Actually, come to think of it, this lady has no skin. She’s a living, breathing skeleton called La Calavera Catrina.

Christmas has Santa Claus; Easter, the bunny. Down Mexico way, when in late October everyone celebrates El Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), La Catrina is mascot for families and friends who gather to celebrate memories of those who have died. She was my constant companion when I traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico, to cook a Day of the Dead dinner for a group of homeless street kids, and transgendered sex workers.

This came about when a mutual friend put me in touch with Rev. David Kalke, who is a bishop in something called the Ecumenical Catholic Church. The E.C.C. has nothing whatsoever to do with the Vatican, or the Pope. In fact, Kalke’s work often pits him directly against the Roman Catholic church which, in Guadalajara at least, tends to more diligently address needs of wealthy and powerful people, rather than the poor. Relentless, at times exhausting, in his advocacy for the underprivileged, Kalke is one of the bravest and most progressively political people I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet. He may drive a smuggled red Mini-Cooper car and have a peculiar weakness for hoary old jokes, but Rev. David Kalke is a saint.

He’s also no fool. When we talked on the phone a month or so before I traveled down Guadalajara, Kalke told me he was delighted to help me arrange una fiesta, but he wanted me to be realistic about the difficulties we might face in getting a crowd to show up. “I work with a community of outcasts,” he explained. “These kids are not used to anyone doing anything nice for them, much less arranging a party in their honor. I’m sure many of them will be suspicious of what we’re doing. They may even imagine it is some sort of trick by the police. I don’t think we have to be too terribly concerned about violence, but it’s always good to be cautious. I’m willing to take the risk, if you are. Why don’t you think it over, and call me back?”

I puzzled this over. Not surprisingly, I was terribly concerned about what Kalke said we didn’t need to be terribly concerned about. But, I decided if he was game, I was, too.

Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico, and has a population of eight million people—about the same as New York City’s. Capitol of the state of Jalisco, this region was settled by Spaniards in the 1540’s, or only a few decades after Hernán Cortés first conquered Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor. What would eventually be called Guadalajara was an area found to be extremely rich in both silver and gold. It also had a robust water supply; surprising, as it is surrounded by desert. (The name Guadalajara derives from an Arabic word that means “water from rocks.”) Tequila is the main source of income for Jalisco today.

As we drove into town from the airport, Kalke told me about the first time he conducted a eucharist ceremony in Guadalajara. Shortly before that morning’s services were to begin, he was dismayed to discover there was no communion wine. He instructed an old man who was the church’s caretaker to hurry off to the market and buy some “vino.” Unfortunately, Kalke was unaware that in the local dialect of Spanish, “vino” can mean wine, but is more typically used to mean tequila. He was already standing at the altar, when the caretaker brought him a chalice brimming with potent juice from the blue agave plant. Nervous, flustered, and unwilling to turn the eucharist into “Margaritaville,” Kalke made a stupid decision to down the entire chalice in one sip, while ordering the caretaker to go find some vino tinto.

“I don’t remember much of the service after that,” he says, with a sly grin.

Kalke grew up on a farm in rural Iowa. He must come from tough stock; his mother is 101, and still healthy. After college, he spent several years in Chile, which was then roiled by the bloody aftermath of a United States-backed coup in 1973, which deposed President Salvador Allende. “There were human rights violations going on in Chile that no one has ever heard of,” Kalke says.

He came back to America, and tried to raise awareness of the dire political situation in Chile by going on a cross-country speaking tour, under the auspices of the International Association Against Torture. As a result of this work, he began to think about liberation theology. He attended both Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and the Hamma School of Theology, an institution for the training of Lutheran ministers, in Canton, Ohio. After graduating from Hamma, Kalke focussed on work with refugees and solidarity efforts, spending a great deal of his time traveling in Central and South America.

When I ask his definition of “liberation theology,” Kalke considers the question for a moment before he replies, “You are involved in a political process and this reflects on your actions, theologically. You are in the streets, working with people who’ve been kidnapped, battered, or ‘disappeared.’ You’re not sitting in your office, smoking a pipe, and writing books about ‘The Historical Jesus.’”

Kalke clearly relishes being in the streets. I also get the impression he enjoyed being a thorn in the side of his bourgeoise congregants more than they enjoyed being poked. Recounting his decades of parish ministry, Kalke acknowledges his activism tended to wear out his welcome with congregations. His career ended in San Bernadino, California where, true to form, he was fired for focusing too much of his energies on building a community center to minister to gang members.

He moved to Guadalajara in 2009, ostensibly to retire. Soon enough, though, he’d started a social service agency called Comunidad de los Martines (The Community of the Martins—named for St. Martin of Tours, Martin Luther, St. Martin of Porres, and Martin Luther King, Jr.)

By now, we’ve arrived in downtown Guadalajara. Kalke takes me to see Plaza Tapatia, a multi-tiered park, with fountains and covered arcades, which is directly behind the imposingly grand Catholic Cathedral. Plaza Tapatia is hub to most of the city’s sex trade. As we walk about, Kalke explains there are an estimated 3,000 female prostitutes in Guadalajara, and 500 transgendered sex workers (or individuals who were born male, but identify and dress as women.)

Many of their customers are older, white, American men who’ve come to Mexico to retire, or have traveled here as sex tourists.

“I suppose I could have been one of them,” Kalke says.

Seeing how blatantly these assignations are arranged—there are many chubby gringos talking to slim-hipped young girls and boys—is startling. The cost of living in Mexico is cheap, but it’s outrageous how little these prostitutes are paid for intimate acts. Oral sex earns anywhere between 50 to 100 pesos ($4 to $8 U.S. dollars), while the fee for vaginal or anal sex “soars” up to somewhere around 250 pesos ($20 U.S. dollars). Transgendered prostitutes, I’m surprised to learn, get paid more than do “real” women.

One of Kalke’s goals is to unionize the sex workers, as they are in Argentina and Holland. Some might question if this is a worthwhile effort for a priest; nothing seems to make Kalke happier, though, than to challenge conventional thinking.

After our brief tour of central Guadalajara, Kalke drives us about twenty minutes away to Polanco, the part of town where he lives. Polanco is a poor district, settled maybe 45 years ago by squatters who simply laid claim to the land. Most of his neighbors do not have title to their property or houses.

Kalke opened a coffee shop here, Cafe Los Martines, which operates as a “safe space” for local kids, where they can hang out and be shielded from gangs, or other dangerous temptations. There is a rack with sexual literature and a box, always in need of refilling, where he gives away free condoms. At the cafe, I meet Carla and Yvonne, two young women who Kalke says will assist me for the next couple days. (I also was accompanied on this trip by two pals from New York—Mark Ledzian and Katie Daley—and I’d arranged to bring down my niece, Amy, as well as Mia, a friend of her’s from San Francisco.) Carla is a student in culinary school; Yvonne is a single mother. Neither speaks any English or, if they do, they’re too shy to attempt its usage. My Spanish will be given quite a work-out.

