Jim
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Dia de los Muertos (it’s that time again)
 Photo courtesy of Drpoulette |
It’s one of the biggest holidays in Mexico, and by some considered to be a tradition that truly defines Mexican culture. The celebrations take place in about a week – mainly on the 1st and 2nd of November.
Some Mexicans believe that during these times the dead come back to visit the living. Children on the 1st (the Day of the Innocents, or the Day of the Little Angels), and adults on the 2nd (Día de los Muertos). The tradition dates back to the days before the Spanish arrived in Mexico – the celebration in some form has probably been going on for thousands of years.
I’ve written about the Day of the Dead before, so I’m just going to point you back to my earlier posts. The second post includes several links that you can visit for more commentary, pictures and video.
Tired Burros
If ever I would be tempted, once in a while, to forget I was in Mexico, something would come along to remind me.
Yesterday I was getting gas in the city, and two carts drawn by burros (donkeys – you knew that, right?) pulled into the gas station. They were filling up the air in their tires, apparently. Not that strange a site here, but I snapped the photo below with my camera phone for all you people outside of Mexico. You can just barely see both of them, to the left.
Our altitude
In case you’ve always wondered, our house in Mexico City is at an altitude of 2238 metres (7343 feet).
As a point of comparison, our home in Calgary was at 1075m (3527ft), the Banff Springs Hotel is at 1427m (4682ft). Colorado Springs in the USA is 1831m (6008ft). Mt McKinley (Alaska), North America’s highest peak, is 6194m (20,322ft).
At 2238m, there is only 77% the amount of oxygen that there is at sea level (as compared to Calgary, which has 88%) (see this altitude graph).
And now you know.
Shari and the Apple Pies
You need to understand the difference. Baked goods are a big deal here in Mexico. Sweet bread, cakes, doughnuts, buns – and if you go to a few birthday parties you’ll see cakes baked and decorated beyond belief.
Baking, on the other hand, is not big in Mexico. You go to the store for the baked goods, you don’t pull them out of your oven. In fact, some people store dishes in their oven.
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So a bunch of the ladies of the church got together at Tania’s house to learn how to make apple pies. And boy did they have fun.
Crystal brought her Mamita’s super-duper-home-baked recipe from the USA. They managed to round up a few rolling pins from who knows where. Shari brought some mini-cookie cutters to make the crust fancy. And Tania invited some ladies from her neighbourhood.
They chopped up the apples. Crystal made sure they got the filling right. Shari got everyone making the perfect flaky crusts (in most cases!).
 Crystal with a completed apple pie |
Some of the ladies were introduced to Jesus for the first time. And everyone made new friends.
Now they’re thinking of doing an encore performance – with some of the ladies who were running things and didn’t get to see all the “pie making secrets”. So the story may not be over yet!
As a side note, it looks like there will be some other baking going on here next week. Two months or so ago, Hannah and a girl from our neighbourhood were around the house, and I offered them some apple dumplings. Ever since that day, the girl has been bugging her Mom to make her some "apple pie" like she had at Hannah’s house. So her Mom knocked on our door and talked to Shari about coming over for an apple pie/dumpling lesson.
In my opinion, there’s nothing like making friends with food involved. And if I’m not doing it myself, I’ll be hoping to catch some of the leftovers!