San Miguel 2nd entry
Trip Start
Nov 23, 2005
1
128
133
Trip End
Feb 27, 2007
San Miguel de Allende,
Mexico
Thursday, January 11, 2007
We had a quiet, but enjoyable Christmas to ourselves. It is so different here than at home. It is not at all about commercialism. Religion and family are what Christmas is based on. From December 16 through the 24th there are posadas. Family and friends gather each night and lead a procession through the streets from one home to another
Christmas treeand the la Parraquia
. They have candles and sometimes the lead person carries a small alter with Mary on it. They sing prayers as they walk. When they reach the persons home there is more praying. The next night the posada leaves from that house and onto the next, and so on. The kids get candies and goodies in pinatas for Christmas. In the days leading up to Christmas we saw many people carrying replica dolls of baby Jesus around town. They were dressed in clothing and usually wrapped in a blanket. We are not sure, but think they might be taking them to church to be blessed or something like that. They were always carried so delicately that sometimes it would not be until we got closer that we realized it was not a real baby. We saw a young girl walking down our street with a baby Jesus, she held her hand up and shielded his face from the wind and dust flying around as she walked past us. We saw men carrying them all over the place too.
New Years was a lot of fun. We had planned to go out to one of the restaurant/bars to celebrate, but there was no need. The main square in town was full of a few thousand people. They had a live Mexican band and lots of fireworks. As midnight approached more and more people were lighting huge sparklers. You had to watch out so that your hair or clothing was not catching on fire in the crowds.
They have a different celebration were the children receive gifts, like toys and clothing. It is more like Christmas as we know it at home, at least for the kids. It is on January 6th and is called Three Kings Day. It was the day the Kings came to see the baby Jesus. There is a local market, not too far from our house that has a huge toy sale that goes well into the night, around 4am
Clock tower in the Jardin square at night
. It is held the night before on January 5th. It has everything from clothing, dolls, cars, and puppets, to cookies and candies. The day after Three Kings Day there was a lot going on in the Jardin, main square. Groups were arriving throughout the day. The first group to come in were dressed in traditional dance costumes. They had beautiful head dresses full of ornate feathers. Some of them were several feet high. The women had on colourful dresses, and the men wore traditional loin cloth outfits. Many of the people had colourful face markings and everyone had cockle shell beads around their ankles. As each group arrived they first went into the church in the main square and sang prayer songs at the alter. Then the dancing would begin in the square. There were two large drums being played and the dancing was amazing to watch. Sometimes several groups would be dancing in the square simultaneously to their own drumming.
As the evening approached a music system was set up on one side of the square. Many people in what resembled Halloween or carnival costumes came out to dance. There was a tweety bird, minnie and mickey mouse, lots of men and women characters with skeleton heads. The dancing went on for many hours. Then suddenly the dancers all left, and then returned with royal like music playing
close up of La Parraquia church
. Everyone had changed into a costume representing one of the three kings. They danced to many more songs in these outfits. The night was ended with a gigantic pole set up in the middle of the square. It was loaded with spinning apparatus that shot off fireworks. Jack and I laughed that all of this excitement in one night in San Miguel equaled more than what happens back home in Nanaimo all year!
The great thing about being in a different place or country is experiencing strange our unique things. We have certainly had our share here. We witnessed a large grass fire up on a hill on the outskirts of town. It continued to burn and we started to wonder if anyone had noticed or called the fire department. A white pickup truck eventually showed up. Three men started to walk through the grass with a long stick and some sort of flaps of material at the ends of it. They started to beat at the fire with it. We were astonished, that's it, only 3 people with sticks, no water? To our amazement they seemed to have the fire out in about 20 minutes. I guess they knew what they were doing after all.
There are no trafic lights within the town and the traffic can get quite congested
colourful building
. Many times you will see police directing at busy intersections. We had a good laugh one day when we saw a police officer at an intersection directing. He was perched on top of a wooden crate he had placed in the street. In his hands he held a lantern that was plugged into a nearby outlet. It had a green on one side and a red light on the other. He turned it as necessary to control the traffic. We got to witness him finish up for the day. Two other police officers were involved in the unplugging of the light and removing the wooden crate. It was all quite amusing. Now lets go over the different vehicles and people that come by the house, what they do, and the noises they make. The funniest one has to be the garbage man. After 5 weeks, there still does not appear to be any sort of schedule, as far as day of the week. Certainly not the time of day they show up, it can be as early as 7:30am or as late as 2pm in the afternoon. Not a big deal, you think. Well you can't just stick your garbage out in a can like at home. Here is how it works. The truck first comes up our street and goes to the end. You know when they are coming because the guy standing in the back of the truck with the garbage loudly clangs together two pieces of metal. When you hear this, you grab all of the garbage in the house. You then go out and stand on the street with everyone else waiting for the truck to turn around and come back down the street
courtyard in a set of shops
. This is usually Jacks job, especially if one of us has to jump up out of bed at 7:30am to take care of it. He is quite liking the whole thing now. He goes out in his pajama bottoms and t-shirt. It is quite the social event. Everyone says buenos dias to each other and chit chats. The truck is a one ton pick up with a huge box on the back. The guy stays in there, you have to come and reach up to hand him the bags. He or the driver does not get out of the truck. It all just adds to the fun of being in Mexico. Then there is the gas man, the milk man, the food vendors and the sales people. The gas man has a loud tune that plays, the milk man honks his horn as he goes by, each vehicle does something unique so you can distinguish between them. The milk delivery is hilarious. I think it is every 2nd day that the milkman arrives. He like any other delivery vehicle makes some sort of noise as he comes up the street to inform people of his arrival. There is a guy in the back of a truck with large metal containers of milk. People come out of their houses with anything and everything imaginable to collect milk in. It ranges from plastic buckets, bowls, pots, you name it. The guy uses a big cup to scoop milk out of the containers and fills up the people's containers. He asks how many cups they would like and they pay accordingly.
Courtyard inside a restaurant
Every day as dusk approaches we have a man that wanders the streets around where we live. He has a cart with some kind of food in a plastic bag, it gets chili powder sprinkled on it, but we can't figure out what it is. He has this great call he does as he pushes his cart along. It sounds like a long two toned yodel. We love hearing it. We get people knocking and ringing the door buzzer, it seems to come in spurts. Sometimes a few a day, many days in a row, and then nothing for a while. They have anything from fruit, vegetables, woven rugs, knife sharpeners, to pottery for sale.
We have developed a friendly relationship with all the construction workers at a building site right across our street. Each day at about 1pm the mens' families come to meet them for lunch. The women and children bring food for their dads. Our front steps just happen to make a great place for them to all sit and eat. No one speaks any English, and we only speak a bit of Spanish, but we seem to communicate just fine. At first if we were coming our going out of the house, they would all get up and thinking we would want them to leave. Now we chit chat the best we can with them in Spanish, we will miss them all when we leave.
I had a very nice surprise for my birthday. Jack got us a hotel right beside the main square in town. We had a two level suite with a rooftop patio with a jacuzzi. We had incredible views from the rooftop. The suite had a nice king size bed, t.v. internet, and a fireplace. It was a very nice treat for us. We had dinner out at a restaurant where I even got to have a nice piece of grilled salmon, yummmm. Unfortunately there was one drawback to the room, the darn clock tower in the square goes off all through the night. Ring, ring, ring goes the bell at 15 minute intervals!
Stay tuned we will have more to share with you from San Miguel.
