Marathon sprint to the tinsel finish line

It’s not because I’ve become bored with my surroundings. Nor is it because I’m too lazy. Nor can I say that I have nothing to write. Blogging is a strange thing. I’m yet to pinpoint exactly who I write it for, though I’ve realised that I certainly benefit from it as I’m finding it hard to get a good ‘overall’ picture of what I frittered away the month of December’s time and salary on. Committing observations to this colourful, virtual page in what may seem a pedestrian and trivialising way helps to keep me grounded, and as far as I can tell, helps let some people know that I haven’t been swiped by drug smugglers yet. It’s not an exercise in literary technique, but if I’m ever discovered as the next big thing in the printed word then I suppose it will be something to show for my misspent youth.

I’m still recovering from what Cosoleacanecos affectionately call the ‘Maraton Guadalupe-Reyes’, the 3 week period between the celebrations for the Virgin of Guadalupe on the 12^th and Epiphany, the 6^th December. This ‘marathon’ is an excuse to party every day for long enough to pickle your organs, become severely lacking in sleep, and need another holiday after the ones you’re already afforded. My philosophy of never saying no to any invitation made my days largely busy and often intense, from primary school end-of-year shows to gatherings of friends until the early mornings. Every grouping of colleagues, students, friends and families put on their own ‘posadas’ which traditionally is a sung re-enactment of Mary and Joseph going round the houses of Bethlehem looking for a place to kip. Some of these are highly religious, like the one I accompanied Mama Cali to, where half of the preachers stand outside the house and the others inside, and there’s a lot of singing, a lot of tamales, and a dangerous amount of candles and fairy lights. Others are just an excuse to party, and involve piñatas with 5 protruding horns, representing sins (not sure why), and music and food a-plenty. In my school the kids put on a talent show, and were rewarded with tacos and cake, followed by free-for-all dancing in the classrooms. Everyone got an eyeful of teacher Claire dancing. I’ve got no shame in admitting that I felt slightly uncomfortable when the scantily-clad teenage girls seemed to be grinding against their teachers, but I appreciate being in a country where a classroom can be turned into a tropical dance floor on a Wednesday morning. I also accompanied Enrique to an end-of-year do put on by the big bosses at Pemex, pretty powerful, big cheeses, which made warbling away on the karaoke with them even more ridiculous. However, I wasn’t complaining when I carried away the first prize in the raffle, and got my grubby peasanty mitts on 20 year old bubbly, good French and Italian wines and Spanish nibbles, not every day snacks here.

The lights I spewed over my house, the tree and nativity scene which invaded the living room, the festive jellies and pastries we churned out day in and day out and the presents I lovingly bought for the family were all a forerunner for the big day, the 24^th. Not the 25^th as I’m used to, but the previous night, which we spent in the family bakery, eating the tamales I helped to make, singing carols and being merry until the early hours, when we went home for our own Christmas dinner of meat, meat and meat. The tears I shed at 2am, as the fireworks lit up the droplets falling out of the corners of my eyes as I stood in what I thought was a secluded corner, were a result of sheer happiness in where I was but nostalgia for Christmases spent in sunny Barnet, ‘en famille’. Christmas is very much a family time, and like in any household, there’s the rituals, the unavoidable customs, and I had endless appreciation for this family who opened their home to me on a day when I was far from my English home, but felt very much at home in my surroundings.

Day 114

Since I was last on the blog (I’m enjoying the resemblance of this word to a toilet), I have celebrated two different birthdays, in two different cities, done an annoyingly large amount of solo classroom teaching, and realised that cold has been redefined. Surprisingly, I’ve enjoyed all of these things, although I moaned and moaned and moaned about the solo teaching. Life isn’t interesting if there isn’t one thing marring the perfection.

The weekend was spent in Xalapa, with a gaggle of other assistants, for Jezzabel’s birthday. Cue salsa dancing, tequila, mariachi concert and a personal serenade for Jezza, karaoke and nigh-outnumbering Mexicans in sheer British presence. There are some points during this weekend which are a little hazy - we can blame that on number two on the above list. Sometimes I forgot what country I was in – number six can be held responsible for this. And I had a top-notch fin de semana – all of the above should plead guilty for this. The party was in a family restaurant, which was taken over by us for the night, along with a vat of mole and a ridiculous amount of confetti. I’m still finding bits of the coloured poison in my belongings, thanks to kids thinking it’s funny to throw it over you all night. Even when you’re holding a drink.

Mama Callie notched up another year this week as well, and so a late-night jarrocho band session (one harp, three jaranas – those little Mexican guitars which provoke a slightly ecstatic reaction in my being) along with coffee, sandwiches and an improvised biscuit cake from yours truly. Bearing in mind it was my handiwork, it wasn’t too laughable. You can at least make out the name written on it, and along with the huge heartfelt hug I gave her, it was apt for Mama’s 64^th year.

