Amor y Amistad

As I understand it, they don't celebrate Valentines Day here in Mexico. Instead, February 14th is celebrated as "Dia Del Amor Y Amistad" -- the day of love and friendship. As the name suggests, the focus is not just on romantic love but on more general types of affection (which makes it a far less weird holiday for preschools to be celebrating, but I digress). Here in Oaxaca, it is celebrated as a big party, with music and chocolate and revelry.

And balloons. Lots of balloons. Now, I'm pretty sure that on a normal day Oaxaca has the largest number of balloon vendors per capita anywhere on the planet. But yesterday things kicked it up a notch or three. Throughout town, you could not walk more than ten yards without passing someone with a huge set of balloons for sale -- hearts and stars and "Te Quieres" and "Mil Besos" and the like, in addition to the normal balloons featuring superheroes and Elmo and Dora. There were also people selling flowers and even the people who normally sell bubblegum and scarves where pitching it as a special gift for Dia Del Amor y Amistad.

We spent some time in the zocalo, and it was more crowded than I have seen it since New Years Eve, including one stage set up with senior citizens doing Guelaguetza dancing and another stage set up where it appeared that a series of Quincenera girls were doing elaborately choreographed dance routines with the same set of five male dancers -- who later put on masks and started dancing to Gangnam Style, because we haven't left American civilization THAT far behind. We quickly ducked into a museum in search of a bano and it was filled with a salsa band and many many people. We also saw a number of mariachi bands wandering the zocalo, but unfortunately did not get to hear any of them play.

All in all, it was a pretty wild party (and from what we heard from our apartment it went on far past our early bedtime), but what else would one expect from this fun city.

Senor de Esquipulas

A big chunk of our weekend was taken up by the festival that our neighborhood church (which I say despite the fact that there are at least a half dozen large cathedrals within a five block radius of our house.  But this was one of them) was throwing in celebration of the Senor de Esquipulas, often referred to as the Black Christ.  This is an important and meaningful celebration throughout central America, which you can read about here, but being the heathen that I am I viewed it mostly as a chance to soak in more Mexican culture and traditions.  And this festival was full of them.

Friday night we went to the church in time to hear the end of mass and then watch the churchyard erupt into celebration with music and dancing and chocolate to drink.  We then joined in a calenda, which is a celebratory procession following a truck with the black Christ statue on its back through the streets of the neighborhood, with fireworks and music and giant puppets and dancing.  It was lots of fun.

Sunday afternoon we wandered back over to the church for a cultural festival featuring dance performances from different regions, food, and lots more live music.  E even got to take a turn inside one of the giant puppets:

But the highlight was Sunday evening.  After dinner and some rest at home we returned to the church and watched another procession with the statue, but this one was much more solemn, with quieter music and incense and lots of banners decorated with silver.

 

When the statue returned to the church, the whole place turned back into a party with confetti and more music and dancing.  And a fireworks show.

I know what I said the other day about how fireworks shows were more casual here in Oaxaca, and for the most part I stand by it.  But last night was the exception that proves the rule, as it was just like an American fireworks spectacular in scope, but not in content.  You see, when we arrived at the church on Sunday afternoon we saw what already looked like a pretty big structure covered with firecrackers.

But that was nothing compared to what it looked like later in the evening:

I would guess it was fifty or sixty feet tall.  And covered with firecrackers decorated as words and flowers and Guadalupes and a Christ figure.  And when it was time for the show, it was indeed quite a show.  There was dancing -- including a series of people dancing in a cow costume that was covered with firecrackers that were shooting off while they were dancing! -- and there were angels made out of firecrackers that flew into the air as they were going off.  And there was that structure itself.  Which did not actually seem quite this scary when it was doing its thing, but still sent smoke and debris and sparks everywhere.

I'm not sure I have seen anything quite like this show.  The closest thing would be at a festival that Fort Worth held in conjunction with the 1995 MLB All-Star game, but that had those pesky safety standards that Americans seem to hold dear, whereas this was just lights and colors and noise.  And smoke.  Lots of smoke.  It was quite an event.

Tuna

In the five days we have spent in Oaxaca so far, we have attended many festivals and performances and celebrations.  Some of these have been Christmas related, and many others have just been connected to the joy of the city as this is a city that loves to celebrate.  One of the best discoveries we have made so far is a type of music I was previously unfamiliar with, called Tuna.  A little googling indicates that it descends from traditional Basque music, but it seems to be quite popular here in Oaxaca, as we stumbled across a group performing in the street the other night, and on Christmas night there were two competing Tuna Christmas Concerts in different churches.   We chose to go to one by Tuna Real Universtaria (http://www.uabjo.mx/dominios/tuna/), a group of nearly two dozen college students playing a variety of guitars, accordians, drums, and tambourines -- one guy even did backflips down the center of the church as he played the tambourine!

Last night they played holiday songs, including such favorites as Santa Claus llego a la Ciudad, Blanca Navidad, and the big crowd pleaser Los Peces En El Rio, long with a choir of children and adults.  The night ended with the entire church singing 'Noche De Paz' together.

There are many reasons why I would encourage you to come to Oaxaca for Christmas, but this type of concert was high on the list.