Mary and Mariachis

Yesterday was the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Thursday: Jenny (our garden-neighbor) and her boyfriend invited us out to snacks and drinks at a restaurant where classmates of ours work, and then to a 11pm Mariachi Mass afterwards. "The Restaurant" (actually its name) was overly overpriced... and the church where the Mass was supposed to be seemed completely deserted. We ended up watching karaoke (mostly Mariachi songs, Mexican pop and ballads) at another restaurant/bar...

The next morning, however, Madison and I ran into several Mariachi bands just on the way to class. About every block or two there seems to be a shrine to the Our Lady of Guadalupe- there are several inside and out of El Nigromante (the market where we shop and buy our morning tamales), and two along the Artisan's Market (also part of our morning walk to class). Mariachis were serenading the crowd at the tamale stand (which is right in front of one of these shrines). I'm glad the tamale vendors recognize me now, and know that I always get "cuatro tamales verdes." To get close to the stand I had to stand directly in front of one of the horn players- there was no hearing anyone speaking. In the Artisan's Market was another Mariachi band... ad this shrine had a large group of people listening, adding new candles to the shrine... and there were also folks passing out steaming cups of some sort of cider (with a prune floating in it), hot atole (sweet, slightly spiced, condensed milk), and bread rolls.... The folks even handed the steaming drinks and bread to the gringos (us) who had accidentally wandered into their celebration.