Had a happy lunch in Xico today at restaurant La Concordia, starting with local specialty Sopa de Xonequi, which is a soups of black beans, local Xonequi leaf, little balls of steamed masa corn dough, little squares of mexican fresh white cheese. It's very rich and black, with fresh patted and grilled harinas 'de puro maíz, no de maseca, con un poco de la salsa de ------' (whatever that was) she said).
Since the tortillas were being made right then and there, we were eating the soup and then mole and trout to her rhythm of tortilla patting, pat pat pat pat PAT!, with gentle,accordion and the ch-ch-CH, ch-ch-CH clicking rhythms of norteña music in the background
The town is very proud of its bullring and its 'running of the Bulls' event and its waterfall and its mole but we are the most fascinated that everyone knows how to talk in the soft, gentle language of whistles. It's done very quietly, I guess because the sound does carry far if loud and the conversation is meant only for the person near you (often, that we can't see) or the one you are searching for, these days everyone is using it.. Our waitress said they hold classes in it during January maybe cause there is less field work then, between coffee harvests or something like that. We passed a girl about six or seven softly whistling to call a parent we could not see.
Here is a link to a documentary of Chinantec people, a few mountain ranges south in the state of Oaxaca, speaking this way (there is a YouTube clip at the bottom to the David Yetman, In The Americas TV documentary about it. It's so fun to hear! There is a lot of birdsong in these towns too, so it's very easy to get faked out! Is that bird talking about us??!!
Some views. The town's cathedral,
Some countryside (the bananas are there to shade coffee growing below them)
Some of the great food and its prep
Some Cowboys (!)
Neat plants
Street scenes
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