Category: Mexico

Postcard from Puebla, Mexico: My first bilingual dream

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The conversion of high season for chiles poblanos, walnuts and pomegranates translates into a prime time to visit one of Mexico’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites – Puebla. The simultaneous ripening of those crops mean chiles en nogado are found on almost every menu. We heeded the call.

The city is ancient, founded by the Spanish as Puebla de los Angeles in 1531. One of the notable characteristics singled out by UNESCO is the logical grid layout of Puebla’s urban center. But logic and sense of direction are not among my strong suits.

Instead of learning the streets by their numbers and compass-orientation during our month of wanderings, I found myself referring to them by their retail occupants. There is the lawnmower street, the backpack street and the street of optician after optician to make price comparisons and style selection easier. There are corners noted for their cemita sandwiches, tacos arabes and, my favorite, freshly fried platano chips.

All extremely memorable landmarks not part of the UNESCO nomination.

There is a block full of shirts for los caballeros, blocks of Cinderella dresses and even a block lined with studio after studio of mariachi musicians.

And, who could not fall under the spell of a city with such an incredible sweet tooth? The main quarter for dulces probably stretches a mile.

While Puebla is one of Mexico’s colonial cities, it is no San Miguel de Allende. Its magic is that it is a bustling urban center clearly demonstrating the increasing rise of the middle class in modern-day Mexico. While there are a lot of tourists from Mexico City, there are relatively few Americans. The Main Plaza and pedestrian streets are filled with people who actually live there year-round.

Which brings me around to my first bilingual dream. With so few Americans staying there long-term, we two gringos spending a month there seemed to represent somewhat of a curiosity. Parents would smile for permission and then send their 12-year-olds over to us to practice their English. Everywhere we went, people were extremely friendly and flattered we had chosen such an extended stay in their city.

Then there was this empresario who was “muy, muy importante,” he explained several times. Yes, he was a bit inebriated in the late afternoon in the company of his adult son and the pouty-lipped, shapely woman of the same age who I misunderstood to be his third wife but actually was, by her own definition, one of his three girlfriends. He started sending us shots of a rich smoky mezcal for toasting. He soon invited himself to partake of them with us at our table, and proceeded to let us know how happy he was to see Americans enjoying Mexico. And how he was important. And how happy he was to see us. And that meant more mescal all around. And it was not easy to escape politely.

Yes, he was obnoxious. But he truly was friendly and exemplified the warmth of the welcome we felt everywhere in Puebla, despite the current rhetoric spewing from the mouths of some American candidates for president.

But the best part was that the empresario led linguistically-impaired me to have a dream in Spanish. That night in my sleep, his mescal-driven dialogue replayed. And, as we rose to escape, I heard him utter yet again: “A proposito….” “By the way….”

 

I spy what you are reading here….

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A 1911 postcard shows the beauty of the land in Brackenridge Park formerly owned by Helen Madarasz.
A 1911 postcard shows the beauty of the land in Brackenridge Park formerly owned by Helen Madarasz.

Time for the semiannual big-brother spy report on what posts you have been reading most during the past 12 months. As usual, you are all over the map, seemingly encouraging me to continue randomly sending postcards from San Antonio and back home no matter where we wander.

The mysterious murder of Helen Madarasz in Brackenridge Park rose to the top, which makes me wonder why ghost-hunters have not latched onto the story of Martha Mansfield. There are still some who pine to hear the San Antonio Song, a post from five years ago, but a few new posts squeezed into the top dozen. Hope some of you have found your way to dine in our favorite restaurants in Oaxaca, but my personal favorite entry about food in Oaxaca is on grasshoppers.

The number in parentheses represents the rankings from six months ago:

  1. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (2)
  2. Artist Foundation unleashes another round of creative fervor, 2015
  3. The danger of playing hardball with our Library: Bookworms tend to vote, 2014 (1)
  4. Remembering everyday people: Our rural heritage merits attention, 2014 (5)
  5. Seeing San Fernando Cathedral in a new light…, 2014 (7)
  6. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (3)
  7. Picturing the City’s Past Just Got Easier, 2014 (6)
  8. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011 (10)
  9. That Crabby Old Colonel Cribby Condemned the River to Years of Lowlife, 2013 (11)
  10. Weather Forecast: 11 Days of Confetti Ahead, 2015
  11. Photographs from the 1800s place faces on the names in Zephaniah Conner’s Bible, 2014
  12. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Favorites on the food front, 2015

Thanks for dropping by every once in a while. Love hearing your feedback.

