“Bad girl turns good” or why Mary Magdalene is so popular.

Decorations for the Church Veracruz Tourism Board

This weekend my dear friend Antonia, choreographer, yoga master and healer is putting on a show based on Mary Magdalene, the fallen woman who mended he ways and was declared a saint. It was quite a performance with sacred chants, dance and very much unlike the celebration they hold in her honor in Xico, Veracruz every year.

Phot: Veracruz Tourism Department

They’ve made Maria Magdalena, their patron saint and give her a spectacular fiesta every year for one week in July.  Amado Izaguirre Virues, the town historian is a marvelous short story writer and poet and he describes that time as

“Es cuando Xico huele a incencio, a polvora

a mole y champurrado

a pan blanco y a capeos.'”

“It’s when Xico smells of incense, of gunpowder

of mole and chocolate atole

of bread baking and fish frying.

Santa Maria Magdalena of Xico is not your typical saint and is rather vain.  She owns hundreds of dresses in lace an satin, brocade and jewels given to her by the likes of bullfighters, kings and queens, presidents, movie stars and writers from around the world.  As with any woman of style she wears a different dress every time she goes out.

The whole town joins in to ready the town for the celebration.  There is a feeling of excitement, of community as people paint their houses. clean the streets and plant flowers every where,  The church is made ready with gigantic arrangements of yellow lilies and a spectacular carpet with elaborate designs of colored saw dust is laid out along the main street, like sand mandalas, that will be destroyed when Santa maria Magdalena is paraded up main street lying on her chaise lounge, long hair flowing a la Tallulah Bankhead. It’s amazing that all these work goes into something so ephemeral,

In the meantime the men are hard at work building a gigantic arch known as el arco to decorate the entrance to the church.  The arch is covered all over with a wildflower, really a cactus flower, known as cucharita (little spoon)   While  they are gathering the flowers the men are supposed to only eat white food as a sign of purity.  When finished the arch is extremely heavy and is carried by at least one hundred men in a procession to the church, led by a troup of clowns inexplicably the town symbol, and men carrying toritos. bulls made out of papier mache loaded with fireworks that will be set off in the atrium of the church.

During the week-long festival  there are concerts, cattle exhibitions, cock and bull fights and the running of the bulls.

Xico is famous for its fruit-flavoured liqueurs, chile pastes like  the haunting pasta de chile seco, made with smoked moritas and the marmalade-like mole de Xico.