just the facts ma'am

The woman with the tiny hands turned to me and said:

I told my daughter bunnies and eggs came from England.

This doesn't rate up there with the daftest question I have ever heard (the prize for that goes to the Swedish person who asked Miguel: do they have potatoes in Mexico?) but it does give me the chance to lecture.

Mexico is a Catholic country, very Catholic. Recently a friend of mine revealed that his girlfriend is a Christian. This caused gasps of horror, people crossing themselves, and him being shunned for the rest of the evening. Now, to my understanding, Catholicism is just a branch of Christianity, a branch that believes in virgin births and transubstantiation. But here it is a whole different understanding. Christians are to be pitied and avoided. Christians are the people who come knock on your door. Christians are the people who try to convert you to...well, to believing in Christ. But, to this outsider, in Mexico Catholicism is based around the Virgin, the big J was just an after thought to the whole story. I call Maria, Maria because it's her name. Unfortunately it is also the name of 80% of the women in Mexico (and, to be honest I might be lying about that statistic, it is probably closer to 90%).  Everyone else calls Maria, Rocio - her middle name -  and that's pretty much the norm for all women in Mexico (or at least 80%+), they use their middle name.

However, come Easter you start to realise that this is a Catholic country.

Maundy Thursday the whole country shut down. Seriously, everything closed. And they have stayed closed for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. No-one is working. But they aren't partying (yet). Most people are going to church and then staying at home. Maria, who isn't the religious type, looks at me slightly bemused when I question this.

It's a man's death - why would you celebrate?

And she's right. If a whole country believes in the death and resurrection then for the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday there really is nothing to celebrate. Come Sunday, of course, it's time to party-on-down. Lent is over, fasting is over. The majority of Mexicans will go to mass in the morning and then ALL Mexicans will eat! Food! No chocolates, no hot cross buns, food - mainly meat because, let's face it, they have been depriving themselves of meat for over 24 hours (which is a lifetime to most taco eating Mexicans).

I've mentioned hot cross buns to Maria. Hot cross buns are luvverly. Slice them in half, lightly toast them under the grill, butter them - wonderful. Hell, they are even luvverly cold. But, every time I mention them she shakes her head in wonderment. At first I thought it was because they have raisins in them - and you really don't want to mention raisins in a conversation with Maria - but then it turned out it was the fact they have a cross on them. And that leads to the Bill Hicks quote:
A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It's like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant.
But, in the long run, Christians have elected to choose the instrument of their saviour's death as the unifying symbol - how can we complain? So, it isn't too difficult to explain hot cross buns.

Bunnies and eggs becomes a little harder. It becomes a little harder when you have to explain to people that most (all) of the dates on the Christian calendar are arbitrary. Take the fact that's it's 2008. If the baby jee was born in Bethlehem because of a census, well that census was in 5 B.C. not 1 B.C./A.D. You see, the church made the dates up. (Try explaining this to a woman with tiny hands whose English is better than my Spanish, but isn't great). On the pagan calendar there were two really big parties - one of them was in the winter - a chance to party-on-down when it was cold, wet and miserable - the other was in Spring - when it was time to throw off all your clothes and get some pro-creating done! When the church decided to sell Christianity to the masses, they needed to convince people that they could still celebrate. So they went for: baby jee born in winter; grown-up J born again in Spring. And that's why bunnies and eggs at Easter. They are fertility symbols. Breed like a rabbit!

But why chocolate? asks my tiny handed inquisitor. This one is the tough one. I suppose it has a lot to do with breaking fasting. Shrove Tuesday (also known as Pancake Tuesday, AKA Fat Tuesday. AKA Mardi Gras) is the day before Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent - 40 days of fast and abstinence before Easter Sunday. It is supposed to replicate the 40 days the mid-life-crisis Jee spent in the desert before his entry into Jerusalem. The day before you go into fasting mode, Tuesday, the idea is to eat everything in the larder. For some reason that means pancakes. The only thinking I can come up with for chocolate is that, now the fast is over you can indulge. And what is more indulgent than Ferrero Rocher?

Anyhoo, that's as good an explanation as I can give. If you can do it better, feel free. Oh, and if you are going to rise to the challenge can I ask you to also explain one other thing that has always puzzled me:
Why do chocolate eggs taste so much better than a bar of the same chocolate?
Either way. Enjoy your Easter break and (just to annoy Blue Witch) don't forget there are only 276 shopping days until Christmas.

Comments

[Blue Witch]

We're almost up to the Daily Blogpost of Old Daily Count, aren't we? ;)

Slow down, I can't read that fast :)

There may be 276 shopping days until the FOTCTR™ for you, but, for me, there are probably only 1 or 2.

[Blue Witch]

PS We have SNOW!!!