It´s the weekend of both my birthday and Mexican Independence Day, and sparks are flying. Not due to candles or fireworks, but because work is being done on our house and a man is upstairs operating heavy machinery. We have been living in a house without a roof, and for three weeks, tarps and vinyl panels have provided temporary protection. Over the past week, two men have been coming at random times to build something more stable.
Because the floor of the second story of the house is made of criss-crossed iron bars, sparks are able to reach the first floor while we sitting eating breakfast. We feel a bit annoyed that the men came in the morning on a Sunday, especially since on weekdays they had been arriving during the afternoons. However, we are glad things are getting done, and we gamely dodge flying flames as we clean up after eggs and joke about the situation.
Then, the handyman yells and falls from the roof, flat on his face and onto our second floor, with a vinyl slab atop of him. It takes me a moment to comprehend what has just happen. Jessica runs upstairs and I think about running to the parish for help, except I that I know I can´t communicate with anybody there. I yell at Jackie to call Sister Angelita, who is a doctor, and Jessica calls the parish and yells at me to bring up the bottle of tequila that the girls had given me for my birthday the day before.
Tequila is applied to the man´s wounds and he regains consciousness. We bring him downstairs where he has a shot while we clean the big gashes on his face. He is extremely incoherent. I feel helpless as we only have to two places to call in emergencies (the Sisters´home and the parish) and the Sisters are away and the parish is slow in reacting. We had been told that the police and ambulance drivers are corrupt and it´s best to avoid dealing with them.
The injured handyman stands up and decides he is in okay enough shape to leave. Though we don´t want him to go anywhere, his partner insists on leading him away. A few minutes later, Guillto, an older man who lives with the priests and helps them, shows up. Guillto is short, stout, always relaxed and jovial and is usually smoking a cigarette. While I generally find him charming and grandfatherly-like, I am upset by how lightly he takes the situation as he laughs at the man´s clumsiness and then cleans up some of the tools the men left behind.
It´s been quite a morning, and the day hasn´t even started yet. We had been told to go to one o´clock Mass and as ready ourselves and then walk to the parish, what sounds like gunshots keep going off. Though we know it´s only firecrackers for the holiday, the noise adds to the tension of the situation.
Mass is crowded, so we stand in the back along with other latecomers. After the service, Father leads a march that involves carrying flowers, chanting prayers and walking down a sleep, slippery hill and planting a giant cross, walking across a bridge and planting another one, and then walking up a hill and planting a third cross. I still don´t really know what it was all about, except that it had something to do with the anniversary of the death of the person who founded Santa Fe and it was meant to draw light to the fact that the grounds where he lived should be open to the public. Jackie and Jessica are still too shaken to really listen, yet alone translate.
After the walk, everyone goes to the Parish hall for soup. Jackie and I sit in the corner of the kitchen while teen-age girls rush around pulling out dishes and preparing ingredients. Though I´m trying to de-stress, I have a minor argument of sorts with one of the mentally handicapped boys who works at the parish and is trying to prepare coffee. I have to pull tap water out of his hands to stop him from adding it to the beverage but since I can´t explain why I´m doing this, (it´s toxic when unboiled) I feel rude.
While everyone eats there soup, (except for me because I´m a vegetarian) Jackie and I decide it´s been one of the weirdest days of our lives and we are ready to leave and visit an elderly neighbor who always brings us peace. However, we get called to the dining room where I am presented with a cake as a room full of women sing to me for my birthday (which was yesterday.)
It´s lovely, except the deacon tries convince to get me to take a bite out of the cake and he won´t listen as Jessica explains that I don´t eat dairy. I finally take a small nibble of icing from a spoon that a lady shoves in my face and then I cut the cake. I attempt to chat for a while, until the only people left in the room are me, the deacon, Jackie and a few ladies.
The deacon (who treats himself to more than a day of rest on Sundays) is in high spirits and leads the women in traditional Mexican folk songs. He tells Jackie and I to sing songs from the United States and then attempts to attempt to sing them himself. He chants ¨chica-chica boom-boom¨ while unbuttoning his shirt and shaking his hips and getting the other ladies to imitate him.
Jackie looks at me with wide eyes and says that we need to go--except we get called into the kitchen where the parish staff has congregated. Glasses of tequila and beer are passed around, which are sorely needed after the day we have had. When we finally get back to the casa--at eight o´clock--we sleep well.
The next day, the injured handyman comes back to continue working on our roof.
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Of course, that wasn´t the only celebration to take place over the weekend. Sister Angelita invited us to the funeral of one her patients on Friday night. As bodies aren´t embalmed here, the funeral took place a day after her passing. We arrived to the deceased women´s two-room house at a little before 10:00 p.m., when the funeral was supposed to start. The casket was laid out and the house was overflowing with so many people that many sat on streets. Coffee and pastries were passed around while we waited for Father. Though Sister was concerned by his tardiness and tried to call him once it reached 10:30, he finally arrived us if nothing happened and then said Mass. It seemed pretty similar to American services as some people were deeply in mourning, others seemed bored, and the children played amongst themselves after being shushed.
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Saturday was my birthday and the girls and I went into to town to see the the Metropolitan Cathedral, an elaborate church in the center of the city. Though the Spaniards began building over 400 years ago, it took several centuries to complete and it is composed of many architecture styles and chapels. After a tour, we went out to a popular Mexican chain called Sanborn´s for dinner and then meandered about looking at vendors selling crafts, artwork, jewelry and food. When it started raining, we took sanctuary in an open church and got to view portions of a wedding. At night, Javier and his friends paid us a visit and we all stayed up late drinking tequila and eating imitation pork rinds topped with guacamole.
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On Monday, we went to have dinner with Parish staff members in honor of Mexican Independence Day which always begins on September 15th and honors Father Hidalgo´s cries for independence from Spain in 1810. The affair was much more low-key than Sunday´s affair and we went home before midnight after a dinner of beans, tortillas and beef and some salsa dancing. However, our neighbors were up all night dancing, and the music coming through our open roof made it hard to sleep. While normally the precarious situation of our roof would bother me, I was too grateful for our handyman´s recuperation to be too upset, and I happily drifted in and out of sleep as sounds of mariuchi serenaded me.
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