Awakened by Guadalupe

Bogie and I were abruptly woken up at the stroke of midnight by explosions of fireworks and all the bells in the church banging and crashing in collision with the overhead cacophony of sounds celebrating the first seconds of Guadalupe’s Feast Day. Bogie meowed in protest and fled under the bed. I waited until it was over, thinking back to the afternoon hour or so I spent at Vallarta Eats office situated a tiny stone’s throw from the front steps of the church.

I have seen these Peregrinaciones – Processions – in parts, 40ish times in my life here in Vallarta, but watched from a different angle yesterday. Stephen, the owner of Vallarta Eats, invited me to a small party at his office on the street flanking the front steps of Vallarta’s church. It was a bird’s-eye view of devotion.

On the slate yesterday were various parts of Mayor Luis Munguía’s city workers, and their wives, kids, and the odd dog tagging along. Each delegation has a type of uniform, often a white shirt proclaiming ‘Renace’ or ‘Reborn,’ Mungia’s slogan, with blue jeans. Or ‘Third Agers,’ women over 60 in white with wedding veils, dancing and moving slowly and with grace through the streets. Some toothless, all smiling and dancing with intent for the Virgin. An unseen hand tells the people to slow down, give each delegation their spotlight to dance, pray, and surreptitiously check a phone message. I did not see a bored expression, a worried glance at a watch, even the children paid attention, a four- or five-year-old girl, dressed as Guadalupe, struggling to keep her green satin veil from sliding off her freshly washed hair, all eyes on the front door to the church, waiting patiently to enter the sanctity of that holy place, and receive blessings from the priest, and through him, the Virgin’s.

I saw a pickup truck stop at the foot of Independencia Street on Juarez and offload at least a dozen boxes full of foodstuffs and huge bouquets of flowers. Burly guys, one on each side of the boxes, struggled to walk up the streets bearing their gifts over the cobblestones and into the packed church.

A different group of strong guys picked up wheelchairs that included their occupants and manhandled them safely up the dozen or so steps and into the church.

Portraits of the Virgin were carried with reverence, candles burned in styrofoam coffee cups, hands held flowers, some fresh, some made of palm leaves; all held with love and deep faith.

Today, the ‘Favorecidas,’ those who have received blessings from the Virgin, take over the processions and will fill Calle Juarez shoulder to shoulder and move as one to the Church, the epicenter of life in Vallarta on this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe day, From Here.