SAN ANTONIO TLAYACAPAN - OUR TOWN

San Antonio's Plaza 

San Antonio is not as glitzy as Ajijic.  We do not have the fashion stores, nor the galleries, nor the five star chief restaurants.

San Antonio does have people who try to help one another without interfering into that persons life.  They have a local grocery store that if you come up short for the month, they will give you credit.  We do not have perfect people but we sure do have some of the nicest people around. 

San Antonio has its own Patron Saint.   The fiesta honoring Saint Anthony as the patron saint of our town concludes on June 13th the anniversary of his death in 1231.

Each day of the town's celebration is sponsored by a different village family.  There are processions of faithful villagers to the church each evening, bands, dancing, fireworks, carnival, rides and games each day of the fiesta.  These all happen in and around the church and plaza.

Each town around the lake has their own patron saint and also have a fiesta for them.  However, it is told that San Antonio is known for hosting the biggest party in the area.  It is even said that the fiesta's noise brings the first summer season rains. 

This is the original church tower from the first church in San Antonio.  It is in the school yard of the elementary school near the plaza.

                                           

These two pictures are here because I wanted you to see two different things about the church.  The picture on the left shows a speaker that sits on top of the brick bridge-way between two buildings.  That speaker comes on with the morning mass for the entire town to hear.  Now not everyone liked listing to mass at six o'clock in the morning - specifically one lady from Canada.  So she dislocated the wiring to the speaker and we had one very mad priest in town that day.

The other picture shows ropes from the bells.  And yes the ropes are hand pulled every time the bells ring. 

Why do the bells sound?

There is a very definite meaning to the various bell tones and timing of the bell sounds.

Call to Mass:

30 minutes before mass begins.  There is a solitary bell sound followed by 15 to 30 bell sounds, a pause, and a final single bell sound.  But they are not done yet - 15 minutes later when it is only 15 minutes before Mass there are two single chimes followed by about 30 rapid ringing tones followed by two single chimes.  Still not done yet.  As Mass begins you hear the final third call consist of three solitary sounds followed by a long series of tones.  

The bells tell time

 There are four sets of ding dong sounds followed by a series of sounds equal to the hour of the day.  Then, at 15 minutes past the hour you hear ding dong and at 30 minutes past the hour you hear ding dong repeated twice.

Then at 45 minutes past the hour you get three ding dong sets. The new hour gets four sets of ding dong followed by the respective hour sounds.

Then there is the bell ringing very slow ding dong, ding dong, ding dong when someone in the village dies.

St. Anthony is shown on the right side of the alter - he is said to be the patron saint of lost items, romance, old maids, boats, shipwrecks and poor people.

This is the main street from the plaza to the major road that connects all the town together.

San Antonio is re-designing their board walk area along the lake front.  However, that is not why I took this picture.  I wanted you to see that the people in this village have cows and they have vacant land where they are kept.  They will walk their cows down the residential streets to the lake to graze.  Our dog Butch goes nuts when they pass by our home.

The lake is enjoyed and used by everyone.  Above is a picture of a man throwing his net out into the lake to catch some fish.  Below are the teenagers just hanging out during the day.  At night they all meet in the Plaza area along with half of the town's people.

We have our own theater and the actors are from our town.

This is our corner grocery store.  Lupe and her daughters run the market.  She is one and a half blocks from our home. 

San Antonio has its own grave yard.  The culture here keeps the family together even in death.  Some grave sites look like almost houses.  The Day of the Dead is a big celebration here in Mexico and the grave sites are crowded with not only past but present family members.  It is a time to when the children learn of their past family members-it gives them a sense of heritage and belonging to some larger unit other than just Mom and Dad. 

San Antonio is a simple village yet the people are bound together and strengthened through the fiesta's, the plaza and the lake.  It is not a bad place to be from or to be living in.  There is a rhythm within San Antonio that is slow but nice.  It is a good life style. 

I cannot leave without introducing a bunch of kids that are our neighbors.  We call them the chicken family.  Why?  Well their parents are professional people who want their kids to know about work and enterprise.  So the boys got a vacant piece of dirt on the main road and they put up a chicken stand.  They cook and sell chickens - and the chicken is fantastic tasting.  They must cook up millions of chickens a day.  

   

It is about time for Ken and I to leave our dear San Antonio.  We have loved it here and made so many new friends.  But the adventure goes on so as Ken enters into our secure and wonderful home, we say good by to our wonderful adventures in San Antonio.