Happy Mexican Independence Day! Last year we had just arrived in town when the festivities began. It was a pretty exciting weekend, so I looked up the mass email I'd sent out to remember all the fun that went down. Yes, before I discovered the joys of blogging I was in the habit of mass-harassment in e-mail form. Blogging feels so much less pushy.
So here is the email I sent out, more or less, a draft of it anyway. The numbers are footnotes, as I apparently found that amusing. :) I'm waiting to see whether this year turns out as exciting.
Oh, and don't you just love the rehash? It's like when a sitcom has an entire episode of flashbacks because apparently no one could come up with a novel storyline in time. Or maybe they were over-budget. So here you go: 2008 rehash!
It was an exciting weekend.
Contrary to US tradition, Mexicans celebrate Mexican Independence Day on the 16th of September instead of on Independence Day, which, as all Americans know, is either the fourth of July or the fifth of May (1). It's unclear why they do this. Anyway, on that particular day, it rained all day and we just stayed in the house with the fam and played cards. But, come the weekend, things got awfully exciting.
Saturday I spent the day in Guadalajara with my sister-in-law and her gringo boyfriend. That was not that exciting (2). We were buying merchandise for the little shop she runs out of the family's house. She sells things like hair products, baseball caps, underwear and children's toys. It was good to get out and see the city, though.
Things picked up after we got back. We went down to the plaza and there was a stage set up for performances. There was a mariachi band, folk dancing, and some local guy graced us with his interpretation of singing. Also, they crowned the 2008 queen of San Juan Cosalá – basically a local beauty pageant. Then we drank cantaritos (think tequila and squirt) and danced to a live band.
That was a lot of fun – but wait until I tell you about Sunday.
Sunday was the local bike race. Cool – one might think – everyone turns out to watch the cyclists race up and down the highway that runs through town (3), between the town to the west (Jocotepec) and the town to the east (Ajijic). Probably they close the highway so the cyclists can have room to compete. Ah, but wait! This is Mexico! Close the highway for a bike race?! Preposterous! Instead, let's do something different: let's get everyone out on the road with their pickup trucks. In the back of every pickup let's pile between 10 and 20 people. That's right, up to 20 people. Then let's drive up and down the highway following the cyclists. In addition, everyone who couldn't fit into the back of a pickup should come out onto the street or up onto their roof with buckets and hoses with which to douse all the people in the pickups. Also, let's get everyone to drink beer, including the pickup truck drivers. Yeah. Now that's a bike race!
So the bike race / town water fight was a lot of fun, and apparently the Independence Day tradition of San Juan Cosalá. I found myself in the back of our truck with only eleven other people. We got soaked the four or five times we drove through San Juan. But my co-riders had planned ahead, and we had our own ammunition: balloons filled with water. It's amazing we made it to even see the cyclists cross the finish line. I'm not sure who won. I'm not sure most people knew.
So then I crawled home like a drenched rat with my cousin Estela. I changed clothes and waited for Hernan to come back. At one point I saw him riding off to Jocotepec with the three queens of San Juan Cosalá and two of his buddies. Hm. Suspicious. When he finally came around again, we made off for the plaza.
We got there a little early and the festivities hadn't yet started up again. So we helped some of his buddies to dig a whole in the middle of the concrete parking lot. I mean, really, why not? This, it turns out, wasn't a random act of vandalism, but a part of another local tradition.
Every year, a group of people get together downtown and dig a hole somewhere. Fun enough on its own, but it gets better. Then they put a bunch of presents - kids toys, DVDs, clothes – into plastic bags and attach these bags to one end of a very long pole. Next, we grease the pole with lard. Obviously. Then, with the help of Random Drunk Dude On A Horse, we put the pole into the hole. Da-na! Now you're ready to watch a group of children struggle to climb 20 feet of greased pole to get the presents down! What could be more fun!? It makes American Independence Day barbecues and fireworks seem suddenly so lame.
So we stood around and shouted encouragement and ridicule at a group of children for two hours. Got to love it. This new generation, it seems, is not quite up to the tradition, because they managed to get only one present down. Finally, after two hours, it started to rain and Hernan decided it was time to step in and show the snot noses how it's done. Part way up the pole someone pulled his shorts down and the crowd got a full moon. That was pretty funny. He managed to both pull his shorts up and get all the way to the top. From the top of the greased pole he threw presents to the children, like a Mexican Santa, and then slid down that pole: more like a stripper than a fireman, and nothing like Santa would. Ah…! That's my man!
After showering off the lard at home, we returned once more to the plaza. Disappointed with the one-beat music that was playing in the town disco, we decided to go home early. But, to top off the weekend, three drunkards started shouting at us and following us home. And that's when we got into a street fight. By "we", of course, I mean Hernan. I just tried to stay out of the way. He was getting all three of them pretty good when about 20 people appeared out of nowhere and jumped in to break things up. The three dudes, plus one more that jumped in at the first sign of a fight, were all major assholes. Apparently they were looking for an easy fight and jumped us because they thought we were out-of-towners. Apparently they hadn't seen how Hernan has just become King of the Greased Pole and the town's favorite son. Moreover, it seems they're now the shame of the town for (1) having picked a fight with someone who's related to probably half the town, and (2) getting beat up pretty badly in a fight of three against one. One of the guys, it turns out, is even the son of a family friend, but didn't recognize Hernan in his drunken state. So we got home ok. A group of relatives and acquaintances who'd shown up suddenly out of nowhere took us home. Hernan only had a scratch on his hand and a scrape on one knee, so he's fine. Monday, we had a stream of visitors all day come by to ask how we were and to tell us that those assholes wouldn't be bothering us again. There's nothing like living in a town of 3000 for getting gossip fast.
So that was the weekend. Folk dancing, beauty pageant, bicycle race, water fight, a greased pole, and a street fight. I can't wait until next year.
Footnotes:
(1) I'd like to make it clear that I do, in fact, know that the fifth of May is *not* Mexican Independence Day. This is a joke. Please laugh.
(2) There was one exciting moment when said gringo boyfriend asked me who I was planning to vote for. So far, I've refrained from talking politics with him at all because I'm certain he's very conservative and I'm extremely liberal, and I haven't wanted to get into it with him because I know my sister-in-law doesn't want that to happen. It's clear she's uncomfortable with us arguing about politics. I told him I'd be happy to talk politics with him, but that we should leave my sister-in-law out of it, go somewhere where we can hash things out just the two of us, you know, somewhere where there'd be no witnesses.
(3) This highway that runs through town is the road that runs in front of the family's house and also the only paved road in town.
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