Las Mañanitas

Unlike in Australia, in Mexico we celebrate Mother´s Day on 10 May (it doesn´t matter what day of the week it is). And even though it isn´t officially a public holiday, the people stops what they´re doing to celebrate the day with their mums. Most of the students don´t have to go to schools, most of the shops are closed, and most of the people have meals (lunch: 2-5pm) with their mums at the restaurants.

Another custom that is very common here is called ´Las Mañanitas´. It is a traditional Mexican serenade that is sung after midnight for special people during their birthday or during Mother´s Day. To hear the most commonly sung Las Mañanitas, click here.

One day before the Mother´s Day, I was invited by my Compa Bible Study friends to join Las Mañanitas with them. We gathered at Compa´s headquarter at 8pm for practice and we left at about 10pm. There were about 12 of us altogether. We went around to each other´s house and some of the grandma´s houses to sing the ´serenata´. We sang about 3 to 4 song in each house that we visited.

We wake our mums up by singing loudly for them:) And once they got up, we´ll shout ´¡Que salga!¡Que salga!´to ask them to come out of the house. We´re invited to come in to some of the houses and in one of the house that we visited, we were served with warm atole (drink made of milk and some sort of flour) - ¡Que rico! yummmm...

We got to my house by 3am and I felt soooooo bad having to wake up my mum because I knew that she has to get up early in the morning to work. But she is a very nice and appreciative person, so she was very happy that we did the las mañanitas for her even though we wake her up at 3am!

Then, I was going to stay at my home and not finishing the las mañanitas, but thanks to Alvarito who told me that we´re only going to 2 more houses very close to mine, I changed my mind and went with them. And guess what time I arrived back home? 7 in the morning!!!!Jajajaajjajaja......It was a great cultural experience, though!:)

In my opinion, in Mexico, a cultural event like this is a good opportunity to make contact, build relationship, and witness to the non-Christians. Because during the las mañanitas, not only the Compa student came, but also their non-Christian friends and family. During this time, we have lots of time (the whole night) to get to know each other and much opportunity for the non-Christians to see how we act and how we relate to each other. Please pray for the Compa students that they may continue to live a Godly lives and to boldly share the message of the gospel as they relate to their non-Christians friends and family through cultural events like this.