Friday 20 November 2009

Mexican Revolution 99 Anniversary - Parade in Barra de Navidad - Heroes, Figures and Corridos

Mexican Revolution Parade in Barra de Navidad

The 99 anniversary of the Mexican Revolution was celebrated in Barra de Navidad with a parade where enthusiastic children of kindergaten, primary and high school walked and dance along the main streets of this small town.


Kinderganten Children participatin in Mexican Revolution Celebration parade in Barra de Navidad 


There are many sources of information about the Mexican Revolution history, some of them are:
Bicentenario this website has been specially created towards the celebrations in 2010 of the 100th Anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution and 200th Anniversary of the Mexican Independence War.


Mexican Revolution Parade
Mexican Revolution article from Wikipedia: Mexican Revolution in Wikipedia




Pride parents watching their cute children dancing 

Some Mexican Revolution Heroes and Figures:



Some Writers of the Mexican Revolution:


Artists of the Mexican Revolution:

 Music - Corridos about the Mexican Revolution:



Visiting Barra de Navidad? Stay at Casa Las Margaritas

Monday 17 August 2009

Fiesta de la Asunción de la Virgen María - Assumption of the Virgin Mary Celebration








August 15 is the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. On August 15th the image of the virgin is taken in a procession with her dress all cover with the paper doves that are given to people who attended mass and receive communion trough Aug 1 to Aug 15th (Quincenario de la virgen Maria) and that they hang on the virgin dress.

The pictures showed here correspond to the celebration in San Luis Potosi, S.L.P., Mexico.

Saturday 25 July 2009

Santiago Apostle Festivities

Santiago Apostol Festivity in Mexico July 25
On July 25th is celebrated the festivity for Santiago Apostle. Many cities, villages and small towns in Mexico are named after Santiago Apostle as he was the main Saint of the missioners in the process of evangelization in Mexico.


The festivities are celebrated in different ways, last for several days and include dances like the famous Moors and Christians dances, "marmota" dances, serenades, "entradas de cera" pilgrimages, fireworks and music.

Dances characteristic of this celebration are Santiagos Dance, Dance of Moors and Christians, Chareos and Tastuanes dances. The website Popularte has very good informations describing this and other dances of Mexico.



"Entrada de Cera" is a religious pilgrimage very early in the morning where people carry candles and beautiful decorations made with wax. The video above shows a "Entrada de Cera" pilgrimage in Santiago Azajo Michoacan .

Entrada de Cera - elsenordelhospital.blogspot.com
Check a "Entrada de Cera" in this post about the celebration of Senor del Hospital in Salamanca Guanajuato. You can see in the pictures the beautiful candles made for this celebration.

Ruth Lechuga article about Cera Escamada
Tastoanes Ixcatan Jalisco - picture from Azteca21.com

In the state of Jalisco the festivity of Santiago Saint is celebrated with the Tastoanes dances in the villages of San Juan Ocotan, Nextipac, Cerro de la Reina, Santa Cruz de las Huertas, Zalatitan, Mezquitan, Ixcatan, Jocotan and Tonala.

The Santiago Saint festivity is one of the most importants in Tonala in the state of Jalisco and the tastonaes dances have been represented for hundreds of years. The post Tastoan de Tonala explains that the dances represent the battle between the Cascanes Indians (Tastoanes) and the Spanish conquistador Nuño de Guzmán  in the year 1530 in which the Santiago Saint showed up mounting a horse during the battle helping the Spaniards to win the battle. In the dance the main figure is the Santiago Saint trying to defeat the indigenous people (tastoanes).

For all the tradition, cultural and artistic value of the dances, masks, dressing and music the tastoanes festivity and dances will be submitted as a candidate for UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity status.

The following videos are the Tastuanes dance in San Juan de Ocotan Jalisco




Tastuanes dance - Nextipac Jaisco

Tastuanes dance in Zacatecas




Thursday 25 June 2009

Andres Hurricane and Social Media – Barra de Navidad


Andres the first hurricane of the eastern Pacific got a big presence in the news and, ....... in Social Media, even when it was not very strong as it only increased to category 1.

Many of us got the most recent news of what was the location of Andres trough Twitter. As Social Media increase in popularity it can also be a tool of communication to help in natural phenomena disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, and maybe the experience with Andres can help to have a better coverage of the next one.

Friday 29 May 2009

Mamey - A Delicious Mexican Tropical Fruit - Barra de Navidad



Mamey is native of Mexico, the pulp of this fruit has a similar consistency of an avocado and a beautiful brownie- orange color, the way to eat it is just spoon it out of the skin, prepared as ice-cream, or in delicious “licuados” (milk shakes/smoothies).


When it is ripe you need to eat it, I would say whiting 2 days, but you can keep it longer if you freeze it by scooping the pulp with a spoon in small portions and then use it to prepare “licuados” (milkshakes/smoothies).

You will find mamey milk shakes at any “puesto de jugos y licuados de frutas” (juice fruits stands) in Mexico, but it is a seasonal fruit so; you won’t find it all-year round. In Barra de Navidad you can try them for example at Loncheria Karina (Av. Lopez de Legaspi and Jalisco st.) or the Ladies of the “puesto de jugos y licuados” (fresh juice, smoothes and milk-shakes) in front of the main plaza in Av. Veracruz, or with Rosy in Melaque at the corner of Esmeralda and Miguel Hidalgo streets; but if you want to prepare it yourself here is the recipe:


1 glass of milk

½ tablespoon Vanilla Extract

3 spoons of mamey pulp

Sugar

Put everything on the blender and enjoy!!!

The seed of the mamey is used also to prepare a hair treatment, Karina (from Loncheria Karina) explained me the procedure but I have not try it yet, so, I will try it first an tell you what happen in a future post.

You can buy mamey for example in Abarrotes Pelayo in the barrio of Barra de Navidad, and also with Rosalba, she sell fruits and vegetables in her pickup driving in the streets of Barra. One more thing, when you want to buy mamey be careful not to buy zapote instead, they look very similar but taste different.

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