El Festival de las Mulitas

May 22 is the Festival de las Mulitas, a celebration that's been held in Mexico City since the 1500's. During the days leading up to the festival, people sell little straw mules around the metro stops, so I picked up a couple for our niece Libby and friend Tamie, who were due to arrive on May 22. When they arrived we had a quick lunch of margaritas, salad, quesadillas and aguas (water flavored with fruit) from Antojos Dany down the street and headed for the Zocalo. What better place to begin to know the city? Walking down calle Cinco de Mayo, we struck up a conversation with this fellow. Libby and Tamie were surprised at the friendliness of the city, in contrast to the warnings about crime you always hear. We lived in the centro, I took the metro to work every day and we used public transportation and taxis regularly; we had no negative experiences, happily.



On the Festival de la Mulitas, people dress their small children in regional costumes (and they don't mind your taking their photograph!), bring them to the cathedral and walk around the Zocalo. Corpus Christi is also celebrated on May 22, so we saw the procession of the Cardinal from the cathedral to a platform erected for mass to be celebrated in the Zocalo.




On Saturday we headed out for a day in the southern part of the city, San Angel and Coyoacan. We had told Libby and Tamie to expect surprises and to be flexible with plans. Good thing, because within five minutes on Avenida Juarez we came upon a beautiful parade of dancers in regional dress from various parts of Latin America, a celebration of the cultural diversity of the D.F.




We were a bit delayed getting away from the centro, but still found time to get to Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul and to the Dolores Olmedo Museum, which houses a great collection of works by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, pre-Colombian art, and Olmedo's collection of travel souvenirs, not your usual trinkets. Besides exquisite taste, she had the money to amass an impressive collection. And, inspired by her mother's altruism, she left her home and collections to the people of Mexico, creating a wonderful oasis of calm and beauty. The buildings are set in a garden full of sculptures by Juan Soriano and others, peacocks, and the Aztec hairless dogs seen so often in Rivera's murals.

Final Feasts

Dulce and Roberto planned a farewell comida for the conversation group at Chon y Chanos, a retaurante tipico near the school. Melissa, the Fulbright teacher from Minnesota, had a group at noon every day and I followed with a group at 1:00. Often the conversations were so interesting that the groups overlapped, and we spent many enjoyable hours covering a wide variety of topics.


Arturo and Ricardo, from my fall group, also came.
Roberto invited his mother, who gave us framed cross-stitch roses, and Dulce brought her brother Mike, who by now had become a good friend to Bill and me.



Janine came with her British friend Jack, and Ana and Adriana stopped by later.
I will never forget these very dear students who have now become good friends.

Teachers' Day is a rare treat too. Since we had no classes, a group of teachers went to the Fonda del Recuerdo for dinner, where we had delicious food, listened to several different musical groups, and took many photos.


We American teachers are not the only ones leaving ESCA in June: Edith, the English coordinator, has taken on a new job at the Zacatenco campus to plan new English programs in other divisions of the IPN (Instituto Politecnico Nacional). In her honor we had a taquiza at Janik's house, the same place we had the tamaliza in February. You may recall that tamales are served at a tamaliza, so you can guess that tacos are the food at a taquiza. And what great party food! Big cazuelas of tinga, cochinita pibil, papa y pollo, carne de res, alambre, refried beans, stacks of tortillas. Make-your-own, no-fuss entertaining!


Edith received a beautiful floral arrangement, and then some very talented colleagues offered their gifts to her.


Jose Luis, who is also a mariachi, played the requeton, a banjo-sized guitar plucked with a sliver of bull's horn, while Leo danced several traditional dances. And Isabel sang, without accompaniment, some very beautiful songs in Edith's honor. Later, everyone joined in some songs that apparently all Mexicans know. Since this was our last night in Mexico, the depth of friendship at this gathering was especially poignant.

While Americans are more individualistic, Mexicans are a collective people. Of course we all enjoy and value camraderie, fellowship, time spent with friends, but it's different in Mexico. Social aspects of work are quite important. For example, our students had their last test on May 29, but our final day of work was June 6, allowing ample time to spend in social interaction with our colleagues, strengthening deep bonds of friendship and support.

Talavera

Edith took Melissa, Ceci, and me (the three U.S. teachers) to a talavera shop near our school to select the design for a tile (azulejo) for each of us, her last gift to us. In truth, her enduring gift has been her friendship, kindness, understanding, and support as she guided and included us in all aspects of our work here. She allowed us to ease into our jobs by saying, "Take it easy the first week or so while you adjust to the altitude." Mexico City is more than 7000 feet above sea level, and adjusting to this altitude does indeed take a toll on one's energy. She included us in all social events of our colleagues, a closely knit group of amigos: Amparo's retirement, Lulu's baby shower, Independence Day celebrations, American desserts at our Thanksgiving, a Posada at Christmas, the tamaliza in February, an end- of-year party next Saturday. She took us on a tour of little known and fascinating parts of the city, with her as the guide. She knew how much we wanted to explore other parts of the country and cut us some slack now and again to travel more.

