Church Etiquette in Dolores Hidalgo

Thoroughly exhausted and need of refreshment, we went across the church plaza and back to the city's central plaza for some of Dolores Hidalgo's famous ice cream. After looking over the scores, and I mean scores of ice cream, we chose strawberries and cream. We had selections available to us ranging from cream of whiskey, tequila, beer, bacardi, avocado, corn, shrimp, pork rind, mole, and muffin-that's right, all ice cream!

When we retreated to a bench to watch the church from which the funeral had expelled us to see a covey of Gringos walking into the church with cameras, short pants, and halter tops. These were not young people and yet they were waltzing into the church wearing clothes inappropriate and were armed with cameras.

A word to the wise is that this is not America, believe it or not, and the Mexican not only find it disrupting to begin taking pictures of sacred and solemn services, such as the funeral that was going on in that church, but American gringos are well known in Mexico for doing just that--disrupting. Another event which comes to mind is the Day of the Dead services in Patzcuaro where they still practice the tradition of sitting at the gravesites of their loved ones celebrating this event as they've done for centuries. There are actual tours for gringos that take you to the graveyards at midnight and it turns into a circus with gringos trampling all over the graves of the Mexican's loved ones trying to get the best shots. They set off the strobe flashes in the faces of these poor indigenous people who are at their loved one's graves trying to remember them in a solemn and holy occasion.

It happens elsewhere:

" In the Jesuits´ grand edifice built in 1747, a young woman in blue jeans proceeded on her knees, tears in her eyes, from the side altar to the Virgen de Guadalupe (many photographs of children laid on the altar) toward the main altar to the Virgen de Guanajuato. Gum-chewing tourists snapped pictures of her, their flashes going off like sharp darts of light. She went on, involved in her sorrow, making her private penitence. Two well-groomed elder women dressed the side altars with fresh lilies and new candles. A child with a Midwestern accent stomped her feet on the stones and complained loudly, "I'm sick of churches! I want to go back to the hotel and watch TV!" -- Article printed from Kendall's Quest:: http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Grannygold

So, please, stay out of churches if you are inappropriately dressed and do not disrupt the services. The church the gringos were entering actually has signs in English forbidding the taking of flash pictures and entering the church wearing shorts. However, we sat there and watched it happen. The fact the gringos didn't come right back out of the church told me that they were not heeding the signs.