Between Tacos and Tequila: Chronicles of an Adventurous Belgian in Mexico
Birth, marriage and burial are questions of destiny
I was just 21 years old, and I had been Oscar’s girlfriend for as long as I’d been in Mexico. He decided it was time to introduce me to his family. Our journey began with an eight-hour bus ride from bustling Mexico City to Atoyac de Álvarez.
Despite its name meaning ‘place of the river’ in Nahuatl, all I found was an endless sea of dust and a relentless sun determined to scorch us all. It was amidst this dusty landscape that I met Oscar’s grandmother while visiting the home of one of his aunts.
The following day, we set off for San Vicente de Jesús, a village embedded in a coffee-growing area, about a two-hour drive from Atoyac, crossing streams and stone paths along the way. The landscape was scattered with tiny towns: they looked like they’d sprouted up among the hillsides, which were craggy and often steep, amid an expanse of orange bougainvillea that contrasted with the many shades of boundless vegetation.
Almost the entire village was awaiting us when we got there: that is, my boyfriend’s family and neighbors. The smallest children stopped playing in the street and dashed home, shouting that Oscar had arrived with an angel dressed in white. No one had ever compared me to an angel before, and I’d never felt particularly angelic, but I took the description as a sweet welcome.
I greeted my future in-laws for the first time. They led me to the kitchen for a café de olla and tortillas just off the griddle, accompanied by beans and homemade cheese: a simple dish that was absolutely exquisite to me.
I slept alongside my boyfriend’s sisters that night. Little by little, I would have to get used to this new environment: the wind singing incessantly in the trees, the rain pummeling the tin-sheet roof, the dirt floor, the creaking of the wooden shutters. Sleeping inside a net to keep out mosquitos, scorpions, and other creatures didn’t make me feel exactly safe or relaxed.
But my main worry was how to extricate myself from the cloth tangle around the bed and find the courage to cross the yard in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, where I was certain I’d be besieged by spiders. Maybe I wouldn’t need to get up, I thought hopefully.
Most of all, though, I reflected on how it was I’d reached this place, this corner of the planet, so different from everywhere else I’d ever known.
I suddenly felt immensely lonely and disconnected from everything.
The crowing of the roosters announced a mountain dawn I wasn’t willing to miss, so I got out of bed, knowing a shower would have to wait until the afternoon, when the sun had fully heated the water. I went to the kitchen, where my future mother-in-law was making breakfast. The kitchen smelled like firewood, coffee, hot pepper, and tortillas, and the steam from the pot of boiling beans filled almost the entire space.
I wasn’t sure if it was the rooster or the aromas that had done the trick, but the kitchen was soon filled with the yawns and cheerful greetings of the newly awakened.
It was clearly a moment they strove to share before starting up their everyday activities. The food embellished the early-morning gentleness that washed over us all. But it couldn’t prepare us for the news that someone suddenly delivered — I can’t remember who — as they burst into the room: “La jefa passed away in her sleep.”
And la jefa was none other than my boyfriend’s grandmother, whom I’d met just the day before. Everything around us was transformed, and I witnessed the drama unleashed by an essential figure’s sudden death.
Over the next few hours, almost the entire family arrived, as did relatives, friends, and neighbors. I’d never seen or experienced anything like it. Through my European lens, the scene struck me as downright surreal, and I couldn’t figure out how they’d coordinated everything — but they managed to carry the coffin with the grandmother’s body up into the sierra for her wake.
As it turned out, this was only the beginning of the funerary festivities, which compelled the family to kill a few pigs to make pozole and feed the crowd; you can’t be rude to those who’ve come to pay their respects.
Several large tables were quickly set up in the yard and some of the women devoted themselves to watching over and praying for the soul of the deceased. Suddenly, all the rooms and even the yard were filled with candles and the mourners’ wails.
The next day, the relatives took the coffin to the cemetery. This felt like an incredible expedition to me, a practically impossible mission, but everyone else seemed used to such tasks. It feels like stating the obvious to say that it wasn’t easy to transport the coffin: the pallbearers had to cross a river and climb up the hillside with no help but their own strength. My heart almost stopped when the four men made their way over a fallen trunk that served as a bridge across the not-entirely-tranquil river.
I still remember it vividly: one false step was all it would have taken for the coffin to end up in the water, swept away by the current in the blink of an eye. I watched from the riverbank, frozen in place, not wanting to follow — until an uncle helped me over the trunk once the deceased had finally made it to the other side.
Soon after we returned to Acapulco via Atoyac. Our original plan to spend time on the beach was cut short by the circumstances, but our adventures had not ended with the burial. Exhausted, Oscar and I arrived at the bus terminal only to discover that we had to wait until nightfall to return to Mexico City. To make matters worse and in an instance of oversight, my suitcase was stolen. They say that “las penas, con pan son menos” (all sorrows with bread are less) so we decided to have a bite at the terminal’s restaurant.
We ended up in the worst seats in the bus that was to take us home. With a bit of luck, the noise of the engine would lull us to sleep, but the heat was unbearable. My feet, already swollen from the bugs’ bites, began to ache more intensely and I soon felt a commotion brewing in my stomach. I was experiencing Montezuma’s famous revenge firsthand.
The French often say: “jamais deux sans trois”, which means “never two without three”. This phrase, which is pronounced the same as “203” (deux cent trois), reminded me that life often presents us with challenges in groups of three. Yet life showed me the extreme version of this saying. My challenges did not stop at 3.
Despite this, I felt serene and I told myself that I would have a good story to tell my grandchildren, should I ever have them.
And so, between adversity and hope, our journey was just beginning. With each step forward, we moved closer not only to our destination, but also to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the bond we share.
The Spanish version of this story is available here:
