I'm actually getting pretty good at sleeping on the bus. The bus seats are far more comfortable than airplane seats, and I've discovered that if I bring my fleece sweater for a pillow and my sleepsack for a blanket, I can actually get a decent night's sleep.
This has got to be the strangest expression of Catholic devotion I have witnessed in my few short years.
I'm sitting in a courtyard outside the Church of the Lady of Guadalupe in Tuxtla. The church is a cavernous concrete cube, and recent modifications have left it painted a uniform mute yellow, inside and out, with massive purple and pink accent walls. The small courtyard is filled with people milling about, and the two back walls are lined with vendors selling homemade tamales, tacos, and tostadas. Diagonally across from them is a small stage where young children in costume perform a traditional dance. The girls are all made up, with ribbons and flowers in their hair and lipstick and eyeshadow on their faces, giving them a modest air of maturity. The illusion is broken when one of them smiles, showing a gaping hole where baby teeth have recently disappeared. Between the vendors and the dancers are the pilgrims, forming a line leading out to the street, and that's where the strangeness begins.
We passed a group of pilgrims earlier today, as we were bussing into Tuxtla. There was a truckload of costumed youth, and in front of them a solitary figure ran with a torch held high. We passed several torch runners early this morning, many miles out of town, and they are all destined for this church. Other pilgrims have walked here from nearby villages or neighbourhoods, and most processions are accompanied by decorated cars and mariachi bands. They patiently await their turn, and when the time comes -- about every ten or fifteen minutes -- a new group storms the courtyard.
They pile in en masse, chanting and singing. "Give me an L!" "U!"... and so on, as they spell "Lupita", the Virgin's nickname. They yell ra-ra cheers to Maria. As they stand in the courtyard outside the church, they hold aloft pictures of the virgin and banners declaring their group affiliation: the local Bimbo bakery is here now, and just before them came a local toy factory, accompanied by Sesame Street's Ernie and Bert. Rafa told me a story about a group in recent years that was handed the microphone to announce their group, and they proudly declared that they were hookers.
A priest or brother stands outside the church, in the courtyard, and announces each arrival (although there's so much going on, nobody really pays much attention) and blesses them with holy water. Another priest or brother stands out on the street, blessing an endless stream of balloon-bedecked taxis. Another group is queuing now in front of the church, and drums and shakers are filling the courtyard with an infectious rhythm, drowning out the out-of-tune clarinets that accompany them. They carry balloons and palms and sing as they enter the church, and the bass drum is pounding out a steady samba beat behind them. Once in the church they pop balloons to announce their arrival, and the band plays, and they grab a microphone and lead more cheers.
This is not a religious festival. It is a pep rally.
The high-school feel is emphasized by the modernly unadorned church, whose dimensions would be perfect for a basketball game if they could just move the altar out of the way. With the cheering and the chanting finished, the priests attempts to put things into perspective with a short speech about the important of peace or community or some other appropriate topic. I suspect, though, that his effort are futile: I can hear another band leading another hoarse group of youths up to the entrance.
Religion holds a strange place in Mexican society. It is not so much a devout country as it is a patriotic one, and to be Mexican is to be Catholic. Even more importantly, though, to be Mexican is to revere the Virgin. Her name was the battle cry of independence heroes; her image adorns the t-shirts displayed by national league soccer players after they score goals. "Viva Mexico!" and "Viva Maria!" cheers intermingle effortlessly. The priest yells "Long live the Queen of Mexico!" and cheers go up from the crowd. The people here may or may not be devout church-goers, and their devotion her is as much to their nation and to themselves as it is to God.
Every year a procession leaves from the hill villages surrounding Tuxtla. The people walk to the church in Tuxtla, some as far as 100 kilometers, to make their devotions to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Rafa, Father Castro, Marti, and I drove about seventy kilometers to meet one of the processions, where it is now camped by the side of the road. The priests are here to say Mass and hear confessions, first here for the men, and then later for the women, camped further down the road; Marti and I are just along for the ride.
