El Bautizo

Our hosts, Carlos and Concepcion graciously invited us to join them this morning at a baptism for a little girl that they are (now) Godparents to. We expressed some reluctance to impose, but they encouraged us to come, and we were glad we did. It was an interesting experience.











There's a little goldfinch that likes to fly around and eat ants on the pomelo tree in front of me. It's distracting and beautiful. This is a shot of Z on the balcony in front of our room by the pomelo tree.












Anyway, back to the baptism. We first waited about an hour for the priest to come out of the cathedral by the Zocalo - they had arranged to pick him up and take him out to the village where the baptism was (in Teotitlan del Valle, known for it's wool carpet weaving). Once we arrived, we went into the courtyard of the family. There was livestock on the left, everything from goats, burros and cows to chickens and geese. On the right was the family's living space, with an open space in the middle and arches around, opening onto covered patio spaces, then closed rooms beyond those. You can kind of see the women's table and a few of the animals in the background of this photo.




Lots of women were working in the courtyard, stirring large pots over open fires, grinding on metates, and whisking up foamy drinks. One pot was about 3 feet in diameter. Other women were sitting around a table eating already and when we went in, the priest, a little old man dressed in a wrinkled tracksuit and running shoes, sat right down at the table with the women and started to eat (which was a great source of amusement to everyone else, since traditionally the women and men eat at different tables, and he didn't bother with the formalities that were still to come).





We went into the family's chapel - kind of a long room with an altar at one end - and sat in a row of chairs. Then the family gathered and stood in precise order of their importance to the occasion, with women in front in one row and men in another row behind. Our hosts made formal statements about how pleased they were to be the Padrinos (Godparents) and how they wished the best for the little girl. Then the family returned with their thanks for coming and taking part. Our hosts presented the family with gifts - the girl's little white satin baptism dress (and socks and shoes and hat, and everything) as well as a couple of cases of beer. The mother took the dress and kissed it and passed it down the line of women, each of whom looked at it and kissed it, then they gave a formal thank you for their generosity. Then we all went down the line, kind of like in a wedding reception, and shook hands and said good morning.

Finally they invited us all out to have breakfast on the patio. We sat down and first they offered everyone a drink of Mezcal (a local drink made from agave that's kind of like tequila, I'm told) and they brought us each a large plate of an assortment of sweet breads - about 6 per person, with a little mug of hot chocolate. Carlos and Concepcion (who had warned us that we'd be given more bread than any person could possibly eat), joked that we had to eat it all before we could leave the table.







You can see the looms in the background of this photo, as well as how delighted (or amused and nervous) they were to have us there. They brought out trays piled high with huge handmade corn tortillas, about 1 1/2 feet in diameter, with a little saucer of salt on each stack. Then we each got an enormous bowl of "higaditos", a kind of soup with turkey broth, shredded turkey bits, and scrambled eggs, half a tomato floating on top with some hot sauce in it. That alone was more than 3 of us could eat in one sitting. Then we got bowls of "espuma", which was what the women had been grinding and beating into a froth in the courtyard. It was a hot, mildly sweet drink, kind of like a chocolate atole, with a good 3 inches of foam on top. There's a great post about how they make it here, which looks like what I saw them doing. When we couldn't eat anymore, they brought us bags to put our bread in to take home.

We drove over to the church, which had been built centuries ago with stones from the local ruins - they had the Zapotec carvings on them. The inside of the church was more simple than many we've seen, mainly because it wasn't loaded with baroque gold-leaf carvings, but it had lots of decorative painting on the interior walls. We sat through the baptism and mass, which went longer than expected, apparently. The priest really wanted everyone to take communion and dragged that part out for a long time, staring at each person until most surrendered and took it. He stared at me long enough for everyone else to turn and see who he was looking at. Pretty uncomfortable! The baptism itself was lovely, though. The church bells rang and they set off firecrackers just outside the church. The godparents promised, along with the parents, to care for and protect the little girl throughout her life.

We drove back to the house for another round of formal thank yous and shaking hands and giving hugs down the line and mezcal served in little brightly painted gourds. They insisted that we at least take the gourds as a momento, and someone joked that these women didn't know how to make tejate, which is a local drink that is usually served in gourds like those, as if the mescal were the worst tejate they'd ever drunk, when they are nothing alike.

Tejate is a kind of cold drink made, according to wickipedia, from "toasted maize flour, fermented cacao beans, mamey pits and flor de cacao (chocolate blossoms). These are finely ground into a paste. The paste is mixed with water, usually by hand, and when it is ready, the flor de cacao rises to the top to form a pasty foam." It tastes kind of nutty.


We left around noon, but Carlos told us the next day they'd stayed until quite late at night for the dinner and dance. I was touched by the display of generosity and the commitment to celebration in spite of financial limitations.