Dancing with the Maya: una fiestita in Copoya
You 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...
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Faith: the heart of Mexican fiestas
The Calendario de las Ferias y Festividades Religiosas de Mexico is a guide to enjoying what is uniquely Mexican -- Folk Catholicism which evolved in the last four centuries. Fairs are included ...
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Village in the Sun by Dane Chandos
I reviewed Chandos's other book, "House in the Sun", in Mexico Connect a couple of months ago and now I'm catching up on what was actually the author's first book, published four years earlier. We're given a good long loving look at the various events that mark a typical year in a Mexican village - like The Day of the Dead, the Day of the Cross, Navidad, birthdays and the other festivals that are customarily celebrated. It all adds up to an attractive narrative.
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Inside Mexico: Living, Travelling and Doing Business in a Changing Society by Paula Heusinkveld
This is a very useful book for explaining Mexicans to the rest of us North Americans. Professor Heusinkveld has set out to cover Mexican attitudes to business relationships, social interactions, culture, customs and values and has largely succeeded in describing our neighbors in understandable ways. I would like to have read "Inside Mexico" four years ago when we first came here to live. However, perhaps it's only now, after four years' experience in the country, that I can really appreciate the people.
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Posadas, Pastorelas And Nacimientos
Las Posadas are fiestas that begin on the 16th and end on the 24th of December. In Mexico, during this period, there are many Posadas every evening.
read moreThe Day Of The Holy Cross - May 3rd
Each year on May 3rd processions of singing pilgrims carrying streamers and flowers wend their way through towns, cities and villages of Mexico to decorate the crosses along roadsides and on mountainto...
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June festivals at Lake Chapala
Christianizing their way around Lake Chapala in the early 1500s, taking the path of least resistance, Franciscan missionaries left each well-established settlement of Indians with their centuries-old c...
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A wedding and christening in rural Oaxaca: The mandate of tradition
La Quinceañera: a celebration of budding womanhood
The transition from childhood to womanhood is a significant passage for adolescent girls in almost all cultures. In Mexico, it is marked with the celebration of the Quinceañera, or 15th Birthday. From...
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