From Xico

Detroit's Art Collection

An update in the Guardian (UK) here.

A Shocking Death in Our Colonia

December 12, the Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, is also the Feast Day in our colonia.  La Virgen is the patron saint of the community, and over the years we've been here, the accompanying fiesta has grown so that even outsiders come to enjoy the revelry, for that's what it is. Men in the colonia make arcos for the capilla of the Virgen, for the main church, and for the arco at the bridge next to the entrance to our little village. Our main street gets a beautiful sawdust carpet. People have parties in their houses, booze is plentiful. There are booming cohetes for days before and during the celebration, and parades.  

Yesterday it all came to a sudden, screaming halt.  

As the small bull run was ending, a red chevy pickup ploughed through barriers and into the crowd, hitting a spectator and dragging him along the street for a fair distance. Hopefully he died on impact. Two women were also injured.  You can read about it in Spanish here.

We had almost stayed to watch these festivities, but had decided not to and returned home.  Shortly afterwards, we heard the ambulance.  The colonia fell silent.

We went up to have cena with our neighbors not knowing what had happened.  There were a lot of people there, all very subdued. Many of them had seen the full fury of the truck hitting the man and two women.  They were stunned.  They couldn't stop talking about it in hushed tones.  A dance had been scheduled for the evening, and for sure more cohetes, but last night fell silent in the soft rain.

 

Mexican faces

Some older Mexicans at a meeting addressing pension issues. These are our contemporaries, by the way.

From La Jornada, Veracruz edition, December 8, 2013. Foto credit: AVC Noticias.