Day three, San Juan Chamula

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On Friday, our last day in Chiapas L decided to explore the city since she had been feeling so sick the day that C and I had done so and C convinced me to go with her to San Juan Chamula to hopefully track down the shirts with which she was obsessed. I was initially less than excited as Mum and I had done a tour to this community, which I hated largely because I was extremely annoyed at the guide's insistence on static cultural authenticity and I was coming off being very sick. I am very glad we went back as this time I truly appreciated the magnificence of the church (that which the community is most know for).

Chamula is an autonomous Tzotzil Mayan town just about half an hour outside of San Cristobal (and is a huge tourist draw because of it its unique status), in which no outside police nor military are allowed (and I read that their medical clinic closed because people only went to cuaranderos, but I saw the clinica building with IMSSs looking signage, so I don't know). Their church is famous as an example of religious sycretism, since the 1960s it has not had neither priest nor traditional mass-- although a priest comes every 20 days to perform baptisms. They are deeply tied a very particular practice of Catholicism and expelled families who had converted to Christian Evangelicalism (this is a biiiiiiggggg issue in Southern Mexico). Photographs are prohibited inside the church (and people have been beaten for trying to violate this ban) and I remembered to put away my camera before entering the church yard. In order to enter C and I had to go to the municipal office and officially seek permission (buy a 20 pesos ticket).

Inside, all the pews have been removed and the floor is covered in fragrant pine needles, which have been pushed aside in places for people to line thin lit candles on the floor as they pray or perform cures. It is truly an remarkable and almost indescribable sensual experience with probably thousands of flickering candles lined up on tables down the center of the church and in front of saints (who are ornately dressed with mirrors to ward off the evil eye). The air is hazy and smells of burning copal resin and as we make our way quietly around the church, the groups of people praying completely ignore us (another moment of wondering what the process of public/ privateness is for them as they engage in what is at once the most private rituals in the midst of the largest public tourist attraction for the municipality). As we stood in the front of the church and looked back all we could see was a sea of flickering candles and it was truly an otherworldly experience. I was really glad that we went by ourselves as we could make it a personal (spiritual) experience rather than standing in the back with a big group.

In the church yard and surround market children consistently came up to us demanding that we buy a braided bracelet or give them a "regalito" (little present) or bluntly asked for a peso. In Oaxaca while there are some beggers and many street venders, none are as demanding and blunt and I wonder about the local economy given that this is the most popular tourist destination of the communities surrounding SC. When I bought an embroidered poncho and negotiated the price down to the amount of money I had on me (I wasn't prepared to buy anything), after I paid the woman asked me for another 20 pesos and when I asked what for, she replied "for my tortillas."





As we browsed around the market, C finally found her shirt and eventually bought a matching belt (the shirts are made for small breasted, big stomached women) and hair ribbons. It is interesting that given all the hype about no photography within Chamula that when we asked the women about mirrors, they told us that I should just take pictures of C and then show her... and the woman who made the garments was happy to pose with her. C has decided that what she now needs is a long black felted wool skirt like the Chamulan women wear and a "bearskin" feathered wool poncho like the men and she'll be fashion forward in LA.


We then went to explore the graveyard in front of an old crumbling stone church, where the white crosses signify children's graves, a very quietly beautiful place.






As it started to rain (again), we caught a collectivo back to SC and got back into the city just as the skies opened up and the streets became rivers.... and to remember that we had left our wet clothes from the day before hanging on the line.

After a truly delicious lunch of amazing Italian food (I know, what's up with all this "authentic" Mexican food) where I had fresh garbanzo bean ravioli, last minute shopping, and a deep massage (we all got them from one of the women who works at the posada), it was time to leave and this time we took an executive class bus (because of the schedule). This ended up being much less comfortable than the basic first class bus and I woke up often (including once as, I think, we crossed the border between Chiapas and Oaxaca and a military woman came on shining her flashlight in all our faces-- apparently looking for Central American immigrants).
Around daybreak I woke up again to realize that we were going down the mountain road without an engine! And the bus stopped and the driver and some other men got off, looking around on the side of the road. Luckily L was awake and listening closely as she heard them say that there was another bus behind us, but only 30 people could transfer, so as I woke up C (who is blind without her contacts), L got us three seats on the new bus.