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An Orphan's Christmas In Oaxaca

The 25th of December is a big day for families in Mexico. Almost all the stores, restaurants, and public buildings are closed. The streets are nearly deserted. Xmas is The World's Most Boring Holiday, if you happen to be alone. While some folks welcome a respite from the endless rounds of Calendas (ceremonial parades, often including a Saint or other Holy Relic on a palanquin), fireworks displays, concerts and dance performances, and the jam of booths selling food and tchatsckes (knickknacks; gewgaws; precious treasures; junk), the more hearty partiers among us, our adrenalin surging still, long for the comfort of the crowd. Last year, we suffered through post-party withdrawal; this year we put out the call: our house is open, 2 until 10.

The first arrival was from U.S.-occupied California: Mexicans never arrive early; just not done. All in all about twenty-five people grazed the table, drank the sangria, and contributed to that special din that is created in rooms with high ceilings, plaster walls and tile floors. Ages ranged from 79 down to 15, mostly extranjeros (foreigners); length of time here from 16 years to 3 days. Some folks couldn't speak any Spanish, and others no English. Most were somewhat bilingual, some totally so.

Friends of Diana's were here for a week's vacation. Three adults and four teenage young women. Two "typical" tourist family groupings, doing with great elan all those things that tourists are supposed to do: touring the museums and the ruins; eating in the sidewalk cafes and hotel restaurants; combing through the markets looking for bargain native crafts. Good, solid, middle-class professionals on vacation, charmed with Oaxaca.

Also passing through, for periods ranging from a few days to several months, were folks that we met through the Internet: readers of "Letters From Mexico" with whom we had corresponded. A couple from Illinois, who are semi-retired and have lots of time to travel between consulting gigs. They are living in a fancy (by local standards) furnished apartment complete with phone and cable tv, and a parking space for their Suburban. A farmer and house husband from New Hampshire, also drove down. He was staying in a cheap hotel with guarded parking near the big market, and left for Chiapas the next day. An ex-jock from Colorado, who is a Central America newsgroups junkie, and has spent lots of time in southern Mexico and Guatemala, working with refugees and doing human rights support work, dropped by. She spends part of her time in town, and the rest out in the countryside, promoting ecology and solar ovens.

Diana, my mate, who observes my crazed behavior when as often happens, something goes wrong with my communications hookups, does not care to get too involved in Computer Madness. You can imaging what she must think when some of us get together to talk in the arcane language of mega this and port that. Suffice it to say that a great deal of software swapping, newsgroup source exchanging and kluge-making takes place. But not on Orphan's Day. Everyone else leaves their laptop at home, and a colorful bit of Guatemalan cloth covers mine. No computer talk is allowed (although I did manage a prearranged swap of floppy disks, un-noticed). Instead, it's all travel plans, politics, and local gossip.

Some of our guests are active at the center for expats in Oaxaca: the English Language Circulating Library. Diana volunteers at the desk, and I for my sins must attend meetings of the Board, having been drafted to serve for a year. The Library, one of two in the country and the only one between San Miguel Allende and Antigua Guatemala, has been going for almost three decades now. Everyone who intends to stay more than a week finds their way there. Ruth the Librarian stopped by with her daughter. Ruth came here in 1953, for a month, and left for the first time last year. Another woman who volunteers at the desk came with her partner, who hails from the state of Mexico. She lives on a very small pension, which would not be enough to keep her in the U.S. He collects a Mexican social security pension.

A Belgian woman, and her Oaxacan husband, dropped by. She teaches English in the Library's classroom (the Library gives special low membership rates to Mexican students), and he is a bilingual tour guide studying for his University degree in Tourism Administration. They brought a neighbor, who teaches children in a remote village about 9 hours' bus ride from here.

Then there are the Snowbirds: folks who come down regularly, year after year, for anywhere from two to six months; and folks who spend less time, but plan to come back for longer periods when they retire, get that novel published, or hit the Lottery. Teachers, musicians, artists, computer nerds, massage therapists; the deliberately or accidentally unemployed and/or unemployable; all friendly and well-behaved: folks who believe they have found something special here; Mexican, European, North American. A nice mix.

By the time the last of the revelers had moved on, about 9 pm, there was little food left, and the sangria was gone. In its place were a half-dozen unopened bottles of wine, a chocolate bar, a bag of cookies, three of potato chips, and five lovely hot-toddy glasses with handles (the sixth got broken on its' way over). Down in the Zocalo, from their blankets in the street, the Trique indians, in their red-and-white striped, beribboned tunics, were hawking their wares to the trickle of passing tourists. They couldn't join us: they must sell to eat, and so every day is a business day for them. C'mon down and buy something. Then stop by for a sangria.

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