It's once again time for the feast day of the Virgen of Guadalupe (actually, it was last week on the 12th). As a prelude to the Christmas season - which doesn't end until Three King's Day or Old Christmas - it's a lovely way to start.
There are processions through the streets, of course, with folks bearing likenesses of the Virgen. The day is greeted with fireworks (aerial bombs, actually) beginning the day before and continuing through the night. While Fiyero and Coca sort of ignore them, Miyaki objects - barking as each one goes off - and waking us up throughout the night. We don't usually have too much feast-day noise throughout the year in our current part of town, but this is an exception.
We walked into town, picking up the tail-end of the processions and the beginning of the 'let's bless our horses' at St. Antonio's church. We're accustomed to seeing large animal poop on the streets from the occasional burro being led through the city, but there was a continual trail of poop as we walked along the road into Centro. Only as we reached Col. Antonio did we begin to see the stream of horses and understand why there had been so much!
Aren't we lucky that there was someone there to paint her picture, since we didn't have cameras then? It seemed like every household in the procession had a picture of the VG to be blessed. And that miracle of roses during the winter -- I look out our front window and see our own rose bushes blooming away, even at our mountainous altitude. But it makes a nice story and I suppose the Church needed more converts, so we have our own version of the BVM. As some friends say when Jesus speaks to them: Be quiet; can't you tell I'm talking to your Mother?
Well, enough sacrilege; time to enjoy another feast day and hope that the explosions stop going off before we strangle Miyaki!
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