Vela De Amor - Oaxaca City

Saturday night and cabbies are pulling up to the Salon Abcdiel at the corner of Bustamante and Zaragoza in the city of Oaxaca, disgorging their cargo of attractive young indigenous women, some in cocktail dress, others resplendent in full length gowns. The revelers and their dates are attending the Vela de Amor, part dance party and part beauty contest, held in a big concrete masonry hall with the odd Moorish detail, a few blocks to the south of Oaxaca's lovely Zocalo, the Mexican baroque town square renowned for it's stately beauty.

This is the Mexico never seen from the perspective of U.S. based news coverage, focused as it is on the violent drug war in border cities like Juarez. The city of Oaxaca has it's own problems—five days before the party at Salon Abcdiel, federal police clashed with the local teacher's union in the Zocalo. Several were hospitalized. Mexican President Calderon was visiting new Oaxacan governor Gabino Cue, sparking protests, what with the Oaxacan political scene still smarting after a 2006 popular uprising.

Oaxaca is a poor state in southern Mexico, and has suffered under more than 80 years of rule by the PRI (People's Institutional Revolutionary Party) until Cue's recent election. By and large the drug war of president Felipe Calderon has a far lower profile here than in the north. The city of Oaxaca sits at the confluence of three valleys, a cultural and artistic jewel with some of the most delicious and interesting cuisine in the country. As in other parts of Mexico, tourists are staying away in droves. This is rough stuff in a city with no industry other than tourism and Mezcal, the mysterious smokey distilled agave spirit that typifies the soul of Oaxaca, and has never penetrated the U.S. Market.

Back a the Salon Abcdiel, the revelers are well aware of Mexico's grave problems, but this is a night for other matters. The salsa band works their poly-rhythmic tattoo of horns, percussion and guitar into the air and the shaking booties of the assembled. Two hundred pesos (about $17.00) gets you in the door and the ticket counter attendant hands you a small case of beer. Walk it to the enormous cooler at the side of the hall, full of ice and beer. Hand it to a beaming waiter in white guayabera shirt and black slacks, and he hands you back an ice cold beer. It's understood that you can return through the night and drink your fill from there on in.

A glance around the cavernous room reveals the band onstage at the far end. There are ten smartly clad musicians onstage, their energetic steps and virtuosic riffs emanate from the stage. Folding chairs line either side of the hall, as if the party was preceded by a revival meeting. The center of the room is left for the dance floor, with a few couples tentatively working the salsa or mambo at the early hour of 11:00 p.m., when the party is just getting some lift under it's dance legs. Groups of stunning indigenas chat, drink and eat with their friends.

Upon spotting a claque of my friends, I join them—no sooner do I sit down, but the mistress of ceremonies greets me with a plate of Isthmus style seafood tostadas. Indeed, the Vela de Amor celebrates the people and culture of the nearby Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrow waist of Mexico where the Atlantic and Pacific come closest.

The celebration centers around the beautiful Zapoteca women in their party dresses and nose bleed heels—classic beauties with their brown skin, high cheekbones and flat noses. But these are girls with a little something extra, maybe the shoulders are a little wide, some waists a bit too thick. Yup, these are dudes in dresses, the Muxes of Oaxaca, accepted since before the Spanish conquest as a third gender, especially on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. In traditional Zapotec culture, many families had a Muxe son, who from youth might exhibit more female traits and would be raised as a girl.

And here I am just before midnight, one of four non-locals from the north lucky enough to score an invite to the party. The other three are my friends, and indeed are all at the party on one invite. One of my fiends is an art professor in the U.S. and a part time Oaxaca resident. She has entered the world of the Muxes as a photographer, carefully building relationships and trust in order to document Muxe lives. I hear about the party from her, and in fact arrive separately sans invite. Given the nature of the event and the fact that there is still a lot of machismo running around out in the streets, the security was on the heavy side. So it was that an armed, uniformed guard was about to turn me away for lack of an invitation.

The aforementioned mistress of ceremonies dances quickly to my rescue, a robust Muxe mincing across the floor in her heels with a shock of curly jet hair and gleaming eyes. She smilingly rebuffs the security guard, takes me by the hand and pulls me into the party—after all, I am the only cross dresser there from El Norte, why not give a T-girl a chance to get in on the fun? At 6'4” in heels and my real-estate-agent-goes-jungle mini skirt ensemble and eighties metal hair, I somehow make the grade and am granted entry to the Vela de Amor.

Okay so maybe I am a wee bit nervous with this. My Spanish is good not great, and I am very clearly an outsider, so I employ my status as a journalist to strike up conversation and to get some photos. Of course the girls are gracious with my requests for photos. Across cultures, transgender women love to be photographed, part of their reward for all that work getting dolled up. I am surprised and delighted as others approach and ask if I would photograph them—gay couples, family groups including Muxes. The Salon Abcdiel is filled with a warm feeling of community. This is a safe space where not only the Muxes, but the larger LGBT community of Oaxaca can come to be themselves and enjoy life.

At midnight, the band leaves the stage and an emcee announces it's time for the beauty parade. Waves of Muxes carrying banners sashay across the floor to a traditional promenade over the speakers. Two groups are created at each end of the hall, last year's court and this year's court. Clearly the decisions have been made as to Queen and courtesians, this is simply the official presentation. This years queen regally struts the length of the hall in a black sequined gown finished with a layer of sheer magenta, radiating warmth but still haughty as could be. The crowd cascades applause upon the Queen and her court, the feeling in the room building to a rock concert cresendo of buzz and good vibes.

After the presentation, the band wastes no time getting back to work and neither do the queens and their community in filling the dance floor. And man can these folks cut the rug, lyric and stylish as they pirhouette across the room. I count myself one lucky girl to get in on the Vela de Amor.

Mexico is a country with huge problems, not the least of which is an ingrained culture of corruption. But it is also a place where people are ingenious in their resourcefulness, and relentless in their embrace of living life to it's fullest. Their art, culture, cuisine and historic legacy all brim with a singular zest for life that is always becoming itself in utterly surprising, even surreal ways. No matter what political woes beset this land and culture, the people of Mexico will always find not only a way to live, but a way to celebrate life.

Note from Fiona: Yes, this is the second Muxe Vela article I've posted here, but this one is sort of slanted to a general audience, and was a very different scene from the Vela I wrote about in Juchitan.
And I don't know what the official name of this Vela was, but it was around Valentine's day, so I decided to call it the Vela de Amor!