I was looking at t-shirts in the local San Francisco de Assis supermarket here in Playa del Carmen, and found some really funny messages in English printed on them. I totally understand not having command of a second language. But if I were going to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to have cool, clever [...]
So today and tonight people all over the world are turning out their lights for an hour, starting at 8:30 PM local time, to show support for protecting the enviroment. I remember so well when it seemed that the only people interested in “ecology”, as we called it in 1970, were children and hippies. I [...]
Last week on November 2, Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, I followed the throngs who were streaming down the street. In Coatepec’s large, old cemetery, hundreds of people were gathering around the gravestones and tombs of their ancestors, whole families bearing flowers and decorations and food to spruce things up. It was a bright, [...]
This week in Coatepec is the Festival San Jeronimo, a week-long celebration in honor of the town’s patron saint. In English we know him as Jerome, c. 347 – September 30, 420, an early translator of the Christian and Hebrew scriptures. As I write this, fireworks – really big, loud ones – are exploding somewhere [...]
I was in Xico today and didn’t realize it was a fiesta day until this parade came up the street – they do this kind of thing a lot, at least once a month if not more. I grabbed my camera and took three short videos, all worth watching for a taste of “deep Mexico”. [...]
This past weekend I went with my neighbor Nilda to Teocelo, a little town in the mountains a few miles from Coatepec. At the home of Nilda’s friends, a big extended family, three or four generations, many of whom are lifelong residents of Teocelo, we had a lovely meal of chicken mole, black corn tamales, [...]
I want my blog-visitors to understand something: I promise to keep posting photos, but I can’t include them with every post. Okay, well, I could. But sometimes I come back from my daily adventures and think, for example, oh, if only I could share the way the rosticeria (coffee-roasting shop) smells when I come out [...]