Monday, December 14, 2009
Antonio Zarate of Oaxaca
Antonio Zarate of Oaxaca sent me the following slide presentation about the beauty and magic of Oaxaca. I want to share it with readers. As I wrote in the introduction to this blog, “…my deepest appreciation goes to Antonio Zarate. Antonio never tired of driving me around the State of Oaxaca and never complained whenever I wanted to stop at an interesting location. He diligently discovered new places to visit and enlivened them with well-researched information. His superb driving skills, his humor and his absolute trustworthiness made traveling with him safe, delightful and memorable. To meet him, visit his website at www.oaxacaguideservice.com or e-mail him at: zarate_antonio@hotmail.com).”
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The Paper Workshop
The spring rains arrived early in May 2000. Slanting rain, drenching rain, driving rain, torrents of rain. Thunder rolled and crashed, reverberating in the mountains. Lightening ripped the black sky. The rains canceled a trip to a village nestled in the mountains. Would they postpone a trip to the Wednesday market at Etla and to the Taller de Arte Papel Oaxaca in San Agustin Etla?
I had returned to Oaxaca, because I was intrigued that one of Oaxaca’s famous artists, Francisco Toledo, had converted a former hydroelectric power plant into a workshop to produce high quality paper from native plants. When I learned that the Taller or workshop provided jobs for the community, there was no hesitation in planning a visit. I was eager to see how the strands of Toledo’s project had been knitted together into a cohesive whole: the building, the native plants, the workers and the end product of fine quality paper.
We drove north from the City on a cloudless, hot, sunny day with no hint of rain. Our first stop was the market at Etla. Only one parking spot remained. Octavio spotted it and squeezed into the tight place. We remarked on our good fortune.
Stone steps led up to the market. Not content to be crammed into one building, stalls with white awnings flowed down the stone steps to form a pool of vendors at the bottom. Sounds, smells and colors swirled and eddied. It was like entering the Mexican version of Harrods’ Food Halls in London.
There were herbs, potions, amulets, embroidery, farm implements, seeds, beans, bunches of small slender ocote (resinous pine used for igniting wood fires or lighting gas stoves), green pottery from Atzompa, local red pottery and tall, deep cylindrical baskets woven from carrizo (a native reed). Red tomatoes sprawled next to green chilies; mounds of ripe pineapples shouldered them. Branches of nopal cactus (prickly pear) and its fruit (tuna) rested side by side. Nopal branches are cooked in a variety of dishes and are good for controlling diabetes; the edible fruit makes an especially refreshing sorbet or nieva.
During our stroll through the market, I learned about the seven regions of Oaxaca, the seven moles of Oaxaca and the six colors of bougainvillea. I needed a break. My head was whirling from the sun, the sights and so many facts. “Please, no more talking until I rest.”
We stopped at a stall where a woman was selling atole, a pre-Hispanic drink reminiscent of gruel. The recipe calls for boiling roasted corn in water. Then grinding, straining and thickening the mixture. The result is a comforting and filling drink especially for breakfast.
The atole was rapidly boiling in a metal tub on long legs, and the pottery serving bowls were sparkling clean, both signs of safety in choosing a vendor from whom to buy atole in the markets. I ordered a bowl, knowing it was just what I needed to clear my head.
I settled myself on a plank bench next to a portly man dressed in a dazzling white suit and white sombrero. He held a bowl of champurrado (atole mixed with chocolate). “Buenos dias,” he said. “I am single.”
I asked him what he had purchased in the market. He unwrapped his parcel to show me leafy greens, bread and a bunch of small white onions. He gently handled each item as if it were priceless porcelain.
Without warning he turned to me. “Slow down,” he admonished. “There’s plenty of time.” He had observed the speed with which I was drinking my atole. I was unaware that I was rushing to empty the bowl as if there were somewhere more interesting to be or something more important to do than to be in the present moment.
Etla is famous for white cheese made from cows’ milk. At the cheese stalls one of the women vendors explained the different consistencies of the cheese and let me sample the contrasting textures. There was a soft cheese, which looked and tasted like ricotta, a medium firm cheese and a third type, wrapped in a green leaf and packed in a circular wooden mold. The vendor selected one of the latter, unmolded it on a plate and handed it to me. It was too rich to eat all at once; I stored half for a snack.
We entered the adjacent church. Construction was finished in 1636. Baby Jesus was on the left wall. He was dressed in infant’s clothes and wore a white knitted baby’s cap. Another Nino Santo, this one in regal robes and crown, looked out from a case on the right wall. Scattered on the case’s floor were toy cars and trucks and dolls left by the distraught parents and relatives of sick or dying children.
The deserted cloister was tranquil and silent, its arches outlined in brick red. The exterior walls were ringed by trees, their branches weighted down with ripe fruit. Octavio went from tree to tree naming them for me: nisperos (zapote or sapodilla), guayabas (guaya), toronjas (grapefruit), and papayas.
Time seemed to stand still. Not remembering precisely how we got there, we found ourselves back in the atrium in front of the church. It was Octavio who discovered the bamboo towers. They were placed on their side atop a stone platform connected to the church. Spent fireworks were tied in the corners of the carefully crafted staging, remnants of a recent celebration. Fireworks are an integral feature of any fiesta, and we marveled that more spectators were not injured by them.
We crossed the atrium. The iron gate to the street was ajar. Slipping through, we closed it behind us. On the gate was a sign; the atrium should not be used for romance.
We drove through cultivated, fertile land to the chapel of las Penitas. Restored in 1983, the chapel sat on a hill amidst a haunting landscape. The pocked surface of the rock with its smoothly worn, water-filled depressions appeared like a lunar surface, weird and wonderful to the eye. Small stones or penitas peppered the ground in front of the chapel. They were difficult to walk on. Octavio believed they symbolized the stones that paved the route that Jesus took on his way to His Crucifixion.
Miniature grills dotted the foreground. Flat rocks had been topped with bricks arranged so as to leave a small square aperture in the center of each grill. Ashes remained at the bottom of the grills, indicating that they had been used recently. Because it was the wet season, the rains would have washed out or diluted the ash.
“What do you suppose goes on here?” we asked. “What could one possibly roast on such small grills?” Our questions were lost in the air for no one was present, not even a caretaker for the chapel. If it were a place to picnic or to celebrate special occasions involving food, very little could be cooked at one time, a decided drawback when one considers the size of Mexican families. “Perhaps,” we mused, “these little stoves are for offerings.”
The chapel was next. Inside we met Our Lady of Guadalupe. She stood in the left transept benevolently gazing down upon a model of a green two-story house, which a hopeful petitioner had placed on a table. In the right transept beneath another Virgin, a table displayed a model of a pharmacy. Beside it was a white one-story house with a basket of fake flowers on its flat roof. “The donors must be a newly married couple.” Octavio speculated.
Milagro means miracle. It also denotes a votive offering, a tangible representation of a prayer or plea for a miracle, which a petitioner makes to a saint or a member of the Holy Family. At las Penitas, milagros were fastened to the robes of the two Virgins, wrapping them in prayers and petitions. In other churches, milagros are pinned to the interior walls of saints’ niches or secured on lengths of ribbon or elegant fabric hanging beside a statue.
Milagros commonly are made of tin and have a narrow, colored ribbon attached at the top. There is a milagro for almost every aspect of daily life. Spiritual or emotional problems? Choose a miniature person who is standing or kneeling in prayer. Parts of one’s anatomy that may be affected? Buy an eye, a hand, a leg, a heart, breasts or ears. Troubles concerning the crops or the home? Select a tiny dog, cat, mule or donkey, perhaps an ear of corn, a house or a car.
Driving away from the chapel, Octavio braked beside a stand of trees. “Higerillas. They have seeds that give oil for shampoo. Don’t use the oil for cooking, though,” he warned. Traveling with Octavio was an adventure in discovering herbs, trees, fruits and flowers. He had a vast storehouse of knowledge about the customs and the natural history of the State. He always was pointing out something new or giving me a novel interpretation of something that I might have taken for granted.
