Christmas Comes Early

December 2009

Wednesday night I coached my second basketball game of my Mexican career. We won. We beat a team that had previously destroyed Encolep II, name of the high school and we don’t have a mascot (how cool is that?). After the game I met Rafaela’s estadios unidos boyfriend of four years. He said that the two local English periodicals in Mazatlan should write an article about the gringo coach. If he thought that was news worthy, he should have been with me Thursday and Saturday.
Jaime’s family invited Sharon and me to attend Eladio’s ordination at the main cathedral in El Centro. Jaime’s wife is Lupita. Lupita and Eladio are not brothers and sisters, but they call each other that. Eladio and his mother moved in with Lupita’s family at an early age. At age 29 he decided to pursue priesthood. Eight years later his initiation into priesthood took place. Touched doesn’t begin to describe how this experience felt to anyone in attendance.
In Mexico the first building in every city and village that stands out is the cathedral. Mazatlan’s cathedral brings tourists inside to marvel at the grandeur of Catholicism and its opulence. Subtlety is not a strong suit in a Catholic church in this country. Walking in to witness a spectacle like an ordination in a building designed to host spectacles moved me. Close to a hundred priests marched in. Eladio with his ornate sash looked exactly like the newbie should as his elders all sported vestments with differing arrays of colors and symbols that distinguished them like the markings on a military uniform.
Something about not understanding the lyrics made the music mesh with the choir in a much more spiritual manner. I did not become lost in lyrics. I became emotional through melodies. The ordination impacted me like an opera so well acted that my lack of Latin or Spanish failed to impede my understanding of the performance. When the bishop walked into the audience and presented Eladio’s mother with a blessing, I knew that he asked for permission to take her son into a spiritual world. When each of the priests walked up to a kneeling Eladio and put both hands on his head to say a brief blessing, I knew they passed on wisdom. When a priest escorted Eladio’s mother and Lupita to face the congregation and receive a plague, I knew that permission had been granted. When each of the priests hugged Eladio and kissed each of his hands, I knew that he had been accepted. In his new vestments, Eladio beamed. Then the priests filed out, and the congregation lined up to hug Mazatlan’s newest priest.
The post ordination party a couple of blocks north of our condo paled in comparison to the theater of the morning. The setting with white canopy shelters blowing in the wind, and the tuxedoed waiters who never allowed a wine glass to be empty would impress the most cynical observer. The meal worked well, but I must note two cultural oddities. First, women who dress for special occasions in Mexico wear the most outrageous footwear. Nicole calls the Mexican women style, “matchey matchey.” Color coordinated to an extreme dominates the look, but the amount of money put into high heels and their outrageous flairs truly impresses me. Birkenstocks will never open a store in this country. Second, dessert in Mexico is a public passion. In America women pretend that eating dessert in public is a most unacceptable extravagance. Priests would politely and covertly wander over to eat a little something so that the hostess felt appreciated. In Mexico a dessert table reminds me of an Oklahoma land rush. Anyone who stands in your way is an opponent. A well dressed Mexican woman may walk into a confessional and admit to impure thoughts and other sins, but she would lay out her confessor to reach for flan. And a priest will turn a blind confessional eye to a sinner he knows to snag his favorite pastry. During desserts Mexicans sport no pretensions of their intentions.

* * *

After Wednesday’s night game, Rafaela asked if Nicole, Sharon, and I could chaperone a trip to Burger King. When we arrived at the orphanage, a weekly guest Mexican hippy played hand held drums that look like tambourines and danced around with his waifish hippy wife. The kids love it. I twirled several children like batons as the energy amped up for a big day out. After the music stopped, the kids lined up to go out the gate. Rafaela had ill prepared any of us for what we encountered for the rest of this day. Six motorcycle gang members in their colors and on their idling Harley’s greeted us. Senor Frog’s garishly cartooned vehicle beckoned the children who piled in with five adult chaperones. A clown then appeared who entertained the kids who laughed and shouted and screamed the entire way to Burger King. The El Rocos motorcycle members escorted us and stopped traffic to ensure that we felt privileged.
Six high school girls dressed in pink and white fluffy dresses walked the kids into Burger King which has the largest inside playground in Mazatlan. They dove into it with abandon. A classic American meal of French fries and hamburgers arrived. Tino, my five year old partner, looked at his first hamburger. He squirted the catch up sauce on top of the sesame seed bun and proceeded to eat it in a circular manner from the outside in. How else would a kid eat a burger sight unseen?
The pink and white fluffy girls painted the faces of the children in outrageously colorful designs. More motorcyclists took pictures and then presented each of the kids at least three wrapped presents. Rafael assigned me to collect them before they unwrapped them, so they could be put under the tree back home. A television crew filmed the entire event and interviewed Rafael and several of the girls. Unbeknownst to me this is an annual event that brings together a pair of interesting groups. Watching hard assed motorcycle gang members melt in front of orphans was almost worth gagging down a junior whopper.

* * *

On the seedier side of experiences I attended the fights that Mazatlan’s bull ring hosted Saturday night. Nicole’s husband Decote works out at the local pugilistic gym and knows many of the fighters on the card. He raved about the lineup with the main event being a former welterweight world champion fighting a boxer from the Philippines.
Decote mostly wanted to watch a Mazatlan fighter who fights at his gym who is 19-0. His reputation drew a visit from the current world middleweight champion who visited him ringside before his fight.
Speaking of ringside, Decote scored us ringside seats for this nationally televised fight. Most seats in Mexico that are outside and most seats in Mexico happen to be outside, are plastic. If you don’t like the row you are in, you can move your seat up. My ticket informed me that I had a seat in row one seat one. I realized later that our row expanded as the evening wore on.
The floor of a bull ring is not tiled. It’s dirt. The dirt near the beer vendor is mud. The restrooms are five portapotties. They sold over 4,000 tickets. No problema. The mostly male audience didn’t choose to wait in line to pee. They just went outside and peed in the parking lot. The parking lot is made of dirt. The parking lot became muddy.
Women did attend the fight. Those who worked the aisles to seat the high rollers would stand out in any crowd. Those who escorted the fighters into the ring drew whistles, cat calls, and drooling and deserved it. In the States when a woman holds up the number signifying the next round, she dresses scantily, exhibits bodacious curves, and smiles seductively. In Mexico all of the above holds true as well, but at the middle of each of the four corners of the ropes, her strut stops to put on a pelvic thrusting, butt wiggling display that is inspiring. One of these young ladies inspired one of Decote’s buddies to yell out, “Vas a mi casa.”* This drew laughs and cheers from all who heard except for the lady with the card. She winked. We had to help Decote’s friend off the dirt floor.
The fights too inspired the audience. The quality of the fighting and the officiating sincerely impressed me. The introduction of the main event included fireworks as did its conclusion. You can do this in an outdoor arena. A night at the fights was glitzy, crass, and so much fun.

*Translation….”Go home with me.”