Alfonso Romo will continue to be his chief link with the private sector, said President López Obrador.
President López Obrador announced Wednesday that his chief of staff was stepping down but would continue to be his “main link” to the private sector.
López Obrador said on Twitter that Alfonso Romo, a business tycoon with interests in several sectors and a former olympic equestrian, agreed to serve two years in his government and that period has now concluded.
“He has helped me and will continue helping. He’s an independent and honest man, committed to just causes. In addition, he’s my friend,” he wrote.
“I will never forget that he was the first businessman to support the transformation movement,“ López Obrador said, referring to his government.
In addition to serving as the president’s chief of staff, Romo has headed up the National Council for the Promotion of Investment, Employment and Economic Growth.
He has pushed strongly for Mexico to take advantage of the trade war between the United States and China in order to attract greater investment. Romo has also said that Mexico has a signifiant opportunity to benefit from an increased regionalization of supply chains due to the coronavirus pandemic and the entry into force of the new North American free trade agreement, the USMCA.
The government has nevertheless implemented some policies, most notably in the energy sector, that are not seen as being particularly friendly to private investment.
It remains to be seen what impact, if any, Romo’s departure has on future policy decisions.
After López Obrador’s announcement, several business groups acknowledged the role the outgoing chief of staff has played in linking the business sector to the government.
“In complex circumstances, he acted as a translator [and] interlocutor” between the two parties, said Gustavo Hoyos, president of Coparmex, the Mexican Employers Federation.
“He was the brake on many [government] ideas,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that he had kept the “radicals” in check.
The Business Coordinating Council, an umbrella organization of 12 business groups, described Romo as a valuable member of the government and an “open-minded interlocutor” with whom “sincere dialogue” was always possible.
“He will certainly continue working for the good of Mexico in his upcoming duties. We will miss him.”
National Search Commissioner Karla Quintana: her task is to find 79,000 missing people.
Karla Quintana has a gargantuan and unenviable task: leading the search for more than 79,000 missing people, most of whom have disappeared since former president Felipe Calderón launched the so-called war on drugs in late 2006.
But despite the myriad challenges she faces, the National Search Commission (CNB) chief is determined to make progress and help bring justice to the countless family members tirelessly looking for their missing loved ones – even if it takes 10 or 20 years.
A report published Thursday by The Washington Post delves into the challenges Quintana is confronted with, looks at the context of Mexico’s missing persons crisis and paints a portrait of a woman intent on doing all she can to help lessen the pain of the many people who have never found out what happened to their disappeared sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.
A 41-year-old lawyer with a degree from Harvard, Quintana was appointed to the search commissioner role in February 2019, two months after President López Obrador came to power. The CNB was created at the tail end of the previous government’s 2012-2018 term and when Quintana took the reins it was severely underfunded.
One human rights activist said that she had taken on “the most impossible job in the country.”
Quintana was given a US $22-million budget to work with in her first year in the position, which the Post described as “significant but hardly enough,” explaining that in order to exhume and identify bodies buried in hidden graves – which are all too common in Mexico – she would have to rely on a corrupt and underfunded justice system.
However, Quintana “saw reasons for hope,” the Post said. Deputy Interior Minister Alejandro Encinas, a close ally of López Obrador, was her boss, and the president had promised to get to the bottom of Mexico’s most infamous recent missing persons case – that of the 43 students who were abducted and presumably murdered in Guerrero in 2014.
“Many people think human rights defenders should always be in opposition to the government,” she said. “I’d say there are moments in which it’s necessary — there is no other option – but to be in the government.”
Quintana knew that funding for the commission would not be boundless even though López Obrador had said “there is no budget limit, no financial ceiling” but she was nevertheless cautiously optimistic, stating: “For the first time, maybe in a limited manner, the state, as a state, is trying to give a response.”
Quintana’s appointment to head up the CNB, however, was not met with great enthusiasm by family members of missing persons – mainly mothers – who have been searching for their loved ones for months, years or decades with scant support from the authorities.
Silvia Ortiz, the leader of a group dedicated to searching for missing persons near the northern city of Torreón, Coahuila, is one such person.
A search brigade at work.
“What if she’s the kind of woman who just sits behind a desk?” was her initial thought when she heard about Quintana’s appointment.