The cafe’s kitchen has a small oven, with only one rack inside; two of its four burners on the cooktop are not functional. Kalke has brought a four-cup food processor from his own kitchen, as well as a couple of lasagna pans. I am disheartened by the prospect of cooking enough food for 150 people with this equipment, but do my best to hide my fears.

“Is everything what you expected?” Kalke asks.

“No, it’s better!” I boldly lie. “This will be terrific!”

The next two days race by. Shopping in the markets, in Spanish, while trying to convert things from pounds and cups into the metric system is my first challenge. (I have to keep repeating to myself, “1 kilo equals 2.2 pounds.”) Kalke, in his well-meaning way, frustrates my plans at nearly every turn.

To save time, for instance, he’d “pre-ordered” a lot of things based on a tentative menu we’d discussed a few weeks earlier. I’d specifically asked him not to shop for me, as every chef, if at all possible, wants to choose the ingredients they’re going to cook. Now, I am horrified to see how much he’s bought. There are monstrous mesh bags holding at least 50 onions, each the size of a grapefruit; dozens of heads of garlic; bunches of cilantro that resemble shrubbery; and woven baskets spilling over with tomatoes, avocados and tomatillos. Not to mention, clear plastic bags full of chicken, pork and beef that are so heavy, I can barely lift them. By my hurried calculations (“1 kilo equals …”) there is almost a pound of protein for each guest who will attend. Then, there’s rice, salad and apple cobbler.

Kalke refuses to hear me. Poor people in Guadalajara eat very simply, he says, and are accustomed to having little more for dinner each night than a glass of milk, and a piece of bread. If this is going to be a fiesta, we need to really give these folks something to enjoy! “Everything will get eaten, Stephen,” he says. “What’s not consumed at the party will either go to a school for the blind, or to my neighbors, who’ve never seen a feast like you are going to make!” I want to believe him, but I am certain this is way too much food, and it is going to take an incredible amount of work to prepare it in a tiny kitchen, with two burners at my disposal.

Thank you, Amy, Mia, Katie and Mark—oh yes, and Carla and Yvonne, tambien!

We all worked like demons. Jet lag, knife wounds, steamy temperatures, buzzing flies, upset stomachs—nothing could stop us. I felt a little unhinged at times, my mood swinging from euphoria (“these meatballs are incredibly delicious!”) to dark and all-consuming despair (“this goddamn fucking oven!”)

Late on the first afternoon, Kalke showed up again with Pedro Chavez, who is his primary contact with Guadalajara’s sex workers. Chavez is 35-years-old, quite tall, and amply built, if going slightly soft at his waist. He is training to be a lawyer, but also owns a small mortuary and funeral home in Compostela, which is a flyspeck of a village about an hour and half bus ride outside of Guadalajara.

Chavez suggests we head over to Doña Diabla, a gay bar downtown where our party will take place on the following evening.

Inside the bar, I see billboard-sized photographs of María Félix. She was Mexico’s biggest movie star in the 1940’s; “Doña Diabla” (Madam Devil) is her best-known and best-loved film. Along one wall is a painted mural where a variety of large hands are shown waving, holding cigarettes, or making the peace symbol. Several of the fingers have their flesh eaten away, with bare bones showing through. This death in life theme is also evident on an altar that’s been set up near the bar’s entrance, on which are placed memento mori such as candles, flowers, and skulls made from sugar candy, as well as photographs of several transgendered sex workers who died, or were killed, in the past few years.

As Kalke and I look at this together, he says, “Pedro was concerned I would disapprove of having figures of the devil on a Day of the Dead altar.” He then shakes his head, incredulously. “I would think, by now, Pedro would know I’m no fan of doctrinal purity.”

Chavez offers to take me on a tour of neighborhoods in Guadalajara, other than Plaza Tapatia, where transgendered prostitutes (Chavez refers to them, simply, as “trans”) ply their trade. He knows of at least thirty different locales around town, including storefronts that appear to be hair salons, but are actually brothels.

He hails a taxi, and as we ride, Chavez tells me clients sometimes become enraged when they discover they’ve ended up with something different than a “real” woman. “We’ve had trans get murdered, and they’re from out of state. Their families, even if we are able to get in contact with them, refuse to come claim the body,” he says.

Later, Kalke tells me that in several of these sad cases, Chavez has arranged for a prostitute’s funeral and burial, at his own expense, from his Compostela funeral home.

You might think it improbable a client could be this clueless about what he is purchasing. However, here’s a couple facts to keep in mind. First, the client is often drunk. Very drunk. Mexico’s is a culture, like Japan’s, where excessive consumption of alcohol is seen as a proof of masculinity, but where the ability to “hold your liquor” is not all that important. (An old joke has it that men in the U.S. will drink until they fall; Mexican men drink until they crawl.) Secondly, Mexican women tend to wear a lot of make-up. One routinely sees cashiers or waitresses who are wearing three shades of eyeshadow, heavy mascara, false eyelashes, and thick lipstick. As such, the heavily made-up trans do not look all that different from other women.

We eventually end up at the Posada San Juan, a hotel where rooms on the upper floors can be had for what a posted sign declared the “Happy Time Rate” of 150 pesos for three hours ($12 U.S. dollars), though rooms are also rented for considerably shorter amounts of time. Twenty minutes, say, or even ten. Chavez wants me to know this is a “respectable sex hotel, not some trashy place,” which is why he keeps a small office here, from where he distributes free condoms and lubricant, as well as literature about safe sex, and AIDS transmission. He also conducts “rapid” HIV tests; of several hundred given during the month of September in this office, Chavez told me 7% of the individuals tested HIV positive.

As we chat, girls drift in and out of Chavez’ office to say hello, or to grab condoms. Blessed with the compassion (and patience) of a high school guidance counselor, Chavez remembers key facts about each—what state they come from, how old they are, how long ago they got breast implants—so they feel noticed and cared for. It is chilly outside (maybe 55 degrees Farenheit), but most of the girls are dressed in low-cut blouses to highlight their cleavage, and skirts so short, you can see the lower half of their buttocks. They teeter about on high-heeled shoes.

Maybelline, who is 20, tells Chavez about spending a night in jail. Jasmine is wearing a bright fuschia shade of lipstick; when she smiles, I see braces on her teeth. I’m guessing she is 17. At 37, Fanny has a slightly tougher attitude, and is dressed like she’s just stepped off the beach at Acapulco. Fanny has on a turquoise sweater, a white mini-skirt, and a pair of platform sandals with a wedged heel made from coiled rope.

