11/9/01 Catalina State Park
Here again on the threshold of a new adventure. It’s been 3 days of constant organizing, errands, checking things off lists, anticipating
issues for the future when I’ll be gone and now it is done, just a few
more purchases for friends in Mexico, a couple of dinner parties and
music sessions, a visit to the Cascabel Quaker community and I’ll slide
south of the border through Douglas and down a new road for me, #12,
through Nacozari and Moctezuma and over on 21 to Hermosillo. (Turns out
I took a road completely unanticipated at this time.) My loose plan is
to visit Hermosillo a bit, then to Yécora, Trigo Moreno and La Mesa de
Abajo, Rosario, Ciudad Obregón, get to know Obregón and some folks
there and then be available for the March project in La Mesa de Abajo,
which will dovetail into 2 SCA programs in the Frank Church- River of
No Return Wilderness in Idaho. My whole year is laid out, from now
until next November. A lot between here and there is known, even more
is unknown. The path is clear, the wheels have been set in motion, too
late to stop now.
The desert is perfect and great in winter, cool to cold nights and warm
days not too hot, desert, Sonora/ Sierra 2001 here I come.
11/10
For years I have been interested in the question why the historical
trajectories of México and the USA have been so different, why the US
so successful and México quite a bit less so. Both countries were
colonized by Europeans with full blown agriculture, domestic animals,
metal technology, writing, printing, sea faring technology, by full
blown state organizations. However, Spain and England were not equal in
other respects. In 1492, Spain had just defeated the Arab occupation of
100’s of years and expelled all Arabs and Jews, thereby shooting itself
in the foot by expelling their intelligentsia and business classes.
This was an historical accident, that England did not have the same
sort of situation. As well, the differences between Catholicism and
Protestantism ramified out in the style of each respective
colonization, Catholicism being generally more rigid, controlling and
dogmatic while Protestantism permitted more lee-way and differences.
Indeed, the new state, after the Protestant reformation, was designed
to permit and allow religious differences. The idea of separation of
church and state gave England and the US an advantage. Each colony, New
Spain and New England, eventually rebelled and found independence of
the mother country. Perhaps the organizing principles of each new
nation were qualitatively different enough to give the US an advantage.
Just as the Spanish were more powerful and better equipped and
organized than the Indians of México, whom they conquered, the US was
more powerful and better organized than México, allowing it to
eventually possess Mexican land and to further exploit resources within
México itself, with the aid of corrupt Mexican ruling classes, all to
the detriment of average Mexicans and to the advantage of average US
citizens. This all perhaps because of principles and ideas and not of
any big difference in technology.
11/17
Staying here at Lucy’s house and the visits to my friends, is providing
me with exactly the things I want and need, a sense of family,
belonging, being taken care of, ensconced in a social environment where
I can contribute my resources and benefit from Mexican’s great
hospitality. I’m right in with the small talk at the table. Pancho is
great, sincere, curious and has a marvelous respect for everything in
nature. Panchita is an old friend and we can talk, we have mucha
confianza. Lucy is Mom, with a beautiful smile and gentle, giving
personality. We are copasetic and know each other well. It is the same
with Roberto and Macrina, Lalo and Sofía, I go there and am welcomed in
a warm embrace of family and caring. It is a different sense than in
the US. They are incredibly hospitable here, “have a chair, no, no, sit
down, have a chair, do you want coffee? Are you hungry?” I like to hang
out with the women, every day I am more simpático with the women. It
seems it is raining women on me, one after the other, available, I see
right through, what they would be like. They are there, waiting to be
taken. I don’t want them. I want Kim.
11/19
Had a long talk with Lucy and Pancho about life in the Sierra and sex
on projects and how the village men live in the last century, a more
macho time and how girls need to be careful because the common belief
is that American girls and women are more sexual than Mexican women and
are more free, etc. If anything ends up happening between Mexican men
and American women and the Mexican wife finds out, that could be the
end of projects. In the past, people in El Cordón refused to have
certain women back, as they were sleeping with the men. Things get
close during a dance and people end up wanting each other, stuff
happens. Lucy and Pancho’s projects are very conservative, having
people always walk together, never alone. Hector kissed an American
participant once and that caused a big problem. The Mexican men are
married but still on the make, looking for action, thinking about
groups coming with lots of pretty girls, perhaps not so different than
American men, who doesn’t like to be around lots of pretty girls? The
men say they don’t want any muchachos in their houses, only muchachas.
