October 24

Yesterday we left San Miguel (so sad) and drove to Mexico City (I shudder in terror). If you hear me referring to “Mexico”, it is Mexico City. Here, no one calls Mexico City “Mexico City”. It is known just as “Mexico”. It gets quite confusing when people talk about Mexico this, and Mexico that—it is sometimes hard to tell which they mean, the country or city. Driving into Mexico was a nightmare (or so I was told, I was asleep). It took us three hours to drive from the edge of the city to our friend’s house. Carlos (one of the friends) went to university with my Dad. Carlos and his wife, Alla, are kindly showing us around Mexico over the next couple of days.

On the way to Mexico (and I mean the city!), we stopped at Tula, another archeological site. My mum says that this one is very famous; it has the second biggest ball court in Mesoamerica. The game that was played on the ball court was kind of like soccer. Two teams would try to score goals through narrow hoops. The ball was made of raw rubber and was very heavy. It was passed back and forth by hitting it against your head, legs, hips, shoulders or arms. It was quite dangerous and legs and arms were protected. It was sometimes played for fun but also for religious ceremonies. The losing team was sacrificed. Toltecs (the group before the Aztecs, who the Aztecs took many of their bloodiest ideas from) built Tula. They were into the whole ritual sacrifice and “lets build big pyramids” thing. At the top of one of the pyramids were large carved pillars (one meter diameter and three meters tall). How did they get them up to the top of the pyramid? The pillars represented war chiefs. At the bottom of the pyramid, engraved in a low wall only a couple meters high, were images of the Feathered Serpent God devouring human skulls. In some places, we could see the original paint, vibrant blues, greens and yellows. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay there very long, we wanted to get to Mexico before rush hour, a task at which we failed hopelessly!

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I forgot to write about where we ate dinner our first night in San Miguel: a little place called Ten-Ten-Pie. The name is a colloquialism from Spain, meaning “a little snack”. The food was wonderful and so was the setting: tables outside on a street corner one block from the Zocalo. But what made the restaurant spectacular was the music. There were two guitarists playing jazz standards with a Latin twist. I have never seen anyone’s fingers move as fast as did those of the lead guitarist. I also had no idea that guitar could be so interesting to listen to.

But we were the only ones in the audience clapping; no one else acknowledged the end of a song. Our enthusiasm made up for everyone else’s rudeness. After the set was done the musicians came to talk to us, the most enthusiastic members of the audience. We bought their CD and somehow it came up that Daddy plays this type of music on the violin. So they invited him to perform with them the next night. Keep in mind that this was before they had asked him how long he had been playing or knew if Daddy was a good violinist or not.

The one-night performance turned into two nights, then three, and then a performance at a fancy restaurant. It was the best music I had ever heard Daddy play. He was playing blisteringly fast and it was so interesting to listen to. I don’t know how to describe it, the music was so wonderful. It was a lot of old swing standards (like Reinhardt/Grappelli’s “Minor Swing” and “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”)—but mixed with flamenco-like songs and original latin-sounding tunes. Maybe if I describe the musicians response to my Dad’s playing. They are, one, coming to Oaxaca to perform with him there, two, are going to make a CD together and three, (always three) want Daddy to join their band permanently. Did I mention that we are going to try to get them to perform at the Folk Festivals in B.C.?

That second night everyone from the B&B came to the restaurant to listen. The Québécois ladies had a table, and we shared a table with the Houstonians (Houston is in Texas). I learned many things about Texas: It is not all a desert, in fact Houston is humid. Another thing I didn’t know was that some people there don’t vote Republican. Our new friends said they didn’t know anyone who would vote for McCain. I had no idea that parts of Texas were so civilized! Bonnie took the picture of the church (the one that looks like a Disney castle) and of the worker re-cobbling the street. Thank you Bonnie for the photos!

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Local Mexicans seem to ignore people begging for money and selling things. They turn their head away and practice “if I can’t see them they don’t exist”. One thing that marks us out as tourists is that we say “no gracias” to the sellers and give the beggars, mostly old women, money or food. If a way to blend in is to be rude and indifferent, then I don’t want to blend in.