Scrapbook: Mexico City’s Lively Day of the Dead
/So it turns out that Mexico’s world-famous Day of the Dead festival lasts more than a day (two weeks really) and is one of the most life-affirming celebrations that can be experienced. My conference in Valle de Bravo has just ended, and I’ve decided to add a week in order to be here on November 1 and 2, the main festival days. We’ll base ourselves in Mexico City. I’ve got a friend we can stay with and others to take us around, so we’re all set. Vamos!
We’ve arrived in Mexico City, or CDMX, just in time to see the Procession of the Catrinas. The elegantly attired skeletons have come to symbolize Mexico’s celebration of El Día de los Muertos. Day of the Dead isn’t for another week, pero los ciudadanos are already festejando.
Neighborhood watch: Many are calling the colonia of Santa María La Ribera the next Condesa. See it now before it gets too hip. Mexico City.
Mexico City is a riveting mix of opulent and humble, tranquil and riotous, decaying and edgy, phantasmagoric and real—a consequence of more than 700 years of turbulent history and clashing cultures. It all oozes out onto the streets, no more so than in the Centro Histórico. Eduardo Rangel, a guide with Urban Adventures, showed me the city’s highlights and its hidden corners, pointing out the cloister of a 17th-century proto-feminist nun, the hole in the restaurant ceiling a swaggering Pancho Villa supposedly made with a gunshot, Diego Rivera’s barely disguised FUs to the establishment in his murals, and other overlooked marvels. We went inside a market where you can buy all sorts of potions and herbs to heal, bewitch, or bedevil and where an herbalist insisted I put my hand over a peyote cactus to feel its energy. And I had the best taco in my life in a nondescript taqueria. (Thanks for making the arrangements, Paul Sarfati of bamba, and accommodating my request to have the tour en español.)
The Frida fever is contagious even when one realizes that Kahlo was nowhere near the artist her husband Diego Rivera was. Why has she become a global icon to feminists, leftists, fashionistas, LGBTQs, and the differently abled? And how does her personal history connect to Mexico’s? A day with Milay Nogueira of Vive Frida Tours sheds some light.
La cocina mexicana: Learning to make carne en su jugo, sopes de papa y chorizo, agua de jamaica, and three kinds of salsa from scratch at the home of longtime friends, who opened their hearth and hearts. Muchísimas gracias por todo, Ana y Adelina! Will be trying this on the neighbors when I get back home.
Lucha Libre: No words. Plus mariachi, mezcal, cantinas, and tequila. All the Mexican stereotypes rolled into one fun night with bamba Travel, gracias Paul!
Death is an integral part of life, and Mexican culture recognizes that more than others. Only the form changes; the substance remains the same. Our deceased loved ones walk amongst us and watch over us, and El Día de los Muertos is a season to honor and celebrate them, by parading as catrinas and catrines, picnicking in cemeteries, and setting up elaborate ofrendas. I recall my own childhood in the Philippines, where the extended family also gathered around mausoleums with Tupperwares of adobo and pancit. I remember relatives who have passed, among others, Lolo Danding and Abuling, Lolo Pepe and Lola Luz, Tito Louie, Tito Dado, Nanay Ising, and this year, cousins Rosanna and Carlos.
People animate a city.
Thanks to old and new friends and countless strangers who gave heart and passion to the oldest, highest, and largest city in North America, and were patient while I practicaba mi español. Among them, Adelina, Ana, Rebeca, Jennine, Paul, Milay, Fernando, Kristen, Soledad, Lillian. Special thanks to Eileen who put me up for a week and when not working was always eager to explore aspects of this vast metropolis. Nos vemos prontito!
Photos © Norie Quintos