Under the veneer of propriety, marriage and Catholicism, is a horny
substrate, a zone where anything can happen. This contrasts with the
sometimes idealized version of life in the Sierra that Americans may
have
11/23 Yécora
I arrived and visited Blanca, who immediately fed me, as is the custom
of the women here. She asked if I had any pictures of the last group,
which I did and she and one of her sons poured over them. I didn’t
realize at the time , but in the group picture, there was her husband,
Gerrardo, with his arm all around a 14 year old Chinese girl, Ana, who
he had a huge crush on, him all smiling, Ana guarding herself. Blanca
is 6 mos. Pregnant and living in Yécora so their two boys can go to
school, as La mesa only has school at the most primary levels. Gerrardo
stays in La Mesa. We’ll see if the news got out, as all the men seem to
know about Gerrardo’s dalliance.
I just had coffee with Adéle and we got to talking about religion. She
has a way advanced and tolerant opinion for a peasant woman, whom one
might expect to be more provincial. She sees that there are no basic
conflicts between any spiritual paths and that each person has their
road to walk and their challenges to confront. I can’t help but be
impressed, here she is, almost totally blind, with multiple other
health problems and she refuses to complain, she counts her blessings
instead. She carries on and I must say, appears quite content and at
peace with herself. She is surrounded by family who take care of her,
especially her doting 16 year son Jesús, who does everything for her.
That’s what Mexicans have to fall back on, even if there is no food or
water, family. That’s what I am lacking, or at least a spouse. I can
follow Adéle’s example and be glad that I am welcomed so warmly into
people’s lives here, not be a whiny butt about it.
Yesterday I drove 5 hours up here, with a truck full of used clothes
and an old refrigerator and boxes of pots and pans, that Lucy, Panchita
and I collected from various people in Hermosillo and then repacked and
which then, I emptied everything from my truck, put it in a corner at
Lucy’s and packed all the goods in tight. It was a load to pull up
through the Sierra. I passed through an army checkpoint and they asked
what I had, and they were impressed by my Spanish, saying that almost
all the gringos coming through can’t say shit or understand any
Spanish. With a few questions they let me go without looking at any of
my stuff.
Blanca immediately was jealous that Lucy was sending all this stuff to
Adéle, but I arranged to come back later and get her so she could get a
first look at the clothes. This was fun to watch, as all the women
looked over each piece meticulously, calculating it’s possible use and
value, they removed each article one by one, setting aside potential
purchases, then meticulously repacking the boxes, looking carefully
again at each item and asking the price. The children passed Blanca the
clothes as she was too pregnant to bend over. The small talk centered
on people trying to figure out where the other’s stood socially. This
was the first time Adéle and Blanca had met. “How do you know Lucy?”,
“Lucy is my friend too”, “Are these your kids?”, “No, oh, grandkids!”,
“Which are your children?”, “Where is your husband?” etc. They
immediately try to get a line on where you are socially, especially if
you are married, or divorced, available or not. It’s funny that the
whole macho tradition in the Sierra, stands so contrary to family and
religious values, is so promiscuous, yet all remain loyal to the polite
fiction on the surface, how Catholic we all are, yet underneath, the
call of the sirens. Adéle pointed out that more Catholics are drunks
and scally wags than people of the new Protestant faiths coming into
the area, which don’t permit drinking and smoking. Even though Adéle is
Catholic, she sees something fundamentally wrong with it.
Blanca negotiated dutifully and Adéle gave in on some things but not
others. I fronted Blanca 100 pesos, around 9 dollars, to buy her haul
of booty and then drove her home. She wanted assurance that she had
gotten a good deal. She also arranged to trade beans for a blanket that
Adéle had.