The days are getting nippier at the moment, I’m whipping the jumpers out, and even considering investing in a jacket. The rain which seems to be accompanying it is an unwelcome visitor, but the refreshing weather makes me feel that bit closer to the blizzard in Europe. I also had my first major nostalgic moment since I got to Mexico. It happened during a private French class I was giving to an adult student. I was talking about the weather, and about clothes, and as usual, most of the lesson was me giving ‘cultural’ titbits. We’d hit the point where I test him on words we’ve seen so far, and I found my mind wondering, for an instant, to the French Alpes, and more specifically, to idyllic, innocent times spent with my mémé, my maternal grandma. Before my student could even remember what the word I’d asked him meant, I felt tears suddenly welling up. I blinked them away as soon as I felt my ducts prickle and carried on being a competent tutor. But I enjoyed the visit to my childhood memory bank. Thanks mémé.

Now for a little aside. I’ve come to realise that it looks from the outside...oh, and sod it, the inside too, that most of my entourage are of the opposite sex. Most of my mates have members. A good deal of my company emanate testosterone. And so? Cosoleacauqe is a small place. I mean, no bank in the town small. Girls/women (can’t quite decide which I want to be yet) my age are either students who are stuck to their boyfriends’ mouths and are rabid with jealousy when they see me approaching with my louche English air, or they already have a husband and offspring. Most girls around here don’t go out drinking, or sit around chatting until the early hours. Instead I have ‘big brothers’, mates, people who I feel comfortable with. I don’t check what’s in their underwear before I embark on a friendship. I follow the way the breeze of circumstances blows me. And this is where I am right now. I do have female friends, and the girls in the house are the people who I can talk to most frankly. Unless I’m chatting to Guy Franks – then it’s pretty ‘Frank’ arfarf.

Disco-Teco

Oaxaca is to the average Mexican what London was to the average comrade of Dick Whittington: for all intents and purposes, it is paved with gold. Something about the traditions, the food, the people, the lifestyle, or the vistas makes this particular member state of the Estados Unidos de Mexico the one to be celebrated throughout the southern half of the country. Here in Veracruz a Oaxaceño (also known as a Teco) can more or less be found on every corner, as a staggeringly large proportion of residents have Oaxacan roots. The Oaxacans are known for their beer-full parties and hospitable demeanour. This makes for one happy resident Guera.

Every Monday I pay a fun-filled morning in two different primary schools in Minatitlan, doing the things that make teaching English fun: playing games, giving sweets to small children (although that also comprises the daily activities of people who should most definitely be kept away from small children), singing Wheels on the Bus and being asked by pouting infants ‘Why do you only come once a week?’ So yesterday-Monday, instead of heading straight back home to my beloved Cosolea after the final bell rung at midday (oh, it is a hard life), I hung around with Nora, a fellow teacher who happens to be from Oaxaca originally, and so the lavishing of attention, surprises and all-round undeserved and unrelenting generosity began. First things first, we got our hair done. A maze of plaits was elaborated in a sweltering salon, only to be complete ob

scured by a two-part flower, hair and ribbon-based headdress. The next most important task was, of course, eating. Nora happens to be an amazing cook. I also happen to be a fantastic eater. So the melt-in-the-mouth cochinita (something to do with pork) and creamy spaghetti, tortillas and cream cake for afters were demolished by the hairstyled, mming and aahing pale white girl she had let into her spotless house. I then did what every girl dreams of after watching Walt Disney Princess films: I got laced into a corset. We stopped short of performing full-blown cartoon lace-tightening, foot resting on buttocks and organs jumping up into the throat.

Fully decked out in our traditional Teca regalia, waved off by her daughter and mother, Nora and I waded into the party. An entire street was decked out with tables, many an ice-box, a live band, a dance floor and an abundance e of food. None of that compared to the amount of people crammed into a relatively modest space. It seems that old Santa Cecilia is someone worth celebrating. And she also happens to be the patron saint of music, so the volume was pumped up full blast. I pushed my corset to the limits, with the oodles of prawns, tamales, ceviche, beer and, most notably, illegally smuggled tortoise eggs which I was plied with. A quick word on tortoise eggs: next time someone tells me to make a hole, whack some salsa in then ‘suck hard’, I will explore all possible alternatives before blindly obeying. At least the clapping and whooping distracted me from the slimy yet oddly firm mass I was chewing and which was also hanging off my chin.