On the whole, I am impressed with how attractive these girls are. If I saw one of them on the subway in New York, I would not know they were transgendered. When I ask Chavez if most have had an operation to surgically remove their penises, he appears shocked.

“No! Why would they? That is their money maker!”

I’d mistakenly assumed these prostitutes were the passive sexual partner. Pedro explains, however, that up to 80 percent of men who hire a trans want to be anally penetrated. A lot of these clients are Roman Catholic, married, and deeply homophobic. The idea of having sex with a man is repellent to them; being fucked by a woman is not.

I ask what is the average age most of the girls start, and how long can they do this work?

“Trans usually begin at about age 15, and by the time they are 22 or 23, many of them have gotten fat.” Pedro gives his own belly an affectionate rub. “People don’t pay for fat!”

The following morning, Amy, Mia, Katie, Mark, and I were back in the cafe kitchen, working for a second day. We cooked until 5:30 p.m., when we loaded up Kalke’s van to take all the food over to Doña Diabla.

Since we were last there, the nightclub has been transformed. There are many tables set up with vases full of marigolds, the traditional flower for Day of the Dead parties. There are the votive candles I insisted we needed, and papel picado, or Mexican cut-paper streamers, which hang from the ceiling. Everything looked great; I was thrilled.

Only problem was, at 8:30 p.m., when the party was supposed to begin, there were, at most, 10 people present. At 9:00 p.m, maybe 15. At 9:45 p.m., 30.

The evening is a disaster. Pedro kept moaning that he had a “confirmed” list of 150 guests who were “definitely” coming. Yeah, right. And I’m Pancho Villa.

It’s not like Kalke hadn’t warned me. He’s been upfront from the very beginning about the challenges we were facing in throwing a party for people who life had not treated too well.

I tried to put on a brave face, but I was sad and disappointed. It was hard not to feel the last two days had been wasted effort.

That’s when I saw a group of 10 or 12 young men, who I decided looked suspiciously rough and tough. Several are wearing baseball caps with the John Deere tractor logo on them. They are skinny, and their jeans are dirty and frayed. I can’t quite figure out what they are doing at this dinner. To me, they look like the sort of kid who’s itching for trouble, who might pick a fight, and then beat up a gay, or transgendered, person. Oh great! On top of everything else, now we are going to have the violence Kalke wasn’t terribly concerned about.

I rushed off to find him, and asked Kalke what was going on these guys.

“They are farm boys, who’ve grown up poor, most of them way out in the countryside,” he explained. “Often, they are the eldest son, and their parents say to them, you need to go to Guadalajara, make some money, and send it home to help us out. These young men find themselves in the center of a city with as many people as New York. They are poor, uneducated, and without any job skills. They’re living on the street and hungry. When they run out of money, the only thing they have left to sell is their bodies.”

Hearing this, my impressions changed instantly. No. This can’t be. These boys are babies; some of them look like they are barely fourteen years old! I’d judged them as troublemakers, only to realize the trouble was in my mind. I made a decision, right then and there. Even if this is all who showed up, I’d do everything I could to make sure these 30 people—and these farm boys—would have a night to remember.

Despite the late hour, Kalke and Chavez were keeping their hopes alive. Neither wanted to serve the food until more people arrived. Instead, we’d let the show begin.

The show! This had been another sore point for me. When Kalke told me our fiesta was going to feature performances by three different drag queens, and each was going to do a set of five songs, I was worried this was too lengthy an entertainment. Though I raised my concerns repeatedly, Kalke always swatted them away.

I’d expected the drag queens to be lip-syncing to Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. However, Mexico has its own pantheon of pop divas, like Gloria Trevi, Belinda, and Thalia; it’s their music which was recycled into camp humor. The first singer was especially wild. Dressed all in leather, with boots that had six inch heels, she raced about the club tirelessly, and at one point hopped up on the bar, threading her way through all the beer bottles and shot glasses of tequila littered there. While she sang, more and more people kept appearing. I now understood those present were calling friends on their cell phones, telling them the party was fun, and they should get themselves over to Doña Diabla.

When the show was finally over around 10:30 p.m., the crowd had tripled in size, to maybe 125. Nearly every seat in the bar was now full; Chavez and Kalke determine it’s time to eat.

Amy, Mia, Katie and I were all positioned behind a buffet table. In front of us were the mountains of food we’d cooked. Kalke said a short prayer, and the word “amen” was like a gun being fired before a marathon run. Guests came charging at us from all directions! There was no protocol about lining up in a queue, or any order whatsoever. It was complete bedlam. We frantically scooped up chicken, meatballs, pork, rice and salad, as plates were shoved at us from every angle and all directions. Buen Provecho, I kept saying, over and over. People were eating like they’d never seen food before. Only after everyone had been helped to at least two plates each, did the chaos begin to subside. Only then did I allow myself to exhale.

People are circulating between tables; everyone is laughing and flirting. Over by the wall, I see one table has been taken over by a large group of trans, all sitting together. There’s maybe 40 girls, if not more. They are being watched over by Giovanni, a guy who I’d seen the evening before, working as the night clerk at the Posada San Juan, which is the “respectable” sex hotel where Pedro Chavez has his office. Giovanni is seated at one end of the table, and from what I observe of his demeanor, he is acting as if he’s a combination of Daddy Warbucks and Professor Henry Higgins. He’s gesturing to one girl to put a napkin in her lap while she eats; to another, to lower her voice a bit. The girls seem to want his attention, to please him, and gain his favor. I thought it was all very sweet, really.

When I point this out to Kalke, once more he tells me appearances can be deceiving. “I’m not sure sometimes if Giovanni is a good shepherd to his flock, or if he’s running a brothel, and acting as their pimp.” He then looked at me, and laughed. “But, if it all made sense, we wouldn’t call it the underworld, right?”

The party went on well past midnight, with still more guests arriving. Though I’d forgotten all about it, Amy and Mia were vigilant enough to put out the apple cobbler, and squirt generous dollops of whipped cream on each serving. Even after all the food we’d already dished out, they seemed to be doing a good business getting rid of the dessert.

At some point, in the early morning hours, there was a special “award” ceremony, in which Kalke asked all five of us Americans to step forward to receive special recognition. It is exactly the sort of moment I’d begged him to spare us. I’d wanted our actions to be anonymous, I said, and instead we were being handed certificates with gold foil stickers and ribbons, as well as gifts. Mine is a figurine of La Calavera Catrina; about sixteen inches high, and made out of metal. She’s a bony and ugly old hag, but it’s love at first sight.

