Not your ordinary birthday party

Last week we attended a birthday family gathering unlike any other we'd known before.( -And for those of you who are familiar with Rainbow Family Gatherings, the pun is intended. It was strikingly similar to a rainbow kitchen meal- )Our next door neighbors invited us to their grandmother's 85th birthday. It was a perfect opportunity to get a big dose of Mexican culture even though there's a small part of us that thinks they just keep trying to get us out to the sticks because they want to sell us some of their land. Whatever their intentions are however it was quite the experience. So on a Monday evening off we went out to the hills of rural Oaxaca to encounter where the elders of our neighbor's family live. The grandparents and great grandmother stay in a very small 1 room cabana and live traditionally. There is an outdoor earthen cooking area, a full size soccer field complete with sticks in the ground fashioned as goals, lots of empty space and no electricity or running water.
When we arrived the women, barefoot and with braided hair to their waists, still had masa on their hands from making tamales and we were offered fresh coconuts that were gathered for the occasion. These particular coconuts were young and perfect and brimming with coconut water as sweet as it gets. We sat and talked with the grandpa as the kids played a soccer match and the women washed dishes. Soon more family arrived as the sun began to set an kerosene lamps were lit around the picnic table. In this family when it's someone's birthday, a meal of tamales is prepared for the whole clan. The meal that was prepared was very traditional for Oaxaca: chicken mole tamales(probably one of their very own chickens from the coop) wrapped in banana leaves, atole(a sweet corn meal drink), and later pineapple "dulce tamales" for dessert. We ate in the dark around the picnic table while the birthday honoree who not only prepared the meal also served it. There was no gift exchange or songs to be sung only a family of people happy to share a freshly prepared meal.
As soon as we ate one of the eldest grandchildren who is also a teacher at our school came bearing a more modern tradition: a birthday cake! Everyone oohed and aaahed at the perfectly decorated cake and the grandmother spent several minutes debating with herself about where and how to cut into the masterpiece until eventually everyone started chanting "Muertelo! Muertelo!(Kill it!!)" By this point there were no more styrofoam plates to be had and there was little silverware to begin with so we all ate cake with our whipped creamy fingers.
Several hours had passed by the time we finished the cake so we said our goodbyes assuming that we would be giving rides home. And what started off as giving 1 neighbor boy a ride, quickly snowballed into loading the 4Runner up with as many people could possibly squeeze inside of it as is typical in these parts except no one was hanging out of the bed of a pickup truck.