We were ready for Toledo’s workshop; however, Octavio had neglected to bring directions. No one he asked knew its exact location, not even the police stationed at barracks beside the main road. “Mexicans frequently give bad directions,” Octavio counseled, “so I choose the route the democratic way. I ask many people and choose the direction given by the majority.” The consensus of opinion was to make a right turn off the main road.
The dirt road passed through an area noted for plentiful springs, which fed the many balnearios (pools of thermal waters) that lined both sides of the road. The balneario named “Acapulco” appealed to us. We joked that we could boast to our friends in the City that we had been to Acapulco and back in a day. Later, we would learn that these abundant springs provided a reliable source of water to the Taller, even during the dry season when water was at a premium.
We knew we were lost when we arrived at a dead end. The only person in sight was a man in work clothes. He was leaving a driveway to our right and walking towards the door of an adjacent building. Octavio acted quickly. He clenched his right fist and held fist and forearm horizontally in front of him. In response, the man pointed his left index finger at his chest, raised his eyebrows and froze. When Octavio told him that we were looking for the Taller, he sprang to life. Using no words, only elaborate and animated hand signals, he directed us to turn sharp right, drive down a steep gradient of enormous paving stones and turn sharp left. At the end of the road was the former hydroelectric power station, now the Taller de Arte Papel Oaxaca.
We faced a plot of emerald green grass with a fountain in its center. Behind it was the Taller, white-washed and decorated with red brick columns. Red brick lintels ornamented the tops of the doors and the open, iron-barred windows. Narrow channels of rushing water bordered the lawn. The sound of coursing water mingling with the sound of water splashing from the fountain was soothing and refreshing.
As we approached the Taller’s entrance, a man appeared in the open doorway. He cordially invited us in and appointed himself our guide. The one-room interior was spacious. Sunlight, streaming through the windows, highlighted the workers, who quietly went about their business paying no attention to our sudden and unexpected arrival. Only our low voices, the creak of machinery and the muffled footsteps of the men broke the silence.
We asked many questions, and our guide patiently answered them. He enumerated the native plants from which the paper is made; Maguey, brown cotton, carrizo and banana were the only names we recognized. He explained that chichicastle, an important ingredient in the paper, was a fiber used for weaving in pre-Hispanic times.
Plants arrived at the workshop from communities throughout the State. Each community was responsible for the cultivation, harvesting and conservation of the plants shipped to the Taller. There should be no threat of over-harvesting or of dwindling resources.
Our guide, worker 1, led us to the machinery that stood on a low stage. Baskets filled with leaves and other plant parts rested at the edge of the platform. The baskets’ contents were waiting to be crushed by being circulated in a trough of boiling water for one and one-half hours. They would replace the batch of mashed fibers that had completed its allotted time in the boiling water and was ready to be removed to an adjacent vat. Our guide suggested that I reach in and sample the wet pulp. I grabbed a handful of the mushy contents and squeezed it between my fingers.
After worker 2 transferred the pulp to a vat, he added glue extracted from the prickly pear and stirred it into the pulp. He showed us a rectangular wood frame, which encased two screens nested inside each other. He plunged the frame into the bath and withdrew it in order to demonstrate how a thick layer of the mixture rested on top of the screens. Holding the frame over the bath, he waited until the liquid drained through the screens and left a rectangular residue of pulp on the top screen.
He carried the frame to a thin, flexible metal sheet, which rested on a larger gray felt-like mat. Working slowly and methodically, he pressed the frame from one side of the metal sheet to the other. What remained on the sheet was a rectangle of pressed pulp. He repeated screening and pressing the pulp until there were enough layers of mat-metal-pulp for worker 2 to carry to the pressing machine.
Worker 3 placed the layers between two massive plates on the pressing machine. He cranked the handle of a wheel on one side of the press. As the upper plate slowly descended, it compressed the layers and extracted the residual liquid, which splattered on the floor. Several more twists of the handle satisfied him that the press had removed all of the liquid and had flattened the paper.
Worker 4 took the stack from the press and placed it on a flat surface. A thin sheet of paper now adhered to each metal sheet. Layer by layer he discarded the mat and inserted a hook at one end of the metal sheet, leaving the paper attached. He suspended each metal sheet on a crosspiece, which hung between two horizontal bars of an empty rack.
When the rack was full, he rolled it out the back door to join other racks of paper drying in the sun. He estimated that it took eight hours for the paper to dry during the rainy season, less time during the dry season.
Racks of dried paper worked on in black or in color by the creative hand of Toledo lined one wall inside the workshop. We asked permission to examine them. “Toledo was here yesterday,” our guide said pointing to his studio in a corner. We had missed him by a day, but we could sense his lingering presence amidst the paints and brushes scattering his work space. None of the men knew when he would return; none of them knew where he lived. His unannounced schedule protected his privacy.
Our guide accompanied us outside and pointed us down a path. At the end was an open-sided structure. Its roof provided shade for artisans working at sturdy tables and benches.
A woman was assembling a book from sheets of paper, and three women were making paper jewelry. One was cutting triangles of different sizes from the paper. Another slowly dipped an edge of a triangle in a shallow pan filled with natural dye of a neutral color. She rotated the triangle so that each edge absorbed a narrow band of dye before she set the triangle aside to dry. A third rolled triangles into beads. She tightly wound each triangle around a cylindrical rod, glued its apex to the roll and put the bead in a box. We watched her struggle with a bead; the roll was too loose. She unrolled it and began again, the tips of her fingers acting like delicate sensors throughout the process. She acknowledged our exclamations of approval with a smile and a slight nod. After all, that was her job.
We admired the handiwork of the women who were stringing necklaces of beads or of rounds of white fish bone and small paper circles. My favorite necklace was constructed of small pieces of accordion-pleated paper. I fastened it around my neck, and the folds fanned out like an elegant ruffle. That was the one I wanted. But the jewelry was not for sale. A chorus of voices informed us that the articles were sold only in the City at the shop at Santo Domingo Church.
We returned to the main building in order to thank the workmen for their warm hospitality. I thought about Toledo, his vision and how he had translated it into a project that benefited an ever-widening spiral of people. The spiral began at the Taller with jobs for the unemployed. It widened to encompass the plant harvesters, the apprentices working in the Taller, the researchers who investigated new sources of plant fibers and new paper-making techniques, the artists who created the finished products and the patrons who purchased the works of art. I was deeply touched by this first-hand experience of how one man’s dream had become a triumph with far-reaching influence.
We exited the Taller to find an evergreen bush with elongated leaves and delicate white flowers, their centers washed with pale yellow. It looked like a giant rhododendron with apple blossoms. “What is this?” we inquired. One of the men replied, “Beautiful, no? We use the pretty flowers to make crosses for the churches.”
“What a fitting tree to be growing outside the workshop!” I exclaimed. “Inside plants are being turned into paper while outside these flowers will be made into decorations.”
On the way back to the main road we stopped at a church. Shrines lined both walls of the nave. Each shrine was a small stage. The actor was the saint who posed in the shrine before a backdrop of painted trompe l’oeil drapes. Stacked in a corner beside one of the shrines were intricately woven palm fans with woven palm grips. Beside them, woven palm circles, overlaid with palm crosses, sprouted from the ends of long handles. “For the processions,” Octavio explained.
A beguiling Virgin in a gown of airy white fabric stood at the front of the chancel smiling at someone’s labor of love. That someone had strewn a thick bed of recently plucked flower petals of the most subtle colors on the floor of the transept. The fragile petals had been lovingly arranged in the shape of an oval rug, a perfect spot upon which to kneel in prayer. The scent from the petals perfumed the air. No wonder Our Lady looked so happy.