But the search commissioner dispelled that notion by joining Ortiz and others as they searched through graves uncovered in the desert outside Torreón, where a decade ago members of the Zetas cartel discarded their victims’ remains after dismembering and burning them.
While proving that she wasn’t averse to getting down to the nitty gritty of searching for missing persons, Quintana, the Post noted, fired questions at Ortiz and a state forensic expert.
How long had they been digging? Four years. How much help had they received from the government? Not much. How many bodies were in each grave? Up to 10 pounds of pebbles — around three humans.
Quintana has also accompanied on-the-ground search efforts in other locations including Guanajuato, currently Mexico’s most violent state.
Back at CNB headquarters, Quintana found there were 40,000 names of missing persons in what the Post called “a crazy quilt of Excel documents and Word files, replete with duplications and typos.”
Quintana hired a team of people to create a consolidated and updated database of the disappeared and they started contacting state Attorney General’s Offices for their latest figures. But many declined to send their data and the records of some were a complete mess.
The CNB nevertheless put together a more accurate albeit incomplete database with more than 60,000 names. The figure has now risen to more than 79,000.
A year after she was appointed search commissioner, Quintana had a workforce of 89 employees – a huge increase compared to when she started – and had helped established government search commissions in every state in the country. In August, Mexico finally recognized the authority of the United Nations to conduct missing persons investigations – recognition that the armed forces had long opposed.
But Quintana also ran into obstacles: a CNB proposal that it be given access to information from all government departments including the federal Attorney General’s Office was blocked by justice officials who said that investigations could be compromised.
Family members of missing persons noted that López Obrador’s promise to involve “all the institutions” in the search for the disappeared had not been fulfilled.
Although Quintana doesn’t have a mandate to investigate crimes to establish who is responsible for the abductions and presumed murders of thousands of Mexicans, she is planning to undertake an endeavor that would aid the investigative process, at least in a small way.
Searchers dig up a clandestine grave in Sonora.
The Post said that “she was trying to set up a unit within her commission to write the histories of the disappeared” in order to “identify the patterns, the perpetrators in different regions.” The newspaper noted the justice system’s “abysmal” record of just 39 convictions from more than 11,7000 forced disappearance investigations between 2006 and 2019.
Quintana said she hoped that the histories could one day be presented as evidence for a judicial process or truth commission.
During the war on drugs years, which endured through the 2012-2018 presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, security forces including the military were linked to forced disappearances but drug cartels also carried out abductions and continue to do so.
The Post said that by the time Quintana took on the commissioner role it was “obvious that they [drug traffickers] often worked closely with corrupt officials.”
The newspaper said it is easy to blame the criminal groups but asserted that “the truth is more complicated.”
It said that after the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s 70-year-long authoritarian, one-party rule ended in 2000 Mexico as a fledgling democracy “failed to build a professional justice system, with well-trained and well-equipped police and prosecutors.”
As a result, impunity today is rampant, giving criminals confidence that they won’t be held accountable for their wrongdoings.
“The use of violence is less regulated than it was before,” said Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, the co-founder of Noria Research, a collective of researchers and analysts that studies international affairs and conflict. “Many more people are using violence.”
Indeed, 2020 is on track to be the most violent year in recent history. Reported disappearances, at just over 6,000 to date this year, are lower than in each of 2019, 2018 and 2017 but are still no doubt very high.
Mexico may have a competent and committed search commissioner but given the enormity of her task that is likely cold comfort for the countless citizens who have had no closure to their living nightmares and courageously carry on searching for their missed loved ones, day in, day out.
Responding to an anonymous tip, local, state, and federal authorities broke up a massive quinceañera block party Wednesday that had closed down an entire street in an Acapulco neighborhood, according to municipal government sources.
The illegal party in Puerto Marqués had attracted 500 guests and featured live music and guests without face masks, said officials, who arrived at around midnight to break up the party. In a video, guests could be seen beginning to leave as soon they saw the authorities — which included members of Civil Protection, state police, the National Guard, and the army.
“We urge the populace to be responsible and not relax the preventative measures of the Ministry of Health,” said municipal authorities in a press release.
Quinceañeras are a traditional way of celebrating a 15-year-old girl’s birthday, not unlike a sweet-16 party. They are often lavish events featuring live music, dancing, and spectacles put on for guests. The guest count is often large, and the event is not unlike a wedding.
Highway construction projects are among those in the plan.