I’m still clutching this skeleton doll in my hand, when a DJ amped up the music, and a couple of the trans pulled me into their circle on the dance floor. I boogied for a while with Fanny, and then with Jasmine. In the room’s flashing lights, her braces were glittering like sparklers. I look up at one point to see Rev. David Kalke smiling at me. He makes a two thumbs-up sign.

It was the Day of the Dead, and I was happy to be alive.

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Though this is a very poor region, ruins of once-majestic Mayan cities such as Palenque, Yaxchilan, Bonampak, Tonina and Chinkultic are here, and this proud heritage still exerts an influence. I was intrigued to learn of unique gastrophilanthropic customs that endure among Chiapas’ large Mayan population, including tribes called the Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Zoque, Chol, and Tojolabal.

Much of Chiapas’ history involves the subjugation of these native peoples, and their occasional rebellions. For instance, the city where I spent most of my time, San Cristobal de Las Casas, is named for Father Bartoleme de Las Casas, a Dominican priest in the late 1500’s and early 1600’s who tried to protect Mayans from the ravages of Spanish Colonialism. More recently, the state suffered through the 1994 Zapatista uprising, through which revolutionaries eventually succeeded in obtaining new rights from the Mexican government for citizens of Chiapas.

When he learned I was headed to San Cristobal, a Mexican friend urged me to stay at a small hotel called Casa Na Bolom. A former Catholic monastery, Casa Na Bolom was purchased in 1951 by a Dutch archeologist Frans Blom, and his Swiss photographer wife, Gertrude (who everyone called Trudi). Frans was born in Copenhagen in 1893, earned a degree in archeology from Harvard, and was a professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, when he first began traveling to Mexico in 1919, as a consultant to U.S. oil companies. Trekking through the rain forest of Chiapas, he met Gertrude Duby, who was there taking photographs while researching and writing a series of articles on women who had fought with General Emiliano Zapata’s army during the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

Once married, the Bloms spent the next half-century studying a particular Mayan tribe called the Lacondon. Frans and Trudi were among the first outsiders to come into contact with these people who, until then, had lived isolated and unknown, hidden by the dense La Selva Lacandona rain forest. The Bloms turned their home into a haven for these indigenous peoples when they came into town to sell their handicrafts or produce. Frans, who had the chiseled features of a matinee idol (he resembled Kirk Douglas), died in 1963. Trudi lived another thirty years, presiding over dinners at her almost comically long dining table where guests, visiting anthropologists, and Lacondon all gathered together. She was always ready to “trade” a home-cooked meal for news of what was occurring in the jungle.

Today, Casa Na Bolom is a hybrid of research center, museum, hotel and restaurant. Its exterior is painted a gorgeous orange-yellow; inside, wide stone patios are surrounded by covered colonnades, flowering trees, and pots of bougainvillea. On display are facsimiles of Frans’ field notebooks and diaries, in which he carefully documented all he saw on his journeys into the rain forest. Hallways are decorated with photographs of Lacondon Indians taken by Trudi, from the 1950’s through the 1980’s.

Also called Hack Winik, or “True People,” the Lacandon believe God created men out of clay, and then taught them how to live in the rain forest. Plants and animals are sacred gifts. Each Lacandon man is his own priest, and he builds a “God House,” or a temple area inside his dwelling. Worship centers around a “God Pot,” or incense chalice in which they burn offerings of corn, as well as chunks of tree resin called copal. As smoke from the God Pot carries their prayers up to the heavens, the Lacandon consume balché.

This inebriating beverage is made by mixing water and honey with roots from the balché tree, and allowing it to ferment. Thought to have magical powers, the faithful in ancient Mayan ceremonies administered balché by way of an enema to maximize its potent effect. Perhaps due to this unusual manner of consumption, Spanish invaders saw the devil lurking in balché, and quickly outlawed it.

This prohibition, and others, caused the Lacondon to flee ever deeper into the jungle, where they remained isolated from the outside world until after World War II. At this time, their peace was disturbed by the extraction of rain forest reserves, the discovery of Mayan ruin sites, and new agrarian land reforms dictated by the Mexican government. Some experts feel, though, that the single biggest factor in transforming the Lacondon was the arrival of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, in 1948.

Now called SIL International, it is an evangelical Christian organization that’s based in the United States and whose main purpose is to translate The Bible into tribal languages. While some admire the group’s work in cultural anthropology, SIL has also attracted criticism and controversy. Its activities are seen as a thin cover for a secret agenda of proselytizing for Christianity, and fostering a more pro-U.S. stance around the world. Rare is the hotel that provides a guest with an eye-opening lesson in geopolitics and theocracy, but the small museum at Casa Na Bolom was just such a place.

The cultural anthropology I engaged in during my stay in Chiapas was of a decidedly more agnostic cast. And so, the following morning, I took a trip to the south of San Cristobal de Las Casas, where I spent the day at La Abarrada, a kind of camp-college that’s funded by the Mexican government. Poor people from anywhere in Chiapas can apply to come here and learn different trades, while they live, eat, and receive childcare if needed, for free. La Abarrada is a Spanish word that translates roughly as a defense to keep water off, or a barrier that holds something else back. In other words, by teaching people how to make a living, they’ll not be swept away by poverty.

Juan Mendez, age 30, who is a professor of textiles and weaving techniques, showed me about the campus. There is room for 200 students, who range in age from 16 up to 60. I was amazed at what a cheerful and well-kept spot this was. Simple one-story cinderblock buildings, painted in vibrant shades of green and yellow, are spread out over many acres of meticulously-landscaped flatland. Tall ficus hedges are clipped precisely, then embellished with topiary designs of birds, cows, cats, and monkeys.

Long-dormant artisanal techniques are being revived here, as well as forgotten knowledge from this area’s nearly 5,000 years of agriculture. These ancient methods are combined with modern ideas such as the use of solar energy, building environmentally-friendly stoves, and composting. Another of La Abarrada’s goals is to encourage the participation of women in trades and activities once considered only for men, such as iron-working, carpentry, and electrical engineering. There were studios and out-buildings dedicated to the study of baking, leather work, sewing, and weaving, too.

This last is Juan’s speciality, and with obvious pride he showed off the various looms, explaining how different Mayan tribes around this valley in Chiapas each have their own special techniques. Most of the women work on “backstrap” looms, held in their laps, but braced by being lashed about their waists. Handicrafts like these, I realize, are no mere hobbies. On the contrary, they are a matter of life or death. Only if the weaving is good enough to sell, will its creator be able to eat.

