Belonging, Taxco, and Celebrating the Dead
This past week, Mexico was overflowing with purples, oranges, and blues; candles, sweet breads, and calaveritas. November 2nd is Dia de Muertos, and this celebration of the dead brings a whole new life to an already vibrant country.
To celebrate this holiday, and to take advantage of our long weekend, Annabel (my housemate) and I set off on a trip. We explored Toluca, Taxco, and Cuernavaca, all of which are beautiful cities. The whole weekend was filled with picture-worthy sites of ofrendas, big and small, and skeletons around the corner (not the scary kind, just the ones in ruffled dresses).
Unlike Halloween, Dia de Muertos celebrates people's connection to a past and to a place. The ofrendas are all devoted to someone, a loved one or an honorable figure, whose spirit is invited to eat the sweets and treats that she enjoyed in life. Also, as my students were reminded time and again in our cultural immersion lessons about Halloween, Dia de Muertos is Mexican. It is a vibrant and soul-filled celebration. My heart was filled by the opportunity to celebrate it here, like I did as a kid.
Add Dia de Muertos festivities with a trip to Taxco, and my heart was fit to burst. Even my arrival in the city was enchanting and dreamlike. I woke up from a nap on the bus to Annabel nudging me to grab my things and get outside. Immediately, with sleep in my eyes, she and I boarded a colectivo. Now, if you read my post about taxi taking in Atlacomulco, you'll appreciate how full taxi colectivos can be. The taxis have nothing on these van-bus hybrids.
I had the choice between a spot with four other passengers on the back bench, or next to Annabel on an equally crowded bench in the middle. When we whizzed down the highway at full speed, the man who sat in the spot I almost took clung to the doorframe as half of his body hung outside of the speeding van (shutting perfectly functional doors is boring, I always say). I was deeply grateful that I chose the over-crowded back seat with strangers.
It was an exhilarating start to a beautiful two days. Taxco is an old silver mining town. Street vendors still hawk all sorts of silver goods, and workshops buzz away on almost every street. These streets are just breathtaking. The buildings are all white and designed to maintain the historic feel of the city, which is accomplished quite perfectly.
I've decided that people look more at home in beautiful places. The men and women sitting on doorsteps, the waiters inviting you into restaurants, and the old woman I saw feeding a stray dog from a small plastic pack of dog food all seemed to blend in with the lovely and quiet city.
And then there was me. I've gotten a little tired of people asking, "So, you're not from here, are you?" but I guess I expect it more when I am, actually, travelling.
"I am from the US, but I am living in Mexico" is a fine and true answer. As a kid living in Mexico, I would have resented admitting the first part (it seemed strange to have to identify with a place where I hadn't spent most of my life). Even now, though, questions like that are weird to answer.
If I am living in Atlacomulco, and I travel to Taxco, am I a tourist there? Or is it the "just visiting" kind of answer that citizens can give when they travel to new parts of their own country? Yes, you are a tourist, Louisiana-guy-visiting-New-York, but you're a different kind of tourist than that foreign guy. Maybe?
Then there is that whole Halloween v. Dia de Muertos business. I spent the week before my trip teaching about my country's customs on Halloween. Each of my teachers started our lesson this way:"In our country, we celebrate Dia de Muertos, but in other countries, like Alyse's" *cue my friendly, 'yes, I'm an American' smile* "they celebrate Halloween. Alyse is going to teach us how they celebrate Halloween in her culture!"
I thought about this on one of the long bus rides this past weekend. This is the thing. I have hardly ever celebrated Halloween. In fact, if you stretch it, and count the times I went to Halloween events in college along with this year (where I celebrated Halloween in my preschools), I have celebrated Halloween four times. I have actually celebrated Dia de Muertos more than I have ever celebrated Halloween (this is because my family never celebrated Halloween, but we would celebrate Dia de Muertos with our friends in Mexico).
If I were teaching from experience, I could probably do a better job of teaching Dia de Muertos celebrations. But, I've never had an ofrenda at home, I've never cooked up the delicious treats that are on sale around November 2nd, and I've never bought a bunch of the sun-like cempasuchil flowers.
Was I a tourist in Taxco? Was I celebrating my culture by celebrating Halloween? How long do you have to live in a place to make you from there even if you're not exactly from there? And if the answer is more than four consecutive years (the longest I've spent in any one place for one time), can you be from multiple places?
If it sounds like I am having an identity crisis, fear not. It is just interesting to think about questions of home, belonging, and citizenship in a time when how we answer those questions affect not only how we think about our world neighbors, but also what happens to the people (in some cases) who are prompted to ask such questions about themselves.
I'm not sure what I'll be celebrating at this time next year, or what kinds of questions I'll be answering if I travel. I am thankful that the answer may be complicated if it means that I've been able to celebrate what I've celebrated and experienced what I've experienced.
Also, I hope that I can learn to be a bit of a tourist wherever I go if it means noticing the ways that the place where I am is breathtaking; I hope that I can be a bit of an outsider for festivities if it means appreciating those elements that make them unique and memorable.
A joy that I've found through this adventure is that I can appreciate this touring and exploring even while feeling very much connected to the place where I find myself. Even with all of the questions that filled my mind this past week, I travelled the country I live in, celebrated a holiday I grew up with, and, after a weekend away, arrived at my home with the tangerine walls. Whichever late October / early November holiday is mine, I enjoyed it here. And even though I may be new here, I feel like this here is my place now. At least, it is one of them.
