oh. umm. hello.

Although I generally try to avoid the "sorry I haven't posted" messages, I do apologize for my extremely extended absence. There's been a lot going on, not all of which I could post about yet, and it made me feel unable to post anything at all. Because, as I said, there's a lot of new stories and info, I'm going to break the news up over multiple posts this weekend. Stick with me and I think you'll see what I mean.

Firstly, back in December, I had the single best birthday I can remember. Sounds strange, right? Even weirder is how that came about. I really don't like my birthday. It's too close to Christmas, too much stuck in the middle of the time when everyone's too busy and feeling the pressure of too much obligation. Most of my life I have tried desperately--and failed horribly--to make it something people are excited about. In the last couple years, I've just wanted to spend a couple hours with close friends. This year, I wanted to ignore it. I thought it would make me too sad to try to celebrate with people who've known me for three months--at best.

It didn't help that a week before my birthday, Andrea and I told my supervisor in La Estación that I wouldn't be returning in the new year. The violence that I've been writing about hasn't essentially changed since arrival, but Andrea and I both felt that the tone had changed, and we decided that for the sake of the program it would be better to find a different arrangement. It wasn't an easy conversation. A lot of the people I was working closely with took the news very personally, and it was emotional for me as well; in such a short time, I already feel like I have walked through fire with these families. So, on December 17th, the last Friday of work before holidays, my birthday/going away party was scheduled. Total downer, right? I figured I would be there to eat some cake, answer the community's questions about exactly why I had to leave mid-year, and hope to get out without a major scene. I gave up all hope of having a high-energy, festive birthday. I could only imagine how much it was going to stink.

Some of my closest friends from the projecto, including Sylvia, Lulu, Maestra Fresvinda, and Guille.

On the morning of, more than 20 people showed up with various sorts of foods to share, a huge cake, and balloons. It was anything but a "going away party." It was a birthday party, full of hugs, friends, and laughter. My changing work situation was only addressed as people said their goodbyes: I hope you have a wonderful birthday, that you have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, a good visit with your family, and that you love your new job. We'll miss you so much. It was everything I could've hoped for.

More tomorrow on my new work placement. 
Saturday I'll post more end-of-service reflections about La Estación.
Look for a post about Christmas and my parents' visit on Sunday.

Advent

Last week at work, I learned to make buñuelos. Unfortunately, I can't prove it--it happened on the one day of the week I didn't carry my camera with me!

 

image via google image search

If you're not familiar with buñuelos, the best way I have of describing them is as Mexico's response to the elephant ear. They're much thinner, though, and crispy. They're topped exclusively with sugar and ground cinnamon. One of the women who was helping to teach me told me that she only makes them for the Christmas season.
I remember growing up my pastor parents tried to impress upon us the meaning of advent. I spent most of the season worrying about what gifts I was going to get. Perhaps it's the fact that gift-giving isn't so essential to the Christmas tradition in Mexico as it is in the states. Perhaps it's my personal commitment to live simply this year, and my attempt to resist the urge to get a bunch of new toys. Perhaps it's the fact that the weather in Cuernavaca still isn't cold enough for football season to be over, let alone nearing Christmas. But somehow, I find myself patiently waiting for Christmas to start. I enjoyed saying the rosary for the Virgin with my neighbors last week. I'm excited about the posadas that will start next week. I'm stuffing myself with buñuelos.

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. It's easily surpassed Halloween as my favorite holiday in recent years. My friend Anneli described the feeling of the holiday as being pure. Christmas gets all mixed up in worry about shopping and wrapping presents and making things equal, but Thanksgiving is only about food and family and being present at the table. So, last week was a little hard for me.
I knew we would have our dinner here in Cuernavaca on Saturday (which quickly became known, thanks to yours truly and my overabundance of enthusiasm, as THANKSFRIGGINGIVIN), but I still woke up sad on Thanksgiving Day. I couldn't help but think about who was up already, pre-heating the oven for the turkey. Who would be making the sweet potatoes? What would be forgotten until the last-minute scramble? The half hour I allotted to making a few phone calls home didn't help as much as I thought they would, since the holidays in both parts of my families were pretty drastically different from tradition this year. It was hard to think the holiday might go on without me. It was harder to realize that my family's holidays are changing, and that the Thanksgivings of my childhood might be gone for good.
All of us YAGM-Mexico volunteers are, I think, getting over our honeymoon with Mexico. I recently described the feeling to a friend as "Things are getting real." My enthusiastic "These fresh tortillas are delicious!" has changed to an aggravated "Why can't I just have some dense whole-wheat bread for once?!" We've had three months to get used to the major cultural differences, and now we're working on more nuanced expectations. It's a difficult time, even without the holidays. But I am trying to remember to be thankful for this experience, even through my sadness at being so far away from home. I am trying to remember that the most influential experiences I've had in my life were also difficult at times. But mostly, I am trying to remember the prayer we sing every day before eating dinner at Casa Tatic:
 Demos Gracias al Señor,                                   We give thanks to the Lord,
Demos Gracias.                                                   We give thanks.
Demos Gracias al Señor.                                   We give thanks to the Lord.
En la mañana, que se levanta                           In the morning, the rooster sings
El gallo canta,                                                      just because he's awake,
y yo canto al Señor.                                            and I also sing to the Lord.

