Friday morning
With a full hour worth of rockets
I'm not kidding, a full hour,
One after the other, over and over
Booming above the town.
 

The same happened on Saturday morning
But it began more like around 6am,
Followed by a day of festivities in the community,
Which we did not go to.
It rained in the late afternoon,
But that didn't seem to stop anything
Including a full fireworks display
In the Jardin last night,
Followed by more rockets this morning.
 

On Sunday afternoon
The tradition is to parade down the hill
Through the streets of town
Every group in costume,
The mojigangas (which we missed)
The traditional dancers,
The Indian dancers,
The Aztec dancers,
Followed by none other than
Five neighborhood groups of locos,
With earsplitting bouncy music
Booming from big loudspeakers
That sit on the back of pickup trucks
You can't help but dance along in place
As they gear up for next month's locos parade. 
 
Later on there will be games,
The greased pole,
The greased pig,
A comparsa - theatre of the absurd
So to speak, and lots of food,
More dancing
And more fireworks. 

Here's a little movie
Of the various groups in today's parade:

More Sounds

Following up on the sounds of Mexico #1
Today started out very quietly
At 8:15 with our local milk seller
Who carried two tin milk cans
On either side of his donkey
Ladling it  into your own container
I'm sure it's not pasteurized.
As he leaves to go off to the next street
He gives the donkey a tap on the rear
Runs and jumps up behind the wooden saddle
And rides down the road.

After that, we got the good metal collector truck
The one you can actually understand what they are saying.
Then the gas truck - just a little song today
All this before 9:30.
At 3:30 a white truck, carrying a long ladder,
A loud speaker and a few guys drove by
Then waited at the end of the street
Playing upbeat music, then a political announcement
Followed by more music as they drove away.
Last, the hardest to catch
The garbage truck
9am Monday Morning
Here's the movie:

More Sounds and Things

Every time I get a little theme going (...sounds)
Something else comes up that doesn't quite fit
But has it's own merits.
This morning, as we were walking out the door,
We were greeted by two horses.
Now we don't live in centro,
But we also don't live in the campo,
So a horse is an unusual event here.

Coming up the street behind them
Is their owner, in jeans, jacket, hat
And cowboy boots, carrying a rope,
Talking to the horses as he came along.
We automatically start moving back and forth,
Across the street, arms waving,
To keep them in place.
Of course I just happened to be carrying my camera.
Already set on the movie setting.
I especially like the sounds he makes
While trying to get the horse to behave.
 

Afterwards, we discovered
They left us a little present,
 
Which Micho, our neighbor's cat
Immediately explored,
To see if it was worth eating. 

Sounds Of Our Neighborhood

I'm always struck
By the variety of sounds
That permeate the days and nights here.
It starts in the early morning, before eight,
With the recorded gas truck song,
The truck goes so fast down the street
You have to run as fast as you can through the house
Then open the door and wolf whistle to get their attention.
Then the garbage men come, clanging metal
Then the water guys, banging on doors, yelling
'Agua Santorini! Agua Santorini!'
Then the milk truck at 11 am sharp
Blaring it's horn as it goes down the street,
Not just a little toot either.

Don't forget
All the loudspeakers on cars
Starting with tamale and atole sellers,
The metal collectors whose recording
Is so bad you'd never under stand it.
Then there are political announcements,
Fruit and vegetable sellers in trucks with music,
Women on motorcycles selling yogult
A man who sells milk off a donkey
The man who yodels 'elooooote, cacajuate'
The party music on the weekends,
Locos, mariachis, trios singing.
Oh yes, the fireworks and rockets
Church bells, and of course, the barking dogs.
It's alive here and you know it.

We'll see what we can collect
To add to the video below of every day sounds
Starting with our daily ice cream truck
Followed by the luscious sound
Of the surprise downpour that we had yesterday,
The dogs barking tonight, rockets, cats meowing
And the church bells this morning.
I'll update the video as my collection grows.


Besides all this every day noise
There is a lot of public works activity
Around our streets.
My last visit to the states,
I was struck by how completed,
How finished everything is.
Nothing left to do but protect it.
I love living in a neighborhood
That is a little rough around the edges
With people doing things poco a poco
As they say here - not on borrowed money
But on what they earn and save up
To work on it slowly, when they can.

In the last few weeks
We have two brand new streets.
One behind us and one below.
The sidewalks and cobblestones
Are done on one, and the other
To follow in the coming weeks.

Calle Soledad

Calle San Martin - sidewalks going in this week, then the cobblestones. The kids are having a good old time crawling in all the holes and digging in the dirt piles.

Here's another thing I love looking at

Laundry hanging on lines everywhere
Which includes hanging it on cactus plants
In the campo.

Sometimes it looks like papel picado flying in the wind.

