Escaping death, Huajuapan-style.

Huajuapan de Leon, 11 PM: Hey - Let's Watch This From Afar, Shall We?

As we entered the darkened plaza in front of Huajuapan's largest, loveliest and arguably most important church, the church of Jesus, Lord of Hearts, I became aware that the much-spoken-of fireworks that were to be set off were, in fact, not the type of fireworks I'd anticipated. You know, I'd thought they'd be the ones where firey things shoot out of a reinforced cardboard tube and explode colorfully far, far over your head, and this notion had been reinforced all day and all night by the "loud bang over your head", Beirut-style fireworks that had been set off incessantly. Instead, they were the "Yes, they are mounted on largish, metal-cum-duct tape structures being held steady on the ground by ropes held by men who, perhaps, have had a Corona or two" variety. The children, the gathered nuns, the 200 feral dogs - nobody seemed to think that this might be a slightly perilous endeavor. Where were the firetrucks? The paramedics? Well, let's just say that I moved as far away as one could be from the Towers of Fire while still being technically in the plaza itself. Before I move on to the show itself, this is the church during daylight hours as seen from the park nearby:














And, in the back, the chapel, with a large heart clearly to be seen on the pinnacle of the arch.





















Around about 11, a quick whiff of something burning alerted us to the soon-to-begin spectacle. My uncle, his friend, Mary and I had no idea what to expect, though I had internally steeled myself for the unimaginable - or, at the very least, the fantastically bizarre.

I was not to be disappointed.

The premise of the fireworks was this: the metal frames provided support for a series of rotating wheels, upon which were pasted hundreds of colored burney-things. As the burney-things became immolated, many of them would begin to propel the wheel so that the colorful object would spin rapidly, much to the delight of the crowd. For example, uh, there were flaming fruit shapes which, once on fire, began to whirl around like a ballerina on meth.

Now:

There were four of these death-structures, and as the fruit, animals, birds and the weird Plains Native American whirled themselves into eventual oblivion, I and Mary began to notice that there was the shape of a cross and/or a Jesus mounted on each of them.

Fire? Crosses? Jesi?

Clearly, a US American has a different idea about what happens, generally, when one sets fire to a cross. I would like to stress, for cultural sensitivity's sake, that the spectacle I am about to describe below was in no way even remotely blasphemous, disrespectful, or charged with the negativity we US Americans associate with burning crosses. It was pious, celebratory and, for many of the gathered, a moving opening to nine days of celebration of their beloved patron.

Just because *I* thought it was muh-fuh bizarre shouldn't count for anything.

Each of the structures burned off the fruit, birds, animals and other images, but they always saved the Jesus for last. When the first of the Jesi went up, I could only stare at it until the last ember glowed out. The hush of the crowd, which for a moment I mistaked for disapproval or horror, was then supplanted with a din of clapping and cheers and whistles.

They loved it. And they wanted more.

The first of the flaming Jesi:













Next, um, flaming crosses. Six of them. Six, dancing, flaming crosses. In a church plaza. Apparently, I was very literally the only one who thought that odd, so I shut up, turned off my sensibilities like a good anthropologist and clapped like a seal when it was all done.














And, the best of the Jesi:















"What makes this one best?", you whine, sipping a Diet Coke in front of your computer in your climate-controlled home.

This Jesus went to heaven.

I was unable to capture the event because I was too stunned that it was happening that I thought it was surely an accident. What happened is this:

1) The Jesus caught fire and began to glow.
2) The gathered crowd clapped and hooted appreciatively.
3) Suddenly, an object above the cross that was shaped like a crown caught fire.
4) The crown began to spin much more rapidly than the other spinney-things.
5) The Jesus BEGAN TO LIFT OFF THE GROUND and, propelled upward by the spinney-things,

disappeared into the cloudy night sky.

This was an eight to ten-foot metal Jesus on a cross that caught fire and, propelled by fireworks, lifted off the Tower of Death and into the sky. Did I mention that it was ON FIRE?

And nobody seemed to be even slightly alarmed by this.

Now, the cross managed to extinguish itself and, as Mary and I listened, we HEARD IT HIT SOMEONE'S ROOF somewhere near downtown. A white-hot, metal Jesus. On the roof. And nobody - did I mention this? - seemed the least bit concerned by this. Was having this structure bash into your roof a sign of good favor? But what if it had been a car that it hit?

Would one's insurance call that an "act of God"?

***

We, all with about a pound of soot in our lungs, went back to Abuelita's house for a night's slumber. It was at this time that it was rumored that, in celebration of Abuelita's birthday, that a

MARIACHI BAND

would be coming to the house to play for her. When would the band be coming?, we asked.


5 AM: You've Got to Be Kidding Me

It was still profoundly dark when I was roused out of a fairly sound sleep by a sound I would have never, in a thousand year's worth of dreaming, have imagined at that hellish hour.

Mariachis. Awake, playing mariachis. At the door. Wanting in. At five AM.

The tradition was to wait until the mariachis had finished three songs before one allowed them into the home. I am sure the neighbors were thrilled out of their flipping GOURDS.

Mary and I rolled over on our beds and faced each other in the dark from across the room. A room whose bathroom I was to completely destroy, but more on that later.

"Let's try to sleep through it", I said.

3 Hours Later

When the mariachis finished - and, might I add, a very small party WITH BEER had been occurring in the courtyard along with their show - I sighed in thanks and napped for an hour before I got up for my shower. As I showered - the shower itself being a bolt sticking out of the wall sending out a weird mist, the drain a grated hole in the floor, no shower curtain, every damn thing in that room soaked - I noticed that the drain wasn't working. Like, at all. All of my soapy eww-water was standing there in the bathroom, ankle-deep. Becoming a health hazard.

Meanwhile, in the new light of a Huajuapan morning, I wonder if someone awoke to find that a ten-foot metal Jesus had impaled their Ford Festiva, cleaving it right down the middle. If so, would bad things that were thought at that moment damn one to perdition itself?

***

When I return, tales of road-trip Numero Uno, north to the Big Enchilada itself - Mexico City.

Until then, I remain,

Domonic (so,whenexactlydidDomshethisbretches?staytuned...) Potorti