Christmas Musings in Mexico

Christmas in Mexico is a time of many special events and activities. It's a time when families get together, specially on the Noche Buena, the 24th of December. A Mexican friend of mine told me last week what she and her husband would be doing: they would spend much of the day at her parents' home, where they would see other members of her side of the family. Then they would spend the evening and far into the night at the home of his parents, with lots of his siblings and their families there. "Christmas Day is for sleeping!" she added.

One of the things I love about living in Mexico is the pervasive spirituality. I have a habit of re-reading the four Gospels in December most years. This time, I am making slow progress because I recently acquired a New Testament in English and Spanish, both languages conveniently side by side. It's interesting to me how fresh the words and ideas are when I am plodding through them for the first time in Spanish.

This freshness reminds me that this is pretty radical reading. Serve the poor? Love my neighbor as myself? A tall order. I have been reflecting on my material blessings, as one of the wealthy people of this planet -- though not at all wealthy by US standards. When surrounded by the poverty in my own neighborhood here, I have been thinking about what I might do, to make another step toward loving my neighbors more.

I've come to the conclusion that my next step is to get to know more of the local people. I'm often kind of shy about this, but I've already started by walking more in the area. I'm particularly interested in getting to know the women who are closer to my age. As I went past one gray-haired lady I know by sight, I asked her a question. (About when the garbage truck comes by.) She answered graciously and I discovered I can follow her Spanish okay.

I have often noticed that while we of the North have more material blessings, the Mexicans have many gifts of the spirit that I can learn from -- a bouyancy and optimism, an ability to enjoy life, and a level of trust that does not come naturally to me. Maybe if I live here long enough, and reach out enough to my neighbors, some of this will rub off on me.

As a young woman, I spent a year at a Quaker center, Pendle Hill near Philadelphia. I was on a work scholarship and my duties included helping out in the home of Howard and Anna Brinton. Howard was a renowned writer on the spiritual life, and I remember taking much comfort from an idea of his. Inner peace, he said, comes when we are taking the next step, however small and whatever form it may take. What next step? One that is obvious to us if we make the space to reflect quietly on it. Last week, asking about the garbage truck; what next? I intend to pay closer attention to those quiet promptings of the spirit.

A Happy Contrast

Recently I wrote about walking by the boy mourning his dead dog on a quiet street near my house. Yesterday I walked that way again, for the first time since then. As I passed where the dog had been lying, I scanned the bushes and was glad to note that he had been removed.

As I turned my head back to the street, a very small boy rode past me very intently on his very small bike. Coming along behind him was a boy of about 7, with a young puppy on a sturdy leash. My eyes met this boy's and joy passed between us.

I stopped, and so did the boy. Immediately the puppy was chewing on me with his sharp new teeth. I asked how old the puppy was, the boy said he didn't know, and we continued on our ways. I was smiling for at least another block.

And so the circle turns.

We came to Lake Chapala a year ago today

Exactly a year ago, we pulled into San Antonio Tlayacapan in our little Toyota Dolphin motorhome. We stayed in a cute little two-rig backyard campground.

We thought we would be there just through the holidays, but as longtime readers of this blog may remember, Kelly broke a rib early in January and we were forced to stay while he recovered. That gave the region more time to work its magic on us, and so when we happened upon our dear little house and lovely big yard, we decided to live in this part of Mexico and see how we liked it. We bought this house where we are living on Valentine's Day.



It has not been the simplest of years, but we are much more at home in this area now. Stay tuned!

Shrines to the Virgin of Guadalupe

These four shrines to the Virgin of Guadalupe are all within a few blocks of each other, in the town we are living in. We've seen dozens of them in front of homes, each one carefully created and tended. Our Lady of Guadalupe is much loved here.

Today is the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe

Today is one of the most sacred days of the year in Mexico, a day in celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In our town of San Juan Cosala, near Lake Chapala, and in most of Mexico, the celebration is more like ten days.

There have been lots of fireworks for ten days, starting around 5 AM and going late into the night. There have been processions around the neighborhoods. More than once I have awakened long before daylight to hear singing as people walk along the highway a few blocks from our house.

Late this afternoon, there was a parade. These kids were on a float:












This girl was on another float, with a painted backdrop:



This fellow is at the end of the parade, lighting a firecracker. It's a little hard to see, but in the background, three different Mexicans have cameras or camcorders.

And here's a street with paper cut-outs decorating it.

On the right you can see something just beyond the couple of steps. That's a small homemade shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe. My next post will be photos of several of these.

A Sad Conversation

The other day, I stepped out my front gate and noticed a boy about 8 years old going by on a little bike. He was the only kid on the street and I looked a little sharply at him, as kids had been ringing our bell from the street off and on during the last hour.

I locked my gate and started walking down the road. Some distance away, the child had gotten off his bike and was standing in the dry weeds on the side of the road, next to something. He looked at loose ends.

As I got closer, I saw that it was a large dog he was next to. The smell told me the dog had been dead a while, as did the bloated form. "Es un perro... muerto," I said. (It's a dog, dead.)

The boy glanced at me and said "mio." (Mine.)