Today I’ll go to Trigo Moreno and visit the folks OI know there, Irene
and kids, whose husband just died in a car accident, Wencho, Tene,
Lupeto, Chiri, Silvia, Pina and Pina’s kids, Miguel, Beto, Olga and
Jesús. Adéle might be blind, but she just cooked me up a mean breakfast
of machaca, eggs, onions and tortillas, the full treatment. I love the
full treatment from Mexican women. “Panza llena, corazón contenta” she
said, full stomach, satisfied heart.
Yécora is like living in a Clint Eastwood western movie, the dusty
streets, horses, burros, mules, old adobe houses and barns all falling
apart, wind blowing, all the men in cowboy hats, Indian women in
colorful skirts, dark skin and black satin hair, cows in the middle of
town, you walk and visit a house and you are in the movie. Today life
seems super real, crisp, winds blowing. I’m going to Trigo and Carlos
is dead. It doesn’t get more real than that. I’m all here, ready to
offer my humanity in condolence, as if that would help to bring him
back. At least I can be present and show my respects by showing up
during their time of duress.
I saw Luly last night, Hilario’s daughter. Hilario died three years
ago. I just drove by the cross, by the place where he died. Luly has
grown up a lot, a young teen now. She came by to get a freebie on the
clothes. Lucy and Panchita each got their freebies, Adéle and Minerva
got theirs, it’s a bonanza of clothes. Adéle might make $50.00 on the
whole deal, life and death here in the oak and pine filled canyon on
the way to Trigo Moreno.
Later: Irene was still busted up bad, after three weeks and could
hardly keep from crying. All I could do was be there with her and play
with her kids and tell her I was sorry. Wencho and Tene were serious at
first but lightened up soon after. Tene wore all black, as did Irene
and Pina, Carlos’ sister. Lucy said that Tene, Carlos’ mother, was
especially torn up because Carlos was on a mission for her to borrow
money. Lupeto and Pina were waiting at Pina’s. She served up a
delicious soup of deer albondigas, or deer meatballs, and coffee,
coffee at every house. Lupeto left, after getting his gift from Tedford
in Missouri and Pina and I got down to heavy death talk. She had it
pegged at deep levels. “We put him in the casket, I saw his face all
damaged, those memories are so different from when we grew up
together.”, “When you die, you rest, it is the living who suffer.” WE
arrived at a sort of carpe diem consensus and I told her I liked her a
lot, if I should happen to die soon. Pina is my favorite in Trigo
Moreno, quite beautiful, innocent, charming, generous, if she was mine
the first thing I would do, would be to take her to the dentist and get
her all new teeth. She gave me two jars of peaches, one for my novia,
Kim. “When can we meet Kim?” She is also going to make me a windshield
curtain, with the balls hanging down, as a gift of friendship. These
people are very poor, yet generous in the extreme.
Lupeto tore down one third of his house as it was falling down. He also
enclosed most of the big porch, so there is now no big space for groups
to stay there. Pedrito and his family are on the outs with everyone, he
owing lots of money and not paying any of it back, he took Pina’s
trees, felled them and didn’t give her the money. The chisme (gossip)
is running strong against the Pedrito family now. Lucy says that
Pedrito has been hiding in Obregón and when he comes to Trigo, it must
be way in secret, because many people in Yécora are after him. They all
asked about groups coming and I told them Mike is doing a 2 month
project in Chihuahua this year but that he would come and visit himself
sometime this winter.
The cemetery is still festooned from the Day of the Dead. Pina said “
we are all born to die”, “we don’t know when our time will be up.” They
all said to be careful driving on the highway. How can I know such dear
people? So far from anywhere, here I stand, in a life so sweet and
full, able to feel the preciousness of the moment, friends, feelings,
love, what more can you ask?
The meting out of aid and help to poor people and/or people who live in
small communities, is always going to breed jealousy. It is impossible
to be totally fair and anticipate every little slight people might
feel. I can tell that the folks in Trigo feel just as poor as Adéle,
they ask themselves, why don’t we get boxes of free clothes? Why Adéle
and not us? Blanca was the same way, I’m Lucy’s friend too, why not me?
The people in La Mesa had the same action, carefully counting who went
with who to harvest beans, who got the most, the least, who didn’t get
any visits. Lucy said one time the gente para allá/ the folks on the
other side of the village, refused to come to a piñata party because
went down there and announced from the street that the party was
starting, insulting them by not going to each house one at a time.
