Mitla on Mexico's Independence Day

Here's a small taste of my home for the next three weeks-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaMM7JJNj3Q

Clearly, this drone was flying at five am in the summer- I don't see much traffic.




No overloaded trucks, no taxis and no cute little micro- taxies.

Micro-taxies It cost three of us ten pesos to get home.
Total, not each. You do the math. 

But today is Mexico's Independence Day- the day the Catholic priest Miguel Hildago y Costilla from Delores led the peasants- mostly indigenous Indians and mestizos with a cry of defiance.

September 16 is Independence Day in Mexico since it was proclaimed such a day of 1810. The popular Spanish term for this celebration is the Scream of Dolores .

·      The independence of Mexico was demanded for the first time in 1810, but it did not become official until 1821.

·       El Grito de Dolores is the most famous moment in the history of Mexican independence

El Grito was the proclamation of independence given by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla , who had rebelled against the Spanish government in power. Feelings of independence had been incubating for some time, due to the American and French revolutions, as well as the French occupation of Spain in the early nineteenth century. After learning that the government intended to arrest him, Hidalgo sounded the bell of his church in the southern coastal town of Dolores, went up to the pulpit and announced his plans to rebel, encouraging the other parishioners to join him. After several hours had gathered an army of people ready to rebel against Spain. This uprising against the authorities was the trigger of a revolutionary war that would last a decade.

We walked to the center of town, looked at the construction all over the plaza, avoided the persistent street food vendors and ended up squished under a tent in a downpour with thousands of friendly Mexicans.  And listened to this for two hours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY3u0M3owdo
Mostly warming up the trumpets.

It had been drizzling and we wondered and waited some more. The people watching was great! Just as the rain really started, the parade of the beautiful young woman came toward the tent.  One had a huge headdress of peacock feathers and a ballgown with local scenery painted on it. And I left my camera behind because it was dark....

We listened -all in Spanish, of course, and watched as each local official was introduced and brought forward a Mexican flag. Then each of the six schools did the same. The young women sang the national anthem while people milled and bumped into each other as more pushed in to avoid the rain, now torrential.

The anthem has ten stanzas but the girls only sang four.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpFQ0I8AcF0

Fifteen minutes later, my feet were killing me and we had a long wet walk home.  They started retiring the flags with the same pomp and ceremony; we started for home.

We missed the Grito!- the great war cry, but one of our group stayed behind and it was all over soon after we left.  They didn't do the great grito after all but it was great fun to be a part of a local party. Normally there would be a parade today but not this Mexican Independence Day.

The night was a more subdued celebration with reference to the many who have died from the latest earthquake in this beautiful but precarious land.