Slow Times in Mixtlan, Mexico 

I didn’t know how tough my senior year of college was going to be. What I thought would be a year of drinking, partying, and fun-filled memories had turned into sleepless nights, article deadlines, and an abundance of stress. I knew I had to do something reinvigorating for Christmas vacation.

As I was taking a break from homework, I decided to look up flights to Mexico. My father walked through the front door as I was searching, and in my nicest voice, I asked him if he would pay for my plane ticket. “Here’s my credit card. Book it before you change your mind.” Okay, hold on. Was he serious? Or was he joking? I didn’t know what to make of it until he assuredly told me he was being serious. My face lit up.  Both of my parent’s know how hard I work at school, so this was their way of showing me that my diligence had paid off.

My parents were born in two pea sized ranches located only a mile apart from each other in Jalisco, Mexico. As excited as I was to go back to my roots and visit family members I had never met, I was really nervous. How was a city girl like me going to adjust to the rural Mexican lifestyle? I mean, Santa Rosa, which is where my mother is from, is completely surrounded by mountains, and the nearest grocery store is thirty minutes away. Less than one hundred people live there, and people still milk their own cows, make their own cheese, and kill the chickens they plan on eating for dinner. The roads are paved in rocks and at the wee hours of the morning you can hear horses and cows roaming through streets, hoof against stone. The ranch my father is from, El Cimarron Chico, is not much different than Santa Rosa, except that about two hundred people live there. It is known to many people as the place where they make raicilla, a special type of tequila.

I was willing to take a chance of loving it or hating it. It had been thirteen years since the last time I visited. Although I was going to spend most of my vacation where my parents grew up, what I like to consider real Mexico, I made sure to set a couple of days aside to party in Puerto Vallarta with all the foreigners from Canada and the United States.

As soon as I checked into the hotel in Puerto Vallarta, I dropped my bags at the entrance of the room and ran out to the beach. The sunset was absolutely breathtaking—rays of yellow, orange, and red filled the sky, surrounding the sun as it slowly diminished. As much as I enjoyed sinking my bare feet in the white sand, I went back up to my room and got ready because it was time to party. I opened my duffle bag and pulled out the shortest jean skirt I had, a black halter-top, and a pair of flip-flops. After I finished getting ready, I headed down to the popular Malecon—the Las Vegas strip of Puerto Vallarta. As I walked the waterfront admiring the sand sculptures and fire-blowers, I decided to skip the site seeing and head into Señor Frogs—the most “crackin” club of the night. After passing the smog and neon lights at the entrance, I made it to a table that had a perfect view of the stage and dance floor. I sat with my elbows on the table, resting my chin in my hand, glaring at the menu.

If I were in Las Vegas (which I like to consider my second home), I probably would have already been drunk off of vodka and cranberry juice—but I didn’t feel like drinking that night. Maybe it was the belligerent women who groped the men they danced with on the dance floor that took my thirst away, or perhaps the girl who fell off the stage, exposing her “Britney” for everyone to see. But I think it had something more to do with being in Mexico, my parents’ homeland, the country of my ancestors, that caused me to refrain from getting drunk and acting like one of the foreigners.

The funny thing is that part of me admired these women who acted so freely. I saw them as empowered, doing what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it. Societal norms were definitely not holding them back. The men were partying just as hard, chugging down Coronas and shots of Patron, taking advantage of the fact that some of the women were too inebriated to know what they were doing. I’m used to that atmosphere, but it never dawned on me that at some point I would sit back and cringe at all the things I had probably done during those states of non-remembering. Watching the scene before me while looking back on all those nights I had partied, I admit another part of me felt a bit embarrassed.