Two steps led up from the petals to where the Virgin rested. A three-legged copal burner containing the remains of an offering of copal incense stood on the first step. The smell of the incense blended with the fragrance of the petals. On the second step, the flickering flame of a candle created an air of mystery and intimacy. A tiny broom, waiting to sweep up the petals after they lost their freshness, leaned against the altar rail. No doubt about it, a special holiness enveloped the space. An invisible barrier sealed it off from the rest of the church. It remains an unforgettable picture, indelibly etched in my mind’s eye by the twin senses of sight and smell.
We headed back to the City. Arriving at the gate of my bed and breakfast, Octavio shook my hand and summed up the day. “Thank you,” he said. “When I learned I was going to a paper factory I couldn’t believe it. I wondered what kind of a day it would be. Now I know. It was a day to remember.
I had returned to Oaxaca, because I was intrigued that one of Oaxaca’s famous artists, Francisco Toledo, had converted a former hydroelectric power plant into a workshop to produce high quality paper from native plants. When I learned that the Taller or workshop provided jobs for the community, there was no hesitation in planning a visit. I was eager to see how the strands of Toledo’s project had been knitted together into a cohesive whole: the building, the native plants, the workers and the end product of fine quality paper.
We drove north from the City on a cloudless, hot, sunny day with no hint of rain. Our first stop was the market at Etla. Only one parking spot remained. Octavio spotted it and squeezed into the tight place. We remarked on our good fortune.
Stone steps led up to the market. Not content to be crammed into one building, stalls with white awnings flowed down the stone steps to form a pool of vendors at the bottom. Sounds, smells and colors swirled and eddied. It was like entering the Mexican version of Harrods’ Food Halls in London.
There were herbs, potions, amulets, embroidery, farm implements, seeds, beans, bunches of small slender ocote (resinous pine used for igniting wood fires or lighting gas stoves), green pottery from Atzompa, local red pottery and tall, deep cylindrical baskets woven from carrizo (a native reed). Red tomatoes sprawled next to green chilies; mounds of ripe pineapples shouldered them. Branches of nopal cactus (prickly pear) and its fruit (tuna) rested side by side. Nopal branches are cooked in a variety of dishes and are good for controlling diabetes; the edible fruit makes an especially refreshing sorbet or nieva.
During our stroll through the market, I learned about the seven regions of Oaxaca, the seven moles of Oaxaca and the six colors of bougainvillea. I needed a break. My head was whirling from the sun, the sights and so many facts. “Please, no more talking until I rest.”
We stopped at a stall where a woman was selling atole, a pre-Hispanic drink reminiscent of gruel. The recipe calls for boiling roasted corn in water. Then grinding, straining and thickening the mixture. The result is a comforting and filling drink especially for breakfast.
The atole was rapidly boiling in a metal tub on long legs, and the pottery serving bowls were sparkling clean, both signs of safety in choosing a vendor from whom to buy atole in the markets. I ordered a bowl, knowing it was just what I needed to clear my head.
I settled myself on a plank bench next to a portly man dressed in a dazzling white suit and white sombrero. He held a bowl of champurrado (atole mixed with chocolate). “Buenos dias,” he said. “I am single.”
I asked him what he had purchased in the market. He unwrapped his parcel to show me leafy greens, bread and a bunch of small white onions. He gently handled each item as if it were priceless porcelain.
Without warning he turned to me. “Slow down,” he admonished. “There’s plenty of time.” He had observed the speed with which I was drinking my atole. I was unaware that I was rushing to empty the bowl as if there were somewhere more interesting to be or something more important to do than to be in the present moment.
Etla is famous for white cheese made from cows’ milk. At the cheese stalls one of the women vendors explained the different consistencies of the cheese and let me sample the contrasting textures. There was a soft cheese, which looked and tasted like ricotta, a medium firm cheese and a third type, wrapped in a green leaf and packed in a circular wooden mold. The vendor selected one of the latter, unmolded it on a plate and handed it to me. It was too rich to eat all at once; I stored half for a snack.
We entered the adjacent church. Construction was finished in 1636. Baby Jesus was on the left wall. He was dressed in infant’s clothes and wore a white knitted baby’s cap. Another Nino Santo, this one in regal robes and crown, looked out from a case on the right wall. Scattered on the case’s floor were toy cars and trucks and dolls left by the distraught parents and relatives of sick or dying children.
The deserted cloister was tranquil and silent, its arches outlined in brick red. The exterior walls were ringed by trees, their branches weighted down with ripe fruit. Octavio went from tree to tree naming them for me: nisperos (zapote or sapodilla), guayabas (guaya), toronjas (grapefruit), and papayas.
Time seemed to stand still. Not remembering precisely how we got there, we found ourselves back in the atrium in front of the church. It was Octavio who discovered the bamboo towers. They were placed on their side atop a stone platform connected to the church. Spent fireworks were tied in the corners of the carefully crafted staging, remnants of a recent celebration. Fireworks are an integral feature of any fiesta, and we marveled that more spectators were not injured by them.
We crossed the atrium. The iron gate to the street was ajar. Slipping through, we closed it behind us. On the gate was a sign; the atrium should not be used for romance.
We drove through cultivated, fertile land to the chapel of las Penitas. Restored in 1983, the chapel sat on a hill amidst a haunting landscape. The pocked surface of the rock with its smoothly worn, water-filled depressions appeared like a lunar surface, weird and wonderful to the eye. Small stones or penitas peppered the ground in front of the chapel. They were difficult to walk on. Octavio believed they symbolized the stones that paved the route that Jesus took on his way to His Crucifixion.
Miniature grills dotted the foreground. Flat rocks had been topped with bricks arranged so as to leave a small square aperture in the center of each grill. Ashes remained at the bottom of the grills, indicating that they had been used recently. Because it was the wet season, the rains would have washed out or diluted the ash.“What do you suppose goes on here?” we asked. “What could one possibly roast on such small grills?” Our questions were lost in the air for no one was present, not even a caretaker for the chapel. If it were a place to picnic or to celebrate special occasions involving food, very little could be cooked at one time, a decided drawback when one considers the size of Mexican families. “Perhaps,” we mused, “these little stoves are for offerings.”
The chapel was next. Inside we met Our Lady of Guadalupe. She stood in the left transept benevolently gazing down upon a model of a green two-story house, which a hopeful petitioner had placed on a table. In the right transept beneath another Virgin, a table displayed a model of a pharmacy. Beside it was a white one-story house with a basket of fake flowers on its flat roof. “The donors must be a newly married couple.” Octavio speculated.
Milagro means miracle. It also denotes a votive offering, a tangible representation of a prayer or plea for a miracle, which a petitioner makes to a saint or a member of the Holy Family. At las Penitas, milagros were fastened to the robes of the two Virgins, wrapping them in prayers and petitions. In other churches, milagros are pinned to the interior walls of saints’ niches or secured on lengths of ribbon or elegant fabric hanging beside a statue.
Milagros commonly are made of tin and have a narrow, colored ribbon attached at the top. There is a milagro for almost every aspect of daily life. Spiritual or emotional problems? Choose a miniature person who is standing or kneeling in prayer. Parts of one’s anatomy that may be affected? Buy an eye, a hand, a leg, a heart, breasts or ears. Troubles concerning the crops or the home? Select a tiny dog, cat, mule or donkey, perhaps an ear of corn, a house or a car.
Driving away from the chapel, Octavio braked beside a stand of trees. “Higerillas. They have seeds that give oil for shampoo. Don’t use the oil for cooking, though,” he warned. Traveling with Octavio was an adventure in discovering herbs, trees, fruits and flowers. He had a vast storehouse of knowledge about the customs and the natural history of the State. He always was pointing out something new or giving me a novel interpretation of something that I might have taken for granted.
We were ready for Toledo’s workshop; however, Octavio had neglected to bring directions. No one he asked knew its exact location, not even the police stationed at barracks beside the main road. “Mexicans frequently give bad directions,” Octavio counseled, “so I choose the route the democratic way. I ask many people and choose the direction given by the majority.” The consensus of opinion was to make a right turn off the main road.
