San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
The weeklong celebration known as Candelaria was over Feb. 2 which marks the 40th day after Christmas and the official end to the Christmas holidays. As celebrated in SMA the festival is a mix of Christian and indigeneous pre Hispanic traditions and involves the blessing of seeds for the coming spring planting, a festival of lights, and the final celebrations of the birth of Jesus. Some baby dolls dressed to represent the baby Jesus, which are part of a home´s nativity scene, are taken to the church to be blessed and then put away for next year. All over town you see girls and grown women tenderly carrying these little dolls on a cloth in a staw basket to the churches. SMA is noted for its week long plant and flower and garden sale in one of the parks during Candelaria. Vendors from all over central Mexico come with plants and flowers to sell, there is music in the bandshell and an outdoor movie afterwards. Families come with their children who play in the playground and run around while the parents socialize and listen to the music. Small boys with wheelbarrows are available for a tip to help you carry your new plants to your car, if you have one. This last week also marked the celebration of the 250th anniversary of one of the major churches so there were concerts every night there. We went to a great Blues concert one night with our friends who were visiting. As we came out at ten the fireworks were just ready to go off. They set up an elaborate structure right in the middle of the street outside the anniversary church and light up all these fireworks right in the middle of the crowd. We have never been to a fireworks display where we were at ground zero. The sparks were landing everywhere and actually set a wood and paper decoration in the church courtyard on fire which prompted the use of a fire extenguisher but the show went on.
We have done lots of side trips so far, including overnight to Mexico city and day trips to the pyramides, Queretaro, Guanajuato, Delores Hildalgo, all neighboring towns. We have been all over San Miguel itself and have had Spanish classes, photo and photoshop classes as well as art openings, pop and classical concerts, lots of cooking in our huge kitchen and socializing with our visitors.
Looking forward to our upcoming trip to Morelia and the monarch butterflies.
