CXII. Un Otro Desfile

Another Parade

It had been a quiet, warm and clear Saturday morning. Our patio garden green and peaceful. We had just sat down to breakfast. Then we heard the cohetes—sky rockets—exploding, then the brass and drum band. My wife said, “Parade”, and we hurried to the door. In front of our casa the first thing we saw was a big, wildly colored papier mâché elephant being maneuvered to enable it to pass under low hanging wires. 

We saw a float with the Chili Cook-off queen and her costumed attendants. Another carried a mariachi group and dancers advertising a neighborhood restaurant. Fancy cars and pickups with well-dressed passengers from local businesses and charities. A final energetic band. Everybody friendly and happy, smiling and waving, the two of us leaning out our front door.

The parade was heading up a couple of blocks to the carretera—the main road through town—on its way to the cook-off being held at Tobolandia waterpark where there’d also be the chance to pick up something handmade by local artisans.

The desfile would sure slow down traffic for the next half hour for all the gringo snowbirds in their rental cars, and rich Tapatios from Guadalajara down for the weekend, but what the hell. Slowing down is good for the heart and the soul.

This is a parade-loving village. I'm not sure how typical that is of other Mexican pueblos, but I can see how parades and fiestas contribute to this being one of the top rated countries for happiness, even with the poverty, corruption and cartel violence. Being able to walk out our door or go to the end of the block and hear this gratuitous music and celebration, to see someone we know, a neighbor, to smile at and greet by name helps keep us feeling connected to the things that bring joy. 

CXI. Carnaval, 2018

Carnival, 2018

Written on Fat Tuesday, two days ago: 

I dodged warily among a half dozen horses at the cobblestoned corner of Aldama and Constitución as I waited late this morning for the Carnaval parade to began. The horses were itching for a chance to dance to a brass and drum band that was warming up. I also kept an eye out for the masked scrum eager to grab an audience member and toss him or her on a mattress on a truck bed full of flour. Congas and maracas practiced beating time for the Carnaval Queen.

An hour after the parade ended I stood in the middle of Constitución, beer in hand, and looked up five long blocks towards the mountains that edge our lake. A bus was bearing down on me, still at a distance, one of the white ones with red trim that announce it’s headed for Chapala. Nothing odd in that, but it was followed by a billowing white cloud, remains of the many kilos of flour thrown at today’s parade bystanders by the slightly scary, grotesquely masked sayacas.

And two hours after that, workers arrived at our casa to carry three huge full and planted terra-cotta pots—each about the size and weight of a burro, and at least as unwieldy—many back-breaking paces across the comedor and sala, through the patio and up twenty-three narrow steps to the mirador. Three small wiry guys laughed and humped their loads without incident—a typical Mexican job. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Tonight there will be music and fiestas all over town.

CX. Dos Días Antes de Carnaval

Two Days Before Carnival

Noonish—I still hadn't showered, still in my sweat pants, faded nine-year-old Obama t-shirt, brown knit cardigan for the chill. On my feet, the furry mocs I wear from bed to bathroom—not street-ready—so didn’t feel like going outside when I heard the noise. 

Outside—the sound of a brass band, most likely for one of the pre-Carnaval parades. Carnaval—literally, “Farewell to meat”. The grotesquely masked and costumed Sayacas would be wildly throwing confetti (if you’re lucky) and flour (if you’re not). The municipal delegate tried to calm them down last year. They grew rowdier with a vengeance, but still in fun, especially for the kids shrieking with their love of harmless danger. A tradition, like bullfighting. The parade still ends in Lienzo Charro, the old bullring. 

Not an hour after the brassy procession came the solemn double-noted death knell tolling from the nearby parish church. Someone in the pueblo died this morning. That about says it all from here: Life and Death intertwined and out in public.