The dirt road passed through an area noted for plentiful springs, which fed the many balnearios (pools of thermal waters) that lined both sides of the road. The balneario named “Acapulco” appealed to us. We joked that we could boast to our friends in the City that we had been to Acapulco and back in a day. Later, we would learn that these abundant springs provided a reliable source of water to the Taller, even during the dry season when water was at a premium.
We knew we were lost when we arrived at a dead end. The only person in sight was a man in work clothes. He was leaving a driveway to our right and walking towards the door of an adjacent building. Octavio acted quickly. He clenched his right fist and held fist and forearm horizontally in front of him. In response, the man pointed his left index finger at his chest, raised his eyebrows and froze. When Octavio told him that we were looking for the Taller, he sprang to life. Using no words, only elaborate and animated hand signals, he directed us to turn sharp right, drive down a steep gradient of enormous paving stones and turn sharp left. At the end of the road was the former hydroelectric power station, now the Taller de Arte Papel Oaxaca.
We faced a plot of emerald green grass with a fountain in its center. Behind it was the Taller, white-washed and decorated with red brick columns. Red brick lintels ornamented the tops of the doors and the open, iron-barred windows. Narrow channels of rushing water bordered the lawn. The sound of coursing water mingling with the sound of water splashing from the fountain was soothing and refreshing.As we approached the Taller’s entrance, a man appeared in the open doorway. He cordially invited us in and appointed himself our guide. The one-room interior was spacious. Sunlight, streaming through the windows, highlighted the workers, who quietly went about their business paying no attention to our sudden and unexpected arrival. Only our low voices, the creak of machinery and the muffled footsteps of the men broke the silence.
We asked many questions, and our guide patiently answered them. He enumerated the native plants from which the paper is made; Maguey, brown cotton, carrizo and banana were the only names we recognized. He explained that chichicastle, an important ingredient in the paper, was a fiber used for weaving in pre-Hispanic times.
Plants arrived at the workshop from communities throughout the State. Each community was responsible for the cultivation, harvesting and conservation of the plants shipped to the Taller. There should be no threat of over-harvesting or of dwindling resources.
Our guide, worker 1, led us to the machinery that stood on a low stage. Baskets filled with leaves and other plant parts rested at the edge of the platform. The baskets’ contents were waiting to be crushed by being circulated in a trough of boiling water for one and one-half hours. They would replace the batch of mashed fibers that had completed its allotted time in the boiling water and was ready to be removed to an adjacent vat. Our guide suggested that I reach in and sample the wet pulp. I grabbed a handful of the mushy contents and squeezed it between my fingers.
After worker 2 transferred the pulp to a vat, he added glue extracted from the prickly pear and stirred it into the pulp. He showed us a rectangular wood frame, which encased two screens nested inside each other. He plunged the frame into the bath and withdrew it in order to demonstrate how a thick layer of the mixture rested on top of the screens. Holding the frame over the bath, he waited until the liquid drained through the screens and left a rectangular residue of pulp on the top screen.
He carried the frame to a thin, flexible metal sheet, which rested on a larger gray felt-like mat. Working slowly and methodically, he pressed the frame from one side of the metal sheet to the other. What remained on the sheet was a rectangle of pressed pulp. He repeated screening and pressing the pulp until there were enough layers of mat-metal-pulp for worker 2 to carry to the pressing machine.
Worker 3 placed the layers between two massive plates on the pressing machine. He cranked the handle of a wheel on one side of the press. As the upper plate slowly descended, it compressed the layers and extracted the residual liquid, which splattered on the floor. Several more twists of the handle satisfied him that the press had removed all of the liquid and had flattened the paper.
Worker 4 took the stack from the press and placed it on a flat surface. A thin sheet of paper now adhered to each metal sheet. Layer by layer he discarded the mat and inserted a hook at one end of the metal sheet, leaving the paper attached. He suspended each metal sheet on a crosspiece, which hung between two horizontal bars of an empty rack.
When the rack was full, he rolled it out the back door to join other racks of paper drying in the sun. He estimated that it took eight hours for the paper to dry during the rainy season, less time during the dry season.Racks of dried paper worked on in black or in color by the creative hand of Toledo lined one wall inside the workshop. We asked permission to examine them. “Toledo was here yesterday,” our guide said pointing to his studio in a corner. We had missed him by a day, but we could sense his lingering presence amidst the paints and brushes scattering his work space. None of the men knew when he would return; none of them knew where he lived. His unannounced schedule protected his privacy.
Our guide accompanied us outside and pointed us down a path. At the end was an open-sided structure. Its roof provided shade for artisans working at sturdy tables and benches.
A woman was assembling a book from sheets of paper, and three women were making paper jewelry. One was cutting triangles of different sizes from the paper. Another slowly dipped an edge of a triangle in a shallow pan filled with natural dye of a neutral color. She rotated the triangle so that each edge absorbed a narrow band of dye before she set the triangle aside to dry. A third rolled triangles into beads. She tightly wound each triangle around a cylindrical rod, glued its apex to the roll and put the bead in a box. We watched her struggle with a bead; the roll was too loose. She unrolled it and began again, the tips of her fingers acting like delicate sensors throughout the process. She acknowledged our exclamations of approval with a smile and a slight nod. After all, that was her job.
We admired the handiwork of the women who were stringing necklaces of beads or of rounds of white fish bone and small paper circles. My favorite necklace was constructed of small pieces of accordion-pleated paper. I fastened it around my neck, and the folds fanned out like an elegant ruffle. That was the one I wanted. But the jewelry was not for sale. A chorus of voices informed us that the articles were sold only in the City at the shop at Santo Domingo Church.
We returned to the main building in order to thank the workmen for their warm hospitality. I thought about Toledo, his vision and how he had translated it into a project that benefited an ever-widening spiral of people. The spiral began at the Taller with jobs for the unemployed. It widened to encompass the plant harvesters, the apprentices working in the Taller, the researchers who investigated new sources of plant fibers and new paper-making techniques, the artists who created the finished products and the patrons who purchased the works of art. I was deeply touched by this first-hand experience of how one man’s dream had become a triumph with far-reaching influence.
We exited the Taller to find an evergreen bush with elongated leaves and delicate white flowers, their centers washed with pale yellow. It looked like a giant rhododendron with apple blossoms. “What is this?” we inquired. One of the men replied, “Beautiful, no? We use the pretty flowers to make crosses for the churches.”“What a fitting tree to be growing outside the workshop!” I exclaimed. “Inside plants are being turned into paper while outside these flowers will be made into decorations.”
On the way back to the main road we stopped at a church. Shrines lined both walls of the nave. Each shrine was a small stage. The actor was the saint who posed in the shrine before a backdrop of painted trompe l’oeil drapes. Stacked in a corner beside one of the shrines were intricately woven palm fans with woven palm grips. Beside them, woven palm circles, overlaid with palm crosses, sprouted from the ends of long handles. “For the processions,” Octavio explained.
A beguiling Virgin in a gown of airy white fabric stood at the front of the chancel smiling at someone’s labor of love. That someone had strewn a thick bed of recently plucked flower petals of the most subtle colors on the floor of the transept. The fragile petals had been lovingly arranged in the shape of an oval rug, a perfect spot upon which to kneel in prayer. The scent from the petals perfumed the air. No wonder Our Lady looked so happy.
Two steps led up from the petals to where the Virgin rested. A three-legged copal burner containing the remains of an offering of copal incense stood on the first step. The smell of the incense blended with the fragrance of the petals. On the second step, the flickering flame of a candle created an air of mystery and intimacy. A tiny broom, waiting to sweep up the petals after they lost their freshness, leaned against the altar rail. No doubt about it, a special holiness enveloped the space. An invisible barrier sealed it off from the rest of the church. It remains an unforgettable picture, indelibly etched in my mind’s eye by the twin senses of sight and smell.
