Color, Clothing, Hair

One thing I love about Mexico is the incredible colors, everywhere. Buildings are painted in all kinds of colors. Back in the States, if someone painted their house purple or pink, the neighbors would totally freak out. Here, color dominates. I do like a white house though, I am not going to paint my house bright pink or bright yellow. But, I don't mind seeing all these colors here, and naturally because it is so common it just looks fine and it all blends in to present this wonderful fanfare of intensity, variety, and mishmash of "anything goes". You sort of get used to it after awhile. When I was in Norway, there were also quite a variety in houses painted brighter colors. I guess if you live in a cold and dark place, color becomes important and makes you feel good. It brightens your days through the long dark winter. Inside homes in Norway people painted their walls, bed frames, trunks, furniture in beautiful floral designs to brighten up the dreary interiors. Each area of Norway has its own style of Rosemaling (painting on wood).

Now I wonder why in the United States you don't see a lot of color on the exteriors of buildings like you do in Mexico or Norway. Study the differences between Mexico and Norway: two very different countries and cultures. One is generally hot and tropical and southern, and the other northern, cold, and dark for a lot of the year. But both countries use color on the exterior of their buildings and the interior also. When I visited Norway, I loved the way some people painted the walls in their homes rich colors,usually blues, red, and golds. Now in the U.S. that has become the fashion, at least a couple of years ago it was.

This lack of color in the U.S., with the whites, beiges and neutrals. Does that come from the English influence in our roots? I really wouldn't have thought much of it, until I traveled outside the U.S. and saw how colorful some countries are.

I have noticed that the way women dress is a lot different here than in the states, in general. Yes, of course, girls are wearing shorts here, but most of the time, even in the hot months, the young women are wearing jeans and pants. The women who are older, generally wear pants or dresses or skirts. The older women usually wear skirts or dresses. In the States females generally wear shorts in hotter weather. It amazes me that the young Mexican women can tolerate wearing very tight, and I mean extremely tight, jeans in hot weather! It is the opposite in other places like the U.S. where girls are wearing a little as possible in warmer weather. I have come to like the look of females in pants or skirts/dresses, for the attractiveness of the femininity in it. All sizes of women: fat, skinny, old, young, look better in a skirt or dress. I think you can feel cool in a hot climate wearing a skirt or dress. Now that I really think about it, I notice that Mexican women just don't go around showing their legs, unless they are at the beach. I rarely see a Mexican woman here in shorts (unless she is a tourist from somewhere else in Mexico or a young woman). So it has become a cultural thing for me, and now after a year living here, the difference between the gringo women and the local Mexican women really is apparent, just by seeing all those legs on the gringos(both men and women!) Mexican men wear mostly long pants, even in hot weather.

The children in schools wear uniforms here, which I think is a good thing (unless you can't afford to buy a uniform for your children, and that prevents you from sending your child to school). But it keeps it fair in that fashion doesn't come into play during the school day. They are in school to learn and after school and weekends they put on their favorite fashionable clothes. But I was surprised to see how short the girl's uniform skirts are.






The girls and younger women tend to mostly keep their hair long and it is so pretty. Some of them have very long hair as you can see in this photos of the girl.








The babies, toddler, and little children are often dressed in very cute attire: especially the little ones like this girl in her dress, pushing the little boy on the car down the sidewalk. Regarding babies, I see many mothers (and fathers) walking around carrying their infants and babies in their arms which I didn't see so much back in the States. In the U.S. parents tend to put the little ones in some sort of carrier: especially strollers, and carriers. Here maybe it is a cost factor or lack of availability of these carriers, or the parents like holding the baby close to them, and we know the baby likes it too.

I got this photo in La Penita of the man on his horse, and it really should be in the previous posting of mine on How People Get From Place to Place. What a pretty white horse it is too. Notice all the tourists staring at him as he goes by?












This morning at the beach I noticed some little boys playing near a colorful boat (back to noticing color again, isn't that a gorgeous combination of the yellow and the turquoise on the boat?) and the color of the ocean today adds to the beauty of a sunny day at the beach in Mexico.