That, and we learned later, the money sent home by the men of the village who are in the United States. In fact, most of the village’s men worked in the United States but came back for this festival every year. A native of the village who lived and worked in Chicago was paying for this year’s festival feast. It is considered a great honor to be chosen to foot the bill for the feast.  Although people from other villages are invited to come to the festival the feast traditionally is reserved for only residents of San Martin and the visitors are scrupulous about honoring that tradition. 

Melinda turned out to be our guide that day. She had been living like an anthropologist in the village for a year and a half. As we spent the day together Melinda talked about the changes in her life that had been brought about by her “mission” in San Martin. 

“I was your typical old maid school teacher,” she revealed. “I lived with my father for years after my mother died. My dad was tyrannical - not abusive really - just dictatorial, a German,” she added, smiling self-consciously. “I’d always wanted to travel to Mexico but he forbad it. He insisted it was unseemly for a single woman to travel to Mexico alone.”

Melinda finally got the courage to defy her father and traveled to Oaxaca, and eventually here to San Martin. Fascinated by the wood carvers and concerned about the poverty in the village, she decided to make it her personal mission to help. Her goal is to expose the villagers’ art to as many museums and galleries in the States as she can. She was clearly enthused and absorbed. In a sense she was a missionary. When Mary suggested as much she agreed, with a qualification, “A secular missionary,” she smiled. “I love it here. I haven’t been this energized in years. Teaching school had gotten to be such tedium I was dying of boredom.”

As we walked through the village with her that day the residents greeted her warmly.

“I had problems at first,” she remarked. “This is a conservative village. A single gringa living here was quite a shock.”

“Sounds like the villagers felt the same way your father did,” Mary observed.

Melinda nodded in agreement, “Yes, at first they did. They were cool and wary, especially the women. But I’ve gradually won them over. I’ve brought the village some exposure and publicity. Tourists and buyers are starting to come more frequently. Last year former President Jimmy Carter his wife Rosalynn and their daughter Amy came to the festival.”

This was a small irony inasmuch as Mary and I three times had given presentations at the Rosalynn Carter Center for Caregiving in Americus Georgia. 

Rosalynn always attended our seminars and we met and chatted with the former President at the banquets prior to the conference - the last time being only three years earlier. The President described a hike he had made to the top of Mount Kilimanjero, so it was not hard to imagine the adventuresome Carters in this remote Mexican village.

Melinda had introduced the Mr. Carter to one of the village’s most celebrated artists. “Tomas was not impressed,” she smiled. “In fact I doubt that he really believed he was talking to a former President of the United States, or if he did he didn’t care. He reacted like Carter was just another tourist and immediately began hawking his woodcarvings.” 

By midmorning, it was time for the wedding parade. Melinda led us off down a maze of streets where the parade was to begin. This parade, for which the festival is most noted, is a mock wedding processional. Men of the village dress up as women and parade through the town culminating in a “wedding” in the main plaza. In the evening a dance follows, with the men still in drag and the women circling laughing and tossing flowers at the fake women.

We finally reached the house where the processional was to begin. Traditionally, only men were allowed to walk in the parade. But on this day, Melinda and Mary were invited to join and nobody seemed to mind. After a fifteen-minute wait in front of the house, the big moment arrived. The wedding party emerged.

The “bride,” over six feet tall, wore a long white wedding gown and carried a bouquet of white carnations. “Her” gown even had a train carried by a young boy and girl about five or six years old. A delicate veil covered “her” face giving “her” a demur virginal look. The groom wore a tuxedo with tails and wire rim glasses. The tuxedo tails dragged on the dusty ground of the yard. He too had a carnation, a red one, tucked into his lapel and wore a stovepipe hat.

But it was the best man and his “maid” of honor who stole the show. A short man in a tux two sizes too big, the best man also wore a top hat. He looked tipsy and had reason to be given the looks of his “maid” of honor. 

“She” was a foot taller and wore a knee-length organdy dress and carried a bouquet. She also had a wig and wore a veil but her most distinctive feature was her bulging weight lifter biceps, one of which sported a tattoo.  This was a maid of honor no one would trifle with. 

At the appearance of the wedding party, the ten-piece band that had been waiting patiently broke into a fractured off-key version of the “Wedding March.” The processional began. A crowd of about thirty of us followed the party as we all strolled down the streets toward the main plaza. At each street corner, the procession stopped in front of a crowd of smiling onlookers. The band struck up dance music and everyone danced. Watching the burly “maid” of honor fling her diminutive best man around was hilarious. By the end of the parade, the poor guy looked exhausted. 

Winding through the streets of San Martin, which turned out to be much larger than it first appeared, took two hours. At each corner the parade stopped and everyone danced. By the time the processional reached the main plaza a large crowd had gathered for the wedding ceremony. Scattered among the throng were the first other gringos we had seen. One woman captured the event with a video camera and most of the other gringos were snapping shot after shot of the bizarre processional. By that time Mary and I had tired and lost the party in the jostling crowd. We decided it was enough entertainment for the day. We walked back out to the highway and caught a bus back to Oaxaca. 

We learned the next day from Penny that Mark had dressed up in drag for the dance that night. He wore one of her blouses and skirts, found an old mop head somewhere for his wig, and with one of Penny’s purses draped over his arm, ventured onto the dance floor. In a voice choking with laughter she described how Mark had tried to cut in on one dancing couple, who Melinda thought might have been the best man, and his “date” whacked Mark over the head with “her” purse, for trying to cut in. Those guys obviously take their roles seriously. 

A couple of days after the fiesta we had lunch with Melinda in Oaxaca. She talked more about her life in San Martin. Clearly devoted to her work, she did seem more like an anthropologist than a schoolteacher. Mary later suggested that she no longer was a teacher.  She had made a transition into a whole new life that was a stark contrast to her former one. Her sabbatical, Mary guessed, was permanent. 

Despite the revelry of the fiesta the men of San Martin face life close to the bone. Melinda told us that the day after the fiesta the men of San Martin had an intense meeting. The village was in a dispute with a neighboring Ejido over land. After the meeting the men, some of whom only two days before were frolicking in dresses and painted masks, marched, machetes in hand, to the neighboring Ejido for a confrontation.

A conciliator was brought in to prevent bloodshed and resolve the conflict though it still simmered as we spoke.  Land disputes are taken very seriously in Mexico, especially in rural Oaxaca, still one of the most impoverished of Mexican states. As tourists we were able to come and go and appreciate the colorful and unusual spectacle.  Life for the residents however, is not easy and perhaps their fiestas are one way they alleviate the hardship of their daily lives. If so, they sure know how to enjoy themselves.

The following is the first article that Rene wrote for the magazine:

• Living In Mexico ~ Rincon de Guayabitos