Our THANKSFRIGGINGIVIN dinner, by the way, was amazing.

Pan de Muertos

This weekend, I got the chance to go make pan de muertos with Anneli and her host family. It was so much fun, both because we got to play with bread dough, and because Anneli's host family reminds me so much of my extended family in North Carolina. It felt surprisingly like home.

Delphilia, trying to show me the right way to shape my hand
so as to make the balls of dough smooth and even.

Anneli wrote a really beautiful post that I hope you'll read about the process and experience. I especially love the final paragraph:

We take home three large cardboard boxes full of bread. Golden brown and colorful, some of it will adorn our Día de los Muertos altar and be an offering to the dead. The rest of it we will share with neighbors and the rest of the extended family, and all will enjoy eating it for the next several weeks. For today, this tradition in honor of the dead has invited us to treasure life and remember those who have died. It has brought together three generations of the living and people and traditions from the north of the United States to the south of Mexico. As far as I can tell, that's what the Day of the Dead is about. 

Día de los Muertos

Today, 2 November, was Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Sam was here visiting after our monthly community gathering (which I was surprised to learn I'm alone in calling "community day," a throwback, I'm sure, to my BSC days), and we visited Ocutupec, a pueblo just north of Cuernavaca that is known for its celebrations on this holiday. Any household that has experienced a death within the last year opens its doors to visitors, who pass by an ofrenda to the deceased, heavy with flowers, littered with candles, and stacked with piles of sweets, breads, favorite foods, soda, and alcohol. Visitors bring a gift of candles or marigolds, the traditional flower of Día de los Muertos, to offer the family. In return, the family offers a snack, most commonly pan de muertos and ponche, a seasonal punch that tastes not unlike cider.
Visiting these ofrendas was such an exciting cultural experience, but also one that made me feel more like a tourist than I usually do. It was sometimes hard to get a feel for what was expected of visitors. Is it okay to take pictures? Should I clap when the mariachi band finishes a song? Is this a party, or a wake? I quickly found that the expectations, and the experience, varied from house to house. Some seemed happy to have so many visitors, honored to be able to offer hospitality, and glad to be celebrating life. Some were obviously still mourning their loss in such a personal way that I felt like an intruder into a very private space. I think it will be a long time before I have fully processed the evening.

Licha, my "mexomom," went to the cemetery yesterday to drop off some flowers, and again this morning, but she invited me to return with her after lunch today. She said the whole family would be there, hanging out for most of the afternoon and evening. I was a little unsure as to whether I would be intruding on an important family event, but I was curious to see a Mexican cemetery, so I agreed.
When we got there, I was surprised that they handed me two small chairs to carry in so we had a place to sit. There were people on the street selling more marigolds and candles. The graves were spaced close together, some at odd angles so as to fit another casket in between existing ones. It was impossible to walk between the graves, but it didn't seem to bother anyone at all to walk right on top of them, as long as they didn't disturb any of the decorations in the process.
Along the way, Licha pointed out her brother, mother, in-laws, cousins, family of her brother-in-law, and a son who died in infancy. She said we were going to sit near her husband's family, because there was more space. All of the graves of "our" family had already been decorated, but I noticed families all around us arranging silk flowers, weeding the top of the graves, and watering the potted marigolds. We greeted aunts and cousins and then sat for a while in contented silence; I remembered visiting my Mawmaw and Pawpaw's graves just before leaving for language school. I felt it should be a somber occasion for reflection and remembering, but the air felt so light, so full of life. Everywhere people were chatting or laughing or singing songs or saying prayers, but no one was crying. No one was kneeling by a grave whispering into the dirt. We were there, in the presence of those who have passed, but our attentions were turned to the living.

A comment on special occasions

I've really only been in Mexico a short time, but already I'm feeling like I've been gone for years. Okay, maybe not years, but definitely a long time. Mainly, I'm sure, this is because I kind of missed an entire season already. Admittedly, summer is not at all my favorite season, and I happily spent all but two days of August out of the state of South Carolina--the time when, I'm pretty sure, the Devil himself goes on summer vacation to Richland County, and brings the oppressive, unbearbly-hot, overly-humid climate with him straight from hell. Ask any meteorologist. I'm sure they'll agree.

One of the things I really enjoy about traveling for extended periods of time is the opportunity to spend special occasions outside of my own culture. It's kind of refreshing, and definitely humbling, to realize how little the rest of the world cares about the things that are huge events for us. "Big deal," the world seems to say, "we've got holidays all the time!" Although, I have to confess that the two times I spent Independence Day in Germany were quite different than this year, when I was in Guatemala. In Germany, people are familiar enough with world history to recognize that the day had significance for me, but in Guatemala there was no mention of it whatsoever.

Perhaps more pointedly, I must confess that even I probably wouldn't have noticed the anniversary of 9/11 if it hadn't been from an email I got from ELCA-Global Missions about the proposed Q'uran burning in Florida. I don't mean to say that the day was unimportant. I just mean that I got up that morning and I went to work like everyone else. I'm living in a country, that although it has a love/hate relationship with the country of my birth, it is a primarily Catholic country, a country that's got bigger fish to fry than whether or not the "War on Terror" is justified, a country that honestly cares very little if a radical pastor in Florida decides to set flame to a bunch of books, or if a community center is built in Manhattan.