Fiesta Months Down in Mexico

Mexico is a festive country. If you are looking for a party, most of the info you get from the web won't show much for July and August. However, just about every other month on the calendar has a celebration.



Primarily, the religion practiced in this country is Roman Catholicism. I believe immigration authorities cite about 37 different religions practiced here, but it is still mainly Catholic.

There are very few villages where there are no churches. There might not be a man of the cloth living there, but a visiting priest will celebrate mass on special days. Most villages claim patron saints, and there will be a special fiesta to honor that saint, at least once a year.

Our village has several churches with different patron saints, the major ones being Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. The main icon here is Our Lady of the Rosary, fondly called La Chaparita or The Short One because the statue is only about 20" high. -we have the San Rafael church and the San Miguel church, so we get to do lots of celebrating, and folks come from all over the Republic of Mexico to pay homage to the Short One.

She starts visiting the ranches after the noon mass on the first Sunday of August. she is accompanied by a crowd of devotees who announce thier approach to the rancher by shooting off loud rockets - and I do mean LOUD and LOTS of them! These folks are early-starters, and the first big boom goes off about 5:00 a.m., I find it diffiicult to concentrate on early morning prayers with loud booms knocking me out of bed.

The Virgin is brought back into town on September 10 to have the road dust washed from the statue and gets a new wig and dress. A dress designer in Guadalajara makes the new dresses each year for the statues in Zapopan, San Juan de los Lagos and Talpa. They are not your average Jacque Penne or Target dresses. It is rumored this dress for Talpa cost $20,000. Yes, that's dollars, not pesos.

Then we have another fiesta on September 19 to celebrate her renovation from a bug-eaten, rotten piece of sugar cane stuck together with the glutinous material from an orchid to the splendid shape she now is. Don't forget we have Independence Day on September 16 and on the 29th, we celebrate San Miguel Day. That takes us into October and the 7th is considered the Virgin's birthday, so hoopy-time again. Columbus Day is fairly quiet, but October 29 is San Rafael Day.

Bear in mind, all the fiesta days are begun nine days before the actual day upon which they fall...guess what woke me up this morning?