Rachel and Eric on sun 3 sep 00
The Gringo Invasion, Part 2.
(Part one debuted in Clayart yesterday. Taking off on the theme of
workshop disasters, it tells the story of a happy and innocent little pod of
workshop participants in the boondocks of Oaxaca who find themselves under
suspicion of being gold thieves or Corporate raiders. Part one leaves off
with their brave guide (that'd be me) preparing to face off with the village
authorities over the issue. Read on for the grand and exciting tale)
In Oaxaca, village authorities are appointed by common consent at a
town meeting in January. Generally they serve for a year. Sooner or later,
just about every man in the village will take his turn at being on the
police patrol, heading the school committee or being town president. You get
to be prez once you've done all the rest. Though the jobs are taken quite
seriously, they are only part time. Maybe Wednesday and Sunday. The rest of
the week you take care of your day job, which is generally growing corn and
caring for the plow oxen.
It was evident that the three men I was approaching were killing two birds
with once stone today. They were dealing with an urgent town problem- The
Gringo Invasion, and also coming home from cutting wood. In addition to the
three of them there were five gray donkeys loaded heavy with oak logs and
branches. Axes and machetes were carried or strapped all about. The men were
as rough looking as they come. They were wearing dusty and worn pants,
sweaty, rumpled hats, stained shirts with the sleeves rolled up and coming
out of those sleeves, short, strong forearms with stone hard hands. All of
which made them look like characters out of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
and at the same time like pretty typical country campesinos. Good folks who
work hard under the sun and rain about everyday of the year and tend to look
and be tougher for it. But just then I was thinking more along the lines of
The Good, Bad and Ugly and trying to figure out who these guys were going to
turn out to be.
I said, "Buenas tardes" straight and even, without a hint of aggression (or
of the nerves twisting in my gut), but also without any tone of submissive,
boyish openness. I was trying to come off as solid but non-threatening.
They'd already achieved this without uttering a word. The solid part that is.
They replied to my greeting, as was necessary by the laws that rule country
behavior. But there was no reassurance it. Just curled lip. The repartee had
begun.
The hardest faced of the three; a stout, well-gutted man spoke up,
addressing me with a firm voice. He told me that they were the men in charge
of this village and had to look after things. He didn't care what I was up
to here. He'd be talking to Celso about that. From me he wanted to know who
I was, see a piece of ID and put it on record.
I pulled out my license. Nevadan and in English. But he was satisfied. That
was my picture on it, with a name and an address in Carson City.
"We are going to need a copy of this." he machined gunned out.
I looked around. We were up high here and could see for long miles in all
directions. There were no copy machines to be seen.
"Uh, how about I write out the information on a piece of paper." I
offered. To my relief, that seemed fine to him. Once that was done, and he
had that piece of paper, there was a notable release of tension from the
air. I was no longer an unknown rough. Then, with the purpose of informing
me of the power I was currently facing, he told me the titles of the three
of them. One guy was the president, he was the commissary (but clearly the
chief) and the other was in charge of boundaries. I looked at the boundary
guard more closely and recognized him as the old guy with the scraggle herd
of thin Brahmas who lived on the hilltop above Celso's place. But he was
pretending not to know me. Familiarity wouldn't have been right for the
current mood.
The commissary explained to me that the well being of the village lay in
their hands, that folks were concerned and it was their duty to deal with
the problem. I nodded. He said that if a stranger comes around here he
ought to go to the town hall and let his business be known ("on Wednesdays
or Sundays when we are around, otherwise track us down in the fields"). And
bring along a copy of ID!
I nodded and agreed and said he was absolutely right. We then spent some
time repeating the above paragraph, him rephrasing how it was their job to
look after the village and whatnot, and me agreeing and summarizing using
different words and complete sentences. This is actually a fairly standard
rural routine. The same thing might be said a dozen times. Then you know
that somewhere in the sum of all you said, you probably got it just right.
Also, there might not be much else to talk about.