The public-private plan to build 68 infrastructure projects with an investment of almost 526 billion pesos (US $26.4 billion) will have a limited impact on the Mexican economy, according to analysts who spoke to the newspaper Reforma.
The infrastructure plan includes highway, energy and public transit projects.
Alejandro Saldaña, chief economist at the financial company Ve por Más, noted that the investment associated with the projects is only equivalent to 2.3% of GDP and therefore will not have a large impact.
“We need to remember that the investment in these projects is spread out over the course of their development, which will take years,” he added.
Saldaña said that there will be some economic benefits from the investment but they will be seen in the medium rather than short term.
“We see this [plan] as insufficient for investment to return to the levels there were before [2018] – more than 20% of GDP,” he said.
Saldaña also said that the resources the private sector will invest are not yet set in stone and that it is not certain that the government has the funds needed for the projects in which it will have majority participation.
Roberto Ballinez, senior infrastructure director at HR Ratings, said that public resources earmarked for the projects could be reallocated if the coronavirus pandemic worsens.
“The issue of the health emergency and the purchase of vaccines is extremely important,” he said. “… If there is a significant increase in infections, … it could have indirect effects for these projects.”
Ballinez said it was positive that the government and private sector are working together but noted that the number of projects announced is well short of the 1,600 potential projects identified by members of the latter last year.
In a best case scenario the economic benefits of the projects won’t be seen until the second half of 2021, he said.
Saldaña said the government should be trying to attract more investment to sectors such as renewable energy and oil, which in fact have been made more difficult to enter due to policy decisions taken by an administration led by a staunch nationalist president and fierce critic of the 2014 reform that ended the state energy monopoly.
“Economically speaking, we believe that there are not many arguments not to be more aggressive and take advantage of the potential the country has to attract investment in these sectors. This would also help to generate more confidence in the economic policy,” he said.
Ricardo Trejo, director general of business information company Forecastim, predicted that private investment in the energy sector will be minimal because the government is seeking a more dominant role for state-owned companies such as Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission.
“There are no signs at the moment that it will allow more private sector investment to arrive in this area. The production and exploration of hydrocarbons will continue to be Pemex or government [activities] and there will only be opportunity for investment in liquefaction or logistics.”
The Programa Paisano launch in Tijuana on Wednesday.
Despite a Covid-19 travel ban across the Mexico-United States land border, Mexico’s Programa Paisano got up and running yesterday for the winter season, preparing to welcome home an expected 500,000 Mexican nationals for holiday visits.
The year-round program’s mission is to facilitate the transit of Mexican nationals living in the U.S. and Canada while they visit their home country. The program has special campaigns during the summer and winter, the busiest times of the year for Mexicans living abroad to come back to visit. In 2019, it served 4 million people. This year, it has so far served 600,000, a decrease which officials attribute to the pandemic.
Many of those visitors, living permanently in the United States and Canada, are expected to cross the land border into Mexico which, by agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, is supposed to be closed in both directions to all but essential travel until at least December 21 in order to slow the spread of Covid-19.
But officials with the National Immigration Institute (INM) say it would be impossible to stop Mexicans coming home to see family during the holidays.
“You can’t prohibit a Mexican from exercising his right to return to his home country,” said commissioner Francisco Garduño, adding that the institute will be taking all necessary health safety measures at the border.
Last month, Mexico surpassed 1 million Covid-19 cases. Virtually every state in the country is at least at yellow status on the national coronavirus stoplight map.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently called for “prudence” and encouraged Mexicans to avoid border crossings between Mexico and the U.S. for reasons of recreation, tourism, or “the celebrations that traditionally take place in these months,” but the tone seemed far from authoritative.
“We know that despite the recommendation, they are going to cross the border, so we have to be ready to attend to the needs of migrants who may come to visit their families,” said Luis Gutiérrez, head of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad, a federal agency.
While crossing into the U.S. is generally agreed to be vigilantly monitored to make sure travelers have a valid reason to enter, many report that the situation is not the same going in the opposite direction. In recent months, citizens and lawmakers alike in border states have called upon Mexico to enforce the travel ban supposedly in place. That the Programa Paisano will carry on more or less as usual seems indicative that the situation is not likely to change.
