Roosters and Firecrackers

I feel as though I haven’t had 10 minutes alone for the last three days… It’s been a bit of a whirlwind (in a good way)! So:

Saturday:
The lunch at Magda’s was excellent (more sopes and more different kinds of flowers to eat—they eat all kinds of flowers here, depending what’s in season). Her house is beautiful, with a big garden and a kind of rambling structure. We had our first meeting with workshop, and went around introducing ourselves. Things we had in common:
Skidmore—Michelle is also a Skidmore alumna, she was there about 35 years ago…and she took classes with Prof. Boyers, my thesis advisor. How odd!
Virginia
Travel in India, Japan and South America
And a whole bunch of other little weird things that are showing up in our poems, like eastern religion, arrows, and faces that are both recognizable and not recognizable.

We had dinner at a good but expensive place, and then, as Georgiana and I were headed home, the younger sister of my homestay father, Mariela stopped us on the street and convinced us to go to Telón to go dancing. I wasn’t sure about going clubbing as I was pretty tired, but it was SO much fun! There was a live band who played Cuban music which was very much like Buena Vista Social Club—in fact, they played a few of the same songs—and the lead singer was this incredible woman who poured her entire soul into the songs. She was gorgeous, and I could have spent the whole night just watching her. But! The dancing: the music was, of course, such fun to dance to, but the people who were there were equally compelling. Quite a few of the men are excellent dancers, and they are so polite and respectful! We went to the club with Mariela and her friend Ivan, so we danced with them, but both Georgiana and I were asked to dance by other guys, and we got free Salsa lessons. What a blast! The club is only open on Fridays and Saturdays, but I’m planning to go again next weekend.

Sunday:
Now, having gotten home at 2:30 am from Telón, I naturally slept in a little, and then had to scramble a bit to get the new poems that people had passed out read before workshop at 2:00 pm. Rosi cooked an incredible breakfast, the main course being fried eggs with something kind of like tomato sauce, and these little purple flowers. It was absolutely the best eggs/breakfast I’ve ever had.

Our workshop went really well. Carolyn gives us all numbers, and I ended up being number two, so I had one of my poems talked about. The group as a whole is really intelligent and insightful, and they give tremendously helpful readings and advice. We also get off onto crazy tangents about writers and craft, and philosophy, and all kinds of things that get brought up because of our poems.

For dinner we went to the Indian vegetarian restaurant in town. It was not quite traditional, but really good. Tepoztlán is a spiritual center in Mexico, and I think it attracts the same kind of people who would go to India looking for spiritual guidance. I’m not sure if the Mexicans have also traveled to India or what, but there are several stores in town called “Taj Mahal” or “Mandala” or such names with Indian trinkets and incense and clothing. It’s quite the contradiction, and fun to watch. The spiritual energy certainly runs high here.

Sunday was also el dia de Los Tres Reyes, the day of The Three Kings, which is treated like Christmas here—instead of Santa Clause, kids here believe in the Three Kings who come to leave presents for them, and instead of milk and cookies, apparently parents here bring horse poop to the court yards of their houses to say “Look! The Three Kings on their horses were really here!” They have a sweet bread baked in the shape of a wreath that has little baby Jesus dolls baked into it; everyone has to cut their own piece, and if you get the doll, you have to buy everyone tamales for the other holiday/party they have around here on February 2nd. Both Georgiana and I got little baby Jesus’ and we decided that we should just buy the family a present since we wont be here to buy the tamales!

After dinner we went to the hotel that a bunch of the group is staying at, and had some wine up on the roof. They were setting off fireworks from one of the churches, as well as from many different roof tops around, and one of the locals came up and said that it was his turn, and that he had to set off his two fireworks from our rooftop at 8:30. And he did. It was pretty great. Everyone had been under the impression that all the fireworks have been for the Three Kings celebrations, but Laura told us that in Mexico, they set off firecrackers at dawn to ward off, or scare away evil spirits. So, looks like the very loud explosions that make the roosters go nuts will continue… I love this country!

Today:
Without meaning to at all I had another late night last night because the wine party on the roof got philosophical as only a group of wine-influenced poets and writers can… This morning was a bit tough, but Magda has hired a few of the locals to make coffee and lunch for us each day, so with the help of the coffee and a few gallons of water, I made it through the workshop. I was so happy to come back here and take a nap! I feel much, much better now.

Also this morning, I went to Magda’s early to do yoga with Georgiana and Mark. Mark was leading (though he has knee problems and can’t do most of the seated poses), and he asked if I would like to lead it tomorrow. It’s all very informal, but I’m kind of excited to get a chance to try out teaching yoga….I’ll report on that tomorrow.

Tomorrow afternoon we’re going on a museum tour in Cuernavaca (where I’ll be taking my Spanish class), and we’re going to have dinner there and have a group reading of Malcolm Lowry’s “Under the Volcano”; apparently he lived in Cuernavaca and Tepoztlán for a while, and much of his novel is set here. Sounds like it will be great fun!