We headed back to the City. Arriving at the gate of my bed and breakfast, Octavio shook my hand and summed up the day. “Thank you,” he said. “When I learned I was going to a paper factory I couldn’t believe it. I wondered what kind of a day it would be. Now I know. It was a day to remember.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Apoala and the Fleece Part II
Without warning, Apoala appeared, deep in its valley and green as a watering hole. In the dry season, the fertile valley looked like an oasis.
A line of trees curved across the floor of the valley. To the left was a quilt of tidy brown, green and sand-colored squares. We spotted a narrow dirt line slicing the valley. Having visited Apoala last year, we recognized the important landmarks: the yu’u, main street, Tony’s Store and the church. Deep scratches like pencil marks cross-hatched the slopes of the mountains. Far to the right, a U-shaped fold in the mountains promised entrance to untamed regions.
It was exactly 11:30 when we pulled up in front of the yu’u, registered and paid 50 pesos for our guide. A quick glance high to the right. The Devil's Cave still monitored the village.Our guide was curled up asleep. He preferred to continue his nap. Abraham, a pleasant, self-contained young man who was finishing secondary school, agreed to be his substitute. He would work four months as a guide before being replaced by another student.
Our throats were as parched as the land we had just driven through. Just as the land asked for water, we asked for beers. We gave one to Abraham. He described our route while we slowly sipped the lukewarm liquid.
Our first stop was a cave. I waited outside and immersed myself in the sound of two gurgling springs. One spring flowed from a crevice near the cave; the other emerged far below the cave’s entrance. The water rushed away to feed the river, which also flowed through the village and irrigated the village crops.
Octavio and Abraham emerged from the cave, and Abraham concealed his battery-powered lantern behind a ledge. He would pick it up on the way back. We settled down to enjoy a spectacular hike through ravines, towering cliffs and high canyon walls.
Abraham narrated a story about a double-headed eagle. It had preyed on cattle in the village and then hid in a cave in the face of a cliff. Whenever the eagle ravaged the cattle, the villagers ran to the priest who was unable to help. One day a villager took matters into his own hands and shot and killed the eagle. From that day forth, there was peace (1).
We followed the shallow river as it ran between high walls. The water held the tint of reddish soil. Boulders interrupted its progress. Scrub and trees with twisty branches lined its banks. A few trees clung to the sides of the gorges. Everything looked bleached and petrified in the intense heat.
Back at the yu’u we collapsed in our rooms. Abraham disappeared to do whatever young men do in Apoala. We slept soundly, awoke and explored the village. Tony’s Store was closed. It had been newly white-washed. It looked solid and prosperous. A tree cross was planted in the ground in front of it.“What are the tree crosses for?” I asked a villager. He shrugged. His companion stepped forward.
“They are for El Dia de la Cruz (The Day of the Cross) on May 3rd. May 3rd is a feast in the Mixteca. We plant new crosses and decorate them with colored paper and crepe paper flowers or redecorate crosses that we planted the previous year. It also is the day to honor architects and engineers, and we erect a tree cross on a building when it is finished.”
Before we could enter the church grounds, we had to pass beneath a backboard with a basketball hoop. The board was white with a double-headed eagle painted brick red in its center. We didn’t remember seeing it last year.We stepped into the church, delighted that on this trip we had the leisure to enjoy its interior. We halted in astonishment. Another double-headed eagle! Where was it last year? It couldn’t have been there!
This double-headed eagle was painted on a panel of wood, which was mounted on a side wall at the rear of the church. The eagles were brick red with their crests, heads, bodies and wings detailed in a lighter red. The background was robin’s egg blue. In the space between the back of the eagles’ head was a white flower with a dark red center.I stepped back in amazement. There was the Fleece, the Fleece I had sworn so long ago to discover with Jason. It hung from the base of a white fleece cross, placed within an oval formed in the conjoined backs of the eagles.
At one time the panel had sustained a vertical crack, but the two sections had been pieced together so that the edges formed an almost perfect match. The eagle on the left had sustained minor damage.
The bottom of the panel bore an inscription in white capital letters:
“Apoala. Noch. Oax. Enero 30 de 1981
Recuerdo a futuras generaciones.
Rest. Edeardo Zavaleta.” (2)
Still reeling from the excitement of discovering the Fleece, I approached the sanctuary. A chill ran down my back. There, on the floor beside the altar was a wheel with small bells attached to its spokes. A foot pedal protruded from one side. Whoever pumped the pedal would turn the wheel causing the bells to ring and send out vibrations into the surrounding atmosphere. Just like a Tibetan prayer wheel being spun round and round to send out the vibrations of the mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, inscribed on paper within the wheel.
My thoughts were whirling as I tried to comprehend the fact that two symbols connected to my childhood were here in this church. Impossible! I sat in a pew and tried to sort out the meaning, but I felt as if I had been hit over the head. I was shivering. I felt as if I had been knocked off balance. And then a voice spoke in my heart, “This is what you’ve been searching for.”
After I regained my composure, we stepped out into the fresh air. We crossed a bridge over the gurgling river. Cows lingered even though their owners urged them home. Trees with ripening fruit lined the river bank. At the end of the road a man accosted us. He had come from his field in order to demand four pesos. “You’re making money from me by taking pictures of my crops. That’s unfair.” He and Octavio exchanged forceful words, but in the end we paid.“Hide your camera,” Octavio warned. “Don’t take any more photographs.”
We detoured down a side path. “Be careful,” Octavio cautioned. “The man may be watching.” His words echoed back from the mountains. No matter how softly we spoke, our words echoed back to us. It was eerie to realize the villagers could hear whatever we said. “Let’s return to the yu’u. If the villagers can hear us, so can the farmer.”
After dinner, we slept and awoke about 10 p.m. for groggy conversation, hot milk with powdered coffee and bread before turning in for the night. “There is no TV,” the attendant said. “One of the attendants destroyed it. She didn’t want to take care of it.”
The next morning I was out early. It was 7 a.m.; Octavio was asleep. Two women wearing rebozos and several men softly called, “Buenos dias.”
A janitor was sweeping the school yard. He leaned on his broom and shook my hand, “Buenos dias. Where are you from? I am so happy to meet you.”
Another man repeated the same courtesies but added, “Where is your husband? Is he at the yu’u?”
“No, he is back in the States.”
“I hope the next time you visit Apoala you will bring him with you. We would like to meet him and show him our beautiful village.”
At the end of the village where the river rushed to the right towards the canyons, I met a tiny wizened man who, at the end of his formalities, asked me for a peso. “Just a little peso,” he said, “not a big one.” To prove his sincerity, he made a circle with his thumb and index finger and held it up for me to see.
Octavio was still asleep when I returned to the yu’u. Soon, however, he joined me for powdered coffee stirred into hot milk and beef and tamales. We had just sat down to breakfast when Abraham hailed us through an open window. Swinging a leg over the sill, he leapt into the room with a thermos of home made mezcal. Octavio sampled it, but I declined. I had become violently ill. I went to my room, swallowed pills and slept while Abraham and Octavio hiked to the waterfall.
They woke me after an hour. Octavio’s blue and white striped shirt was soaked with perspiration. “Parts of the hike were difficult. But the falls are beautiful. They cascade over red cliffs to plummet into a pool. It would be good for swimming. The water is cold, clear and ice blue. I am happy. I got wonderful shots of the waterfall. Three good ones. Wait until you see them. You will like them.”
Abraham offered to take Octavio to the mouth of the Devil’s Cave, but Octavio declined. He was too tired to attempt the precipitous climb. Relieved, I went back to bed. I left Octavio tinkering with his car and adding oil from the container he had purchased in Nochixtlan.
I got up for the last time. The two women at the medical clinic next door consulted me about seeing the doctor who was in residence that day. “He will be happy to treat you,” they said.
