It’d been a year since they’d last visited, since they’d been home. Of course, they’d quietly kept in touch, but tonight they were heading back, and even though they knew they’d only stay a short while, they’d been preparing for this day all year.

Back home, nightfall was approaching and everything was ready. The runway had been lit with candles stretching as far as the eye could see, and the smell; that unmistakable scent of home filled the air around the fields of marigolds.

The further they got along their journey, the louder the initial faint echoes of music became. Trumpet toots turned into blasts, whilst the distant tapping of drums became loud, rolling beats, all played out to welcome them back home.

When they arrived they were received in celebration and contemplation. It’d felt like such a long time had passed, but the joy that they were back was just so overwhelming that they put that aside for a while. Perhaps until it was time for them to leave again. They roamed the town together, visiting all their favourite places, sipping mescal and dancing in the streets, and as the hours and days passed, they remembered everything that they’d nearly forgotten about each other.

And when the time eventually came to leave, they knew they were leaving them with hearts filled with the beauty of community; the beauty of Oaxaca. They were the fabric from which Oaxaca had been weaved.