Have you ever been to a Mexican birthday?

Hi everyone :)

An update on what's going on here. Saturday was my birthday, so it's the perfect occasion to tell you something about Mexican birthdays.

Many of you will know the Mexican tradition of the "piñata". For those who don't, the piñata is a container (generally very colourful) filled with candies and/or toys, that the birthday girl/boy has to hit until it breaks during the celebrations. No, I didn't get one of those, but I thought it was interesting to know that the tradition actually comes from Europe, and was brought to Mexico by the Spaniards. The name actually comes, according to Wikipedia, from the italian word "pignatta" (free lesson of italian, guys: "gn" is basically read as the spanish "ñ")...I would really like to know who, of the italians out there, knows what a "pignatta" is. Well, it's a pan, and among its characteristics there is the fact that it breaks easily if it's hit by something. Nowadays I've never seen a piñata at a European birthday!

Anyway, for my birthday, I had got a taste of other traditions. Firstly, the song "las mañanitas". All the Mexican people reading this will be smiling and nodding. It's a very, very popular song, not only in Mexico but in all this region apparently. I had heard it so many times during my month here, as we had a few birthdays at the comedor, and it was my Mexican friend's birthday at the beginning of the month (by "Mexican friend" I refer to the one I came to visit last year. It's getting a bit confusing as I now have more than one Mexican friend - I think). So when I woke up on saturday, I was very excited because this time it was gonna be sung for me. There are many versions, but in general it says something along the lines of "wake up dear, we've come to celebrate your (15th) birthday". It doesn't always say that it's the 15th birthday, but, if they are in the mood, the singers might say it even when you're turning 89. Even though you don't have to be 15 to hear it in the song, it is important to remember that the 15th birthday is the most important one here in Mexico, and that's why it says that.

Here is a version of "las mañanitas"...enjoy!

The migrants and volunteers sang it to me at the comedor (where I had brought a chocolate cake). One of the migrants also sang another birthday song, a Christian one. It was very nice! I didn't do much work at the comedor that day XD I sat with the migrants and played cards or dominoes, while listening to music on my tablet (migrants were showing me videos of bands from Honduras). It was a nice way to spend a birthday afternoon! Here, I learnt two more facts about Mexican birthdays.

Firstly, you have to hug people when they wish you happy birthday. It's a "must"! Don't make the same mistake as me, of simply giving a kiss on the cheek and saying "thank you". The friend I did that too smiled and said "do you know you hug each other when we give our birthday wishes, here in Mexico?". I could feel the disappointment in his voice, and I think I was only saved by the fact I've be living here for just a month, and that this guy knows something about dealing with different cultures himself...but from then, I was ready to promptly hug whoever said "happy birthday"!! ;)

Secondly, there is another tradition called "mordita". Let me show you with a video:

*I have just been informed its "mordiDa", with a "d". Oh well, still a long way to go before I learn spanish well...I'll change it from now on, but yeah. Be aware of these terrible mistakes!* You can hear the kids screaming "mordida, mordida, mordida!". "Morder" in spanish means "to bite". The birthday person is expected to give a bite (without cutlery, literally by biting the cake directly), allegedly to "see if it's good". You can see that she's moving one hand behind her head, and that is to check that the man is not doing what he inevitably ends up doing: trying to push her face into the cake. That's the real reason why they want you to bite the cake. You're supposed to do it (push the person's face into the cake) without them realising you're going to do it, but it's very difficult because nowadays everybody expects it. I luckily succeeded in avoiding this tradition too, although one of the volunteers really wanted me to "see if the cake was good"!

In the evening, we went to a typical Mexican restaurant. There were mariachis and there were also typical dances. The light was really poor (and I was getting a bit tipsy!) so I don't think I have decent pictures to show you, but basically the dances consists on couples dancing together. The women have these colourful dress with really big skirts that they move around as they dance, and the men are typical Mexican men, with sombreros and moving their feet as if they hadn't done anything else but dance since they were born.

We ate nice food, had our good share of beers, and then we ordered a bottle of tequila. I saw my Mexican friend talking to the waiter and I knew she was on to something, but I didn't investigate. I soon learnt what it was about anyway, as some waiters came next to me and, before I could realize what was going on, poured a shot of what seemed like "red tequila" (tequila with some tomato juice, I guess) into my mouth. They then shook my head while making as much noise as possible with some whistles. In a few seconds, they were off like nothing had happened...I had seen this last year, but I had completely forgotten about it....it was fun to try, but not my favourite way of tasting a shot of tequila!!

I'll leave you here, I feel like I've already written too much. Just to briefly tell you, we finished off the night dancing salsa (and, sometimes, pop music too) until 5am. It was a great birthday!

