Flour carpets--not for my house

Yesterday, Saturday, I went to a pueblo magico called Huamantla. Mexico has various little towns with this designation; usually they have a unique cultural aspect that is very colonial or pre-Hispanic. In Huamantla, they have a long tradition of a festival called La Noche Que Nadie Duerme, or basically the Night Where Nobody Sleeps. I only went during the day (since I had no hotel reservations, I would have had to sleep on the streets, if I slept at all), but I got to check out some of the festivities.

This festival involves building these giant, long "carpets" made of colored sawdust, flour, and flowers throughout all of the major streets (bigger versions of the one two pics shown below). Early in the morning is a parade of the Virgen, which passes over these carpets. Here you can see these guys marking out the carpets near the Zocalo...once they start, you can't even cross the street!



There was also a competition for kids to build a little block of carpet. Here is one of my favorites, because it makes a good cover-picture for La Noche.



During the entire month of August, the town also is hosting its annual feria, or county fair. They had a ton of rides and stands, though things didn't pick up until the evening. There were some very odd looking Disney-themed trash bins, too...

Weekend trip to southern Puebla, Cheese Fair!!

So a very abbreviated account of an awesome weekend:

A fellow volunteer was visiting with a couple of people from his office. I was invited to spend the weekend with them (and I happened to know all of them from before). We spent Friday exploring Puebla and saw several things that I haven't had the chance to visit! One was this house that housed someone during the 1910 Revolution (I have to brush up on the details), and was attacked and shot up. Bullet holes are still present!



We then went down to Acatlan, a decent-sized city in the mountains in southern Puebla state. We stayed with the family of one of the Mexicans in their really nice house. It was the first house that I've seen with lots of big wood supports, etc., which was cool to see. They had these giant moths (as big as my hand!) that they said always show up when it rains.



Saturday we went up to the family's ranch with a ton of their friends (local and from Mexico City). We hiked up a riverbed to try and find a swimming hole, but it was just too dry. Along the way we found a pregnant cow, recently dead, who had tried to push her baby out unsuccessfully. I'll spare the pictures, but the rancher and some of the guys managed to pull the (dead) baby cow out...

Saturday evening we had basically a barbecue at the house with lots of music and eating. It was good times! Some of the hand-made ice cream that we had (melon flavor).



Sunday after returning to my site, the fellow vol and one of the guys from his office went with me to a local fair in my town. Even though it was late, the last day of the fair, and people were closing up their stalls, it was packed!! I had never seen so many people in my little town!

Exploring food

So the theme this week is going to be food. I got to explore a couple of different plates that I enjoyed, really enjoyed, and probably won't eat again.

First, the most interesting, though probably least tasty of the dishes. These are fried maguey worms with guacamole and some sort of mole sauce (was not a big fan, though I normally love mole). Maguey is a type of agave, which is the plant that they make tequila out of. These worms are only harvested during a certain season of the year, so they are one of the regional, seasonal foods. Some others are friend grasshoppers (crunchy and taste like the chili powder they are dusted in), escamole (ant eggs...still want to try these), chiles en nogada (now is the season, though they are eaten cold here...not so great).



Second, I always enjoy cake. We had a birthday at the office this week, so cake is always fashionable.



Lastly, my favorite was a traditional dish called a huarache, which has a tortilla-like base, beans, avocado, tomato, lettuce, onion, topped with meat and salsa to taste. What could be better!?!!?

Cacaxtla

Last Sunday (the 18th), a couple of fellow volunteers were down visiting Puebla. I met up with them at the central bus station, and we headed up to Tlaxcala to visit another volunteer. We then went as a group to Cacaxtla, which is a a set of ruins between Tlaxcala and Puebla. It was only discovered in 1975 and many of the murals are still brightly colored! It was amazing to see how long the paint had lasted!!



If you look at Google Earth, Cacaxtla looks like a giant, white block. Why? Because the Mexicans installed a giant roof over the top of the ruins!



Then on Wednesday, my center hosted a piano concert for one of its summer courses. The husband and wife team played some solos and some duets, and I really enjoyed the music.

Hurricane Alex

So this apparently did not get any news coverage at all in the USA, but Hurricane Alex hit Monterrey, my old site, a couple of weeks ago. Since then, a lot of pictures of the devastation have been floating around via e-mail. It is amazing the amount of water that was dumped on the city and surrounding areas (the bridge picture..that river used to be non-existent and instead was a riverbed about 30-40 feet down). The little pueblitos in the mountains around the city have been completely isolated because the roads all washed out, and they are relying on helicopter drops for food, water, etc. "Only" a few people died, which was amazing, but they could still use a lot of help. If you are interested in helping from the States, the Mexican Consulate has set up a bank account at Wachovia where you can deposit money (account number and news release here at the bottom).

University Cultural Center

So I went exploring today and found the cultural center for the state university, BUAP. They have free events there every weekend, like dance shows, live music, movies, etc. I got to watch some regional dances, which was pretty interesting.

Local parties and Jaripeo´s

This week there have been a couple of local festivals. Tuesday was the day of the saint in a neighboring church, so they were going to throw a fair. I showed up around 6 PM, thinking that it was an all-day event, but it turned out to only be an evening thing...and 6 PM is too early to be called evening in México. With the looming rain, I sadly left and missed out on the festivities. Here is a picture of me watching a local watch some workers watch other workers unloading the truck.



However, on Wednesday, in the exact same spot, they had a jaripeo, or a rodeo! I haven´t been to one in México, so I went to watch. They had some loud music (a staple in all local festivals) and bull-riders. Some of the bulls weren´t too energetic, but some really made the riders work. Sorry, the action doesn´t start until 1:30 into the video.



Later that evening, I headed over with some friends to another church, where there were bands playing cumbia andina, a type of cumbia from South America. Apparently it kept going until well past 1:30 AM, but I had already hit the sack by that time.