Before leaving for Oaxaca and the cultural glories of Día de Muertos, we prepared by watching the animated movie, Coco. I suppose it’s like watching Aladdin before boarding a plane for Bagdad. To be fair, though, Coco is a Pixar movie, so it contains pretty much all you need to know about Oaxaca and the Day of the Dead. We cried at the end.
On our first night in Oaxaca, we strolled to the zócalo for a beer and to take in the sights.
As a band played under a restaurant awning, arthritic skeletons rose from their tables, clasped each other and danced.
Among the milling crowd in the zocalo, a girl in her early twenties, wearing tight striped pants and a sleeveless white shirt. With her glossy hair and makeup, her sandals and painted toenails, she might have been waiting for some friends to go clubbing.
Except that, she likely was not going clubbing. Her shirt was open and, as she chatted with a girlfriend and elderly skeletons danced the polka around her, a baby was clamped and furiously sucking on the girl’s exposed breast.
We sat in a dusty park beside the zócalo, on a bench facing an empty fountain. Dogs stretched out and sleeping in the dirt, pigeons picking at candy wrappers and chewed-over corn cobs in the dry fountain. It was late afternoon, the between-time following the day’s music and dancing and before the night’s renewed festivities.
Opposite our bench, a man sat on a low wall and beside him, stretched out full-length, was a sleeping princess. She about eight, in a purple satin gown, with white shoes and a golden tiara. Head on his lap, fast asleep, clearly exhausted from the day’s parading and dancing.
The man had a distinguished head: carefully barbered, like all Mexican men. Neat and clean despite his shabby clothes and broken shoes. As he sat, the man stroked the princess’s bare arm and, as the shadows lengthened and the first evening chill stole into the park, he reached into a plastic bag and pulled out a blue and yellow cloth. With care, lest he wake her, he unfolded the cloth and tucked in the sleeping princess. All the while stroking her hair and arms, absently gazing at the parents and children streaming by, loving and gazing all the while.
because i said 
Spyro, I was very much hoping you would write about your time in Oaxaca. As you know, we were in Mazatalán while you were there. I was observing and absorbing and hoping you would put into words some of what I was experiencing. We too noticed the patience and joy in the parent-child relationships.
Your photos, as usual, are terrific! I’m kicking myself for not finding a way to photograph a young girl (unforgettable face) and her family, clearly on holiday from another part of Mexico. I applaud your nerve.
I trust we’ll have a chance to trade stories at some point.
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Thank you, Alison. I think I will write a bit more about Oaxaca soon and post some more photos, time permitting. As for my nerve, occasionally I get lucky. I don’t want to impose or be disrespectful.
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Amazing Mexico! I have been there many times but never during dead day time.
Your report is an experience as usual: full of curious and incisive details capturing reality.
Some years ago I had the chance to experience Mexican carnival time : an explosion of fantasy life.
waiting for more Oaxaca posts.
Que viva Mexico!
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It was only our first time, but I know we’ll be back. And yes, there will be more Oaxaca posts. Kisses to you and Gilda.
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Beautiful images and writing and, as ever with your accounts, the next best thing to being there. Thank you.
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The Day of the Dead happens to be my birthday. San Miguel de Allende has been my destination in Mexico three times as I attended the justly renowned writers ‘ conference there. Many people recommended Oaxaca to me. Perhaps I should give myself a present one year be visiting there. In San Miguel I observed the first communion class blessing their elders at the end of their instruction.
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