Seeing my Mexico surroundings
I was able to see well enough to appreciate the Easter-basket beauty of the many different spring blossoms around Lake Chapala. With a clear, clean, robin-egg-blue sky as a background, the constantly...
View ArticleSisters and mothers in a Mexico town
Blanca and Maria are sisters. Blanca owns and operates a souvenir stand upstairs from the public market, just off the main plaza in Talpa de Allende. She has a young daughter. Maria owns and operates a...
View ArticleSecrets hidden in the Mexican sierra
One of my favorite antiques is a live doll. Last month she celebrated a century plus one year.
View ArticleLegend of the Virgin of Talpa
There was no human intervention in the restoration of the image and, if history can be believed, the transformation had to be supernatural, divine or spontaneous combustion mixed with staunch faith.
View ArticleSeptember 14, Day of the Charro
The charro wears a special suit, like none I've ever seen on Billy the Kid or John Wayne. The escaramuza wears her own beautiful attire; she rides and performs side-saddle.
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Mexican posadas and a famous Christmas carol
Beginning on December 16, Mexican children have their nine days of posadas before Christmas. Two are chosen to dress up like Joseph and Mary and lead the other neighborhood children from house to...
View ArticleA Mexican pig party
A Mexican pig party plus my recipe for Mexicanized Mexissippi style crackling cornbread
View ArticleMexconnect reaches around the world
I'm constantly amazed how far Mexconnect reaches out -- from little Talpa de Allende, Jalisco, to the direct descendant of a Nobel winner in Germany.
View ArticleMexican folk remedies
If you have something in your eye, take a hair from the tail of a live cat ....
View ArticleCharro wedding in a small Mexican town
Wedding traditions vary all over the world and Mexico is no exception. Canada and the United States are such international melting pots that we may see Asian, African or English customs demonstrated in...
View ArticleWildfires and old men: the legacy of US immigrants in Talpa
What no one was aware of was that, subtly, Guy and Bill were changing the ideals of the future leaders of a Mexico mountain village. Try Guy's Guy's Gringo Chile Relleno Casserole recipe.
View ArticleLarge families North and South of the border
Families in Mexico tend to be numerous. I know about big families. I come from one.
View ArticleEl Bramador: once a bustling colonial mining town
El Bramador is not the bustling, mining village it must have been in the 1860s, but the old mine shafts are still there. It is a ten-minute donkey ride up the mountainside from what was once the town's...
View ArticleVirgin hair for the Madonna's new wig
Many of you know August is the month when Talpa de Allende's image of the Virgin begins walking the back roads, visiting and blessing the ranches, cattle, crops, ponds and creeks along the way. She is...
View ArticleThe Virgin of Talpa comes calling
There are secrets to all this pageantry that everybody doesn't know.
View ArticleWinemaking in the Mexican sierra
When he took the first sip of his nectar, Guy thought he could hear the angels sing.
View ArticleA Mexico mountain feast
In 1985, there were four Americans living in Talpa. Guy and Bill invited a small group living in Puerto Vallarta to share a weekend with them. The flight usually was about eighteen minutes long, but...
View ArticleDoña Chayito, Talpa's treasure
She talked about the Cristero War (1926-1929) as if it were yesterday.
View ArticleFrom Talpa to Puerto Vallarta in the 1800s
I shall never forget the two trips we made to the seashore from Talpa.
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Sacred places around us: Is Talpa a "power place"?
Quite by accident, I recently ran across a website that lists Talpa de Allende as a sacred power place. Martin Gray spent years visiting and photographing every place he heard was a sacred site, and...
View ArticleTianguis: itinerant traders in a traveling Mexican market
In Talpa, we have tianguis or street markets. Every two weeks, venders come from Guadalajara with their trucks loaded with fresh vegetables and fruit, herbs, ornate plants, cell phones, hair dryers and...
View ArticlePolitics and women's changing role in Mexico
In Talpa de Allende, there is a neighborhood girl who calls me her quasi-godmother. We have studied English together for the past few summers, but I find her attention span jumping about like a monkey....
View ArticleToyita grows flowers for the Virgin of Talpa
As in so many Latin American homes in the 1800s and on into the nineteenth century, at least one daughter in the family stayed home and never married. That daughter's responsibility was to cook and...
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