At home?

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After being here for a little less than two weeks things are finally starting to fall into place. What is taken for granted in the U.S. cannot be in Mexico. Sometimes this is downright charming and in other cases one is left wondering what to think.

Perros de la calle
or Dogs of the street

Mario had told Tessa and I stories about (or more correctly stated, cautioned us about) the dogs in small towns. In Mexico Cuidad other than pigeons, the only animals I noticed were the bees swarming around fruit vendors and a lone cat lurking under a VW on a rainy evening. On the way to Oaxaca we saw a few mangy looking perros running about, but none were seen in the town.

Day trip to Mixtla ruins. Upon entering the countryside there were plenty of goats, sheep, and cows. Outside the ruins of Mixtla there is an area to buy food and it is here that Tessa and I got the first glimpse of the perros de la calle that Mario had described to us. One was a small dusty mutt and the other resembled a pit bull with an oversized head that had gotten into a tiff with a grizzly bear, it was riddled with scars. These dogs were lazily lounging about under vans and occasionally getting up to run among the plastic tables looking for scraps of whatever a tourist might have dropped. Before leaving Mixtla, a Finnish man we had eaten with pointed out the pitbull creature lying in the road as an angry taxi driver honked and screamed at it to go "¡Va. Chigaron perro!"

San Cristobal de las Casas makes Oaxaca look like a huge (and rich) city. Dogs are running around all over the streets. In the U.S. we have stray cats; in Mexico the equivalent must be stray dogs. This is not a bad conjecture based on the following observations and vingette.

1 There have been several occasions when I have noted seeing a medium sized pile of dog food sitting on the sidewalk, as if it was left out to feed these stray perros.
2 The family that owns the Hostel we are staying in has two very healthy black labs. All the dogs on the street have dry and sickly looking coats.
3 In San Juan Chamula I watched un perro de calle crap in a market stall that had been abandoned for lunch. Later when passing this stall the family who used it were there. An old indigenous in her wooly shirt and blue floral shall was yelling in tzotzil (a local Mayan dialect) at a different dog that was crapping in the same spot. She then took a broom and lifted it above her head and dropped it with all of her might upon the hips of the dog. It emitted a yelp and shot out of the stall like a rocket. It was obviously not the family pet.


My dogs should be happy they were not born in Mexico, or there is a good street they would be wondering the streets, flea and worm ridden, searching for the scraps of a day old taco.

Explosions

Everyday in Mexico one is bound to hear pops, bangs, or explosions. Sometimes they come from overhead but most of the time it is impossible to discern the direction of their origin. In Mexico city I imagined that the cars leaving behind clouds of smoke were back firing, or maybe the construction workers were dropping large pieces of ply-wood on top of each other. After confronting Mario about these loud noises he told me what his uncle had told him. "In Mexico there is always something to celebrate. A Saint's feast, the anniversary of a worker's union, think of something and there is a celebration. These noise you hear are fireworks being set off to celebrate the occasion." Those words ring with truth, and odd number. In San Juan Chamula we had to dodge the debris from a rocket that had just exploded over head. Later that day we had to wait five minutes in order to cross a street because the taxi and collectiveo drivers were having a parade. Maybe it was St. Christopher's feast?

Religion of Resistance

San Juan Chamula is famous for its version of Christianity, which is a syncretic mix of Catholicism and the local Maya beliefs. The church in this town has been taken over by the locals and they do things their own way. What does the Catholic church expect to happen when they only send a priest out twice a year for about 100 years after converting the town to Christianity? The people interpret the scripture, mythology, and ceremonies in their own way.

It cost us non-local gringos $2.00 to enter the church. The gargantuan doors of the temple were open but a man guarded the door. After taking our tickets we were directly behind men in semi-traditional clothing who were holding a mass of some type. They wore white shirts, jeans or slacks, boots, and a white woolen poncho tied with a red cloth belt. They all carried fake fire arms made of wood over their right shoulders. The left hand straw cowboy hats were held. The men in the front of the group had white bandanas with red fringe tied on their heads. A priest led them in Spanish and Tzotzil. The ceremony seemed Catholic. All of a sudden a Ranchero band with tuba, drums, and more than I could see started to play the most lively hymn I have ever heard.

The walls were lined with glass cases that held statues of Jesus, the Saints, and different incarnations of the Virgin Mary. The church was full of smoke from chalices of frankincense that was being burned. Thousands of candles lined tables and the ground in front of the saint shrines. As we approached the front Tessa mentioned that a group of old women were getting ready to sacrifice a chicken. I shot her a look like "Don´t be so judgmental." But then I turned a looked. Tessa had spoken the truth.

We felt that we were invading a sacred area and should exit as we were not believers. On our way out we saw a few chickens that had already been offered up. A group of women passed around a little glass cup of some home-made brew and by the looks on their faces it was either a concoction of bitter herbs or alcohol of a very high proof. The last thing I saw before exiting was an old man crying his eyes out in front of St. Jude and pressing his forehead to the tile floor which was purposely littered with fresh pine needles.

I have read about Latin America in classes that focused on its history, culture, and religiosity, but nothing that I came across in those classes have done justice to experiencing it first hand.

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