Día de los Muertos: Romerillo, Chiapas

Beauty, color, family ...

Note: this was my first experience with Day of the Dead in Mexico. November 1, 2014.

How do you describe the indescribable? 

Beautiful … touching … colorful … raucous … reverent ... creative … disturbing … overwhelming … chaotic … charming. 

Maybe all you have to say is ... Day of the Dead in Mexico.

Outside of the village of Tenehapa in the Chiapas highlands, about 40 minutes by taxi from San Cristóbal, is Romerillo, a cemetery that was the center of activity for several thousand mainly Mayan celebrants of el Día de los Muertos today ... the day when the spirits of the ancestors are honored, wined and dined, and welcomed back to this world if only for a brief period.

Here are just a few word and picture glimpses into this most amazing day which was also shrouded in a cold cloud of mist  ...

Part wake, part carnival, part fiesta.

Glimpse: a woman pouring Coke onto the
grave of a loved one and
another one pouring “posh."

Incense burning on top of a pine-needle
and bright marigold-covered graves.

Glimpse: Heavy black wool skirts and tunics that are very labor intensive and stiff as well as beautiful, colorful hand sewn textiles.

Glimpse: 5-gallon containers, hundreds of used liter bottles and it seemed like thousands of single-serving soft drink bottles all filled with posh, the locally brewed rot gut.

Blue and green crosses
rising out of the mist at the top of the hill.

Well-worn wooden boards on top of graves
provide a “threshold” for the spirits
to come and go.

Ingenuity.
Click here for a musical moment.

Glimpse: a borracho (drunk) handing out peanuts to strangers.

Glimpse: Food … sold and shared … hundreds of vendors of peanuts, fruit, sugar cane, roasted potatoes, cake, tamales, pizza, and, of course, cerveza.

Back pocket "posh" bottle.

Glimpse: Being looked at in wonder and fear by children as if I were another color … but, of course, I am. I was one of the very few gringas in the crowd.

Glimpse: what happens when an event of several thousand people involving a lot of drinking does not provide porta-potties.

Colorful roving musicians.
Click here fora musical moment.

Glimpse: a hawker of bedding who sounded like an auctioneer and

went non-stop for over 30-minutes while my taxi-driver looked for one more passenger to round out his fare back to the city. Unfortunately, it was a young man who had obviously been participating in the celebration and wanted to smoke (I said "por favor ... no"). He also had to stop on the way back to town to relieve himself.

I wonder what the spirits
think of all this beauty and festivity?

A seven-year-old child drinking
“Sol” (cerveza) and offering it
to his playmates while adults stood about. 

This morning when I contemplated not going to Romerillo today, I thought I knew what to expect. I didn’t … and I’m so glad I went. 

I also added my 70th "-ería" word to my list today. When I snapped the photo from inside the taxi on the way to Romerillo, I didn't know how appropriate it would be.

Glimpses of San Cristóbal

It's starting to look like Los Dias de la Muerte around here:

Apparently the path for the
spirits must be clearly marked.

Here's what we do here in San Cristóbal after a solid week of rain:

Another day at the market ...

Always the colors!

I don't know why these guys amuse me so.

A

Osadía ... Small Bites and Big

San Cristóbal de las Casas Cathedral

One of my new words … osadía … means daring and audacity. I got a chance to exercise a tiny bit of osadía today but also saw it writ large in one of the city's main landmarks.

First the small version. I went to the Museo del Jade and it was incredible … not what I expected but so much more. It wasn't particularly about jade the stone, more about the history of its ceremonial use. One of the amazing features was the recreated tomb of one of the rulers of Palenque. The restorers did everything they could to make it look like it might have 1,300 years ago. You step down into a burial chamber with its bright colors and feel like you might be really be there. We weren't actually supposed to take pictures but I took one of one wall (but not the tomb itself … even though no one is actually buried there).

From the recreated tomb from
Palenque, approx 1300 years ago

The Museum provides a binder with English descriptions of the exhibits. I found it very helpful but, as is often the case, there were a lot of spelling and grammar issues with the book that detracted from the information. So when I was finished with the exhibit, osadía struck and I asked the guy at the desk, in the most garbled Spanish imaginable, if I could help them make it better. It wasn't pretty but we finally deciphered our thoughts and I'm going to go back tomorrow to see if "el jefe" wants to give me the computer file to work with.

From the Museo del Jade

Recreation from Jade Museum

Cathedral Facade

The larger osadía was observed in the facade of the Cathedral dedicated to Saint Christopher. The highly ornate Baroque facade was finished in 1721. As I looked at the facade, I decided it was a pure act of daring and audacity … osadía. Imagine taking on a task that not only had to please the people and the Church but God herself. And, almost three hundred years later it is still breath taking … even when candy vendors are part of the picture.

Osadía … which, to me, sounds like "Oh, seize the day!" comes in big bites and small. I guess the important thing is to keep taking those bites. 

More pictures from the day ...

A bit of whimsy.

Must have been a chicken kind of day.

Street murals abound.

Bitter Bread? No.

I'm staying in a rather plain neighborhood
but this is part of my view every time I walk to town.

It seems odd to be thinking about work when I am so obviously retired from such engagements. (There is a wonderful word for retired here in Mexico … jubilado … which comes from the Latin "jubilare" - to make a joyful noise.)

The rainy season is upon us here in San Cristóbal so afternoon excursions now routinely include an umbrella and plastic pancho and generally wind up with me taking refuge in a coffee shop. Today's shop was La Casa del Pan Papalotl, an organic, health food restaurant. Since part of my study process is to review menus for words I don't know, I was delighted to find a quote on the front of the menu.