Hope you found it interesting :)

Mexican hugs to everyone

Caterina

P.S.: the title, once again, is an adaptation of the title of a Gogol Bordello's song, "Have you ever been to an American wedding?"

Culture is important

Good evening (or morning...or night...depending on when you're reading this ;) )

Just an update on my life here, together with a brief description of my first days in this interesting country. Yes, interesting, especially for an italian girl. Mexicans are, in fact, quite similar to italians on several aspects: warm (I do miss that when I'm in Northern Europe!), Christians, not so keen on rules ;) , etc... Our two peoples are also, however, extremely different from each other. I'll start from the silliest difference: Mexicans eat eggs ALL THE TIME. I mean, seriously, every day. My mum always told me not to eat more than two eggs per week, and I don't think I'm the only one I've been told this (although I do cheat sometimes and eat more!). In general, as I think you all know, the cuisine is very different from the italian one. No pasta, unless you dare go to an italian restaurant (I don't, I'd rather wait till I'm back home!...by the way, while proof-reading the post I realized this is not true: I went to an Italian restaurant just over a week ago! In my defence, i was hungry and in a hurry, and it was the nearest restaurant). They eat lots of beans, and cheese, and tortillas...My favourite food here is Quesadillas, the two tortillas with melted cheese inside. I'm also trying to learn how to prepare Guacamole, it's supposedly very easy but I'm still not happy with the result.

Moreover, Mexican people dance. A lot. And the best thing (for me) is that it's not only girls who like to take the floor, but guys too! In Italy (and, to be honest, in much of the Europe I've seen), when a guy likes dancing, we immediately assume he's gay...and often we are not far from the truth! If it tends to be true, I don't think it is because dancing is for girls, but because only guys who have already distanced themselves from societal stereotypes can actually enjoy something that is deemed "feminine". Here, on the other hand, that kind of stereotype does not exist (well, I can't speak for all of Mexico, but certainly that's the idea I got from my experience here), so anybody is free to like (or dislike!) dancing. It's really one of the differences between Mexico and Italy that strike me most. As a salsa-lover (salsa the dance, not the sauce), I'm particularly happy about this! :D

Lastly, their way of living Christianity is a bit different from the way italian Christians' live it. Oh, I'm extending this to Central Americans in general, as it's something that has come up a lot in my work with migrants. In a way, they are very religious. It's very common for them to say goodbye with "que Dios te bendiga!" (="may God bless you"), and if you ask them how they're doing, they often answer "bien, gracias a Dios" (="I'm fine, thank God", similar to the arabic "mashallah"). They always assume you are Christian too (why wouldn't you be?) and they truly believed God is saving them, even if they haven't had food or water for days. I've never met a migrant who's told me "I used to believe in God, but why would he leave us in these conditions?". Also, mums are always praying for their kids who are on the camino. However, they don't really follow the Christian doctrine in their lives, or at least not in the way we understand it. The most obvious way to explain it is by telling you that sooooooo many of these Christians have several kids, from several women, who often haven't been their wives. In Italy it would really be a shame to have this kind of family situation (I don't think it's a shame! I'm just saying what Italian society often believes), but they talk about it in a very normal way. The guys with the guitars that I told you about in the other post, for example, were very connected to some kind of church, as I told you. So when I interviewed one of them and asked him "are you married?" he said something like "no, I am a Christian so I am waiting to find the woman who I'll be with all my life". Therefore, when we got to the next question, I was quite confident in saying "you don't have any kids then, right?" and he shook his head "I do...Two!". My bad...prejudice! But yeah, I find it very interesting. Today a guy told me he had 7 kids from three different women, one of which was his wife, the others (more recent, in the USA), no. Mhh...makes me think a lot about stereotypes.

Ok, I wanted to talk about my first days here but I'm very tired so I'll leave it to the next post. Just one last thing: in these days we have, at the comedor, a prophet. Yes, you heard me, a prophet! Well, that's what he thinks he is. He says he's from Israel although it seems a lot like he's from the US. He's searching for some kind of treasure in a Mexican city, that the Aztecs left and that will change the fate of the eternal battle between good and evil, God and the devil. He says the Aztecs were, in fact, Israelis too. It has been a good distraction from the usual stories of migrants being robbed in their journeys to the North! ;)

Hasta luego

Caterina

P.S. speaking of cultural differences...the other night I was having dinner with some of my colleagues and they told me that at a party a few nights before, they were all choosing one song each, to be fair to everyone. Most of the people were putting latin music, so they were all dancing to the rhythm...until this German colleague of mine chose her song, a German one, and everyone suddenly stopped dancing and they decided it was a good moment to take a group picture! You gotta choose the right music ;)