Sunday, April 26, 2009

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

A few years ago I learned that the way to knock on doors here is to not actually knock on the door, but say "buenas" in a loud voice as you stand outside their fence or gate, or door. Most people around here have big iron fences or cement walls around their houses, so you can't actually get to their front door to knock. Maybe that's why people just yell at the fence; unless they carry a "knocking" stick...and I've never seen one before (I just made it up...just now). We've become accustomed to this, but because we don't have a fence in front of our house people just ring the doorbell. So when someone comes to our house and yells "buenas" (which is shortened from "buenas tardes"or "buenas noches") it usually throws us off.

That's one of your lessons. I tell you all of that so you can understand the rest of my story. Really, it's a tiny detail that probably could have been left out, but I want you, my dear friends, to have the full Mexican experience!

So this evening Jonathon and I were in the kitchen cooking dinner. We've been getting a really nice breeze all day so we had the front door open to cool off the house. The neighbors were out and their babies were screaming and playing, you know, being kids. We heard someone faintly say "buenas". I kind of ignored it because I thought it was probably coming from across the street. A little bit later I heard it again, this time a little bit louder. I asked Jonathon, "is someone at the door?" (I don't know if he actually heard it or not.) He went to check like a good husband. I heard some guy talking to him and Jonathon was saying "uh huh" like he understood. I was wondering how long it would be before he would say, "uno momento" and call me to come figure out what this person was talking about. He never did. Moments later he invited the guy in and sat him down at the table.

The guy sat down, opened a notebook and started asking Jonathon questions in English. I noticed that he was writing as Jonathon answered so I wasn't quite sure what was going on. My curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to go meet this dude. I sat down and he explained that he is a student at the University in Chetumal and he's studying English. His teacher had obviously given the class some questions and told them to go find a native English speaker and interview them. I got pretty excited because I had to do the same thing for school and it's terrifying! I felt his pain!

In the beginning he seemed a little nervous, but as we got further into the conversation he started to relax and respond to our answers, which is probably what those goofy interviews are designed to do! He was asking us the typical questions like, "how is the culture different," "did you have any trouble getting used to living here," "what do you think about Obama," you know fun things like that. Towards the end he asked us if we knew of any local legends. The only one we could think of was the talking cross. (That's a pretty cool legend, but I'm not going to get into it on this note because if I don't write down what he told me, I'll forget it!) Since that was the only one we knew, he decided to tell us a few. I am super excited to share them. I'm definitely not going to do them justice, but it's interesting anyway!

La llorona, "the crying woman"
I don't know that she's just native to this area; I think she might be all over Mexico. I could be wrong though. La llorona is the crying woman because he husband abandoned her. She decided to take revenge on him by killing their children. She drowned one of them and beat the other one to death. Afterwards she felt guilty and killed herself. She now walks the streets crying saying, "mis hijos, mis hijos," (my children, my children).

Mexican T.V. shows like to make fun of La Llorona. One of them showed her walking down a dark alley carrying a cutting board with an onion on top of it and a knife stuck in the onion. She was crying and saying "mis ojos, mis ojos," (my eyes, my eyes). On another show La Llorona was sick one night so he had her sister walk the streets for her. The sister walked the streets crying "mis sobrinos, mis sobrinos," (my nephews, my nephews). The local story is that La Llorona walks from the Plaza (the center of town) to the back othe Issste (a mini grocery store in town), which is only a few blocks from our house! I won't be walking that route at night any more!

Ixkavay- I don't know how to spell this one. It sounds like "ish-kuv-eye". I know the "x" is correct because in Maya it sounds like "sh". So, that's how I'm spelling it.

In town there is a gigantic tree. It's the biggest tree I have ever seen. The trunk is so wide; well, I can't even describe how wide it is. I'll have to take a picure and attach it. Anyway, I forgot the name of the tree, but it's a tree that is sacred to the Maya. This giant tree in town happens to be the home of Ixkavay.

Ixkavay, before she became Ixkavay, was a good woman. She never had "relations" with men (which I guess is what made her so good), but she was as cold as ice. There was another woman (I forgot her name) who was a prostitute. Although she was considered bad, she always helped out people in need. When the prostitute died, a beautiful bush full of flowers grew from her grave. The gave off a wonderful scent and it also filled her grave with this scent. When Ixkavay saw this, she was mad and wondered how these beautiful flowers could grow from the grave of such a bad woman. When Ixkavay died, from her grave grew a catcus-like plant. This made her mad so she called upon the dark spirits to bring her back to life.

She came back as a beautiful Mayan woman. She wore a long huipil (typical Mayan dress) that covered her feet because she had a hoof of a pig for one foot and the claw of a turkey for the other and in the back she had the tail of a serpent. So naturally she had to cover that up! She lived in the giant tree and when drunk men stop under the tree to rest, drink some more, or pass out she would lure them to her and then she would eat them! Ooh scary!

My story teller's great-grandfather said he saw her one night. He had gone to a party, and was walking home (a little drunk). On the road to his house Ixkavay came to him and tried to lure him to her. He knew what she was up to so he turned off to take another way home. She grabbed his arm and pulled him towards her. The legend holds that if you take the heel of your shoe and hit her on the arm she'll turn into a snake. So that's just what he did, and she slithered off.

Well, there's your culture lesson for the day. I think I learned more about the culture in sitting with this guy for an hour than I have in the whole year I've been here! How lucky am I? I love my job!

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