Unfortunately, my visit coincided with the weekend of Mexican Independence Day, so most of the students were gone. However, Juan introduced me to two young women who had stayed on campus for the holiday. Both had the shy, giggling demeanor of village girls who were not much exposed to talking with strangers, much less a white man from America.

Chanuk Kimbor Chambor, age 27, was at the school for a three-month course to study typing. She wore a bright pink T-shirt that was clearly a reject from some part of the English-speaking world. Under the words “LOVE TEAM” was a misspelled gibberish that read, “Call-to-arms-for-chunkily-pebused her right to do good still mist definant.”

Chambor is from the village of Lacanjá Chansayab, where she grew up speaking Mayan, but she was also fluent in Spanish. Hearing the name of this town, I remembered what I’d learned from Casa Na Bolom’s museum, and I found myself wondering if her parents or grandparents had been converted to Christianity by missionaries from the Summer Institute of Lingustics. Chambor had a rosary in one hand, and a cell phone in the other. She nervously fingered both, seemingly with equal reverence.

Her friend, Blanca Amelia Perez Sanches, age 20, was at the school for a three-month course in pastry making. Blanca speaks Tzeltal, and is from an even smaller village, Altamirano, which she told me was occupied by Zapatistas during the uprising of 1994 against the Mexican army. I wanted to learn more about the Zapatistas, but Juan hurried me off to meet one of the chefs in La Abarrada’s kitchen.

This woman’s name was Estella Martinez-Lara, and she works in a light and airy kitchen decorated with hand-painted Mexican tiles. Nearby was a garden, and much of the vegetables and herbs used in her cooking are grown right here on the campus. Neatly planted rows bulged with acelga (a type of lettuce), carrots, red tomatoes, corn growing tall, big bunches of cilantro, and many varieties of chile peppers. Neither Juan or Estella made any particular fuss over this, not like an American chef who’d doubtless blather on about “think global, eat local.” Chiapas is too impoverished to indulge in such righteous rhetoric. Estella grows her own vegetables because she can’t afford not to.

I tell her how disappointed I am that the school is closed today, or I’d have loved to help her cook lunch for the students.

“Proxima vez,” she says with a smile. Next time.

What will we cook? I ask. “Que vamos a cocinar?”

“Mole verde,” Juan pipes up, his face beaming with a broad smile.

Mole Verde, or just “Verde” for short, is one of the lightest and freshest-tasting of Mexico’s sauces. A puree of green herbs like epazote, marjoram, cilantro and parsley, Mole Verde is only added at the last minute to cooked meat, seafood, or vegetables. Juans now tells me a story I’ve heard before, which credits mole’s original recipe to the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, a town two hour’s drive south of Mexico City.

As the legend goes, sometime early in the colonial period, an archbishop showed up unannounced to dine at Santa Rosa. The convent nuns were distraught because they had no food prepared that was special enough to serve such a dignitary. After seeking God’s help through prayer, the sisters were led to invent a mixture of everything they’d been able to scrounge together: stale bread, nuts, chocolate, chile peppers and spices. Poured over cooked turkey, the archbishop was overjoyed. Mole was invented! There are more gruesome theories. Among these is a possibility that strongly-flavored mole was necessary to make the taste of human flesh palatable. Mexico is infamous for its history of human sacrifice, of course, as I would be reminded the following day when I headed off to see the Mayan ruins at Tonina.

This complex of buildings flourished from 200 to 900 a.d., and was notorious (and feared) for its elaborate rituals of decapitation. Such butchery took place at a central pyramid, built of stone, where a central staircase of 260 steps led up to 8 platforms, and 30 temples, the grandest of which was called the Temple of the Smoking Mirror. Nearly all Tonina’s iconography is devoted to images of captives and captors, the latter invariably depicted as bound, with their arms tied behind their backs.

A supernatural association was believed to exist between the moon, stars, and human slaughter. Blood spilt at Tonina kept the earth spinning properly, and to this end, hundreds (maybe thousands) of prisoners of war were decapitated here each year. Scant consolation for this sorry fate was the assurance their severed heads would eventually become stars. “They battled darkness here, and nurtured and watered the stars with human blood, thus assuring the smooth operation of the celestial machinery,” is how signage rather poetically phrases it in Tonina’s archeological museum.

Perched at nearly 7,200 feet above sea level, Chamula is home to a Mayan tribe called the Tzotzil. Chamula is less than ten miles from San Cristobal de las Casas, but several centuries removed in its near-complete disengagement with modern times.

Sunshine was just starting to fall on the town’s main plaza when I arrived, but people were still walking around in outfits that kept them warm in the morning’s chill. Tzotzil men wear furry ponchos, belted at the waist with red woven sashes, jeans and cowboy hats. Women have fabric piled up on their head, in what seems a combination of sun screen, hat, and “it might get cold later” second layer.

I found my way to the cathedral of San Juan which, at first glance, appeared much like any other Catholic church in a rural Mexican village. Once inside, however, remarkable differences became obvious. Pine boughs – and only the soft, green “whiskers,” not thick wooden branches – were spread over the floor, as a kind of aromatic carpeting. The walls were decorated with fan-shaped palm fronds; long, dangling strands of bromeliads; and masses of white dahlias, carnations, gladioli and tuberose. Around the sanctuary’s perimeter were many statues of saints, all housed in glass vitrines. Large mirrors hung from ribbons around the saints’ necks, dangling before their chests like medallions. These mirrors are thought to ward off evil, but also, as the faithful pray, they can see themselves (and by extension, their prayers) inside the saints’ heart.

Countless numbers of lit candles were lined up, row upon row of flickering soldiers marching across every flat surface, including much of the floor. Like almost all Mexican buildings, however, there was no furnace or heating system inside this sacred space. Quite the only thing generating warmth were these flames, signifying all the hopes and prayers that caused them to be lit.

A band of perhaps eight musicians, all men, sat along one side of the church, near its center. Guitars took up the slow, nearly dirge-like melody established by a lone, somber accordion. There was no singing, only these instruments. Incantatory and lulling, the music put one into a sort of trance, where time seemed to stand still.

Rather than a God House, this was a God Hotel. Everyone finds their own particular place to set up a spot for worship. Parents and their little children unwrap paper folders in which were nestled several dozen (and sometimes many dozens) of candles. The father would then dip each candle into the flame of a votive, softening its base before plunking the candle directly on to the tile floor in an area he’d swept clear of pine needles. Working quickly, he could line up row upon row.

Children, especially the boys, were fascinated by this sacred ceremony, and watched, wide-eyed, as their father quickly laid out his pattern. Then, it was their turn to light all these candles, and what young man is not thrilled to have a chance to play with fire? Mom and Dad would perch up on their knees, eyes closed, and begin to chant their praises and prayers to God, in the Tzotzil language.