In the foreground, a type of red hot poker tree that blooms this time of year.

Our nutcracker squirrel who now lives on the terrazza. In the background, Eutimio (of the barking dog story) has just about completed his new house and painted it so typically Mexican with a bright yellow dome with bright blue trim. It looks great against all the unfinished brick walls here.

Birthday Party and Mananitas at Midnight

Today was a happy day on our street.
Kevin,
Petra's grandson,
Whose family lives with her,
Turned two years old today.



By 6:30pm there were about 75 people at the house
This is only the first round of people though.
Besides having a huge family anyway,
Every kid in the neighborhood
Who is under 17 years old was there
The little ones were running around crazy
Eating hot dogs with pickled chilis,
White bean soup and apple soda.

Elvia, whose husband died two weeks ago
Was there with her five children
Looking worn out, but calm and happy
Hugging her children a lot


There were two pinatas,
Which two year olds
Haven't quite figured out how to hit yet.
But no matter, lots of bigger children
Are ready and waiting to grab the stick
And start swinging
Before everyone is out of the way.

The house is decorated with balloons and streamers
Which look great against the pink walls.
Maricela painted them last July,
Before her health turned for the worst.
Everyone remembers this and talks about it today.



Besides Kevin,
There are about twenty other kids
Under the age of four
Whom all the young girls
Love to grab and hug.
(Kevin and his cousin Frida)


The birthday cake is for 100 people
The cutting of it includes a ritual
Of making Kevin put his face in it,
Which maked everyone laugh.
This of course, is in the aftermath
Of not sharing germs because of the flu.
Nobody cares.
There are cups of colorful gelatin chunks
In milky pink and yellow jello.
These look fantastic,
But I can't bring myself to eat it.



All of the kids want their pictures taken
They are just happy
To see the picture immediately
In the camera preview
And keep asking for more.

We have been watching Ariel,
On the left,
Grow up for five years now,
He's nine and has finally quit making monster faces
For every picture.
The boy next to him, is the grandson,
The spitting image of our neighbor Eutimio,
Of the barking dog stories,
Whose lecture to us on patience
Has actually worked.



Kevin's mom Barbara handed out Tigger masks
Which brought on another round of photos.
Even  the pre-teen girls,
Who would not let me photograph them earlier,
Said okay when they had the masks on.



These pink walls are great backdrops
For photographs
Though I can't quite figure out
How with the same settings,
Same light,
Not a minute apart
The walls can vary so much in color
From one picture to another.



The birds were singing  away
In their rustic painted cages
Decorated with balloons and streamers.



Petra, who has been incredibly sad
About all the deaths in her family
This last month,
Was having a pretty darn good time
Wearing her mask
Teasing the kids
Ordering people to do things,
While insisting
That she won't make tamales to sell
on mother's day.



Speaking of mother's day,
I left the party about 8:30pm
Came home and crawled in bed
Only to be woken up at midnight
By Petra's sons, daughters, grandchildren
With a group of guitarists
Banging on my door,
Clapping and chanting 'Suzan!' 'Suzan!' 'Suzan!'
Until I opened my upstairs window on the street
To them singing las mananitas
Followed by several other songs,
To all the mothers on the street.
As you'll hear, the kids
Are having as much fun
As the adults.

Here are four videos I took,
In the dark, but the songs are great





I hung over the balcony
Watching them bang every door on the street
That had mothers  inside
To sing to them also.

Here's the photo slideshow of Kevin's party

Kevin's Birthday Party

More Old Wives Tales, or La Brujeria

Following up on the previous post on wives tales,
Last night at 9:30, my neighbor Aron
Rings my bell and invites me over
For a 'whiskey' --
This usually means some of his boys
Are visiting, or some special event.
I am in my bare feet and tell him 'momentito
Necesito mis zapatos to which he says
'Shoes aren't important, just come over.'

So I go get my shoes and some ice
Some seven up because I don't like whiskey
And head over.  Marta, his wife is there,
Along their daughter Anel & her husband Moises
Plus their two children & Ariel, their son.
Across the table is Anai, their other daughter
And the NEW boyfriend I have heard about.
Apparently Aron had asked me over
So that Julio (the boyfriend)
Could ask Aron & Marta
For Anai's hand in marriage
In front of witnesses
And to get my permission as well
Since we are also family,
Which he stressed over and over again
To let Julio know that he had more to answer to
Than just Aron and Marta.
He was nervous, poor guy,
Aron was putting him on the spot
And having fun doing it.

