Catrina, Posada and Diego Rivera

We spent most of our last day in Mexico wandering around the city, through the parks and the streets. The parks are great - cool shady oases in a bustling city. Not very busy too - we did see people walking their dogs in the park (Mexicans appear to be dog people) - but they were never overly crowded.

We also popped in on the Museo Mural Diego Rivera which is a museum with one main exhibit, a single mural by Diego Rivera which takes up a whole wall. It was originally in a hotel lobby- the hotel was destroyed in an earthquake but the mural managed to survive. Now, the mural was extremely controversial because Diego went and painted in a line which said "God does not exist". He was forced to paint it out but evidently God has a sense of humour, or else the mural would have been destroyed with the hotel!

Anyway, here is a small section of the famous mural. I took only one photo before being informed that I had to pay 5 pesos more for the pleasure of taking photos. So I stopped. At the very centre of the mural is El Calavera Catrina, arm in arm with her creator, Jose Guadalupe Posada. (For more on Posada and the creation of a cultural icon, here is a link.) The little boy holding Catrina's hand is Diego himself and reflects Diego's admiration for Posada. Behind them is Frida Kahlo, Diego's wife and a famous Mexican painter in her own right. I did not know until coming back and reading something about her that Frida was in a serious bus accident in her youth and she was essentially living in pain all her life. She painted many self portraits and a lot of it portrayed her pain, both physical and from her marriage to Diego. Diego had a habit of portraying his family members in his work - this mural featured his previous wife, his son (if I recall correctly), amongst others. He didn't have any children with Frida (the bus accident). The painting included politicians like Benito Juarez, and the Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz. It also featured some of his themes, eg, family being evicted from their home, repressed worker, wicked banker etc. I liked Diego's work - the colours, the folklorish style, the density and detail. Most of all I liked his (socialist?) view that art belongs to the masses and hence his interest in public art and large murals.

This post brings me to the end of our stay in Mexico. Most of the backpackers in our hostel are moving on to other parts of Mexico and even South America but sigh, we are not amongst them. The Canadian girl is going down to Central America (where she hopes to learn Spanish) for a total of 3 months, the British vegetarian couple and the tall German girl are all off to Oaxaca. It is apparently only us kiasu Singaporeans who read US travel advisories on the situation in Oaxaca. The only other person here for a short stay was probably Hernand, the Peruvian who went on some of the same tours as we were. Hernand speaks as much English as I do Spanish so our conversations were necessarily limited. But I did manage to convey that we were studying administration and to get that he would be leaving for Peru the night just before we returned to the US. Maybe I am getting the hang of Espanol after being mistaken so many times as a hispanic.

Adios!