Near the entrance to the church, single men (or men unaccompanied by their wives) stood around smoking cigarettes, and offering each other refreshments, such as tortilla chips and bottles of Coca-cola. These men were also taking long pulls from bottles of balché. Before sipping, they’d wave the bottles above and through banks of lit candles, as if to bless the liquid. Liquor was being consumed, but the men weren’t getting drunk; or if they were, they were being low-key about it. It seemed a Mayan equivalent of the eucharist, with tacos and Coke substituted for bread and wine.

Standing nearby, I’d hoped to be inconspicuous, but clearly I was not.

One of the men, an old farmer with a face that was deeply tanned and wrinkled from years spent working in the sun, came over to my side and handed me an open bottle of Coca-Cola. I understood he was not a wealthy man and that, for him, even a bottle of soda was not a casual, or everyday thing. On the contrary, it was a real gift, and one to be savored.

I bowed to him to express my gratitude.

And there we remained together, this Tzotzil man having welcomed me into his fraternity, and his way of worship. I sipped my Coca-Cola, which was warm and sweet. All around me, people were burning copal in their God Pots, and the air was heavy with smoke rising up to the heavens. What hopes and dreams could I send along with them?

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I traveled here recently in search of the Niño Pa, a 450-year old wooden statue depicting the infant Jesus that’s much beloved in these parts, and is the cause of gastrophilanthropy on a nearly fantastic scale.

When I asked some of my Mexican friends for help in planning this trip, they were frustratingly vague with directions. Don’t worry, they promised, the statue is easy to find. It is watched over by one family for a year at a time, and their house becomes a well-known pilgrimage site. Upon arriving in Xochimilco, I could ask anyone where the baby lived, and I’d be given directions immediately.

I’ll admit, I was dubious about this. Mexico City has over 20 million people, and Xochimilco is one its most populous neighborhoods, comprised of 17 different barrios. It seemed unlikely that everyone I encountered there would know the exact whereabouts of a centuries-old chunk of painted wood.

However, no sooner had I stepped out of the taxi I’d taken from Mexico City’s historic center (Centro Historico), then an old lady who was selling churros, or Mexican breakfast pastries, waved to me. Asking the taxi to wait, I walked over and bought a churro. Then, feeling quite ridiculous, I haltingly inquired, “Por favor, Señora. A donde vive el Niño Pa?”

Well. It was as if I’d mentioned the woman’s favorite movie star, soccer player, or better still, a child of her own. A smile spread the corners of her mouth wide, and her eyes lifted towards the heavens as if she were overcome with happiness. Rubbing her hands together in a “this-may-take-awhile” gesture, she told me that her mother was guardian to the statue back in the 1960’s, and that she herself housed the Niño Pa thirty years ago. She explained that although the statue lives with one family, theirs’ is primarily a night-time job. The Niño Pa also has a busy daily schedule, and several times a week is carried forth to visit other homes, hospitals, schools and churches. Just as his primary guardian is expected to feed and give shelter to anyone who comes to see the Niño Pa, a family who assumes a day’s custody will also offer a meal to everyone who encounters the baby while he is under their watch.

She was speaking quickly, and my Spanish to English translation can sometimes create more poetry than was perhaps intended. Still, I was pretty sure she concluded her remarkably enthusiastic speech with the phrase, “Everywhere el niño goes, he floats on a cloud of love.”

The woman then gave a shout and a vigorous hand signal to a teenaged boy who was lingering across the street. He quickly pedaled over on a bicycle rickshaw. Hesitant about this, I suggested I’d prefer to take my taxi which was still waiting for me at the curb. The woman laughed, explaining that where I was going was impossible to get to by car.

It was? Oh dear.

“Adelante, adelante!” she said, pointing towards the rickshaw. As I climbed in, she tugged on my sleeve. It was considered polite to bring the baby a gift, she whispered, and she was certain that the Niño Pa liked nothing better than a bag of churros. O.K., call me a skeptical New Yorker, but my immediate thought was that everything this lady had just told me was an elaborate con. Be that as it may, I bought what was left of her morning’s inventory. Prices are cheap in Mexico. It’s easy to be a hero in pesos. “Vaya con Dios!” she cried, patting me on the shoulder and back, as the bicyclist took off.

My driver was a multi-pierced and tattooed young man, perhaps seventeen years of age. Earbuds were jammed into each side of his head, and I could hear the tinny blare of music that was blasting into his brain. Obviously, I couldn’t expect much in the way of information from him, so I sat back and tried to recall some of the research I’d done about the Niño Pa and Xochimilcho.

In Pre-Hispanic times, Mexico City was an archipelago of a few inhabited islands set in the midst of an enormous mountain lake. The biggest island, which today is the Centro Historico was known as Tenochtitlan. To its south, Xochimilco was an agricultural center, where mud was dredged up from the lake bed’s bottom, and placed on floating islands made of wattle and reeds that are called chinampas. Farmers would plant these fertile areas with corn, beans, chiles, squash, as well as other fruits, vegetables and flowers, and then paddle canoes to bring their produce up to Tenochtitlan for sale. Crop yields were high, with three harvests a year, so Xochilmilcho was a place of abundance. So much so, in fact, that before vanquishing Montezuma, the Aztec king, Hernán Cortés thought it prudent to first subdue Xochimilco on April 16, 1521.

As for the Niño Pa, it is sometimes said that this figure of the baby Jesus originally belonged to Martin Cortes, son of Hernan Cortes and the Indian woman (always called La Malinche) who acted as his advisor, interpreter and lover.

Today, Xochilmico has seventeen different neighborhoods—Parroquia San Bernardino, La Assunciation, Tlacoapa, San Juan, San Antonio, Jaltocan, Belén, San Cristobal, Caltango, San Esteban, El Rosario, San Marcos, La Guadalupita, La Santisima, San Lorenzo, Santa Crucito, and San Pedro—and each of these barrios has its own church. A community-wide celebration of the Niño Pa occurs in Xochilmilco every April 30, on what’s called El Día de Los Niños. Another highlight of the year is the arrullada, which happens on December 24. Arrullar is a Spanish word that means “to whisper sweet nothings to; to bill, and coo.” On Christmas Eve, there is a mass at which the Niño Pa is placed in a creche at one of Xochilmicho’s churches, and the whole congregation (as well as those crowded together for blocks around) quietly sing lullabies until it is decided that the baby has gone go sleep.

