Today we had an excursion to first an agricultural, Maya settlement (Zinacantan) and then to a traditional Maya market with an extraordinary church (Chamula). To quickly touch on the church at Chamula (our second stop), it was a normal, one roomed church with NO pews, but rather, little families clustered around rows of candles, all aflame, the floor lightly coated with pine leaves. We were fortunate enough to witness two traditional ceremonies, one involving the sacrifice of a chicken, which came as a great shock to us. One minute one of us had pointed and said, “Hey look! There’s a chicken in the church!” and literally only seconds later, a man quite firmly broke that same chicken’s neck in the light of the candles.

But on to a more joyous topic, Zinacantan was an incredible, rural, town set in the mountains away from San Cristobal, but while it seemed to be located out in the middle of nowhere, it was actually a mere 15 minutes from Chiapas’ capital. We had the pleasure of visiting a Maya household and familiarizing ourselves with the traditional clothing and drink, and by that I mean, we played dress up and had various, homemade shots. There was a little story to our seemingly pointless costume party - the story of a wedding. Lucky me played the bride living out my dream wedding betrothed to who else but Robert Dawley. Never was there a prouder father than Matt Zuber who sold me to He-Dawley for a handsome 500 pesos (a little less than $50 in the US) and some sheep as it was custom in that society (in the past). I was to be Robert’s third wife, which came as a shock to me since I had only ever seen Ellen hovering around him, which leads me to wonder where his second wife has been stored away. Kaitlyn, playing the role of Dawley’s mother, stood grinning by his side fashioning a lovely shawl hat. We celebrated with the homemade alcohol of the household, indulging in 4 strangely flavored shots. But no wedding would be complete without photos! So today, I have converted the rest of my blog into a Wedding Album! Enjoy!


Here we see Robert showing off his fashionable man purse. But, more impressive is his sombrero, rarely have I seen a more festive hat.


My every day outfit before slipping on the wedding dress.


Dressing the father and the mother. Don’t worry, that woman isn’t choking Kaitlyn, she’s just so overcome with happiness that she appears to be in overwhelming pain.


Me, the bride to be, smiling in my traditional wedding gown and veil. It should be noted, that most of my time in the garb was spent securing the veil to my head, for should this veil fall it signaled the loss of my virginity, which is just full of all sorts of tragic implications.


The entire bridal party followed by…


…WEDDING SHOTS! And there was much rejoicing.