Couple from Austin press on with wedding in embattled Mexican city.
By Jeremy Schwartz
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... dding.html
MEXICO CITY STAFF
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
OAXACA, Oaxaca — Austin residents Bobby Crawford and Christina Rodriguez are a pair of self-described "horror movie fiends." So it makes sense that they would get married in perhaps the scariest spot in the hemisphere right now. On Halloween night.
Rodriguez, 32, who moonlights as a member of an all-female roller derby league in Austin, and Crawford, a 29-year-old Apple programmer with long, fire-red hair, tied the knot Tuesday night in Oaxaca city in the midst of an anti-government rebellion.
Surrounded by 10 brave friends and one brave father of the groom, the couple wed in a hotel overlooking the embattled city, which has been in the grip of a violent crisis for more than five months. The stakes soared over the weekend when thousands of federal police, clad in body armor, seized control of the city center and dislodged protesters who had been camped out for months.
The couple planned the wedding nearly a year ago, months before the eruption of a broad-based movement demanding the resignation of Oaxaca state Gov. Ulises Ruiz, whom protesters accuse of oppressing dissent and rigging his 2004 election.
The historic city of Oaxaca was one of Mexico's top tourist destinations before the protests.
About a dozen people have died in clashes between protesters and Ruiz supporters, and police were barred from the city for months as Ruiz supporters and opponents took justice into their own hands.
The city made a dramatic backdrop for the wedding, which took place on the eve of Mexico's Day of the Dead celebrations.
A government reconnaissance plane flew overhead Tuesday as protesters hurried to build makeshift barricades in the growing dark. One group hijacked a small bulldozer, doused it with gasoline and set it on fire, then hurled large rocks at a column of police.
Rodriguez said that despite the situation, she's glad they decided to go ahead with the Oaxaca wedding.
"Even with everything going on, my friends are here, and I feel great," she said.
The couple had hoped the violence would end before the wedding, and they arrived last week in a moment of relative calm.
"As soon as we got here, everything started escalating," Crawford said. A day after their arrival, Oaxaca experienced its bloodiest afternoon, with four killings, including that of American journalist Bradley Will. In response, President Vicente Fox ordered thousands of federal police into the city to restore order.
On Sunday, the couple were sightseeing in downtown Oaxaca when they got caught between federal troops and protesters, who engaged in pitched battles for most of the day. The two literally fled to the hills surrounding the city to avoid the confrontation.
The wedding guests, a group as eclectic as the bride and groom, weren't scared off by the increasingly bad news coming out of Oaxaca or a U.S. State Department advisory warning Americans against all travel to the Oaxacan capital.
"It's just going to be that much easier to remember," said Tabitha Skrobarczyk, a 27-year-old Pilates instructor from South Austin. "It won't be your typical church wedding. It will add to the excitement and memories."
The friends, mostly Austinites, met at the Oaxacan airport at dusk Monday and boarded two vans for the ride into the city's center. As the vehicles made their way past burned-out hulks of school buses and tractor-trailers blocking the highway, the reality of the situation began sinking in.
"Oh, my goodness, this is crazy," Skrobarczyk said. "We're just a bunch of rowdies in the middle."
After the wedding, though, the turmoil in Oaxaca seemed far away.
"Even with all this chaos, there's still happiness," said Ruben Lizalde, a 29-year-old Sul Ross State University student, nodding toward the newlyweds. "It suits them."
schwartz@coxnews.com
Additional material from The Associated Press.