Certainly, at INM’s official launch of the program’s winter campaign this week in Tijuana, attitudes seemed welcoming and even encouraging of Mexicans coming home for the holidays: officials played an upbeat video featuring President López Obrador, who highlighted the contributions of Mexican migrants during times of uncertainty, implicitly referring to billions of dollars in remittances that Mexicans send home each year.
“We are going to protect you and care for you because you are Mexicans, because you are coming to your country, because you help us; and in these times, more than ever, you are supporting us. You deserve the best of treatment, to be received like heroes — our migrant countrymen,” said López Obrador in the video.
The ethane plant that has been effectively shut down by the government.
The federal government has cut off the supply of natural gas to an ethylene plant in Veracruz that is majority-owned by a subsidiary of Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht, intensifying a dispute between the two parties.
President López Obrador told reporters at his news conference on Wednesday that the supply contract with Braskem, a Brazilian petrochemical firm that has a 70% stake in the Etileno XXI plant, has ended.
“There’s no more natural gas for the company because the contract has ended,” he said.
López Obrador said there was no possibility of renewing the contract because it allowed the sale of ethane gas to Braskem at below-market prices to the detriment of public coffers and the state oil company Pemex, the supplier.
The National Gas Control Center (Cenagas), the government’s gas pipeline administrator, informed Braskem-Idesa on Monday that the contract for the supply of natural gas to the plant in Nachital, Veracruz, would not be renewed.
Grupo Idesa, a Mexican petrochemical company, has a 30% stake in the plant.
“It’s a contract with Odebrecht, a company that is famous for extortion and corruption,” López Obrador said. “… [The contract] wasn’t terminated, it reached its end date and it won’t be renewed.”
Odebrecht has been embroiled in corruption scandals in several Latin American countries including Mexico, where it admitted to paying bribes to the previous federal government in exchange for lucrative contracts.
The decision to cut off the supply of natural gas to its subsidiary effectively puts the Veracruz plant out of business.
“Cenagas’s actions have caused the total suspension of the plant’s processes,” Braskem-Idesa said in a statement without saying when operations might resume.
The consortium accused the government of placing the safety of the plant and its employees at risk by cutting the gas supply abruptly instead of providing 48 hours of reduced supply that would have allowed operations to be shut down safely. It also said that the decision would have an impact on the national petrochemical industry and the economy as a whole.
Braskem-Idesa claimed that its “rights, including multiple current legal provisions” have been violated and pledged to take action to defend them.
The consortium also said it has “repeatedly expressed our willingness to discuss with the authorities the issues that are raised … in relation to the operation of Braskem-Idesa and its contracts with Mexican state companies, bringing proposals for solutions.”
“We ask for respect for the rule of law,” it added before calling on the government to “rectify” the decision taken by Cenagas.
Relations between the federal government and Braskem-Idesa were already strained before the supply of natural gas was cut because the former has been seeking to renegotiate a separate contract for the supply of ethane for the manufacture of ethylene and in turn polyethylene, the most common plastic in the world today.
Signed in 2010 by the government led by former president Felipe Calderón, the contract obliges Pemex to supply ethane to Braskem-Idesa at US $0.16 per gallon until 2034. At the time, the two parties entered into the agreement, ethane had a market price of 50 cents per gallon.
López Obrador has also branded the deal as unfair, asserting that it has cost the government millions of dollars.
A senior official in the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office was found dead Wednesday in Culiacán in his car, which was riddled with over 100 bullet holes.
Ramón Muñiz, commander and coordinator of the Special Unit for Apprehensions, had just left his house and was on his way to work when, according to security cameras in the area, he was attacked in his Nissan Sentra in the Balcones de Valle neighborhood by at least two men with automatic weapons. Authorities found Muñiz’s car on the sidewalk.
The National Guard arrested a male suspect outside Mazatlán later in the day.
Muñiz, who in his 24-year career with the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office served on units related to everything from cattle theft to narco-crime reduction, is the eighth security officer in 2020 to be killed in the state.
The most recent case was in October, when a security officer identified as Salvador “N” was found shot to death by a river in Culiacán, near his burned-out car.
Commercial space left vacant by the closure of one of a million small businesses.
More than 1 million small and medium-sized businesses have closed permanently since the middle of last year, mainly due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study by the national statistics agency Inegi.
The agency determined that 1,010,857 businesses have shut their doors for good since May 2019, a figure that represents 20.8% of the 4.86 million small and medium-sized businesses counted by Inegi that month.