“Muy amable (very kind),” I said weakly. “No gracias.”
They nodded gravely. “You will be better soon.”
The attendants at the yu’u brewed a pot of manzanilla (chamomile) tea. One cup of steaming tea perked me up, two cups revived me, and three restored me enough so that I stepped out to admire the clinic’s garden bursting with red amaryllis and white hollyhocks.
One of the women was going off duty. She walked two hours roundtrip every day from her home in the mountains to her volunteer job at the clinic. She explained that she had a year’s contract with the government. When it expired, the authorities would replace her with another volunteer and another contract. In her spare time, she wove palm frond hats.
We reached a mutual exchange. If we drove her home, she would sell us a straw hat. We both coveted a hat with its brim upturned to the crown and a circlet of loose palm fronds cascading from the edge of the brim.
“I sell a hat for 5 pesos,” she said, “but middlemen buy 12 hats for 18 pesos. They resell them in the City at a profit.”
We loaded our belongings into the car. High above the town, she signaled us to park. She raced down a hill. When she reappeared, she carried three hats with unfinished straw brims and a hat she had made for one of her daughters. We each bought a hat for 5 pesos. I didn’t have the heart to buy the one she had made for her little girl. I felt sure the little girl would be disappointed even if she understood the sale would benefit her family. Octavio gave her 20 extra pesos.
“No, no, you are too kind. I can’t accept.”
“For your children,” he said, with his most winning smile.
She relented. “Thank you. You are very kind. Here, though, you must take the third hat.”
We said good-by and strode away. Octavio wore two hats, one on top of the other, and I one. “Just like a king and queen,” he said.
The jouncing of the car upset my stomach. “You are white,” Octavio announced as he braked and helped me out. I felt as if I were going to die. The bumps seemed to have worsened since yesterday, and the heat was suffocating.
I was thankful when we arrived in Nochixtlan and found a restaurant. Octavio ordered soup with grated carrots and cabbage and a dish of meat and potatoes. He spoke with the owner. “Por favor, make the American my bad stomach remedy. She is not well.”
“How?”
“Combine the juice of two lemons, a bottle of mineral water and two alka seltzer tablets.”
The owner set the glass before me. He averted his eyes, but his smile conveyed sympathy.
Octavio instructed, “Drink this. I always take it before going to bed and again in the morning when I have a sick stomach.” I followed his advice, drank another bottle of mineral water and ate a few spoonfuls of cherry Jell-o. I felt better.
That night I meditated in my room. My thoughts embraced embrace the stories that the residents of Apoala might tell future generations. Perhaps with embellishments. The element of mystery was strong. A stranger appeared in the village and then departed never to be heard from. His house by the river was the only physical reminder that he had lived there. Perhaps with the advent of tourists the need for the stranger would disappear.
On our first trip we had learned about the Devil's Cave and the cave where a live double-headed eagle was discovered.
On the second trip, the Devil's Cave was a name without a story. The story about the disappearance of the children and the Devil had been transformed into a story about a live double-headed eagle carrying off cattle. The hero who had put an end to the Devil's machinations had been replaced by the hero who killed the eagle. The essence of the story remained; evil was done, and evil was overcome.
On our second trip, there was a double-headed eagle painted on a basketball backboard and a restored wooden panel inside the church with a double-headed eagle with the Fleece.
The double-headed eagle as a decorative motif inside of a church is not unique to Apoala. Charles Moritzky noted that a small ruined church in San Francisco Ixtacamaxtitlan had reddish designs of the double-headed eagle on its walls (3). Did the same artist execute them?
The double-headed eagle and the Order of the Golden Fleece were associated with the Hapsburgs and were carried to Mexico by Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico. Had Maximilian, disguised as one of the people, visited Apoala, thereby inspiring the emblem of the double-headed eagle and the insignia of the Fleece? Or were the eagle and the Fleece Apoala’s attempt to add character and color to the village?
I was grateful to have been present at the birth and evolution of a village’s stories. They hint at a village’s origins. In them are the sacred wellsprings of history, which are always carefully guarded. Sacred sites, symbols and stories are carefully groomed for public presentation. In some respects, I felt I had not only visited the birthplace of the Mixtecas but the birthplace of developing legends.
Stories would be told. Perhaps even we had entered a story. I wondered what elements of our story would be included. Part of the charm is not knowing. I was not born in Apoala. Nor did I spend any length of time there. On our first visit, we dropped out of the mists, unannounced and unexpected. The village offered us its best hospitality in food and stories. Our more formal arrival six months later with rooms reserved in a new tourist lodge led to as much hospitality but less colorful stories.
To drop out of the mists is to catch a village and its people unguarded and unrehearsed. It is to place oneself in a position so that the question is asked, “How shall we entertain such a visitor, a visitor from outside of our area and outside of our country?” Clearly, everyone did his best.
Part of the story the people of Apoala would never know. How my mental landscape and my dream landscape had coalesced in their village. And how a symbol that represented each landscape had presented itself to me within Apoala’s church. The Fleece belonged to my mental landscape: the ocean and Jason, my childhood hero. The wheel with bells attached to its spokes that evoked images of Tibetan prayer wheels represented my dream landscape.
I had yearned for Tibet. The Himalayas were the longed-for lofty mountains with peaks that would endow me with spiritual insights. The trip I wanted to take would have me flying over haughty, snow-covered summits and landing in Lhasa, short of breath, gasping for air from the altitude and overwhelmed by the grandeur of the Potala.
High mountains that simultaneously contemplated deep valleys and immense skies, blue lakes, clear air and the deep spiritual devotion of a people became the benchmarks for what I met in Oaxaca. Tibet always lurked beneath the surface.
How do the mountains compare to those in Tibet? Is the silence of the high places similar; is the silence more profound in Tibet?
Look! The festive triangles of colored paper and plastic triangles strung between trees, across the facades of churches and over roads with the mountains as a backdrop. How like Tibetan prayer flags flapping in the breeze!
The women using their rebozos as baby slings or carry-alls reminded me of Tibetans storing babies, cups, bowls and whatever else they needed to travel with in the recesses of their belted robes.
I visualized the two symbols that had made such an impact on me when I stood in the church in Apoala. As I cradled both images deep inside me, the voice again spoke. “This is what you’ve been searching for.”
(1) Whipperman, Bruce. Oaxacan Handbook. Moon Travel Handbooks. Avalon Travel Publishing. Emeryville, CA. 2000, pp.254-255. Note: Our visit to Apoala in 1999 was before the Cave of the Serpent and the Rock Where the Eagle with Two Heads Died became the official names of these two sites.
(2) “Apoala. Nochixtlan, Oaxaca. January 30 of 1981
I remember future generations
Restorer Edwardo Zavaleta”
(3) Perspectives from San Francisco Ixtacamaxtitlan, Mexico by Charles Moritsky. www.mexconnect.com/mex_/trave
Apoala and the Fleece
In the latter part of November 1998, we arrived at the outskirts of Nochixtlan, and Octavio assumed a thoughtful expression. “Did you know,” he asked, “that ‘lan’ is a suffix that means ‘the place of?’”
“No,” I replied. “What is Nochixtlan the place of?”
“Nochixtlan means the place of the cochineal. Cochineal are insects that feed on a species of cactus. The insects make a red dye, which they store in their body. The Spanish dyed textiles with cochineal and shipped them to Europe where the imported fabric became as valuable as gold.
“Now, Nochixtlan is noted for round loaves of wheat bread. Families bake the bread in kilns and sell the loaves in the local Sunday market.”
A sign at the boundary of Santiago Amatlan announced that its population was 550. A red-domed church looked down on us from a hill. Yellow flowers and diminutive white-washed houses covered the hillside. A road led up to the church. Half-way up, boulders and ledges prevented the car from going farther. We locked the doors and the trunk and stumbled the remaining distance over the rocks. Below, a loudspeaker summoned workers to the fields.
