Looking out my Backdoor: Strange and sad and sweet, amid Mardi Gras

I’ve heard stories about this elderly couple who live in El Amparo, the abandoned mining town in the mountains, ever since I moved to Etzatlan.

Every Thursday this traditional couple, she in her long skirt, he in baggy white pants, both with wide sombreros, rode horses down the mountain road into town. They stayed the night with family and bought supplies at the Friday morning tianguis. Then in the afternoon, the couple would ride back to their mountain home, carrying their meager needs in saddlebags.

“How old are they?” I ask. Answers vary but all agree, somewhere in their nineties. A couple years ago they quit riding horses but kept the same routine, riding into town with neighbors, often sitting on an old bench seat in the open back of the pickup.

Four days ago, the old man died. He must have said something like, “It’s OK. I cleared the path. You may come now.” This morning, his wife died.

Somehow, this news touched me greatly. I don’t know, have never seen, this couple, yet their story lodged in my heart as if they were family.

Sitting in a rocker under the jacaranda, I imagined, made up a life for this couple, who surely had lived in El Amparo back in the mining days. Perhaps they played together in the creek as children. Their fathers were miners. Their mothers called them inside to bathe Saturday night, a light supper of mangoes and tortillas, Church in the morning.

They would have lived through the closing of the mines, fathers out of work, hard times, mothers making do, shelling beans from the garden vines, grinding maize for tortillas on the metate in the back yard.

In a few idle moments I carry the youngsters up a rosary of years, from school mates to sweethearts. They marry. He finds a job in Etzatlan, walks to work down the mountain road every day to the cane fields. Perhaps one day he apprentices to a welder in town, carrying on a job his father once held at the mine.

They have babies, bury their parents, celebrate the good times, tough out the lean years, add a room or two to their house, hobble a pair of horses in back. Watch their children grow up, leave home, one to California, one to disappear, two daughters to Etzatlan, grandchildren to love. They grow old.

I stop myself before I give the elder couple names and an entire history to relive. Any people who have garnered the respect I hear in my friends’ voices deserves my respect. I’m a sucker for a love story, even an imagined one.

These last few days in Etzatlan have been full of celebrations of Carnaval (Mardi Gras). By chance, I saw the first day’s parade of horses, and such horses as we never see up north, of Spanish bloodline. Every horse dances to the music of the band leading the parade.

Prancing in front of and alongside the band are other dancers, the “ugly queens.” These “beauties,” young men in feminine attire, wigs and tight skirts and jutting bosoms, vie for the crown. The contenders are a hardy lot to dance the cobblestone streets every rock of the way to the Plaza.

As afternoon segues into evening at the Plaza, bands compete at top volume. Young and old dance, celebrations carry long into the night, events I choose to skip this year. One street is blocked for children’s rides. Another for food stands. One evening food is free to whoever comes, a community thank you from the city.

World-famous toreador Andy Cartagena from Spain led the spectacular bullfight event. At the old charro, every afternoon one could see precision riding or contests similar to our rodeo. Our city sponsored an agricultural expo, with purebred bulls and goats, any one of which would take top prize in any State Fair and bring a pretty peso to his owner. These events satisfy my needs for a whiff of farm life.

In the dark nights I hear the bands from my patio, catch some of the fireworks over the trees. My own celebrations are quieter, private.

Etzatlan, a town trying to hang onto tradition, is changing rapidly, as everywhere. (Children have smart phones. What is the world coming to!)

After Carnaval, the quiet weeks of Lent. No tianguis in town during Lent. No bands in the Plaza. We have quiet until Easter when Cathedral bells waken us back to Celebration.

I am glad to be here in what might be the last of the “quiet” years for Etzatlan. I’m glad I can imagine, with some knowledge of what their lives might have been, the years of Tia and Tio, the elder couple from El Amparo, now part of my own imaginary history. I still haven’t decided what to give up for Lent.

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Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com. Email [email protected].