Abuelita

Photograph by Jay Ailworth

If the day had gone as planned I would never have had a chance at this shot. My wife and I were living in Mexico in 2010 when we took a trip to the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico to celebrate a version of Carnival. One morning we went to the town of San Juan Chamula. The town does not allow anyone not from the area to take pictures there. We visited a catholic church were live chicken sacrifices are still made to this day. Traditional outdoor offerings do still happen during isolated agricultural ceremonies, public animal sacrifices inside actual Catholic churches are a distinct trademark of Chamula, Chiapas. That is why we were there but not actually the most important part of our visit. The town was celebrating a festival of some sort and was doing a version of the running of the bulls around the town square. I was standing on the edge of the plaza when the guys running the bull lost control of it and it broke toward the crowd with them hanging on to slow it down. This was a long horned bull and it was heading right at me. At the last moment I allowed myself to go limp and fall backward as people in the crowd also tugged at my shirt. The horn missed me by mere inches! Our tour guide was so distressed by almost losing one of her clients that she decided to take us to another small town for lunch. She knew a family of weavers there willing to show us their shop and make lunch for us. In this area of Chiapas most of the villages are very close knit and outsiders are not welcome so this was a very special offer. I asked our guide if I would be allowed to take pictures in the shop and she assured me these were her very good friends and they woul make us welcome. There was another parade of sorts going on outside and the whole family stood around me outside their house to protect me while I shot pictures. Then it was back inside for lunch. The people in this area are descendents of the mayans and many do not even speak spanish but only mayan. The woman in the image, who is one of those who only speak mayan, is the matriarch of the family and this is her at work heating the tortillas for our lunch. The only light in the room was from open windows and the wood fire itself.