Tzotziles

This weekend I had the opportunity to visit two Tzotzil villages (another indigenous group) close to San Cristobal, whose women and even the smallest girls dress in these beautiful traditional clothes, with colourful scarfs and woolen skirts. The women´s job is keeping sheep and weaving these clothes.
In San Juan Chamula, we visited a very special church. The Chamulas decided years ago to take over the church, throw out the priests and use the church as they feel suits. So all along the walls all the dolls of all the saints you can think of are collocated, with an incredible number of candles in front of them and neon lights around the virgin of Guadaloupe (the country´s patrona). There are no chairs, but pine needles all over the ground where the people sit down and do their own rituals (often for healing) in which they use candles, prayers and posh (alcoholic drink), Fanta and Pepsi Cola!! They throw some of it on the ground, and then drink the rest.
The church is decorated with big cloths hanging from the ceiling (and I cannot resist the typical Dutch thought: does no-one here think about fire safety?) and palm branches.
If you can stand the parafin smell and smoke for long enough you can observe whole families, including their chicken (!!), congregating in this odd spectacle.