Gotas de alegria

Juerga: Paz is now saying that the Mexicans' fascination and dedication to parties and celebration of every occasion also finds its origin in their closed nature. That, in parties, Mexicans allow themselves to open up in deliriously loud and colorful ways, pushing their stomachs, their voices, their emotions to their absolute limits and then some. The result is nothing like the "weekend" or the "cocktail parties" that we have in the states, but rather a grand manifestation of food, music, color, alcohol, screaming, dancing, crying, fighting, death and rebirth. He says, sure, accidents and harm do happen, tearful confessions interrupt friendly conversation, friends become brothers and enemies in a matter of hours, but that this is the way of the Mexican party. Such a release of the energy and emotion which is otherwise bottled up most of the time shoots into the sky like cohetes, fireworks, and explodes downward in a fury of color and sound.

Lluvia: I also was thinking about another of Paz's ideas from earlier in the book, relating to how Mexicans accept their surroundings with little motivation to change them or make their own place within them. He says this is why other countries create and Mexico does not. Natural phenomena shapes the life of Mexicans, while in the U.S. people shape the world around them in their image, to make it their own vision of what life is. This subtle, yet fundamental, difference between Mexico and other countries, to Paz, forms the base of Mexico's social and political institutions, the economy, and so many other facets of Mexican society.

Abby and I were discussing this between bouts of spanish study and remembered how we both noticed that when the sky turned dark and opened up to release large, fast-falling drops, the only folks still attempting to go about their business were tourists. Mexicans, rather, will simply duck under an awning or into a building and wait out the rain. Tourists have their raincoat on and umbrella out without missing a step. It seemed, to me, to affirm Paz's statements, though surely in only a superficial way.