I also noted that each time he said his piece and I openly (and honestly-if
there where six very odd strangers wandering around in my corn field I'd be
concerned too) agreed, the tension meter got wound down another point. By
the fifth or sixth time around new topics started slipping in. The boundary
guard made an observation about the difference in my height and that of the
commissary. It was about 18"- me on the tall side. The commissary wanted to
know how I'd grown so damn much. Since I'm a good deal taller than 99.9% of
Oaxacans this wasn't the first time I'd been asked this. I generally answer
with something clever like "when I was a kid my parents would tie me between
a donkey and an ox for a tug of war." If the mood is right country folks
will laugh at about anything. These men had done their job, they had a
reasonable facsimile of my ID, they'd put their point across, I'd agreed and
told them that next time I came to town I'd visit them first, that it was
clearly the morally correct thing to do. With all that out of the way it
seemed to me that it was time to bust the tension. So I laid the donkey-ox
bit on them. They'd either get it, or remove my head for insulting them with
such fool talk. The mood was right, they laughed at the tug of war line. The
president pulled out a grimy old soda bottle filled with pulque.
At this I knew that my task was 50% done. They weren't going to lock the
workshop group and me up as menacing trespassers. Terms had been laid and
accepted. Now it was time to find out if, in addition to not being a menace,
I was also a man worthy of his hat brim. Had this workshop been a one-time
gig I might have been able to bow out just here. It would have been a
weasely move, a tail tucked retreat. But it could have been done and we'd
have all gotten home without further incident. Celso and his family would
have gotten a ration though for disturbing the peace, and I'd be sneered at
next time I came to town.
But I knew I'd be coming back and I wanted to lighten the burden placed on
Celso's family. Also, tail tucked retreats look really bad. So I stood my
ground as the president poured a gourd full of pulque and asked if I
wouldn't like some. I made the right answer.
Pulque is made from the sap of the agave plant. It is collected and let to
ferment, something like sourdough. It packs about the same punch as beer and
has a stringy, milky consistency. More than anything it tastes like vomit. I
downed the bowl in four gulps. This gesture was well received. Feeling now
like gentlemen, they each took their share of pulque as well. Truth is I
like trying exotic foods. And the taste of pulque can grow on you. The
boundary keeper flashed me a crooked grin and pulled out a bottle of mescal
corked with a cornhusk.
This upped the stakes. Mescal also comes from the agave plant. But it is a
little more dangerous because it is distilled. It is as strong as whiskey
and about as smooth as fresh moonshine. The commissary pulled the communal
shot glass out of his pocket. He didn't bother to brush off the dirt and
lint, with mescal it doesn't matter. I very carefully slammed my shot of
mescal without a grimace. This is an important point, one of the many and
fine subtleties of machismo.
This to was well received. The shot glass traveled around. And then did so
again. And so on.
It is not my custom to get into drinking rings with Mexican men. In fact I
avidly avoid it, because the base rule is last one standing looses. But I
had workshop participants to look out for and there were reputations at
stake. Celso's, Cecilia's and, most pressingly, as the glass came around
again, mine. For all the sensitive, diaper changing, dish washing male that
I am, there is a tinge of macho as well. So there we were, four men standing
under a hot high sun working on losing their balance.
The five donkeys wanted to go home and every so often the president would
head off shouting donkey obscenities and swinging a stick trying to herd the
animals back. Indeed, it was the stubbornness of the donkeys that saved me.
By about the fifth shot, when the banter was really quite good and utterly
meaningless, a consensus seemed to form that it was getting to be too much
work keeping the donkeys at hand. So with one more shot there were
farewells, formal and overdone. Then the gentlemen wandered down the road
trailing their beasts of burden. And I walked back down to the kiln, making
a straight line down the twisted path. Or was it a twisted line down the
straight path?
They tell me the pottery came out of the kiln just fine. Anyway no one has
asked me for a discount yet.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Rachel Werling, Biologist
and/or
Eric Mindling, potterologist
www.manos-de-oaxaca.com
email: rayeric@rnet.com.mx
Apto Postal 1452
Oaxaca, Oax.
cp 68000
Mexico
phone 011 52 (954) 7-4534
fax 011 52 (952) 1-4186
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