"Our Lady of Guadalupe"

This Sunday the weather wasn't very nice, it was cloudy and chilly but we still decided to check out something new that we haven't seen yet. So we took a pesero from Reforma all the way to the church complex dedicated to "Our Lady of Guadalupe", which is in La Villa the north part of the city. This particular worship of Saint Mary is extremely important for Mexicans for religious and historical reasons.

The story goes that in 1531 a Mary appeared to a Native American at Tepeyac, a hill northwest of what is now Mexico City. She identified herself as the virgin Mary. She made a request for a church to be built on the site, and submitted her wish to the local Bishop. When the Bishop hesitated, and requested a sign, the Mother of God obeyed without delay and sent her native messenger to the top of the hill in mid-December to gather an assortment of roses for the Bishop. She also left an image of herself imprinted on the natives' tilma, a poor quality cactus-cloth, which should have deteriorated in 20 years but apparently shows no sign of decay 476 years later. This revelation was equally important for the Spanish conquerors in their colonizing project and for Mexican Indians in their quick and peaceful turn to Catholicism. Millions of Mexicans travel to see the miraculous place and attend a mess here.

There are three big churches and a few chapels on the site. The oldest they started to build in 1531 and finished only in 1709. But since the ground was weak (like everywhere in the city) the basilica was slowly sinking and in the 1970s a new, more spacious and modern basilica was built to replace it. Today both are open to visitors but the masses are held only in the new building. If you walk further up to the very top of the hill via a series of stairs there is also a third, smaller church. What was most interesting to me was the incredible dedication of the crowd to Mary, instead of Jesus. All altars have Mary on them while Jesus stays in the background. Also, there are two statues in the old basilica which show the Virgin Mary as a child and a baby girl. They seem to adore Mary already as an infant here, something I haven't seen or heard of anywhere else.

As a consequence of this cult's importance, Mary is now the Queen of the Americas, a patriot of the whole continent. Since the first Hungarian king, St. Stephen also offered the country to the Virgin Mary she is very important for Hungarian catholics also, so the Mexican worship of her resonated very well with me.

pictures

The first picture is the Pyramid of the Sun. The second picture shows churros (yamm) while the third the house of Frida Kahlo (and Diego Rivera)

Coyoacan II and Theotihuacan

So I'm back again with a new entry, but too many things have happened this week so I'll have to be short and probably leave out some interesting details.

This Thursday we went down to Coyoacan again with James and it was truly lovely again. The weather was great and we were in a much better mood too after both James and my cat got better. (On that note: unfortunately, my cat has something like a lung emphysema, which is common amongst old cats apparently, and it is incurable. But at least we know what it is now, and have a little time to spend with him while preparing for the worst...).

We decided to check out some sights this time, so besides my favorite church in the center we visited the Frida Kahlo museum. The house was pretty (bright blue), colonial, colorful, with some furniture to give you an idea about how Diego Rivera and her used to live there for 30 years. There are some paintings too, but mostly by Rivera. This in fact was slightly disappointing: there is absolutely no art by Frida Kahlo and there is not much about her history and past in the house. Apart from the clothes and reconstructed kitchen, we didn't find out anything her except through the lenses (paintings, letters) of Rivera. So, all in all I didn't quite understand why it was called the Frida Kahlo house and not the "Diego Rivera house"...But other than that it was very pleasant. We also had tortas again, in the same place but this time maybe we weren't so hungry or we ordered the wrong thing because both of us felt that it was too greasy (it is true: I ordered one with the famous choriso sausage just to try, so I don't know what I expected...)I also tried a very popular pastry here, it's called: churro, which I really liked. It is a bready stick that is deep fried and just a little sweet from the sugar but it's soft and a little chewy in the middle. I do recommend it to everybody with a sweet tooth! But take it without any filling because that makes it way too sweet (tried that too - with chocolate).

On Friday, my fried Yvonne arrived to visit us from New York and we went to Theotihuacan on Saturday. It was one of the most beautiful and interesting sights I have seen here so far. It is an old Indian city, the largest pre-Columbian city that was built around 500BC but it lost all its habitants and was miraculously deserted by 800AD. At its peak, it had 45,000 habitants, more than the contemporary Rome. It is a vast, long, straight road (2 km) surrounded by ruins of smaller and bigger temples, pyramids, administrative buildings and what looks like remains of streets and houses. The two most amazing and largest pyramids are that of the Sun and at the very end of the road the Pyramid of the Moon. We climbed both of them, and I have to tell you, it was not easy. They are very hight and steep. The Pyramid of the Sun is in fact the 3rd highest pyramid in the world (the second is also in Mexico). It is not hollow inside but a mountain of rubble, imagine: over 3 million tonnes of stone was used to build it...It is just so different than anything else I have ever seen and to imagine the busy life once going on there, the wealth and the rich culture (they already had writing and books) - it is incredible.
Theotihuacan was our first venture out of the city (it is 50 km north, a bus takes you there in an hour for 30 pesos - 3 dollars), but we are already planning the next trip somwhere else. I loved to be outside the crazy big metropolis for a day, it was quiet, peaceful and overwhelming. And we even got suntanned a little.

