MANGO ICE IN MEXICO_TEXT: BRIAN KERSTETTER

When we arrived at the mountaintop site, O. chose a camera location about 100 yards away on a cluster of ruins called the Danzante Stones – sculptures of sacrificial victims “dancing” with scrolls emanating from their bowels and genitalia.  I went to the other end of the ruins with the authentic Indian mask we’d bought, along with some French Fries, from a tourist vendor on the way up the mountain.

When O. gave the signal I was supposed to strip, attach the mask to my face, and run and jump like a crazy person through the 2,000 year-old relics of one of Mexico’s most prized archeological treasures.  I didn’t know I’d be taking my clothes off, so I wasn’t wearing the underwear I would have normally selected for the occasion: I had on a graying pair of Jockeys that my grandmother gave me in 1989.

From across the plaza, O. waved his arm and started filming.  I shed my T-shirt and kicked off my pants and tennis shoes, and put the mask to my face and made a dash through the relics, tourists and security guards of Monte Alban.  I passed a German tourist group from Heidelberg, hopped through a collection of Mexican school kids, and trotted between a retired couple from Ohio.  I turned circles and kicked my heels through stone formations where the Zapotecs had cooked fish and taken a bath during the Mesoamerican era.

The tourists and even the security guards were transfixed, their mouths open.  They thought something mystical may be occurring.  They looked at each other, and blinked.  As I danced my way to the final cluster of stones, I planned to hop and flail my arms particularly vigorously – a final dramatic flourish.  But it didn’t work out that way. Instead, as I passed a formation of baby artifacts, I kicked my right toe against a furry chunk of antiquity.  I cried out, jerked and awkwardly genuflected, and crumbled in a pile at O.’s feet.

O. expressed his sympathy by continuing to film.  By this point my asthma was in full flight and my big toe was swelling like a water balloon.    O. stopped filming and reviewed the footage.  Then he said, “Oh, no, did I press the Record button?”  He looked down at me, “Let’s try that again.”

Mango Ice in Mexico

In the evenings O. and I would have dinner at an outdoor café on el zocalo --the main square of Oaxaca.   One night we noticed a band of traditional Mexican musicians with faces like flaps of old shoe leather floating in and out of the cafes.  They wore colorful outfits, waistcoats with beads, straw sombreros and strummed familiar latin tunes for the tourists.   O. wanted to use these musicians in a scene for HOME – he would film them as they plucked their instruments and swayed back and forth for the dinner crowd.

After dinner, we found the band members leaning against a fountain smoking cigarettes.  They didn’t speak English and my nine years of Spanish couldn’t express our simplest wishes, even though I kept speaking louder and louder until I was shouting at the poor fellows.  With the help of a Canadian tourist, we told the musicians we’d like to film them while they played a song, and we would pay them.  They liked the idea of being movie stars but loved the idea of being compensated $20 each.  They smiled and laughed, showing us the little white kernels of corn they used as teeth.

We met the following evening.  It was Saturday night and the town was full of travelers and villagers who’d come down from the mountain villages to eat, drink and listen to music.

As we prepared the scene, O. gave me a plastic bag with what looked like curly white clouds inside.  In fact they were beards.  Fake white beards, the kind a fake Santa Claus would wear.  O. had failed to mention to the musicians, and me, that each would be wearing a large white Santa Claus beard while performing.  They stood looking at each other as I applied glue and a large clump of white fuzz to each musician’s face.  Behind us a few locals had gathered to watch.  They whispered, pointed and called their friends.  A vendor rolled his cart next to us and sold small pouches of dried crickets to the crowd.  The musicians could not have been more cooperative, each of them clutching a $20 bill in their pocket.  When caught a glimpse of each other with a white beard they pointed and gleamed and asked to have their picture taken.  They stroked their beards like they’d had them all their lives.  “Yo soy Papa Noel!” said the guitarist, and a tourist took his picture.

By this time some of the townspeople were whispering and gesturing in our direction.  I only caught a few words of the conversation -- “gringo loco, gringo loco.”  The villagers were rebelling against the musicians playing their ancestral music dressed as Santa.  Mexicans are a proud people and, at some point in their history, had decided that their ancestors’ melodies and Santa Claus shall not cohabit.  As the debate subsided, O. rekindled it by adding that he thought the music would sound better coming from a collection of white beards.  

The polemic took on a liveliness that attracted more bystanders until we were the main attraction in the Northeast corner of the square.  A policeman was summoned.

All this conversation gave me a dry tongue and I made my way to an ice cream vendor for a mango sorbet and sat on the street to watch the proceedings for awhile.  O., the performers and the policeman were surrounded by a circle of townspeople.  When O. made a point, he would poke a finger into the flutist’s beard.  The consultations lasted another fifteen minutes but, in the end, the musicians shrugged their shoulders, peeled off their beards, and kept the money.   I walked back to O., who was standing alone, his camera in one hand and a clump of beards in the other.  I pulled out my camera and snapped his photo.  To this day, this is a photo that never fails to cheer me up when I’m blue.

As we made our way back to the hotel with our beards and camera, I heard a tourist say “what a couple of assholes.”  We dropped off the equipment at the hotel and walked to a lively restaurant behind the cathedral where we ate a roasted chicken with a bottle of wine and listened to a band that played tradition music and smiled at us as they played.

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