Meantime, Anel & Moises,
Who already have two children,
Decide they will get married this year also.
There is discussion about doing it
On Marta's birthday the end of July
Or Aron's the 1st of October
And they decide on July
Then ask if I will be a Madrina at the wedding.
I tell Moises he must ask my permission
Before I'll tell him if I will be a Madrina.
This makes everyone laugh,
Then he makes a very elegant little speech
Asking my permission for the hand of Anel
The sanctification of their lives together, etc.

All the while, I have heard stories
About being a Madrina,
Which are more related to children,
Being a god mother, responsible for things like
Education
Medical care
Helping or taking the children
If a parent dies,
Paying for weddings
And so forth.
So I'm a little nervous about saying yes
And ask specifically what this means.
No one can tell me exactly.
Except that it is something about
Being with the bride
In the wedding,
Nothing else.
Which I am not so sure of
But we'll find out.

While this is going on,
And getting back to the old wives tales,
Marta brings out a plate of food
On top of which is one of those limes
Which is stuck with a bunch of cloves.
When I ask if it works,
She says 'si, si, muy bien'
I ask her what this type of thing is called
These home remedies, to which
Anai and Anel both say 'brujeria'
Or witchcraft.
It's a mystery how it works, but it does.
Except I'm not so sure
Because immediately afterward
There is one pesty fly
That won't leave the plate alone
And becomes the focus
Of a round of flyswatting by Ariel
Who is nine, and does it Karate style
Screaming 'brujeria, brujeria!'
Nothing mysterious about it
That a good flyswatter can't handle.
Marta says the plastic bags full of water
Hung in doorways, do not work
Just a waste of a good plastic bag
And a glass of water.

Old Wives Tales, Mexican Style

There are various methods
That the locals use for keeping flies at bay.
My favorite is the clear plastic bags
Which are filled with water
Then hung in open doorways.
I'll have to get a photo.
There's also heavy plastic
That is cut most of the way up in strips
Hung from the doorway.
But this one is new to me -
A special of Dona Raquel's comida stand

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Fly remedy by Dona Raquel"][/caption]

Limes, filled with whole cloves
I asked how you eat them
She said 'no, no, no,
It's for the flies.
We saw one fly while we were there,
Not bad, but we weren't there
At the hottest time of the day.
We'll have to keep you posted on this one.

The Final Novena

Tonight, the nine novenas ended.
The rosary was said, as it normally is
With songs to the Virgin Mary
Between the Our fathers and Hail Marys.
I came in a few minutes after it started
Standing room only, but Victoria,
Waves me over to the only seat left,
In front of the cross which lies on the floor,
And is to be lifted tonight.
Elvia, her aunt Lucinda, Sofia and her baby Chucho
Are on our side. Children are moving around.
Jesus' mother and father,
Sisters and brothers sit across from us.

I have learned a couple of things this week.
The children carrying roses to the altar
Between each set of prayers
Only happens in the month of May,
Which is the month of the Virgin Mary.
The children line up in front of the altar
They are given a flower
To hold up high over their head.
Upon a certain song, they carry the rose
To the altar, cross themselves, return to the line.
They wait through the next Our Father
The next ten Hail Mary's
Another song,
Then perform this over again.
The younger children usually start it
The younger teenagers who are a little shy,
Join in around the third misterio.
By the end, they are quietly nudging each other.
The older ones are quietly scolding the younger
Who are antsy and wiggling around.
One little girl, about four years old
Is wearing tiny pink high heels
With big lace ruffled socks
Which makes Elvia laugh out loud.

After the rosary
The elevation of the cross ceremony begins.
Elvia and her five children,
Jesus' five brothers and three sisters,
His mother and father,
Gather around the cal/lime cross (see this post for photo)
Which sits on the concrete patio floor.
The cross is decorated tonight.
Roses, mums and gladiola blooms rest on top of the cross.
There is a large circle of minature mums around it,
Mixed with red, cream and blush roses,
Ending with a string of roses at the bottom.
There is a small cross of miniature mums below that,
Along with five candles in the shape of a cross.

As specific songs are sung,
Elvia first kneels next to the cross,
Holding a tiny sheet metal dust pan
A two inch paint brush, and waits for Victoria
To take a red gladiola stem
And divide the cross into sections.
The first is for Elvia,
She sweeps it into the dust pan
Places that into a Christmas cookie tin
While Ana Karin, her daughter,
Weeps silently next to me.
She is looking upwards to the skylight
With a look not too dissimilar
Of the Virgin Dolorosa.