With music comes dancing, and in this case it was like a discotheque of the third age. My boogeying companions were generally upward of 50 years old, all wearing an equal amount of velvet, taffeta and fake gold, but the set-up was oh-so-familiar, evoking memories of Klute nights, club nights and teenage parties, taking turns in the circle, getting down low and pushing your friends into the middle to crack a move or two, preferably without cracking a bone or two. A personal highlight was my dance-off with a gentleman of around three-score years and five, in which I was trounced by his shoulder-shake move. I left with an invitation to the next fiesta, a love for the golden streets of Oaxaca and the golden hearts of its people, and a desire to dress like Frida Kahlo every day.

Crossing the Bridge

There are many bridges in Mexico. They are loved by all, fully taken advantage of, and extremely useful. These bridges also require no engineers (of which there seem to be an unhealthy glut in these parts). This weekend was one such bridge, or ‘puente’ to use its correct name. The regular weekend rolls into a bank holiday Monday like terra firma onto a suspension bridge, thus giving a long weekend open to an extra day of lazing, travelling, eating, gardening or housework. We chose the travelling option, and bussed it across the teensy-tiny distance to the next state along, Tabasco to get saucy (harhar) in Villahermosa, bridging the gap between ourselves and Alex, assistant extraordinaire over in his very own ‘green hell’ (lush vegetation, scorching heat). Alas, time was not something we had in bountiful supply (24-hours bus to bus), but there was an abundance of all manner of other virtues: conviviality, what with the trilingual conversations with Alex’s French housemates and Mexican friends; generosity, as our ‘guide’ took us an hour out of town to visit a chocolate hacienda and didn’t ask for a penny; and innocence, as we whiled away a gleeful half hour on a bicycle caddy thingamabob in the park, winning races against a group of children, only be told to ‘be quiet old woman’ when I gloated about the fact in good humour. Not so virtuous was the chocolate hacienda, where we learnt about the laborious chocolate-making process, from bean to bar, when all we really wanted to know was buy some of the sugary stuff. I wasn’t so childish and gleeful when confronted with the central park’s resident crocodiles, wandering around the waterside nonplussed. I would like to suggest an addendum to the song I learnt at primary school: never smile at OR use flash photography on a crocodile.

Scaramouche, Scaramouche

If Queen had asked me this question (will you do the fandango?) I would have said ‘gladly – but you’ll have to teach me the steps first’. And thus my first ever fandango was a seated affair for me – a lot of watching and learning.

Fandango: a fiesta involving dancing, jaranas (small Mexican guitars) and the early hours of the morning. The steps to the fandango dance revolve around the rhythm ‘café con pan’, one step, one step, two steps. But all this at a rate faster than light and in a whirl of colour, skirts, heels and percussion instruments. It’s what simpler people would most likely call ‘Mexican tap dancing’. As much as I was shuffling around in my seat and resisting the cry of my itchy, tappet feet, I couldn’t bring myself to get up and dance. You see, you have to get up on the stage, in the middle of a sea of musicians and other dancers and wait your turn to tap away. When it comes to your turn you get up on the stage, usually in mixed-sex pairs, and gently push the previous pair off. Small children, old women, beautiful young girls and pert-buttocked young men all joined in, as I watched on, increasingly eager to learn how to dance the dance and pluck the strings. The sound of the jarana has an incredible ability to fill the box, create a wall of sound which falls more abruptly than the iron curtain when it stops, and the music and the dancing together create a heady atmosphere of rhythmic psychedelia. Drinking and smoking was banned, as it was a family event, a celebration of Veracruz traditional revelries. I’ll leave it to you to ponder what’s next of my list of things to do before the next time a 70s rock group ask me a loaded question.

For Fawkes' Sake

After experiencing a celebrated Mexican traditional festival, it seemed only fair that we introduced our hosts to something truly British. The 5^th November provided us with this opportunity, as Guy Fawkes Night came around, with more of a crackle than a bang. This was Guy’s baby – quite literally, as he carried around his Guy all day as if it was his own flesh and blood. We had spent part of the night before surreally stuffing discarded children’s clothes with old banana leaves, and blowing up balloon heads, until we had two ‘Guys’ vaguely resembling Matt Lucas. The kids lapped up Guy’s presentation, to them the idea of November being cold enough to warm your bum cheeks over a blazing bonfire and eat jacket potatoes stuffed with baked beans (strange British cuisine) being utterly foreign and intriguing. We then started off what I feel is going to be an annual Escuela Secundaria Tecnica #116 tradition, by ritually burning our Guy in a small bonfire, which our students made up in the yard – what some of them lack in natural linguistic flair they more than make up for in more practical aspects, something which I will forever be lacking in. The Mexican calendar does allow for a similar tradition, on the 31^st December they burn ‘un viejo’ (an old man) symbolising the old year, thus they burn away the bad of the past 12 months in order for the new, successful year to rise, like a 365-winged phoenix, out of the ashes.