Inside the church, a man trailed us at a discrete distance. He followed us until we stopped in front of an unfamiliar statue in the left transept. “Who is he?” Octavio asked the man.
“Senor de la Reflexion."
Octavio asked more questions. “It's how we see Jesus in our mind,” he explained to me. “This image represents our personal view of Christ.”
The statue wore a dreamy expression. Bearded, but of youthful demeanor, Christ wore a long white robe and had a silver cruciform halo. He held a pole in his right hand with a square white flag attached near the top.
A woman loitered close by. She confronted Octavio outside the church. “Who invited you into our church?”
“We are Catholics, and no one has to invite us. We don’t need an invitation. God and His church are for everyone.” Octavio turned to me. “The people in this part of Oaxaca take two if you give them one and look for an advantage.”
“Por favor, give me an example.”
“Several years ago, my father and I were cutting Spanish moss to decorate the family crèche and Christmas tree. We had just finished when a man approached. He identified himself as the owner of the land and demanded payment for the moss.” Octavio shook his head in disbelief.
Tiny settlements were scattered along the road. I was fascinated by the different styles of architecture. Close to Nochixtlan, split log outbuildings with conical thatched roofs leaned and sagged against one another. They looked like elderly villagers gossiping and holding onto each other for support. After Amatlan, outhouses were the predominant feature. They had been built beside the main house in full view of the road. Each outhouse had a door made from colorful plastic or fabric, which had been pushed aside to reveal a shining white ceramic toilet. Farther down the road were one-story split log houses. They reminded me of Alpine huts, even to the bench on each side of the entrance and the tin cans of flowers and pots of plants on one of the benches.
It had rained during the night, and the slippery red clay mountain road was treacherous. We slowed for solitary burros and an occasional flock of sheep. We pulled up behind a truck loaded with soft drinks and followed it until the driver turned off to the right and vanished into dense fog.
Suddenly thick mists enveloped us. “No wonder they call this ‘The Place of the Clouds,’” Octavio said. Woods shrouded in fog stretched beside and ahead of us. Drooping tree branches dripped with silvery streamers of Spanish moss. The trees appeared to be an army of hoary spirits condemned to be shackled to the ground until some potent spell unlocked them. We stopped, and, marveling at such a magical place, I slipped through the mists and gathered moss.
At the end of the woods, leafy branches of trees on either side of the road had interlaced their arms to create an oval opening. The opening took us from one world to another, from a world of mystery to a world of clarity.
At last, far below, Santiago Apoala appeared nestled in a valley, a tiny green miracle amidst arid mountains. We cautiously descended into the village and pulled up beside a new tourist yu'u (lodging). After we registered at the front desk, and the clerk deposited our 30 pesos in a drawer, he pulled out a cache of photographs of the significant sights of Apoala.
The first photograph showed the Devil’s Cave. At one time children routinely disappeared from the village. The Devil stole them from their parents, carried them to his lair and ate them. An intrepid villager solved the puzzle of the missing children. He banished the Devil, and the children of Apoala were safe from then on. The mouth of the cave loomed high above the village, visible to all, witness to the story.
The other photographs depicted pre-Hispanic agricultural terraces used by the Ancients and a beautiful waterfall. “And here is the most important bit of news,” the receptionist proudly announced. “We have a cave where a live double-headed eagle was discovered!”
Nothing, not even a live double-headed eagle, could divert Octavio’s attention away from the fact that the fog had increased. It had crept down the mountains and obscured the mouth to the Devil's Cave. We only had enough gas to make it back to the City. He was nervous.
“Let's hurry to the church,” Octavio said. Rushing through the gate, we entered a grassy plaza surrounded by a stone wall.
A small white-washed open-sided chapel topped with a red dome stood at each corner of the plaza. The church was white-washed and had red domes and steeples.
We pushed open the entrance door and entered. Octavio bowed his head in a long prayer. I dipped my index finger in the holy water, crossed my third eye and prayed. We petitioned the fog to lift. We both sought encouragement, but Octavio needed it more than I.
On our way back to the yu’u we stopped at Tony’s Store. Two women lounged in the door. Their fingers were almost invisible as they wove palm fronds into a basket. The hands of the shorter woman were like machines. They moved with rapid-fire precision while she talked. Her eyes never strayed from our faces. She would finish her basket within the hour.
A tall, well-dressed man stopped us as we neared the yu’u. Octavio shared our predicament of not having spare gas. “There is no gas in Apoala to buy,” the man said. “If you get stuck on the steep ascent into the mountains, I will send help from the village.”
I persuaded Octavio to eat. We needed good food and hot coffee in case we met an emergency. While the attendants prepared tamales, the village host caught up with us in the yu’u.
He regaled us with a story about an American man from Georgia. “He lived in Apoala a long time ago. He arrived one day to learn our language. He left as silently as he had appeared, without a word. No one saw him go. There were no good-byes. He never contacted us. I would how you his house if you had time. It’s still down by the river.
“Be sure and alert the Tourist Office in the City that the people of Apoala are ready and waiting for tourists.”
He opened the screen door. It closed behind him with a click.
His departure gave us time to inspect the yu’u. A solarium, which served as a living-dining room, ran the length of one side of the building. Along the opposite side were a matrimonial room with double bed, an open kitchen area with a refrigerator and stove and two single rooms with private baths, comfortable lodgings for overnight. Guests could cook food that they brought or pay the women on duty to prepare food stocked by the yu’u.
The two attendants put our plates in front of us and sat down to gossip. “The girls here in Apoala leave, because there are not enough men. They go to the City, get a job, meet a man and return home with babies.” They sounded envious as if they also wanted to escape life in Apoala and have a baby or two.
We finished eating. I led Octavio outside. “Look up. Look at the Devil’s Cave. The fog has lifted. We can see the cave’s entrance.” Octavio relaxed.
Red poinsettias and giant hibiscus bushes, the color of their flowers intensified by the overcast sky, crowded gardens and towered to the roofs of the simple homes. Like a stage curtain, the receding fog rolled upwards to reveal tangles of yellow flowers covering the flanks of the mountains.
Chicken wire divided the yu’u from a small medical clinic. The ends of a white sheet were tied to the wire. A list printed in red, blue and green letters notified the community of the need to be vigilant in preventing disease and to save the children from dying from pneumonia or diarrhea. The instructions combined good sense and good hygiene and included a command to stop smoking around children.
Taking a last look around, we got in the car and began our journey out of Apoala. It was not the time to talk. The road ascended in precipitous curves, and the red clay was still wet and slippery. That meant possible skids, plunges over the cliff edge and rock slides. The fog had cleared, allowing us to see across the valley. Deep folds creased the lower parts of the mountains; agricultural terraces mounted the sides.
We couldn’t resist the pretty white church in Fortin Alto. It had red steeples and pale blue trim around its windows and a pale blue string course and door. It looked more like an edible confection than a religious structure. In fact, it was the perfect scene to place inside a sugared Easter egg.
A tree was placed in the ground a short distance from the church. The slender trunk with its two outstretched branches had been stripped of bark and leaves. “A cross!” Octavio exclaimed. We examined the strips of faded crepe paper that were tied around its branches and the two red paper flowers tied in its forks. Adjacent to the tree cross was a boulder covered with moss and lichens. An equal-arm cross was crudely carved into its side.
We stopped again. My shoes and jeans were encrusted with thick red mud. Not Octavio’s, though. He was always immaculate. Wherever we went, he automatically repelled dust, dirt and mud. As for the car, it would have to be cleaned when we reached Octavio’s home on the outskirts of the City.
I gathered a few twigs and loosened the clay on my jeans and sneakers. Discovering plants with large leaves that would make perfect washcloths for wiping off the mud, I asked their permission to break off a few leaves. I found low bushes with deep green leaves. “Pinch my leaves,” a voice told me. I did, but only after I obtained their consent. I crushed the leaves between my fingers. The leaves gave off a fragrant, sweet-smelling aroma. I brushed the leaves over me. “Thank you,” I said, addressing the bushes, “for cleaning and perfuming my clothes and shoes.”