Pueblo chico, infierno grande. Small town, big mess. Pina got a kick
out of that. She had herself dressed up good for my exit, so good that
I hardly recognized her. Speaking of that, the faces of all looked
younger and cleaner and sharper, I imagine from the crying. I shed a
tear with Pina, just out of the sheer feeling of it all.
There are two sisters who live in the mountains outside Trigo. Their
house burned down and now they live with a brother and Soray´da in a
ranchito outside of Trigo Moreno.
Now that I am with more poor people than in La Mesa, a meal may consist
of a plate of beans only or a plate of potatoes, with tortillas, always
tortillas. They don’t use silverware, the tortillas are broken into
pieces and then used to grab and scoop up the food. Condiments are
where it’s at, especially chiltepine peppers, a wild chili that is
small but packs a punch. Here we are burning wood scraps, eating beans
and salt and chiltepines, watching a soap opera with rich teens,
computers, fast cars, sex, fancy clothes, this is a real gulf of
realities here.
11/24
Yesterday morning there was no electric, today there is no water. The
level of service that Americans are used to is something really
luxurious. Americans complain about things that Mexicans would consider
perfect luxuries. We are all getting by, some with more, some with
less. Who may be happier and why? I think of Ecclesiastes, be happy
with your lot now or you are chasing the wind. There’s a cow next door
mooing and the roosters have been going all morning.
I picked up a hitcher at Puerta La Cruz, Baltazaar Rodriguez, a
rancher, nice guy, talks a lot, “are you here alone?”, “where is your
family?”, God, I have a girlfriend who I love forever, who is married,
can’t tell any of these guys that. At Bermudes I stopped at Doña Tila’s
house to get a cup of coffee and hung out with the daughter, Cristina,
she gave me some nice smiles and seemed interested in my chatting about
history instead of cows and trucks. The drive up to La Mesa is a mixed
oak and pine forest, I took some moments to stop and enjoy the quiet, I
like the shady groves. I stopped in El Cordón, to visit Chemelay and
Tere and their daughter Nallelly. It’s all like the Canterbury tales,
I’m back hundreds of years, traveling from inn to inn, house to house,
all with news and food and coffee. I eat the fresh beans, homemade
cheese, fresh tortillas, “are you married?”, “are these binoculars of a
good brand?”, “how much for a cordless drill?”. They all say “we’ll be
waiting for you when you come back.” And they are, very glad to see
you, ready to show all the hospitality they have. Chemelay said, “you
are welcome here anytime, with mucho confianza”.
The real travelers prize waited for me at La Mesa de Abajo with a warm
welcome and chat in the yard. Maria took me in the kitchen and fed me
the works, beans, butter, cheese, coffee, milk. She showed me the
embroidered rose she has made for me; it is really beautiful, she put a
lot into it, we connected with bright smiles of open appreciation. It
will be finished when I get back. I wanted a rose for the ceiling of my
truck, as a symbol of all the feelings of love I have had for the last
3 or 4 months, to remind of the beauty and thorniness of it all.
I can see in the people’s faces here a sort of fountain of youth, an
innocence and an openness, it’s like they are enchanted. I come in the
middle of their regular life and they are enchanted. What faces, what
humanity! People come and gather around and visit, el Fred is here,
“come and see us tomorrow…” they say.
We sat for hours as they went on and on about trucks, beds, mattresses,
cows, doors, on and on, each topic milked to the maximum, on and on,
small talk, when the real business is just being together and passing
the time together. My Spanish gets better by the minute. All the new
and novel situations have made me want cigarettes badly but I have
resisted. Dinner was very good, if only bean soup, condiments, hot
tortillas with fresh butter, chiltepine peppers and just being at the
table with my Mexican Sierra family.
11/25
I went outside last night and there was the full blown night sky with
the moon on the horizon. I thought of one special somebody. I was back
out near dawn for the pre-Sierra sunrise, still the night sky, passed
through it’s cycle with Orion on the opposite horizon, Sirius
following. They all want to know, “when is Kim coming to visit?” I lay
in bed for hours thinking of her, Kim, what is she doing now? When will
I see her? Maria said, “she can stay here with you.” I am fictive kin
for her, and she and her family for me. As the day breaks, Maria makes
tortillas over the wood stove while I study my verb book at the table.
