Mexican Monuments

TFR Home Page

Contents

Prev. Page

Comments

Mexican Monuments
By Cary Griffith

To get a proper sense of this place
we board a Merida tour bus.
The guide drives us down the wide
boulevard Paseo de Montejo, named after the
Spaniard 'who founded the town.'
He shows us the Cathedral of San Ildelfonso,
oldest catholic church on the American
continent, the Museo de Antropologico, where
we can study the Mayan past, the
Palacio Municipal containing twelve ghastly
murals depicting the Yucatan's bloody past;
quelled insurrections, Indian wars, slave labor.

But none of the twenty odd attractions
describe this place as well as the
Merida open air market where
later, on our own,
we watch the mestizo butcher
slicing pig's feet with a bandsaw.
He pushes the knuckles through in a kind
of fury, one hand strong and able,
the other a tanned stump.