In addition to all these public appearances, some people believe that the Niño Pa miraculously travels about, secretly, on his own each night, visiting people in their dreams, watching over them, their houses and cars, and maybe even blessing crops planted on their chinampas. Some of his guardians claim to have found mud on the statue’s shoes in the morning, as proof of its nocturnal travels. The strength of this community spirit is touching, if slightly bewildering, too. Who would have thought that a 450-year-old statue would still have such a daily importance to the lives of contemporary Mexicans?

By now, the rickshaw driver had pedaled me deep into a labyrinth of side streets and narrow alleyways. I think of Hansel and Gretel, wishing I’d left a trail of crumbled corn tortillas to find my way out. At this moment, though, as we pass underneath a gaily decorated archway over the street (the words Bienvenidos Niño Pa! are surrounded by large plastic flowers), I realize we must be getting close. Soon, we arrive at an even more elaborate arch over the front gate of one particular house. A sign to the left of this gate proclaims this to be La Casa de Familia Guerra Ramirez. Before I go into the courtyard, I confirm several times that the bicyclist will wait for me. He rolls his eyes, and nods his head. I’m guessing he doesn’t get a gringo customer too often. I will overpay for his services, and that is just fine.

The lady of the house is Dona Antonia Guerra Ramirez. Wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, her dark hair dyed a luminous shade of orange-yellow, she looks younger than her 46 years. Dona Ramirez welcomes me graciously. As we begin to chat, she tells me she applied twenty eight years ago, when she was just a teenager, to have the honor of taking care of the Niño Pa. While she waited these nearly three decades, she saved her money and planned. Eventually, she felt it necessary to build an entirely new wing onto one side of her house, and to put a roof over her courtyard—thus making a dry, airy outdoor space for the many pilgrims who come every day to see the statue. She also modernized and expanded her kitchen, making it easier for her to serve food to whoever arrives at her door.

Would I like a cup of coffee, she asks? I decline, but her offer reminds me of my little gift, and I hand her the bag of churros. “Por el niño,” I say, quite unnecessarily.

Dona Ramirez is on a committee that maintains up-to-date requirements for those who hope to have the baby live in their house one day. Of the many rules, the most important are that you have to be from Xochimilcho, you must be Catholic, and you need to prove your absolute devotion to the Niño Pa, as the statue is never to be left alone. Caring for the baby, as well as welcoming and feeding his many visitors, is her full-time job, Dona Ramirez tells me. She worked for the Federal Government, in an administrative post for Mexico City’s police force, but was given a year’s leave of absence, so she could devote herself completely to the Niño Pa. I am amazed by this, and try to imagine how the higher-ups at the N.Y.P.D. would react if a New York cop made such a request.

“It is very beautiful experience, but it is also a big responsibility,” Dona Ramirez says. I’d become increasingly curious why I was the only one visiting here today. My eyes wandered about the annex where we were standing, as I hoped to get my first glimpse of the Niño Pa. I’d seen pictures of him, and knew it was a smallish statue, so he might have been obscured by all the tributes and gifts brought by his fans. The courtyard was filled with masses of flower arrangements, and many dozens of mylar balloons decorated with images of Sponge Bob, Dia de Los Muertos skeletons, pop-eyed little angels, and of course, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

“Es possible lo veo?” I asked. May I see him?

Yes, Dona Ramirez replied, but I would have to wait until later. At this exact moment, the statue was in Jaltocan, another neighborhood of Xochimilcho, where a fiesta in his honor was being arranged. She expected him to return home by 8 p.m., at which time Dona Antonia would lead a rosary, and offer coffee and pastries to everyone who comes. Her manner was all quite matter of fact, as if she were detailing the schedule of her son, or younger brother: “he’s got school until 3 p.m., followed by band rehearsal, then soccer practice.”

What is the difference between magic and mysticism; between faith and superstition? There are those who truly believe in the power of certain rituals; others act by reflex, by making the sign of the cross, say, before stepping onto an airplane. Clearly, to wait nearly three decades, to scrimp and deny herself in order to prepare for this statue to reside at her house (and in the process, I subsequently learned, to forgo having a husband or a family of her own), Dona Ramirez must be of this first order of faith.

Rather than wait around, I decide to continue my search for the Niño Pa, and to see what today’s fiesta is like. About to bid farewell to this very kind woman, however, I still have one more question. It feels impolite, but I ask anyway. Dona Antonia Guerra Ramirez considers my inquiry with a small smile. No, she replies, in the time she’s had the Niño Pa in her house, she has not experienced anything miraculous herself. She’s seen no mud on his shoes, she volunteers. However, she has seen the statue work miracles for other people, and that has been enough for her, she says.

I find this strangely moving, and movingly strange.

Outside, I climb back into the bicycle rickshaw. Before I can even say where I want to go to, the kid turns to me, yanks out one of his earbuds, and says, “Jaltocan?” Even he knows where the Niño Pa is today. Unbelievable!

We travel down still more alleys, and cross over bridges that traverse narrow canals of slowly-drifting water. After another twenty minutes or so, off in the distance, I begin to hear the sound of cohetes—firecrackers! We emerge from a warren of shady residential streets onto a bright, busy thoroughfare. Here, I am astonished to see a huge crowd of people walking on the avenue, a helium-filled balloon tied to each of their wrists. It is a Wednesday, a few minutes before noon, and there must be least three hundred people on parade. Don’t they have to be at work? Or, like Dona Ramirez with the police department, does a request to spend the day with the Niño Pa immediately get you a day off?

Wending its way alongside and through the crowd is una banda, a mariachi group comprised of three trumpets, two drums, one tuba, two trombonists, two clarinets and two saxophonists. They are playing traditional Mexican music: uptempo, brassy, and crazily alive. It is impossible to be in a bad mood when you are within earshot of mariachis. The sound grabs you by the heart, and hips, and shakes you free of life’s small worries.

Adding to the festivity was a group of several dozen dancers, called chinelos, who are dressed in black velvet costumes, trimmed with feather boas, sequins and fur in vibrant shades of pink, yellow and turquoise. They wear carved wooden masks with Caucasian features: white skin, blue eyes, and beards that jut out to a sharp point from their chins. These startling get-ups are accessorized with large hats that resemble upside-down lamp shades, with dangling fringe all about their top. The chinelos whirl and dance about, like the Mummers of Philadelphia, or a New Orleans crewe during Mardi Gras. It is warm out, and ladies have set up folding tables on the sidewalk, where they are squeezing oranges and handing out free glasses of juice to all those in the parade.

Not surprisingly, the Niño Pa leads the pack. I spy him off in the distance, being carried by the family who is hosting him that day, and shielded from the sun under an enormous blue beach umbrella. The statue moves ahead haltingly, as nearly every step of the way, someone steps forward, lifts the hem of his gown, and gives it a kiss. They then cross themselves while they bow and back away.

