By now, I’m assuming you are finally here, settled into your hotel, refreshed and unpacked. Let’s begin our tour right away, because it will actually take more than three days to see and enjoy everything here. We will use taxis rather than colectivos to save time during your visit. After all, they are very affordable […]
Continue ReadingAfter an exciting week visiting a close friend, meeting new ones, and immersing myself fully in the rich cultural experience that is Oaxaca, I was headed home to celebrate Christmas with my family and friends in Chiapas. My husband was back in the States on business, so I had taken this special trip to Oaxaca […]
Continue ReadingYou would think that by now, well into my third year of living in Chiapas, I would have learned that familiar U.S. customs — especially ones which make me feel as though I have slipped into a comfortable old bathrobe — do not always transfer gracefully into my new country. But without the benefit of an established […]
Continue ReadingI have spent the early morning hours of this cool, beautiful summer morning surfing the Internet for international news and letters from friends in distant places. With my laptop clicking and whirring — and my modem giving me the occasional seductive wink — I make final revisions to a manuscript scheduled for publication on “Mexico […]
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The day starts early here in Copoya. Hours before a bright pink sun rises over the eastern mountain, the roosters, pigs, and braying burros compete noisily with horn blowing little colectivos speeding down into the great mercados of the city, slowly awakening below. The much less exotic sounds of dogs barking and kids playing will soon follow. The bell in the […]
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“Would you like to carry the casket?” I blinked vacantly, thinking perhaps the 104-degree heat was melting my brain-or maybe my shaky Spanish was failing me (that seemed more likely). “¿Como?” I asked, scarcely believing my ears. The young Zapotec Indian straining under the load motioned again to the small coffin. “Would you like to help carry […]
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The first traces of an awakening sun touch the morning horizon, brushing aside the night’s long shadows. On the streets of Ixtapalapa, a working class neighborhood 30 minutes by cab from the center of Mexico City, young men – some in the dress of the Jerusalem of 2000 years ago – shuffle by hurriedly. Many […]
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Regardless whether you translate la frontera as “border” or “frontier,” the images evoked are often negative: lawlessness, dusty streets, harsh climes, and a general disregard for human life. Even in an historical context, frontier life means living on the edges of civilization. When outsiders first encounter a Texas-Mexico border town, such images are often brutally reinforced. The […]
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From many streets away, we could hear the band playing the distinctive music. It was Carnival in Tepoztlán, and the Chinelos were dancing. We headed in the direction of the music to a small clearing outside the entrance to the church where children, dressed in spectacular costumes and wearing bearded masks, were jumping and hopping […]
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If you have heard of the picturesque, old colonial Mexican town of Taxco at all, you probably associate it with that precious metal so characteristic of Mexico – silver. If you had asked Cortés about Taxco almost 500 years ago, he would have made the same association. In fact, the silver and other minerals from […]
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