Roosters crow, the sounds of the kitchen in the background, slapping
the tortillas, the press, the crackling of the fire.
Rosemary would have been touched to see their faces when I translated
part of her letter to Octavito and also told them about her painting
and letter, which I will bring this next week. They were touched by her
sincerity and that she enjoyed their life so much, how much she valued
her time here. I advised her that if she came back, it wouldn’t be the
same. I was wrong, it is exactly the same, maybe even better. I saw her
painting upon returning to Hermosillo, and it really is good, a nice,
magic painting. They will like it a lot.
I got totally coffeed out today visiting and talking about the upcoming
project. Everyone I spoke with was favorably disposed to having their
own personal guests, provided that food would be adequately supplied to
feed the guests and that the guests would also have their own comfort
foods in case they couldn’t handle beans three times a day for two
weeks. I said we could take care of problems as they come up and they
agreed. Of the families, Enerina did not commit, Jose luis and Rosa,
yes, Tavo and Maria, yes, provided that I am one of the guests, Don
Facundo and Jesus and Luz and Candida, yes, Máximo and Elea, yes,
Sigifredo and Dora, yes, Hector and Elvira, yes, Mama Locha maybe,
Máximo spoke for Eberrardo and Alba saying they would want to and we
know Tomás and Beatriz want guests, I don’t know about Manuel. This is
how they did it in Norman Krekler days, some guests to each house.
On the CB radio today we heard people from a rancho asking for a
casket, as someone had been shot to death, the husband of Alba’s
sister, drug related, dangerous farther out in the Sierra, don’t want
to go to any dances out there, they all pack pistols and drive new
trucks from their drug money.
The president of the municipality is coming tomorrow. It is dark early
and light late, long nights in bed, “la noche es muy larga” said Beto,
as we all lie in bed in the cool evening air, dark, cows bellow, I’m
living in a world apart, with enchanted people who take me in and make
me embroidered roses and feed me and wash my clothes and care for me in
all respects. Tavo showed where the sun would be on December 24th and
then how far back up it would go in the summer, yet he asked me, “which
way is north?” They have their own gringo and I have my own Mexicans.
11/28/01
They constantly pump for information about marriage status. “Is your
novia divorced?” No, she’s not. They all laughed at Tavo’s not being
able to pronounce “divorced”. Roberto’s wife Macrina managed to pry
open the truth, as I mentioned I was e-mailing Rosemary to send stuff
to Kim and Macrina zeroed in on why I was not in direct contact. She
and Roberto became wide eyed at the realization. They are from
Hermosillo and not of the village where I stay. I haven’t lied, just
have not said certain things. I may just have to lay it out on them at
the Mesa if they keep pressing, tell them how it is, what the plans
are. They can think what they will.
Maria was captivated by the stones and wants to be tuned up. I told
them Kim was a curandera, or healer. Octavito asked, “is Kim a witch
doctor?” We all laughed. They all held the stones and marveled at them.
My, my, they said, what curious stones, how did they get like this?
What do you call them? What a special gift! Does she really heal people
with them?
Beto asks at the table, are Chinese more intelligent than people from
the US? I say that all are equally capable, that it is the premises
and culture that differ. He says Mexicans are brutish and crude. Beto
is crippled from birth, the town doctor, a nice fellow all around.
I gave Chemelay and Tere and Nallely a ride to Hermosillo yesterday, 8
hours with all of us in the front of my truck, 2 and a half hours of
that on serious bad dirt roads. I got back and Lucy and Panchita fed me
and we talked for hours about the news in the Sierra. Lucy wants me to
go to the University here with Panchita, where Panch is an engineering
student, to provide a serious presence in Panch’s quest to do a
project of providing lightning poles to the people in La Mesa.
Apparently if a gringo is present and interested in something, that
will cause Mexicans to take it more seriously. All I have to do is show
up, be with Panchita, as she proposes her ideas and her chances will be
greatly increased by having a gringo with her. It works in all sorts of
ways, bring a gringo and things happen. Curioso, no?
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