Hello, I'm Viviana Alávez, founder of Casa Viviana

I grew up in Teotitlan del Valle with my grandmother. I always said she was my mother. Honestly, I did not have a mother or a father. I was told that my parents died when I was little--first my mother, and a year after, my father.

My great-great-grandmother made candles. My great-grandfather father learned to do it from her, and later my grandmother learned to do it from him. And then she thought me. Candle-making is a tradition that is more than 300-400 years-old in my family.