XCIX. Domingo de Ramos

Palm Sunday

This foot-high remembrance was sold to us by
a young girl, perhaps 7 years old. Later in the
evening the price was lowered from 20 pesos
to five.

There’s a full moon rising over the Mexican village where we live. Darkness has fallen on a warm Palm Sunday. We’ve just returned from several hours on the plaza where we were surrounded by an amiable, all-ages mix of town folk visiting, eating and drinking among friends and family. A dozen small children were flitting there around cafe tables, wrought-iron benches and more established vendors, selling images of Christ on a cross made of palm, straw and multi-colored metallic sprinkles. Twenty pesos. Earlier, a procession of faithful parishioners had passed at sundown on the verbena-strewn street just behind us at the end of their journey to the church. And not long before that a coffin, accompanied by a mariachi band, was carried from that same parroquia on it way to the panteón for burial. Semana Santa has begun…Ahhh, México.

XCVIII. Un Aguacero y un Estrépito

A Downpour and a Crash

Sala with tragaluz above. You can't see the tiles
because of the overexposure, but they fell just a
few feet away from the red pillow where I was
sitting.

It was hot the previous Sunday morning, surprisingly so for early in the day. And then it grew humid and clouds gathered. Mid-afternoon thunder began rumbling and not long after that a spatter of rain. Later—surprisingly—was a short deluge, with plinkets of hail thrown in for effect. But the already sun-heated flagstones soon caused most of the patio's puddles to evaporate. In the evening it became cooler, and stars began coming out all over the darkening sky.

Just over a week has passed now and that was our last rainfall. Not long after we awake the past four or five days, over coffee, we look at the already hot sun and say in unison, "Looks like it's gonna be another scorch-uh". I've moved many of the potted plants to more shady places; their leaves were being seared by el sol. 

It must be fifteen feet from the floor in our cupola-ceilinged sala to the top of the skylight (or tragaluz; literally, "bring light"). Late afternoon a couple of days ago when the sun's heat was at its daily peak and falling ferociously onto the tiles surrounding the skylight's hexagonal opening, I was lying in beer-induced muzziness on our couch, giving my ailing back a break. 

A tremendous crash and clatter only several feet from where I was relaxing quickly brought me from my stupor. I threw my arms up and shouted in surprise. Dust and ceramic shards covered half the spacious terracota floor, even on to the beloved Oaxacan rug. Looking for an explanation I realized that a dozen tiles had sloughed off below the tragaluz. It's a good thing I wasn't directly underneath. The four-inch-square tiles are unexpectedly heavy and have sharp corners; it's not hard to imagine the blood and brain damage that might be caused by one of them falling nearly ten feet to land a pointed edge on your cabeza.

Our theory about the plunging azulejos is that water might have seeped in under them during the previous week's deluge, and when they expanded in the sun's afternoon heat they were loosened from their adhesive and fell. Or something like that. We're currently having work done in the cochera—garage—to make it useable as a workshop. I better ask Javier to also take a look at the remaining tiles under each of our three tragaluces, especially the one over the chandelier above our dining table—now there's a disaster waiting to happen. 

Until then our sala is a hard hat zone.