He was somber but dry eyed. "Que lastima," I said. (What a pity.)

I asked if it had been hit by a car and he answered something I couldn't completely follow, but it seemed he was saying yes and adding details. Children's Spanish can be difficult to understand.

At a loss for words, I just said again "Que lastima" and continued on my way.

Que lastima. I was close to tears as I walked on.

Five Gringas in the Berry Fields

Yesterday in the early afternoon my friend Elaine from Colorado took me and three other women friends west along Lake Chapala, through the town of Jocotepec and beyond. It was fun meeting the other women, whom I hadn't met before. We all live in this region, and we swapped tales of how we got here. The others come from Pennsylvania and Oregon and are also happy to be living in Mexico.

After Jocotepec, you come to a T and we turned left, which took us on the road that goes around the south side of the lake. Within a kilometer or two we started seeing large white open-sided greenhouses. Elaine had been out here for berries before and she explained the procedure: just look for a place where you see people working around a table or truck, and drive in there.

We first went to a place where Elaine had been before. The friendly Mexican woman said she was sorry but they didn't have any berries for sale right now. The ones for sale are the culls from the ones that have just been picked and are being packed in small plastic boxes, then placed in larger cardboard boxes that say Driscoll on them. The worker kept filling boxes as she talked.

These berries are mainly destined for the United States and maybe Canada, though a few do end up on the shelves of Superlake, a grocery store that caters to gringos in San Antonio Tlayacapan, next to Ajijic. I get to Superlake for tamari, brown rice, cottage cheese, and other such goodies quite often.

A young Mexican man ran over to another field to see if they had some culls left. They didn't but another guy told us to follow him in his pickup and he would lead us to another place that had at least ten kilograms of moras or frambesas, that is, raspberries. So we followed along various dirt roads and succeeded in filling the containers and ziplock bags we had brought with as many raspberries as we wanted. At 20 pesos a kilo, or about 82 cents US a pound, we wanted a lot! It was often hard to see why they were culls, unless it was that they were too ripe for shipment, which made them just perfect for us.

Next, fresas or strawberries. We went back to the T coming out of Jocotepec and continued straight. (In other words, if you are coming from Joco, turn right at the T.) At a little town that began with Z (Zapotitan?), we turned right pretty much opposite the Pemex on the highway, and went into town. We turned left just after a school and went out into the country. By now it was about 2 pm and the pickers were eating lunch. The first couple of strawberry places we went to said we were too late for today, come back tomorrow. But we found all the strawberries we could carry at another place. To get to it, coming along that dirt road after the left turn past the school, just keep your eyes open on the left side of the road maybe a kilometer or two from town. The friendly young woman, who exuded competence, said they work one day where we found them and the next day a bit further beyond, back and forth.

Here she just eyeballed our full containers and ended up charging us each 20 pesos, for what was also more or less a kilo. I noticed some runners coming off the plants all around us. With visions of organic home grown strawberries in my yard, I asked if I could take any starts. A man said no, it was prohibited. Fair enough, but strawberry plants are now on the shopping list in my kitchen! Neither berry was organically grown here. It appeared that we were going to a variety of different ranchos, but whether they are privately owned or owned by Driscoll, I didn't find out.

I asked about the season for berries. Both begin in October, strawberries end in April, and raspberries about a month later. We were told that they start picking at 7 AM, and we figured that a good time to go and be able to get both berries would be around 11 AA or so.

But it will be a while till I consider another trip out there. I've rinsed and disinfected all my loot, Kelly has already made two batches of jam in our bread machine, and our freezer is full of plastic bags with bright red contents. Yum.

Michoacan embroidery

The first table at the Maestros del Arte fair in Ajijic where I knew I would have to come back was that of the Bordados Santa Cruz, from the state of Michoacan, near Lake Patzcuaro. Their whimsical designs captivated me. So eventually I came back and after mulling over a variety of delightful items, I bought a tshirt.

But what a tshirt! Here are some close-ups from the embroidery on it, representing village life:





And here is the whole design:




I think I'll go back to that booth next year. The price of this tshirt was 200 pesos, just over $18.00 US.

Peace on the Carretera

The other day, we had lunch with friends at Mom's restaurant, which is on the carretera, that is the only road that goes all along the north side of Lake Chapala. It's a busy two-lane highway (and getting busier all the time, now that snowbirds are arriving). Mom's is in Riberas del Pilar, between the towns of Chapala and San Antonio Tlayacapan. There are a lot of businesses along the carretera in Riberas.

I was done while the others were still eating and talking, and I excused myself to walk a few blocks to the place I could renew our Mexican cellphone. I was able to walk somewhat off the highway, along a dusty wide area.

As I was walking along, I felt an extraordinary sense of peace. It almost felt like a cloud enveloping me. I savored it, and then I was at the cellphone place and normality returned.

Later, as we drove home, I told Kelly about my experience.

"That's a lot like the experience I had on the carretera last spring," he said. "Remember?"

Once he mentioned it, I did. He had been driving through Riberas alone, when he had had a feeling of being in the right place at the right time.

Makes me wonder, what's the magic of that ordinary stretch of highway?