Trying to decode blocks of Spanish is good exercise but is sometimes a little synapse-tangling because of word orders and verb conjugations which sometimes make you think you know what they're saying until you realize you don't know who's speaking or to whom or about what. This quote was actually fairly straight forward, however … which I'm coming to recognize means that it is a probable translation of English to Spanish likely by a native English speaker. However, I grappled through the translation … with some help from Google Translate … and discovered that the author was Kahlil Gibran. Here is the original quote (which is very close to what I came up with from the Spanish):

The women (and men) who make these
incredible textiles are obviously
working with love.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit  at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

I like how he takes the idea from the abstract concept of work to the basic idea of baking bread, for what is work, after all? We tend to think of it as what people pay us to do. We could, however, think of it as what we do that takes effort, mental or physical, to achieve a goal or purpose. That larger definition includes all the things we do that has a purpose but does not generate income … raising children, making art, pursuing a hobby, cooking a meal … or in my case right now, studying a new language.

I am doing this work with love. I truly think I'm enjoying the exploration of this beautiful language as much as I am seeing this incredible part of the world. What a gift to be in the midst of an experiential learning process that requires studying menus in new coffee shops and discovering that canela in Mexico and cinnamon in Tennesee is the same ingredient that brings magic to a hunk of dough. This is definitely jubilado and there is no bitter bread on this journey!

This sign is in several places around town ...
Mexico is definitely my museum.

Here are a couple of pictures from the textile museum ... a fabulous place to explore the work of the highland weavers and embroiderers.

Signs to Live By ... and the rest of the story!

Original design for
"Señales para Vida"

One of three "signs for life"
on my street.

Update: As Paul Harvey always used to say: Here's the rest of the story.

After writing the post about the signs in my neighborhood (see below), I decided to try to find out the history behind them, even going so far as to try to find the municipal department that might be in charge of installing them. Mainly, however, I just asked people if they knew anything about them.

This where synchronicity steps in. After deciding I was not going to take Spanish classes while I'm here in San Cristóbal, I hit a rough patch in my self-study program and decided I needed guidance. So, I found Paco and took a very helpful class. I had put pictures of the signs on my iPad so I could talk to the people at the transportation department and, on a whim, I pulled it out at the end of class and asked Paco if he knew anything about the signs.

Paco says … (really!) … "Oh that's Ayax Moreno. He's my best friend and he lives right there by where you're staying." So, I'm trying to find the place on my way home but there aren't any addresses but I see two men in a yard and I ask them if they know Ayax … and, of course, one of them is Ayax.  

Ayax Moreno,
neighborhood leader

So, I just spent two hours listening to the stories of one man's community development project which he calls "Corridor Recreativo" ("Recreational Corridor"; the signs are only a small part of the project. 

Rancho San Nicolas
logo designed by
Ayax Moreno

The neighborhood (barrio) is Rancho San Nicolas and it dates back to the late 1700s. However, in current times, the neighborhood has many of the same problems that a lot of neighborhoods have … crime, drugs and alcohol, noise, and conflict. Ayax has lived here for 15 years and he wanted to build a better place to live. The signs are just one of his many projects to date, including changing the streets to prevent the reoccurring flooding, building a sidewalk and creating places for children to play and gathering spots for neighbors.

When he first started thinking about improving the neighborhood, Ayax came up with a list of problems which made him think of signs … "No" signs … no drinking … no trash … no loud noises … and so on. But, he wanted a different kind of message … not an aggressive, "preachy" one but maybe signs that would provide a positive thought and example. The signs have been installed for about two years and they haven't "cured" the problems but they do stimulate conversation and there is now a neighborhood committee thinking about other projects Ayax has in mind.

Turns out that he has six other signs in mind … all worth posting, which I will below; however, the sign that touched me most was just inside his front door:

The most important thing a father
can do for his children is to show
them his love for their mother.

The signs yet to come for Rancho San Nicolas …

Todos educamos para bien o para mal

(We educate all

for good or for bad)

El pensar es acción que genera el inicio de algo mejor

(Thinking is action that generates 

the start of something better )

La vida es bella si, así la hacemos 

(Life is beautiful

if we make it so)

La paz y la tranquilidad también es una necesidad

(Peace and quiet also

is a necessity)

El sano ambiente es responsabilidad de todos

(The healthy environment 

is everyone's responsibility)

La belleza y la alegría son cosas que podemos aportar

(Beauty and joy 

are things that can contribute) 

Posted 9/25/2014
Signs  fascinate me … whether they're vanity plates with a message or commercial ads that weave words and images into the sales pitch or murals with messages embedded in them. I've collected signs for years and now have a whole new world of signs and messages to observe.

Close to my casa, there is a series of three signposts that have enchanted me with their wisdom and placement. Each of them holds a bit of advice, front and back, but I have no idea how they came into being and why they happen to be in this place. Below each sign are six graphics-only signs.

Here's the series ... the captions below are actually shown on a horizontal sign like the one at the top of the page. However, as I was putting this together, I realized that the graphics-only images each related to one of the main messages. Hope you enjoy!

Un lugar limpio

Incluye nuestra palabras

(A clean place … 

includes our words)

La vida saludable

Es espejo de la salud interna

(The healthy life ... 

is the mirror of internal health)

El sano esparcimiento

es tranquilidad de la vecindad

(Healthy recreation … 

is tranquility of the neighborhood)

Disfrutar la naturaleza

es considerar a los demás

(To enjoy nature … 

is to consider others)

La alegre convivencia

nace del mutuo respeto

(The conviviality … 

born of mutual respect)

Tu actitud y ejemplo

nos ayuda ó nos destruye

(Your attitude and example … 

helps us or destroys us)