This is what I imagine a refugee camp to look like. There are several hundred people here, sprawled on the grass, sleeping, lying, waiting, doing nothing. Most wear typical red bandanas so they all look like they have head wounds. The sun is setting, and a warm orange glow lights up the faces that are gathering around a simple altar set up on the grass. A cool grey veil has fallen over the cliffs on the other side of the road. Most of the walkers are wearing sandals, and quite a few already have bandaged feet, with another two days' worth of hard walking awaiting them early tomorrow morning.
The pilgrims arrived at the church around noon. The men filed through first, followed by the women, and the constant stream of shuffling devotees took three hours to process. The men were just a large mob, a sea of red bandanas stretching down the street. The women were more organized, standing in several tight lines. All continued to shout and cheer, even as they waited in the noonday sun, stopped by the crowds a half-mile from the goal. As they neared the church a few of the women broke into tears, and a few more were hobbling on abused feet. The vast majority, though, were smiling, happy, and looking refreshed as they came to the end of their long ordeal.
I found Mercedes twirling her rainbow umbrella in San Cristobal's central plaza, just as the Lonely Planet had described. She had already accumulated a small congregation of gringos to take her tour, and shortly after I arrived we set off. Our destination was San Juan Chamula, a Mayan village (specifically, Tzotzil) a few kilometers from San Cristobal.
Upon arrival Mercedes led us through the village, a ramshackle collection of concrete and thatch houses stretching up into the hills. San Juan Chamula is a fairly small town, but it serves as the main center for several hundred thousand Tzotzils living in the surrounding countryside. Mercedes led us to a small building and ushered us inside. The room was small, very dark, and corn stalks hung upside down in the middle of the room creating a curtain. Behind the curtain was an altar; the ground was covered with fresh green pine needles. We sat on benches lining the walls; Mercedes sat on the floor in front of us and explained... well, she explained everything: the basis of Mayan beliefs, the importance of the saints, the structure of village society, her own life history...
Mercedes is 26 years old, but typically for her people, looks much older. She is heavy set, with long black braids, and her eyes sparkle as she speaks. She is unmarried, and is now so old (for her culture) she probably never will be. She is educated, and as she passionately explains the beliefs of the mayans one gets a sense that she is slowly becoming an outsider. She wants to fight to change the cultural values that see the women of her village subjugated, married at puberty, becoming old women before they have a chance to live.
Behind Mercedes sat a woman on a small chair. She was probably 16 or 17 years old, and earlier, as Mercedes talked, she had gone about the business of venerating the saint to whom the house is dedicated. She lit candles in front of the corn stalks, and produced billowing clouds of sweet smoke from a clay chalice, and chanted prayers behind the corn stalk curtain in a low murmur. As she sat on the chair, though, her eyes were vacant. Her daughter, two or three years old, played on the dirt floor, while her mother simply stared off into space. I watched this young woman. There was no life in her. She simply sat on the chair and looked empty. Meanwhile, her daughter played on the ground beside Mercedes. There was still hope for a new generation.
People ask, as people tend to do: "How was Mexico?" And I respond, generally:
It was pretty good. It had its moments -- sometimes I was extremely happy, and sometimes I was ambivalent, and sometimes I was deeply lonely and deeply bored and deeply frustrated. I'd say the good times and the bad times split themselves evenly. I chose a difficult route, well off the backpacker's trail. My route also wasn't very efficient, containing some long bus rides and a bit of backtracking. I enjoyed some great food in Oaxaca. I had a great time settling into the city of Uruapan. I wish I'd had more time to explore the cultures of Chiapas. I certainly have a much greater appreciation for the culture of Mexico, and I don't think I'll eat in a Mexican restaurant outside of Mexico ever again.
The last part of my trip, in Chiapas, was the best, and I don't think it's a coincidence that Chiapas was where I spent the least amount of time writing in my journal and updating my website. I started these travels with writing as a goal, to develop style and content that might be useful one day. But the writing developed into a burden, colouring everything I saw, and I was constantly composing in my head, and the focus of my travels moved away from me and towards the audience back home. I don't want that for my next trip, and so I'm going to be writing much less, and updating the website much less, and just enjoying the travelling for what it has to offer for me.
Now, I can't wait to meet my girlfriend in New Zealand and start travelling again.