Next, Jesus' father kneels, crosses himself
Gently sweeps the cross and flowers
Places them in the tin.
Jesus' mother, who is not well
Sits in a chair, her hand covering her face,
She looks as though she could just give up
At any moment.
Beto's turn is next,
He crosses himself, says a prayer,
Kisses his hand
Touches the ashes with the kiss.
The younger girls take their turns,
They are not so emotional
And Lupita, who is four, is grinning away
As she puts flowers in with the ashes.
Jesus' brothers and sisters go next,
Followed by his mother,
Who is supported by her sons,
To place the tiny cross of flowers,
Which is left for last, in the tin.
All the while the singing continues,
There is quiet weeping throughout the room.
Although I have stopped crying,
It is so hot that I am sopping wet,
As are the women next to me and across.
I can't tell where the tears end
And the heat begins,
Whether I am still crying
Or sweating tears from my whole body.

A la barella (sp?) is sung,
My favorite of all the songs.
Victoria and Beto singing loudly
Arms in the air, palms up,
As everyone takes their seat,
Elvia places the candles,
The tin that holds the cross and flowers
On the altar.
It will be taken to the church tomorrow night
For the final mass and blessing
Before going to the panteon,
To be spread on his grave.

Finally, one last song
Sube el cielo - Climb to the sky
As everyone is shepherded to the roof top
Singing sube el cielo
Which is meant to also help
The soul of Jesus, whose nickname is Kiro,
Rise to the heavens.
On the roof top,
Which represents heaven tonight,
The tables are set for 200 people
We are served pozole,
Each cup with a single arbol chile in it
Coca cola,
A meat dish with liver, and something
That looks like stomach lining,
Served with red Mexican rice,
Wrapped in pink and purple sweet tortillas.
I was told the name of the dish,
Which was surprisingly delicious,
Then promptly forgot  what it  is called.
The flavors reminded me of a kidney pie
That my mother made,
When I was a little girl.

Afterwards, people sit for a long time
Talking or staring into space
Tired and sad
Except for Kiro's father
Who stands the entire time
Smiling and greeting everyone
Looking around the rooftop
Appearing to be very calm and satisfied
That he had done everything he could
For his son's departure.

Influenza Day 8 and Fifth Novena

Regarding the 'S' word...
We walked into town about 5:30
The Jardin is full today,
The streets are still rather quiet.
No one but the waiters
are wearing the masks (tapabocas)
Nor do you see many
Hanging it around people's necks.
 

Looking at the photos,
I would say everyone is pretty relaxed
Just thoroughly enjoying
A peaceful, quiet afternoon
In the center of town,
Not too worried today
About the flu or anything else.
 

Tonight's novena is the fifth
About 100 flowers are brought in
Roses
Carnations
Gladiolas
For each of the five misterios
There is a line up of children,
About twenty of them,
Beto and his younger sister
Hand a single long stemmed flower
To each child, who holds it high
Over their heads, singing
As they walk single file
And place the flower on the altar.



Below,
Two of Jesus' daughters
Carry roses.



Beto and Victoria
Lead the songs
While Chucho, a little 7 year old
Who has been to every novena,
Whose mother must carry him
All the times, holds his rose
To place on the altar
 

Last but not least,  for a little fun,
There is a wonderfully tacky pink and silver fountain
'Fuente del Palmar'
Near the Artisan market.
I especially like the choice of colors,
The painted fake rocks,
Which you can really see in the bottom photo.
They  are surreal up close.
 

Influenza, Day 7, 6pm, Empty Streets

Tonight I went out at 6pm
To go to Novena number four,
The rosary for Elvia's husband, Jesus. (hay-sus)
Leaving our house in Santa Julia
I headed down Ignacio Allende
To Avenida Guadalupe,
Along the stinky creek,
Those of you who live here
Know which creek I'm talking about
Then up Canal, around the Jardin
Across and down Relox
Past Insurgente to the Novena.

Aside from the boys playing soccer
In the empty dusty lot on the corner
The streets were virtually empty of traffic.
Normally, you can walk faster
Than you can drive this time of day.
It's pretty amazing to see the town
At a complete standstill.
Here's a video of the streets
At rush hour, 6pm,
When cars are usually
Bumper to bumper
On every single one of these streets.


I think that half of San Miguel
Was here at the Novena.
In a long narrow hallway,
Out the door and onto the street
The people stood,
With three times as many people
Going the other direction behind me
On the terraza above, even more.

Altogether, there are about 150 people
For the rosary,
For day number four
The day the little children
Place flor de Maria
Better known in English as Statice
On the Altar.
Below, my neighbor Petra
Places flowers on the altar
The white cross,
Made from cal/lime powder
On the floor
With Candles

When Bellas Artes Opens Again....

There is a really nice little show
Of Anjelina Perez Ibarguen's work
Called 'Contratiempos'
Or 'Against Time,'
At Bellas Artes.

It's a multi-media
Mixed material
Sculptural installation
Which spans several rooms.

It's whimisical and fun
It pokes fun


Makes a few statements
Here and there.

Unfortunately,
With everything closed this week
You can't see it now,
But it's worth a look at 
When the museum reopens.