Last weekend, a festival called Huey Atlixcayotl took place in my city, in which numerous representatives of the towns that make up the Mixtec region (southern Mexico) gather to celebrate their culture and keep their traditions alive. This is a very important festival that takes place every year and generates a party that lasts practically a whole weekend, during which all the streets of the city center are filled with music, parades, and lots of color. I am lucky enough to live very close to the points where the main shows of this festival take place, so I was able to enjoy it very closely.
Although it all started on Friday night, I began to witness the activities of the festival on Saturday afternoon and practically by chance, because when I went out for a walk with my son and my husband, we found that in the surrounding blocks of the "Zócalo" (Town square) a dance parade was taking place. This was led by several of the cultural groups that would be performing the following day. This type of parades or pilgrimages are typical of this festival and are often held, even weeks before, to invite the population to come to the festival. Meeting them on Saturday was a very pleasant surprise that we enjoyed very much, there were cultural representations that I had never seen before, and I thought they were incredibly cool.
Sunday finally arrived and at nine o'clock in the morning the cultural groups gathered to begin their pilgrimage to the place where part of the festival would take place. Luckily, the route they follow to get to that site is just a block from my house, so I was able to enjoy all the festivity these people carry with them as they walk the streets of my city. My intention was to go up to the hill where part of the festival takes place, but the day was too sunny and Leo (my son), was a little sick with the flu, so we decided to see them in the "Zócalo" (Town square) of the city, where another part of the festival was performing.
I must say that the shows surprised me, they were all dance shows, and they were extremely long, I had never seen them before, I always just went to the parade and that was it, but this time I decided to do it, and I was surprised. Each group dances for almost half an hour, it is a huge time, taking into account that they do it without a break and that most of the dance consists of stomping. I found it incredible because they are not dancers, they are simply people who want to take their culture to other places, but there are also many older people. Without a doubt, they have my total respect and admiration for the commitment they have to their people and their traditions.
It was a weekend that I enjoyed very much and even though the three of us ended up sick, it was impossible not to be infected by the festive atmosphere that was present during those days in the center of the city. Now we just have to wait for next year to come back to enjoy new cultural expressions of this region of Mexico.
Thank you very much for reading, see you in the comments