And she took us to this shop for our tiles. Here are the man who helped us design our azulejos and, bent over her work, a woman in the back painting some tiles. Each tile is hand-painted and then fired in a kiln. We assured the man as we left that we would be happy with his work, and he replied as he kissed our hands, "Claro, lo hago con todo amor." (Of course, I do it with much love.)


"Talavera" is a term used loosely for all hand-painted pottery and tiles, but authentic talavera, made only in Puebla, must adhere to strict guidelines of material, design, and process. Only 18 shops in Puebla are authorized to use the official Talavera stamp. The Puebla-Cholula area was already noted for its own fine pottery before the Spanish introduced techniques from Talavera de la Reina in Spain. Now Puebla is THE place to go for serious Talavera shoppers.

Ceci, Nancy, and I enjoyed shopping for Talavera in Puebla two weekends ago. Here are some photos from the Talavera de la Luz shop.

I thought my shopping was over until we went to the Museo Amparo, which has an exceptionally fine pre-Columbian collection, intelligently and beautifully displayed. At the end of our tour I stopped in the Talavera de la Reyna shop on the ground floor and immediately found a design I love, so I bought a small plate. Bill and I went back to Puebla last weekend and got four place settings.

Much of the talavera that people buy is only for decoration, because it contains lead. Authentic Talavera must be lead-free, so we will be able to use this every day, a beautiful reminder of this wonderful year in Mexico.

Here are more photos of tiles used in Puebla to decorate cupolas, walls, churches, kitchens. They add to the visual delight of Puebla. Often tiles and red brick form a pattern.






Most spectacular is this church in Ecatepec, between Puebla and Cholola, whose facade is covered in azulejos made specifically for this purpose.

Puebla

In colonial times in Mexico, the Spanish built many cities on the site of indigenous towns or religious centers, so the blending of cultures started immediately. In fact, one of the first mestizos born here was the son of Hernan Cortes and La Malinche, his interpreter/lover. Diego Rivera painted this child as a blue-eyed baby carried on his mother's back in a mural on the stairwell of the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City.

The mural also depicts abuses by the conquerers such as forced labor, whippings, rape, killing. One of the twelve missionary friars Spain sent in the earliest days of colonization, Fray Toribio, in an effort to curb abuses, decided to found a new, totally Spanish town away from native populations. This is now the city of Puebla, whose historic center is classic Roman / Spanish urban planning: a large open square, now the park-like Zocalo
with cathedral on one side and municipal building on the other, and streets heading out from the square in an even grid.



This city, on the major route between Veracruz and Mexico City, has always been important in Mexican history. The first battle in the Revolution against Porfirio Diaz (1910) took place in the house of the Serdan family, where six people fought against 500. Notice the bullet holes still in the walls.
My route to school every day takes me along calle Aquiles Serdan; I'm happy to know now who he was. After the battle was clearly lost, he hid under the floor trying to live to fight another day. Unfortunately, a cough gave him away and he was killed, along with his brother and a friend; his wife, mother and sister Carmen were arrested. These were the six who fought against the 500. One room of the Serdan memorial is dedicated to Carmen; inside is a box containing soil collected by women from every state of Mexico to place here in her honor.


Every Mexican city has streets named for its heroes and important historic dates: Hidalgo, Morelos, Madero, Juarez, 5 de mayo, 18 de noviembre, 16 de septiembre. Of these dates, most Americans have heard of Cinco de Mayo. This date commemorates a battle against French invaders that took place in Puebla in 1862. Under the command of General Zaragoza, the Mexicans, mostly indigenous and poorly equiped, defeated the French, who later won the war. In his honor, the city was renamed Puebla Heroica de Zaragoza. This statue of General Zaragoza is near the hill where the Battle of Puebla took place.

I spent a weekend in Puebla with two other Fulbright teachers, Cece and Nancy.


We enjoyed staying in the centro historico, trolley tours of the Cerro de Guadalupe where the Cinco de Mayo battle took place and of nearby Cholula, site of an ancient pyramid larger in volume than Egypt's Cheops, but now looking more like a hill with a church on top.





Entrance to the archaeological site is through the ancient tunnels of the pyramid.


Here, in 1519 Cortes, warned about an Aztec ambush, struck first, killed thousands and vowed to build a church for every day of the year. There are 39 churches in this small town, many built atop former temples. We went to a very interesting one in nearby Tonantzintla, decorated in a style called indigenous baroque, synchretism at its most beautiful. Spanish culture and Catholic religion may have been imposed on the indigenous, but they did not abandon their native beliefs, symbols and motifs.