Church in Cuautla – visit with Lucia & family in Chalco - Day 3

Topiary at Amecameca

Sunday, October 19, Day 3

We went to church across the street from Tia Raquel. Then we had lunch of frijoles, rice, avocados, some kind of meat and tortillas.

Naomi washes dishes after lunch

Then we all piled into the car and went to visit Lucia. We called first and she said to dress warmly as her place up the mountain side is cold. It is. Volcan Popo, about 60 miles away to the NE. Slow traffic. 45 minutes later people wore coats. Edwin put up his window. We passed by a park with pony rides through the pines. Lots of honey for sale. Amecameca – heavier jackets. They have coats hanging for sale, topiary in park, more detail than Zarichui. Clalmanaco – on a mountain side had a run-away truck ramp and an excavation route for volcanos. There were a few fields growing “The flower of the dead,” which they use on graves the day after Hallowe’en. Fir caps on sale. It is dark.
- Grandpa

We had a great visit with Tio Alma Rodriguez, his three children, Lucia, Saul, and Elisa, and their respective children. We admired the floor, which was marble chunks, poured over with white concrete, then filed off.
On the road back we passed over 28 topes, or speed bumps.
- Naomi

Cousins in the backyard

After breakfast we walked the block to Church. There were lots of people there. The church had been recently reorganized because expanding membership with new branches being organized so it was the newest church in the neighborhood. Tia Raquel laughed, she said she had attended the first church there and now she was attending the last one, all in the same location.

Family and friend outside church in Cuautla

We visited Lucia in Chalco in the afternoon, passing through Amecameca, a town at the base of Popocatepectl and Icctacihuatl volcanoes. The story is Amecameca was once called Ameca, then the volcano covered it with lava so when they returned to rebuild they called it Amecameca. You ask, ‘Why did they rebuild?’ Fair question, if you saw the lovely countryside and enjoyed the fine weather, you would not ask. Lucia had called before we left and told us to wear warm clothes; she lives up the slope of the volcanos. It was cool in her house but she has no heater or air conditioner, nor screens on the windows (I think). Amecameca had some great topiaries but we didn’t have time to look at them. Everyone was in warm jackets, some with hoods. The entire area is packed with people. Some say Mexico D.F. has 19 million, some say 27 million people. The towns are grown together mostly, just like LA so where one begins and the other stops and who is included is academic. There are lots of people and houses and cars. Lucia’s family all came over for a visit with the cousins from New Mexico who is seeing a “new” Mexico. The area around Amecameca caters to weekend visitors from DF with horses to ride in the pine forest, food to eat, games to play and cool to enjoy.
Lucia has been to Turkey a couple of times and likes the country well. She says lots of people are illiterate so the Turkish government is teaching them to read Arabic using Latin letters because it is so much easier, faster (and most of all, cheaper) than the traditional Arabic letter.

Lucia


We passed lots of fields of flowers which, upon inquiry, are to be used for the ‘day of the dead’. It ended up that they have two days of the dead and use flowers in profusion in decorating the graves and other places on the two days following Hallowe’en. Nobody is sure where the custom came from, Aztec or Catholic or even pre Aztec because it is most employed in the southern part of the country that was never conquered by either the Aztecs or the Catholics until recent years.
We got home to a minor plumbing problem. Tia Raquel had plumbing fixed and has a small leak so her water tank was empty and had to be refilled before we had running water in the house, Edwin solved it.
- Grandpa