It seems as though the entire barrio has come to a standstill to accommodate this spectacle. All roads are blocked and long lines of cars wait patiently at intersections, with no honking, as the dancers, the mariachi band, and a steadily-growing crowd meanders slowly past. Bottle rockets continue to shoot off above our heads, streaking the blue sky with wispy trails of white smoke, before exploding in exceptionally loud booms. Mexicans love noise, and the noisier the better.

Someone hands me a balloon and a glass of orange juice; I join the procession, nearly giddy from the pageantry. As I stroll along, I learn a few things from an older gentleman walking beside me. Niño Pa combines the Spanish word for “boy” with one from Nahuatl (the ancient Aztec language) that means “place,” meaning the Niño Pa is a boy from this place, Xochilmilco. He explains that the register book of families waiting to take annual care of the baby is full until 2042. Around December 28 of every year, you can register to be granted the chance to host a daily parade like this, and there is always a long line of people hoping to secure a spot before that year’s calendar fills up. The gentleman asks me if I would like to get a better look at the baby. Grabbing my wrist, he leads me forward, through the marchers, until we are walking alongside the blue umbrella, and I can look underneath.

The Niño Pa has a diadem of three golden beams that jut out like antennae from his closely-cropped head of sculpted brunette hair. He has dark, squinting eyes, a high forehead, and pale pink skin. However, all flesh below his eyes, right down to the bottom of his chin, is painted a bright, blushing fuschia. His small lips, pursed into a teensy smile, are very red. For today’s outing, the Niño Pa was dressed in an all-white gown; its profusion of satin and lace looked like a meringue. He sat in a little wooden chair and was tied to it with a burgundy cord to keep him from slipping. The woman who carried the Niño Pa had a white towel tossed over one of her shoulders, as if he were a real baby who might at any moment burp or spit up.

After walking for a half-hour or so, the parade arrived at Jaltocan’s Catholic church. The chinelos lined up in two rows, making a passageway into the front door, through which the family holding the Niño Pa proceeded, the old man and I following tight in their wake. Inside, the aisles and pews were packed with still more people—young, old, men, women, boys, girls, all holding balloons that bobbed about above their heads. I see women with their hair woven into braids that are so long, they snake all the way down their backs, reaching practically to their calves. The priest who leads the service is rail-thin, quite old, and somewhat unsteady on his feet. He is guided about by a lone acolyte, a chubby young girl who wears a track outfit in an eye-searing shade of aquamarine.

After the mass, there was a slow procession from the church to the house of Don Martin Salas and his wife. They were the couple who were carrying the Niño Pa in the parade, and would now be everyone’s host for lunch. The Salas family lives down near an embarcadero, where colorfully-painted barges take off to transport tourists up and down Xochimilco’s canals. A huge tent was set up, its fabric made of thick stripes of green and yellow. The green blocked the sun’s glare, but the yellow diffused it into golden stripes of light. There were banderas de papel, the Mexican cut-paper streamers, hanging everywhere. All of them have been stenciled with either an image of the infant Christ, or the words, “Bienvenidos Niño Pa” or “Gracias Niño Pa.” Still more helium balloons flutter about rectangular tables and chairs stretching out what seems the length of several football fields. Each table has a large flower arrangement, made from day lillies and zinnias. It looks like they are prepared to feed at least 500, maybe more.

There is no “check-in” area, no seating plan, and most importantly, no ticket required to walk in and take a seat at any of these tables. I find an empty chair next to a group of women who are loudly talking to each other. They smile at me and wish me a “buenas tardes.” There are dozens of waiters in white shirts, black vests, and black bow ties, and they rush about with enormous platters of food, with the sauciest menu items served from terracotta bowls called cazuelas.

One of the women I’m seated with, I learn, is a sister to a good friend of Dona Salas, our hostess. Some might think this a tenuous connection, but this woman feels enough kinship that, when the waiters lag slightly behind in their luncheon service, she gets up from the table and goes off herself to help move things along. I soon see her ferrying about baskets of fresh tortillas.

“This kind of community, this feeling of solidarity, is deep inside the mentality of the Mexican people,” one woman says to me. “It is not lost, but it is hidden under the earth.”

I want to talk about this more, but the smells coming up from the platters and cazuelas is so tempting, I load up my plate, and begin to eat instead.

There is rice, turned a dull red by being cooked with carrots and tomato juice. Nopales (paddle cactus), that were boiled and then fried with chiles and onions. Black beans in a thick garlic-laced broth. A green salad with radishes and avocado. And, finally, carnitas, or savory hunks of pork that have been slow-cooked in garlic, orange juice and achiote, and then grilled over a wooden fire. There are no knives or forks. We eat with a soup spoon, and our fingers. The food is all delicious, and I eat two plates, then three, goaded on by the appreciative nods of my table mates who seem not only to approve of, but to be personally gratified by, my gluttony. I wash it all down with many glasses of aqua fresca, a purple-red punch made from jamaica blossoms steeped with water and honey.

Once I am completely sated, nearly full to bursting, I turn to my table mates and ask about the logistics of such a meal. How did one family make all this food? How long had they been cooking? How many people, other than all these waiters, were required to help them? I have seen my host and hostess several times throughout lunch, passing by, greeting friends, never pausing or sitting themselves, so focussed are they on the comfort of their guests.

“I’m exhausted just looking at them,” I say. “How do they do it?”

The women look at me, rather confused. I sense that they’ve been to enough parties thrown in this baby’s honor—and, doubtless, they’ve cooked meals of their own, just like this one—that a fiesta like today’s no longer strikes them as remarkable. (It’s as if I’m standing at the beach, marveling at the fact of waves rolling in.) For these women of Xochimilco, hosting a lunch for 500 strangers is altogether natural.

One of them finally speaks. “You’ve seen the Niño Pa?” she asks.

“Si, senora,” I reply.

“Well, imagine that this little doll is not just a doll but God. When you are around it, you are in the presence of God. Whatever you could do, you would do. Whatever you would do, will still not be enough if you truly believe you are in the presence of God, right?”

I don’t know how to respond to this, other than by nodding my head silently.

The ladies go back to talking amongst themselves. After awhile, I get up, slip away from the table, and begin to slowly walk along the canals of Xochimilco in the warmth of a late afternoon’s sunshine. I have the glorious, guilt-free feeling of being overfed I usually only experience on Thanksgiving day. How weird and wonderful this day has been! A total stranger, I was welcomed into people’s homes, and invited to be their guest at a truly incredible feast. I feel dazzled and dazed, as if I’m floating on a cloud of love.

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