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| 500 year old Catholic church in Tlajomulco |
Mexico is a country of strong beliefs and customs. The people take seriously their celebrations. Many of which lasts days. One of these celebrations is the Virgin of Guadalupe. Held in late November/early December and lasting 12 days. Fireworks everynight, parades to escort the Virgin into town and the Church hosting her and fiesta's. The celebration starts in one town and moves nightly onto the next with the last town in this area being Zapopan. We met one really nice man who gave us a bit of the history and explained how he was one of the hosts of the Virgin representing locals who now live in the Merced California area. He told us how the Virgin only spends one night in each house and travels from LA north to Bakersfield, Merced and Sacramento. It is a great honor to host the Virgin in ones home. He also told us how each statue has a live dove as her companion. He also laughingly explained how the California Virgin was not in the mood to wear her ceremonial head-dress but was feeling more like a pilgrim and wore the simple hat. (I appologize for getting any of this wrong or too simplified, I was getting my first introduction to this area of Catholic lore) I also did not learn the meaning of the banners in front of the church. I know that a family or business donates a panal. That the underlying design is all hand stitched and the panals are loaded with toys/gifts.
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| A Virgin of Guadalupe Statue |
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| All the Virgin Statues on display |
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| Companion Dove |
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| Aztec Dancer |
One of the highlights of the night was to watch a group of Aztec's in ceremonial outfits (I can't think of a more appropriate word) drumming and dancing almost non stop for 5hours. We only took in about 30min. I did not get a good picture of the dancers, I am sorry.
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| The Group |
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| Two of the head-dresses up close(sort of) |
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