"Está en Trámite"

A word on bureaucracy here in old Mexico: Lilla and I discussed earlier today why there are so many rules and regulations here, but we didn’t really come to a consensus. Lilla thinks that there is a structural similarity between all third world countries where the (bloated) bureaucracy is not really about serving the consumer/citizen but more about creating service jobs and handing out patronage. Certainly, no one in either Romania or Mexico goes out of there way to make things easier for the poor fellow trapped in the middle of all that paperwork. I have theories. For instance, in Mexico (less so even than other Latin American countries) the military, in the nineteenth century at least, was the most effective mode of organizing society and has a lasting impact. I'm sure this is wrong and a stupid theory. But, at the gym it certainly seems there is a self-appointed caudillo running the place. The signs now say, “don’t use the machines if you weight more than 90kg,” “pick up a pass for the caminadora at the front desk.” Meanwhile, employees roam the gym asking for your pass and estimating your weight.

Everywhere there is paperwork, and rules and regulations that must be followed in order to move forward—or (as the guards say) “adelantar.” Today I registered at the hemeroteca at UNAM—and I followed the instructions to a tee; I brought a stamped letter of invitation from an institution on a “membrete,” an application, an application fee, a copy of my lease, two fotos de tamaño infantil, and a copy of my identidad vigente. Turns out I also needed a utility bill with my landlady’s name on it. Perhaps tomorrow if I take that last item I can at last look at newspapers (what is often refered to here in Mexico as “the patrimony”) from a hundred years ago on microfilm. I am affiliated at a highly-esteemed college here as well, but my paperwork is still going through—a month later. They say that the paperwork “está en trámite.” I think I have to turn in a project description now—and who knows what they ask for next. Meanwhile at the Archive of the Nation I have to use gloves and a surgical mask to touch the patrimony. Further, every time I see a security guard with a button-down guerrera at the archive on I have to show h/er the serial number on my computer. To make things easier, I just copied the number down on a sticker and affixed it to the back of my computer. That seems to work for some reason. But every batch of photocopies I carry away from the archives has to have at least three official stamps on it. The rubber stamp industry in Mexico is positively booming.

Perhaps the paperwork also serves the purpose of keeping the undesirables out.This is a constant concern in Mexico, the only place where I have ever seen an armed guard inside of a Starbucks. At the Sandborns (a local chain something like a Woolworths from the 1930s with the addition of a restaurant), I've seen three armed guards carrying what looked like AK-47s. I guess this is supposed to make the consumer feel special. At the bar we went to in Coyocan tonight, we drank behind a rope guarded by two or three bouncers. And when we left, we had to have the receipt stamped.

But I'm probably just bitter right now. I've been sick. I'll write something nice about the cathedrals next time.

Coyoacan

We haven't blogged for awhile now because the week was pretty monotonous and not very pleasant in general. James still isn't feeling very well, although since yesterday he did improve considerably, but the recovery is slow and painful. Besides, I am totally freaked out about my most darling 14 years old cat, Lacika who fell sick this week. He has some kind of lung infection and is on antibiotics, but mom is very worried about him. I cannot even imagine the prospect of losing him, he is our most loved little kitty and has been the sunshine in our lives for so long now... Besides these two serious issues, I also had some minor annoyances that made things worse. So all in all life is not the best right now, but we are hopeful.

And yesterday finally we did go to Coyoacan, the "university neighborhood" and met up with Pablo for lunch. James was supposed to go to the UNAM library first, but he didn't feel strong enough yet, so we just went down in the afternoon. We met Pablo in this adorable and very low key torteria and finally we had our first "tortas" in Mexico. Tortas are very similar to US sandwiches, lots of different kinds of stuff put in a bun, but I thought that they were more delicious than their northern counterparts because: 1. they are lighter and smaller, 2. the combination of ingredients is much more carefully thought through, 3. they are much more varied. So for instance, James had a vegetarian torta with eggplant and cheese, but the eggplant was so deliciously roasted with garlic and different spices and the cheese was perfectly melting and it had avocado and a tartar like sauce on. Mine was with squid and a special pesto kind of sauce - amazing combination of tastes - and Pablo had one with 2 different kinds of meat. Meat of course is big here, so we eat it quite often although I still cook a lot of vegetarian dishes at home.

Coyoacan itself is very cute, no high buildings, it's like an old colonial town (used to be totally separate from DF) with lots of young people, students and such, very funky, great pubs with kegs even, cobblestones, bookshops, and an amazingly large and beautiful church surrounded by a park in the center which hosted the weekly "hippy market" full of jewelry, t-shirts, hair extensions, incense, etc. I bought a very cute and warm sweater kind of hoodie, woolen, hard to describe, maybe I'll put up pictures of it later...The streets are narrow with lots of pedestrian traffic... Loved it! Although it takes about an hour to get there from where we live, I'm sure we'll be back to Coyoacan very soon and we'll also visit the Frida Kahlo museum then.
Above are some pictures just to give you a taste...