I did end up having a shot, A Red-Headed Slut to be exact, but my feet still didn’t tap the floor to the beat of the music. I was bored, in an atmosphere that I would normally be going crazy in. Even a waiter, who was known for getting every woman out of her chair and onto the dance floor, tried taking a crack at me. He wasn’t very successful. I shot him down with a one-two punch and he didn’t bother me the rest of the night. The next time he walked past our table, the only thing he’d find would be empty souvenir cups and popcorn scattered all over the table. I was in search of a taxi. The rest of my days in Puerto Vallarta were great. I decided to skip out on the nightlife and just relax on the beach and soak up the sun. That was essentially the reason for going to Mexico in the first place. I didn’t want to come back to the States more tired than before I left.

And, yes, the simple pace of my parents’ hometowns practically guaranteed I would return home relaxed and happy. Once there, I spent many times sitting on my uncle’s brick fence peeling mandarin oranges freshly picked from his tree. There were always people who walked by and said hello, wishing me well, even though they didn’t know me. I wasn’t used to being around people this genuinely nice, especially considering the rough upbringing many of them had to endure.

Throughout my visit, I often caught myself thinking about how lucky I am. My parents both came from practically nothing. My mother constantly reminds me how much she suffered throughout her adolescent years, and how her family was probably one of the poorest families of Santa Rosa. The only things they ate were tortillas and beans and, perhaps on a Saturday or Sunday, a bit of meat. But there was never an abundance since my mom comes from a family of twelve. And my father, who never had a toy truck to play with, would oftentimes tie a piece of string to a stick and drag it across the dirt road, imagining it was a car with wheels.

Hearing my parents tell these stories has often made me cry, but visiting their childhood homes and meeting all the spirited people in these small rural places, I found peace of mind. I got to go back to their ranches and see life in another way—and in many ways I loved it. As the days continued to come and go, my vacation was slowly coming to an end. I chewed as much caña (sugar cane) as my teeth could handle and ate all the ice cream that my stomach could hold. By the time my departure date approached, I could barely cope. In less than three weeks I had become extremely attached to everyone who crossed my path and the thought of saying goodbye to all the humble, wonderful people of Jalisco brought tears to my eyes. I was overly emotional and I wasn’t ready to leave.

On my last weekend in Mexico, my cousin and I ended up going to another small town an hour-and-a-half away from Santa Rosa called Mixtlan. In Mixtlan they were celebrating their fiestas, which last nine days. It was a total change from everywhere else in Mexico that I had been to.

People from the town, as well as people from other nearby towns and many U.S. residents, congregated in the central plaza and listened to live music. Men lined up on the outside of the plaza and on the inside as well, forming a walkway. Women walked in between the men, and if a man liked what he saw, he threw confetti onto the woman, while softly caressing her hair. By the end of one lap, many women were completely covered, looking like a human piñata.

At first I didn’t join in on the fun. To be quite honest, I was kind of shy. But the next night came around and I was feeling a little more adventurous. I stood on the outskirts of the plaza, trying to keep warm by drinking tequila and coke. Mario, a guy I had met once before, approached me and we started talking, and a short while later, he asked me to take a walk with him inside of the plaza. I didn’t want to be rude, so I accepted. He stuck his arm out, and I linked my arm around his. As soon as I found my way inside of the plaza, I felt confetti coming down on me. Whether a woman was with someone or not, men still dropped confetti on her.

Mario and I walked in circles, for perhaps an hour or so, talking about school, work, and life goals. During our talk, he let me know that if a guy asks a girl for a walk around the plaza, it is because he thinks she is pretty and wants to get to know her better. He also told me that this ritual has led to the start of many relationships and marriages. This was the way that men courted women in Mixtlan.

I enjoyed this tame tradition more than any wild parties I had gone to in Vegas or Puerto Vallarta. Men who actually put time into getting to know a woman? I can’t say I ever experienced that in any of the fast “mating rituals” (in other words, drinking, grabbing, groping) at clubs or parties. Of course not all of the men circling the plaza were looking into getting into a relationship. I’m sure some hoped for a hook-up. But in Mixtlan, in the plaza, enveloped by celebration and old-fashioned courtship, I was covered in confetti and nothing else mattered.

Maribel Rosas is a senior at San Francisco State University majoring in journalism. She interns for American Sexuality magazine.