March 2005

Easter in Tzintzuntzan is a potent mix of Purépecha and Catholic rituals and celebrations, captured beautifully in these stunning b + w images.

If you wish to learn more about this ancient lakeside town, I recommend Randy Johnson’s intelligent photo essay.

Two year’s ago, of course, I was in Tolimán, witnessing the re-enactment of the crucifixion on the summit of the hill they call Calvary. Heady stuff.

Billie Mercer took these photos in San Miguel de Allende on Good Friday.

Bizarrely, on FIFA’s orders, the kick-off time for Mexico’s eagerly anticipated qualifier at home to rivals the United States has been put back by 7 minutes. The match at the Estadio Azteca will now start at the unusual time of 12:07 local time (18:07 GMT) on 27 March.

The US has a miserable Won 0- Drawn 1- Lost 21 -record south of the border in a series that stretches back to 1934 and the days of buttoned-down sleeves and baggy shorts.

However, while they may remain – just – the footballing superpower in the region, the Mexicans no longer have it all their own way. El Tri has only triumphed in 6 out of 19 meetings since the start of the 1990s and coach Ricardo Lavolpe is only too aware that the US has not lost to Mexico in the last 8 matches between the two rivals (all of them outside Mexico). More pertinently, the US has come out top dog in 4 of their last 5 games with Mexico and are on a 16-game unbeaten run, stretching back to a narrow 1-0 loss in Holland in February 2004.

Mexico see the match as their best chance to avenge their humiliating 2-0 defeat at the hands of their neighbours in the last competitive match between the two sides – the round of 16 at the last World Cup.

The winners of Sunday’s clash will move into pole position in the final hexagonal round of North, Central American and Caribbean qualifying.

Whatever happens, it would still be a major surprise if both national teams were not competing in Germany next year.

Every year, tens of thousands of visitors gather at Chichén Itzá in Yucatán to witness the arrival of the Vernal Equinox.

Pyramid of Kukulkán – photo credit: Space Imaging

The Pyramid of Kukulkán dominates the centre of Chichén Itzá and embodies Mayan myth and natural astronomical cycles. As the sun sets at the spring (and autumn) equinox, a play of light and shadow creates the appearance of a serpent that gradually undulates down the stairway of the pyramid.

The 79-ft high structure is better known as “El Castillo” – so named by Diego de Landa, the first bishop of Yucatán and a man infamous for ordering priceless Maya documents and idols to be burned in an auto de fe in 1562.

This year, half a dozen government agencies and academic institutions collaborated to webcast the phenomenon.

See also:
All Misty Eyed: Missing the Spring Equinox at Dzibilchaltun 

Billie Mercer took a stroll through Colonia San Antonio in San Miguel de Allende on Friday evening.

She captured a great set of photos of the altars some of her neighbours have decorated in purple, black and white for Viernes de Dolores (Night of Sorrows), the Friday before Holy Week. Billie tells me it was a touching experience.

We’ll be renting a house in this same Colonia ourselves during April.

Colonial San Miguel is one of the best places to be in Mexico during Holy Week.

For a superb account of Semana Santa there, read our friend Isabella Tree’s Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico. Isabella’s is some of the best travel writing on Mexico I’ve ever read. She dedicates a whole chapter to Easter in San Miguel.

LiveStrong wristband

“From subways to schools, barrios to bars, yellow “LiveStrong” wristbands… are everywhere in the capital”, reports Dane Schiller in The Herald.

As the wristband craze spreads to Mexico, fakes selling for anything from 20 to 200 pesos have poured into the informal economy of street markets notorious for pirated CDs and counterfeit label clothing.

Six time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong launched the “LiveStrong” campaign in May 2004 with partners Nike in an effort to raise millions of dollars for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996 aged 25. Profits from the $1 bracelets go to support those diagnosed with cancer, providing them with the tools and information to “live strong.”

The only place to purchase the bracelets in the US is www.laf.org, wearyellow.com or official Nike retailers. Nike is considering distribution options in Mexico.

Flabbergasted. That was my reaction to George W Bush’s nomination of Paul Wolfowitz, US deputy secretary of defence, to replace James Wolfensohn as the president of the World Bank. Today I remain full of foreboding for the future direction of that already flawed institution.

I’m encouraged that a coalition of UK-based NGOs have written a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair regarding Wolfowitz’s nomination.

Oxfam’s name is not among them, which is disappointing – speaking as a past staffer (1988-91). An email I received last night from Oxfam spokesperson Caroline Green in Washington D.C. restated the need for urgent reform of the undemocratic appointment process.

The email quoted Bernice Romero, Oxfam International’s Advocacy Director:

“There is an urgent need to reform the selection process: governments should abolish the unspoken ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ whereby the US picks the Bank President, and the Europeans the Managing Director of the [International Monetary] Fund. The President should be chosen through an open and transparent selection process, strictly on the basis of their merits and their capacity to do the job.”

This lack of transparency is a recurring theme. See my friend Ron Mader’s excellent Reflections from the World Bank.

Only two weeks ago I was exchanging emails with David Steven of worldbankpresident.org on the suitability and likelihood of ex-President Ernesto Zedillo being tapped for the job.

You can best follow this developing story on David’s website.

Filmed over 5 weeks in the summer of 2003 and shot in black and white, Duck Season (Temporada de Patos) is set in a stark apartment block in the city-within-a-city Tlatelolco district of the capital.

It’s Sunday, 11 o’clock in the morning. Flama and Moko are fourteen and childhood friends. To survive another boring Sunday, they have everything they need: the place to themselves, an Xbox, soft-porn, Coke and pizza delivery.

Unfortunately, the electric company, their neighbour Rita (Danny Perea), Ulises the pizza delivery guy, eleven seconds, the Real Madrid-Man U football game, a chocolate cake and a kitsch duck painting are ruining what was shaping up to be a great day.

But the real problems are slowly revealed: divorcing parents, loneliness, the confusion of love and friendship between teenagers as well as a grown-up’s frustration of life.

Director Fernando Eimbcke wanted to make a movie about adolescents “out of respect for their constant need of searching, for their rejection of what is established, for their abandon, their energy, and because adolescents may not know what they want, but they know very well what they don’t want.”

Duck Season is released in selected cinemas across the UK on 11 March.

Ocotlán – Convento – Rodolfo Morales

Spring has arrived in Oaxaca and the wonderful purple trumpet blossoms of the jacarandas have been out for a couple of weeks. 

Appropriate then for Oscar Carrizosa to get in touch this week and ask me to mention this year’s Spring Festival, which runs from 20-27 March with a varied programme of art exhibitions and classical music.

The festival began in 1982 at the initiative of then Governor Pedro Vázquez Colmenares, for the celebration of the 450th. anniversary of the founding of the city of Oaxaca. But after the sudden death of the great painter from Ocotlán, Rodolfo Morales in 2001, his name was added.

Festival website.

Thanks to Larry Miller for allowing me to use this photo of the restored convento complex in Ocotlán.

This month, Richard Perry returns to the lake country of northern Michoacán for a detailed look at the extraordinary church front of Santa María Magdalena in Cuitzeo - a masterpiece of 16th century architectural sculpture by a local stonecarver.