Inegi president Julio Santaella told a virtual press conference that business closures increased during the pandemic period, which in Mexico’s case began in March.
“We can’t confirm the cause [of the closures] but we can definitely say that the pandemic is a factor,” he said.
José Luis de la Cruz, director of the Institute for Industrial Development and Economic Growth, a think tank, said the “massive closure” of businesses was “historic” and indicative of the depth of the impact of the coronavirus on the economy.
The businesses that closed employed almost 3 million people, while those that continue to operate have reduced the size of their workforces by 1.15 million positions. All told 4.12 million jobs have been lost since May 2019.
On a more positive note, almost 620,000 new small and medium-sized businesses have opened since Inegi’s 2019 economic census. Those businesses created 1.23 million jobs.
The net result is that there are now 4.46 million small and medium-sized businesses, 8% fewer than in May 2019, and 11.77 million people are employed by them, a reduction of 2.89 million or 19.7%.
Inegi also determined via a survey that 86.6% of businesses in Mexico were negatively affected in some way by the coronavirus pandemic. Almost 80% of companies surveyed said that their revenue decreased, 51% said that they faced low demand during the pandemic and 23% said they had difficulties obtaining supplies and products.
Almost 16% of businesses said that they would only be able to continue operating for another three months if their revenue remained at the current level. Almost half – 46.6% – said that they could survive the next three to 12 months without an increase in income while 37.6% expressed confidence that they will be able to continue operating for more than a year even if their revenue doesn’t pick up.
Marco Arias, an analyst with the Monex financial group, said there is more optimism among businesses now than when Inegi conducted the same survey in April.
“But beyond the improvement, the impacts of the virus [on business] are very serious and profound,” he said.
The most recent Inegi survey also found that the vast majority of businesses received no financial support from the government to help them weather the coronavirus storm.
Only 5.9% said that they received support – the government offered small loans to small businesses but refused to help larger companies – while 94.1% said they did not.
Just over 61% of businesses surveyed by Inegi said that the assistance they most require to survive the pandemic is fiscal support. Just over 40% said the postponement of loan repayments and the payment of services such as electricity would help them while 30% said that they need new loans.
Almost 38% of businesses said they expected they would be late in making debt repayments in the coming months, although that figure dropped to 19.3% among large companies.
President López Obrador dismissed the findings at Thursday’s press conference, saying he was not worried by them.
“… I have information showing that private consumption hasn’t fallen, jobs are being recovered, there are no food shortages, there isn’t a high cost of living, there is no devaluation of the peso, we haven’t put ourselves in debt, taxes haven’t increased.”
The president indicates his approval ratings at Wednesday's press conference.
President López Obrador presented a federal government poll on Wednesday showing that 71% of respondents want him to continue in the nation’s top job until the end of his six-year term in 2024.
The poll – which the president referred to in a speech Tuesday to mark his second anniversary in office – was conducted by the Ministry of the Interior over the telephone with 2,500 people, López Obrador told reporters at his regular news conference.
“Yesterday I announced that we did a poll last weekend and [in response] to the question asking if you want me to continue or to quit we have 71% [of respondents] in favor of me continuing,” he said. “I think that about 25% are against [me continuing as president] and 4% didn’t say.”
López Obrador, best known as AMLO, intends to hold a “revocation of mandate” referendum in early 2022 and has vowed to step down if a majority of citizens vote in favor of him leaving office. The president suggested that was unlikely to happen, although two recent newspaper polls found that his support is closer to 60% than 70%.
“I always have other information and we know what is happening,” said López Obrador, who has a tendency to label polls and media reports he doesn’t agree with as biased.
“It was a telephone poll, it couldn’t be done face to face; maybe if it was done directly we’d do better,” he said, explaining that only 20% of people in Chiapas – where the president is popular – have landlines.
The government poll also found that 60% of respondents believe that López Obrador is a better president than his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, while 17.5% think he is worse.
However, not all of the poll’s findings were flattering for AMLO. Almost half of the respondents – 47.2% – said that their economic situation has worsened under the current government and only 12.8% said they were better off. About four in 10 respondents said their financial situation hadn’t changed.
López Obrador also revealed that the poll respondents gave him an average score of 6.6 out of 10 for his performance as president. While hardly a ringing endorsement, the president said that his grade was higher than that of Peña Nieto, whose government was plagued by corruption scandals.
