Rachel and Eric on fri 17 sep 99
When the Mixe Got Their Phone
A little miracle is due in our house this week. The kind folks from the
cellular telephone company will be coming out and installing a neat new
machine, putting us in direct communication with the rest of the world.
They're bringing out a stationary cellular phone. Stationary means it
doesn't move, it's held to the wall with two bolts. And there is something
to those two bolts. Since the phone can't move the calls will cost three and
a half pesos less per minute than if I was sporting it on my hip.
Of course this stationary advance is a big deal out here on the farm, as we
are just a bit too far out to have any hope of ever getting a phone line
poled out to us. Yet suddenly we are on the cusp of being able to yak on the
telephone from the comfort of our own home.
The excitement of the pending event reminded me of the story about when the
potters and farmers up in Tamazulapan got their phone. It was back in the
late 80's, 1986 I think. Telmex, the corrupt, national phone monopoly, was
putting antenna phones into rural villages that were big enough to make the
investment profitable. Tamazulapan's card came up.
As was typical, they got one telephone. It was placed in the new telephone
office on the town square. Someone in the village had bought the concession
from Telmex and it became their career to run the telephone office. They
made their income on some percentage of the take and on the fee for sending
a runner out to advise people that a call had come in for them. It should
also be noted that the phone clerk, who overhears all calls, is in a
privileged position for picking up gossip. There are those who covet the
clerk position.
None of the complexities or rewards of the phone office operation were yet
understood when the phone went into Tamazulapan. It was a brand new thing
and novel enough an event that it was worth leaving behind the afternoon's
field work and potting to go into town and check out.
Up in Tamazulapan, Spanish is the second language. The language spoken at
home is Mixe (Mee-hay). The people, also called Mixe, are very traditional
subsistence farmers and potters. Their homeland rings the tallest peak in
Oaxaca, a sacred mountain called Zempoaltepetl. The legend goes that the
Mixe are originally from Peru, but sometime in the 1200's the tribe began a
trek in search of a holy mountain. Folks who study such things say that it
is more likely that they began a trek because of religious persecution. What
ever the case, about 100 years later they came to settle around the skirts
of the mighty Zempoaltepetl. There were some old time Zapotec settlements
around the hill when the Mixe arrived. The Mixe promptly whooped them. After
100 years of travel though hostile country the Mixe were pretty tough. And
they were still tough a couple hundred years later when the Spanish came
cutting into the mountains with their swords and armor to spread the word of
greed among the Mixe. The mountain goat Mixe made short work or running the
yelping Spanish back into the flat lands.
Way back in 1986 few of the Mixe had traveled outside of their mountain
world. The ways of telephones were know only through hearsay. That
afternoon when the phone got plugged in the first people to use it were
those few who had spent time out of the mountains and had had run-ins with
the technology. They were calling friends down in Oaxaca or Mexico city to
let the good phone news be known.
These callers were speaking Spanish, the language of the outside world. The
crowd around watched this with fascination. The majority of them, true
backwoods folks, didn't speak nor understand a word of Spanish. They had no
idea of what was actually being said. None the less, to see the person talk
into the piece of plastic was wonderful. There was an understanding, though
quite vague and unclear in the details, that at the other end of the wire
someone else was hearing what was being said at this end. One of the braver,
or perhaps inebriated, members of the crowd shouted out a greeting so that
it would go through the phone. A thrill, though subdued , ran through the
crowd. After all, the Mixe are mountain people and tend be exceptionally
restrained. As the calls continued to go out the crowd watched with fascination.
Then a Mixe called a family member somewhere, another Mixe. As with the
previous calls the inaugurating crowd leaned in to listen. Then the person
making the call began speaking in Mixe... and continued speaking in Mixe. A
gasp went through the crowd, eyes widened, hands covered awe-gaped mouths.
It was no suprise that the telephone could speak Spanish. For the Mixe,
Spanish was the language of commerce, technology, government, everything new
and many other baffling things. What else would the phone speak? But that it
could speak Mixe, how could it be!?
Of course I know how it is that the telephone speaks Mixe. I've been
around. But I don't have any idea how it is that this new stationary
cellular phone of mine will catch and sends voices though the air, wind or
no wind. And much less do I understand how two bolts in the wall make a call
cost three and a half pesos less per minute. But, and here I take my cue
from the Mixes who are now quite comfortable with the linguistically
acrobatic phone in the middle of the village. Like the Mixe I'll just accept
it as another strange miracle from the outside world, and try not to say
anything too revealing while I'm yaking on it.
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Rachel Werling
Eric Mindling
AP 1452
Oaxaca, Oax.
CP 68000
M E X I C O
http://www.foothill.net/~mindling
fax 011 52 (952) 1-4186
email: rayeric@antequera.com
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