We didn’t have fireworks, and we sweated by the heat of the fire in the afternoon sun, but we nonetheless gave old Guy Fawkes the burning he deserved.

Día de Muertos

Day of the Dead. Or rather 2 days of the dead. Actually, it was five workless days in honour of day of the dead. And after a couple of them I felt like I was the living dead. There’s some Mexican traditions which really need explaining, and others which also really need to be seen to be understood. I believe this is one of them.

In true ‘intercambio’ (exchange) style, this weekend it was Guanajuato-based Sarah’s turn to come to Veracruz, after my visit the previous weekend. The ‘puente’ (bank holiday) allowed for more wiggle room concerning travel times and extended weekend getaways. A true baptism of fire awaited her when she arrived, physically and emotionally exhausted after a 2-day journey, thrown straight into a party on a ranch. It was in actual fact a sixth-form reunion, 12 years after leaving school, but even so, the three Brits who arrived with their dodgy dancing and wobbly accents to encroach on their drunken nostalgia trip were embraced with arms as open as a Mexican heart. A sleep and a groaning plate of chilaquiles later, we were headed in the pick-up to the beach. Cue likening to road-trip and general ‘driving to a destination’ banter and musical interludes. Then lots of splashing, ridiculous amounts of photo-taking (not on my camera for once) and grilled fish after sunset. I am also pleased to announce that, for the first time in my life I weed in the sea. Three times. I was like a nun who, void of her chastity after years of celibacy, just can’t get enough of the waves of pleasure she now finds herself permitted to. But these were warm (then slightly warmer) waves of water.

The next day was a mix of soft, cushiony, womanly domesticity, and grimy masculinity. I learnt how to wrap tamales, another indispensable skill for a Mexican woman of the house, and how to make papaya sweets, and with corn mix still squished under my fingernails I hopped on to the back of a quadbike to take a spin round Cosolea, through dirt, over potholes and almost to a point of no return when no one could figure out how to get the thing started again. It definitely wasn’t a good idea to wear a white shirt for this activity.

Over the course of the 2 days, the 1^st and the 2^nd November, we visited three cemeteries to get an idea of how different communities here celebrate the day(s). On the 1^st (officially All Saints Day), the people of Zaragoza and Oteapan (which used to be one community not so long ago) hold vigil all night in their candlelit cemeteries. Far from being a sombre, teary eery sight, it was at the same time magical and lively. I wish I could repeat the experience of walking into the cemetery, hundreds of people jostling around me on the narrow pathway leading up to the graves, salsa and reggaeton coming from different directions, with rolling mounds of tombs and earth dipped in candlelight slapping my sight for its ignorance of its existence hitherto. I was snapped out of my mesmerisation by the cries of ‘teacher’ from all of our students who were present at some grave or another. Oteapan’s cemetery was more imposing as it rises up from the entrance, but as less familiar territory, and therefore even less familiar dead people, we spent less time. I also realised there was no way I could ever get back the sensation I had when I saw Zaragoza’s display of mourning by darkness. Cosolea’s cemetery came alive on the 2^nd, under the scorching November sun (there’s two words I never thought I’d write together), so we only stayed long enough to see the flowers, sit in the shade by the (deceased) man of the family and other relatives, and have a cooling drink...sat on a gravestone...shedding peanut shells over the ‘rest in peace’ engraving. I was, however, granted permission to call them ‘my’ muertos.

The other side of the celebration of the dead is the altar. A multicolour splash of three-tiered paper decorations, food offerings and items related to the dead loved one being offered, we had one at school and one at home. There is a set way to construct an altar, revolving around papel picada (cut--out tissue paper with skeleton designs), calaveras (marzipan skulls) and flowers. The flowers are reputed to smell of the dead, and are only ever brought out at this time of year. I couldn’t help but tell everyone about the time my Dad, the old romantic, proudly gave my Mum a bunch of these flowers as an unprompted display of his love for her. It’s amazing he’s still around to bear the shame. Helping build the huge altar in the school was an all-hands on deck experience, with all the kids taking it seriously and helping out, they knew exactly what they were doing and had all brought offerings of food and drink -- traditionally the deceased person’s favourite snack of tipple -- to adorn it.

The relationship with death here is, in my opinion, healthy, happy and a hell ufa lotta fun. It’s not trivialised, it’s brought to the fore, and celebrated as life is. It is made more poignant when there has been a recent death in the family, but the medley of colours, light, morbidity and joyfulness makes it a celebration which I think warranted five days off work.

P.s. Beach photos copyright Sarah