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Paseo de las Ánimas

Jonna — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 06:30:48 +0000

Every year during Hanal Pixán, the Mayan name for the traditional Day of the Dead celebrations, they close Calle 66 one night from the church at La Ermita to the cemetery – about 10 or 12 blocks. City departments, schools, people who live along the street and other groups build traditional altars in the street. This year it happened on Friday night and Mimi and I walked most of it for a couple hours.

At one point we were really thirsty and went into a store looking for cold water or soda. The only thing he had cold was beer so I asked him if we could carry them outside on the street. He took them and carefully wrapped them in newspaper hiding the labels. We carried them up the street past lots of police with no problem. Everything is possible, that’s what I love about Mexico.

The kids dressed as skeletons were fantastic, many of them so small that they were carried by their parents. It was like a long block party, lots of people walking and sitting by their altars, lots of music, food, and smiles. I asked before I took any pictures and everyone said yes, they were proud of their altar and wanted to share it.

We spent a lot of time watching and listening to the band at the square. All of the musicians were older women dressed traditionally. They were fantastic!

I took a lot of pictures so if you would like to share in the Paseo de las Ánimas (walk of the souls) click the picture below to go to the album.

Hanal Pixán 2010

I’m back, sort of

Jonna — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:00:21 +0000

that's our internet line in that box

We’ve been without internet for several days, we got it back yesterday but I have continued to pretend it was out so I could get other things done. Oh boy, have I got a PILE of unread emails! I don’t know where to start, I go and take a look at the inbox and then I just close the window and play solitaire for awhile. I’m procrastinating because it is overwhelming. I know, it won’t get better by ignoring it. If you have emailed me in the last week, please give me more time to answer. I could probably just go on pretending we are off line for another few days except that Mimi is on Facebook and she immediately dimed us off. I knew I hated Facebook for a reason.

What happened to our internet? There is a convoluted tale about that. We have some great guys who are renovating the house next door. They arrived last Saturday for a week and were staying with us. Meanwhile, their contractor decided he didn’t like the look of the Telmex box on the front of their house, tore it off and left it open and dangling from the wires. Then, hurricane Patrick took a spin south of us and sent a lot of rain up here. Then, the day after the guys arrived and are staying in our guest room, our internet goes out. We discover the box hanging in the air, and our line goes right into it. One of the job bosses comes by and says they are going to make Telmex move the box, that it is illegal for it to be on the house. I doubt you can imagine the reaction Mimi and I had on our 3rd day of internet withdrawal to find out that this guy wants to go to war with Telmex and that our line is in the battle zone. Let’s fast forward past all that, we got Telmex out here, we got a new modem, perhaps our modem got fried, they will put the box back in hopefully a satisfactory place next week and who knows what comes next.

The amazing part of the story is that I spent almost an hour on the phone with Telmex support in Mexico City… in Spanish! I even navigated the machine speak to get to the live human! I was kind of impressed with myself until after completing a test and trying to find my way to the page he wanted me on, I got frustrated and the tech support guy asked if I would like the English tech support. Uh, that would be ok. After a cheery “Hello” from the new guy, things rapidly regressed to Spanish. Oh well, I was proud of myself and pretty amazed that we navigated that language exchange and settled on Spanish. You know that dance? You speak a little Spanish, they speak a little English, there is a kind of osmosis that settles which is the more fluent and you go on in that language. So, we completed all the tests (in Spanish) and they told me the modem was fine but the line was bad. Who knows how they came to that since the fix ended up being to replace the modem. Once I got past that, I went down to the Telmex office, got as far as the manager, got an appointment for them to come out the next day, sent the manager pictures of the box hanging in the air. Who knows what was really wrong, or what will happen in the future but for now, we have internet again and it is even a bit faster. Oh, and I got a big ‘attagirl’ from my Spanish teacher!

What else has happened? Lots! It is the week of Hanal Pixán or Day of the Dead or el Día de los Muertos, or Celebración de los Fieles Difuntos, a time to honor and greet the seres queridos (loved ones) that have left life. Mimi and I walked the Paseo de las Ánimas on Calle 66 the other night, the street is closed from La Ermita to one of the city cemeteries - about 10 or 12 blocks. City departments, residents, schools and others set up altars along the street. I took a lot of pictures and I’ll post a blog about it soon.

Milagro

Another little thing happened, we didn’t need this. Mimi was driving in the north the other night and saw what she thought at first was a coke bottle come out from under the car ahead of her. Then, it moved. She realized it was a small kitten and she swerved and slammed on her brakes to keep from hitting it. She jumped out and found it crying under the truck, trying to crawl into the wheel well. She grabbed it and made a fast run for the vet. Amazingly, he seems to be fine. He has a swollen eye and a scratch on that side of his face, perhaps where the tire of the other car grazed him. After spending the night at the vet and getting the all clear, we went and picked up our little Milagro. It was almost exactly a year ago that I found Raui under the shopping carts at the local grocery. I think in the future we will stay home for this weekend. This little kitten is truly a miracle and we can’t deny him a home. I will say that Tita and Raui are not pleased. Tita will barely come in the house and she is purely furious with both of us. If she doesn’t come around we will have to find our little miracle boy another home. Meanwhile though, he is stealing our hearts with his courage and his affection. The scoreboard here at Casa Ixchel now reads 3 dogs (2 females and 1 male) and 3 cats (2 females and 1 male) – the house is full. Please Universe, don’t do this again.

Hanal Pixán & Mucbil Pollo

Jonna — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:29:04 +0000

Monumento a la Patria

Here in Yucatán, the Day of the Dead is called Hanal Pixán. It has many of the same beliefs and traditions as in the rest of Mexico but it also has some things that are different, it’s done the Mayan way. One of the traditional foods usually eaten on the 1st of November is Mucbil Pollo. It’s a large, very rich tamale type dish, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an underground oven or Pib, because of this the dish is often called a Pib or Pibes.

the bakery

I got some advice on where to get a good Pib and was told to order it in advance or I wouldn’t be able to get one. So, I ordered one for the day after Dupre and Koren arrived so we could celebrate together. It came from a bakery that I had never noticed before, in the glorieta at the Monumento a la Patria. It’s a great bakery, I’m glad I’ve found it. They had a separate table for Pib orders, I paid half in advance and had to choose which kind I wanted. They come as chicken, pork or espelón, a small type of black bean. I got the mixto, sort of a half and half pan, why choose when you can have it all.

the price list

While there, I took some pictures of the regular bakery products for Hanal Pixán, the sweets for the altar and the sugar skulls with names already on them.

meringues

sugar skulls

I thought I would remember to take more pictures during dinner but I completely forgot. It was wonderful, I liked both the chicken and the pork side. The masa surrounding the filling is rich and crunchy and the seasoning was incredible. Very good that night and almost as good straight from the refrigerator at midnight!

The Pib on the table