AMLO said he will present the government’s own polling results from time to time, saying: “As there is freedom of course anyone can do a poll – we’ll announce our [results] periodically.”
It remains to be seen whether he will have additional information to counter the “other information” should the future results not be to his liking.
Often associated with birthdays, piñatas also feature in Christmastime posadas. Joseph Sorrentino
The procession for the posada begins, as do virtually all processions in San Gregorio Atlapulco, Mexico City, with cohetes (bottle rockets) exploding overhead.
“Cohetes announce the beginning of the procession,” said Aristides Norberto Enriquez Nieto. “It’s like when the church rings its bells. It is also to give thanks.”
Posadas take place each year all over Mexico from December 16–24 and are reenactments of Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to sleep. As far as I can tell, though, there is no mention in the Bible of them using cohetes during their search.
Posadas were begun in Mexico in 1587 when Fray Diego de Soria, the director of the San Agustín de Acolman monastery (located in what is now the state of México), obtained permission from the Pope to hold special Masses during nine days in December. Although posadas originated in Spain, they are most closely associated with Mexico. Like many Mexican celebrations, they have underlying elements of indigenous culture and religion.
The Aztecs celebrated the birth of Huitzilopochtil, their god of war, during the month called Panquetzaliztli, which corresponds to our month of December.
Posada processions through the neighborhood are a candlelit affair.
“There were 20 days of ceremonies to honor Huitzilopochtil,” says Javier Marquéz Juaréz, who has studied Aztec history. These ceremonies included celebrations in homes, processions and special foods.
“December 21, the winter solstice, was considered to be the birth of Huitzilopochtil,” Marquez continued.
Aztec celebrations culminated on December 25.
The nine days of posadas each represent one month of Mary’s pregnancy. “The first eight are organized by mayordomos [lay religious leaders],” says Marquéz. “The ninth and final one, on December 24, is organized by the padrino del niño del pueblo.”
Before the procession begins, people gather in the large yard in front of Enriquez Nieto’s home; he’s the padrino.
“I waited three years to be a padrino,” he said. “My father and my grandfather were padrinos. To be a padrino, one needs to ask the current one … one must follow the rules and regulations of the church. You’re an example of the church. I did it to thank God.”
There is food — lots of food — a band, drinks and a piñata, which is traditionally included during posadas, hanging from a wire.
Chinelos are costumed dancers who are part of posada processions.
“The piñata is a Christian symbol,” explained Marquéz. “It is a star with seven points, each point representing one of the cardinal sins.”
Children whack at the piñata with a small stick, hoping to break it open, releasing the candy inside. “It is broken to destroy the sins,” said Marquéz.
After the piñata is dispatched, cohetes are lit.
“Cohetes let the Chinelos know it is time to come and form the procession,” said Enriquez. Chinelos are dancers famous for their colorful flowing costumes, large hats and masks. They originated in Morelos during the colonial era as a way to mock European dress and mannerisms, and over time their popularity has spread to other Mexican states.
There are now groups in Xochimilco (which is where San Gregorio is located) and Milpa Alta, two boroughs in Mexico City, where Chinelos often participate in celebrations. They perform a simple dance called the brincón (jump), which involves a sort of jumping up and down in place to music and which they are somehow able to perform for hours.
Chinelos are another element of posadas not mentioned in the Bible, but, said Enriquez, “Chinelos add more joy to the fiesta.”
A local boy and girl play the parts of Mary and Joseph seeking a place to stay the night.
As the procession leaves Enriquez’ home, his niece and nephew, dressed as Mary and Joseph, are lifted onto a donkey that they’ll ride to the church. Enriquez, as padrino, gently places a figure of the baby Jesus onto a white cloth which he and his wife carry.
More cohetes and other fireworks — some of them surprisingly large and dangerous-looking — are lit as the procession makes its way through the pueblo, where the streets are lined with people holding candles and sparklers. The procession makes several stops along the route, and each time it does, there’s a bit of theater. And when the procession pulls up in front of the church or a chapel or a person’s home, the crowd asks for permission to enter. Like Mary and Joseph in the Bible, they’re denied entrance at all except the last stop, where the doors are finally opened.
On nights where the final stop for a posada is the church, a Mass is held. On December 24, the Mass is held at midnight. But on nights where the final stop is a person’s home, more food and drink are served and the fiesta continues.
Joseph Sorrentino is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