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Holy card from Oaxaca, Mexico: Zapotecans in line for sainthood

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A long list is found on one of the walls of La Compania de Jesus Church in Oaxaca. A list of those waiting. Those whose lives in Mexico were so full of sacrifice Rome surely will notice and promote them on the road to sainthood.

I’m pulling for the child martyrs of Tlaxcala, the land of corn tortillas. Poor Christobalito, Antonio and Juan were, after all, children. Antonio and Juan were clubbed to death, but Christobalito’s own father, a confirmed pagan, condemned him to be beaten with clubs and then set ablaze for his faith. The trio was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990, but they hardly seem on the fast-track. They have been waiting in line a really, really, really long time. Ever since the late 1520s.

But in Oaxaca, a pair of Zapotecs stand out, although newcomers to the waiting list by comparison to the ninos above.

Back in 1700, Dominican priests in Oaxaca would commission converts to serve as “attorneys general,” assigned to police the purity and practices of those living in rural areas. Jacinto de los Angeles and Juan Bautista of San Francisco Cajonos, “the town in the clouds,” were so honored. Overhearing those worshipping the harvest god, Huitzilopochtli, talking about a clandestine evening gathering in his honor, the attorneys reported back to the Dominican friars. Intervention was planned, and Jacinto and Juan led a group to break up the idolatrous meet, seizing the men’s musical instruments.

Unfortunately for Jacinto and Juan, their Zapotec brethren did not take kindly to what they viewed as tattle-tale turncoat interference. A mob seized the two from the sheltering confines of the convent. The pair refused to recant their faith, even under torture.

They survived being thrown off Tanga Hill in the village of San Pedro, but clubs still were viewed as a popular way to deal with Christians anyway. The mob clubbed them and cut them with knives before cutting open their chests and feeding their hearts to the dogs. (I don’t make these things up. Read the Vatican’s version here.)

Whatever parts were left were gathered later by the faithful, who put them in the church of Villa Alta until 1889. The remains were moved to a chapel in the Cathedral of Oaxaca, a chapel almost always locked for their protection.

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A bad thing happened to what should be set aside as their day. Jacinto and Juan attained martyrdom on September 16, but, unfortunately, 110 years later Father Hidalgo absconded with their day on the calendar. His cry for independence from Spain changed what would be their feast day to Mexican Independence Day, a celebration far overshadowing their sacrifices.

But an exhausted-looking but determined Pope John Paul II rescued them from obscurity, beatifying them in 2002 as examples “of how, without regarding one’s ancestral customs as myths, one can reach God without renouncing one’s own culture but letting oneself be enlightened by the light of Christ, which renews the religious spirit of the best popular traditions.”

While their hearts probably wouldn’t be fed to the dogs, one wonders what kind of reception church spies would receive in someplace like San Juan Chamula today. “Hey, they are sacrificing chickens in your church.” “Hey, do you know that elder over there has four wives?” They would be so expelled from town.

But, the good part of this story is how Jacinto and Juan are revered in their hometown. Their stories didn’t rise up on the Vatican radar without help. A trio of maize and chickpea farmers championed their cause at the grassroots level. According to a story by Stephen Henderson in the Los Angeles Times, they researched the story at City Hall and then chronicled the testimonies of more than 30 locals who claimed prayers to Jacinto and Juan were answered with miracles. This represents 1/10 of the entire town.

The task took decades of dedication, but it paid off. A group of Cajonos proudly accompanied the glass-encased heartless remains of Jacinto and Juan to Mexico City for the papal ceremonies taking them one step closer to sainthood. Plus, the pair was given a new feast day of their own – September 18.

 

The Pope-blessed glass-encased relics can still be glimpsed sitting on the altar in that side chapel in the Cathedral of Oaxaca, a destination for Zapotecan pilgrims.