Arriving at Octavio’s home, I met his family. They ushered me into the living room and showed me their shrine and Christmas tree. Octavio introduced me to the family portraits that illustrated important stages in the growth and development of the nuclear and extended family. Someone had casually flung a yellow evening gown on a couch. One of the daughters would turn 15 in a few months. She would wear the dress for her quinceanera or coming of age party.
After the family washed the car, the owners never would suspect the hardships it had endured nor the mud it had accumulated. Swinging a book bag over his shoulder, the eldest son climbed in the back seat. Octavio’s wife waggled a finger at me; Octavio slid into the driver’s seat. We were off to the center of the City. Octavio would deliver his son to an English class, me to my posada and the car to its owner. Octavio and his son would return home by bus.
Before I left Oaxaca, we planned another trip to Apoala. It would be during the dry season in May of 1999. The route would be safer to drive.
Six months later I was back in the City in time for our second trip to Apoala. Octavio had booked a guide and rooms at the yu’u in Apoala. Our arrival time scheduled for 11:30 a.m. dictated an early morning start.
We drove the federal highway, paid the toll and turned off at the exit for Nochixtlan. We bought oil at a Pemex gas station before going into the center of town to buy fruit and bottled water at the market. Before we shopped, we visited a church at the edge of the market. The interior was cool and dark. “It is the custom,” Octavio whispered, “to visit the local church in order to pray for a safe journey.”
Octavio selected a restaurant. Customers sat at the back in the open air at trestle tables and long benches. At the front, the chef presided over a brazier on the sidewalk. There was no better advertisement to attract customers than the smell of sizzling meat and poultry.
We ordered goat consommé. It was filled with goat meat, goat bones and vegetables. Succulent fare. Hot and tasty. The consommé came with bowls of chopped scallions, chopped cilantro and salsa. We took what we wanted and stirred it into the consommé. Dark red cubes floated in the broth. “These are cubes of congealed and hardened goat blood,” Octavio confided. “Very nourishing," he added.
An elderly couple with weather-beaten faces sat across from us. The man had plantain leaves piled with white corn mush and topped with cubes of goat blood. He scooped up the mush with a rectangle cut from a plantain leaf.
Our hunger satisfied, we departed Nochixtlan, passing the bread kilns, the thatched roof houses, the outhouses, through Amatlan, by the Swiss style houses and through Fortin Alto.
The terrain was eroded. Slabs and boulders were strewn about as if tossed by an angry giant. Patches of dried grass interrupted barren red-brown soil. Agaves dotted the background. In the distance were clusters of trees with crowns of green foliage and bent and angled trunks.
The car crested a mountain. All we could see was a blue sky awash with white clouds. As the car nosed downwards, shafts of brilliant sunlight pierced the deep shadows on the lower flanks of the mountains. Potholes jerked the car to abrupt halts.
“Look, another tree cross!” we exclaimed. It stood in a field to our right. Its wood was deep red. The two thick branches that extended outwards made the cross look like a stick man with his arms extended. White crepe paper hung from its top. Someone had carved a large dove from white stone and placed it atop a cylindrical rock in front of the cross. A dirt road led from the cross to a small house hidden behind a screen of trees.
Farther on the left, the ground had been freshly turned to form a circle of bright red soil. Boulders and rocks enclosed the circle. Two lance-shaped boulders, similar to menhirs, stood in the center. Who had built the circle; what was its purpose?
The clouds had moved on, leaving the sky an intense blue. It stared down on eroded top soil, mats of dry grass and lightly forested mountains with bare summits. The land pleaded for nourishment.
We paused at a fork. Last year we had gone right. The road to the left was new, dug from the deep red earth of the surrounding countryside turned to the color of rich, vibrant blood by the night’s rain. The left fork was the most direct and also the most difficult; it ascended almost vertically. Our reward for choosing the left fork was another tree cross.
We drove through more dust and more arid land. Plots had been cleared for planting. They too bled red. It seemed as if we were constantly being reminded of blood: first, goat’s blood, later the red blood-soaked soil of Mother Earth. Perhaps we were meant to give thanks that Mother Earth gave her blood to us to nourish us, not only through rich soil that produced crops but through the animals that grazed upon her.
To be continued...
“No,” I replied. “What is Nochixtlan the place of?”
“Nochixtlan means the place of the cochineal. Cochineal are insects that feed on a species of cactus. The insects make a red dye, which they store in their body. The Spanish dyed textiles with cochineal and shipped them to Europe where the imported fabric became as valuable as gold.
“Now, Nochixtlan is noted for round loaves of wheat bread. Families bake the bread in kilns and sell the loaves in the local Sunday market.”
A sign at the boundary of Santiago Amatlan announced that its population was 550. A red-domed church looked down on us from a hill. Yellow flowers and diminutive white-washed houses covered the hillside. A road led up to the church. Half-way up, boulders and ledges prevented the car from going farther. We locked the doors and the trunk and stumbled the remaining distance over the rocks. Below, a loudspeaker summoned workers to the fields.Inside the church, a man trailed us at a discrete distance. He followed us until we stopped in front of an unfamiliar statue in the left transept. “Who is he?” Octavio asked the man.
“Senor de la Reflexion."
Octavio asked more questions. “It's how we see Jesus in our mind,” he explained to me. “This image represents our personal view of Christ.”
The statue wore a dreamy expression. Bearded, but of youthful demeanor, Christ wore a long white robe and had a silver cruciform halo. He held a pole in his right hand with a square white flag attached near the top.
A woman loitered close by. She confronted Octavio outside the church. “Who invited you into our church?”
“We are Catholics, and no one has to invite us. We don’t need an invitation. God and His church are for everyone.” Octavio turned to me. “The people in this part of Oaxaca take two if you give them one and look for an advantage.”
“Por favor, give me an example.”
“Several years ago, my father and I were cutting Spanish moss to decorate the family crèche and Christmas tree. We had just finished when a man approached. He identified himself as the owner of the land and demanded payment for the moss.” Octavio shook his head in disbelief.
Tiny settlements were scattered along the road. I was fascinated by the different styles of architecture. Close to Nochixtlan, split log outbuildings with conical thatched roofs leaned and sagged against one another. They looked like elderly villagers gossiping and holding onto each other for support. After Amatlan, outhouses were the predominant feature. They had been built beside the main house in full view of the road. Each outhouse had a door made from colorful plastic or fabric, which had been pushed aside to reveal a shining white ceramic toilet. Farther down the road were one-story split log houses. They reminded me of Alpine huts, even to the bench on each side of the entrance and the tin cans of flowers and pots of plants on one of the benches.
It had rained during the night, and the slippery red clay mountain road was treacherous. We slowed for solitary burros and an occasional flock of sheep. We pulled up behind a truck loaded with soft drinks and followed it until the driver turned off to the right and vanished into dense fog.
Suddenly thick mists enveloped us. “No wonder they call this ‘The Place of the Clouds,’” Octavio said. Woods shrouded in fog stretched beside and ahead of us. Drooping tree branches dripped with silvery streamers of Spanish moss. The trees appeared to be an army of hoary spirits condemned to be shackled to the ground until some potent spell unlocked them. We stopped, and, marveling at such a magical place, I slipped through the mists and gathered moss.
At the end of the woods, leafy branches of trees on either side of the road had interlaced their arms to create an oval opening. The opening took us from one world to another, from a world of mystery to a world of clarity.
At last, far below, Santiago Apoala appeared nestled in a valley, a tiny green miracle amidst arid mountains. We cautiously descended into the village and pulled up beside a new tourist yu'u (lodging). After we registered at the front desk, and the clerk deposited our 30 pesos in a drawer, he pulled out a cache of photographs of the significant sights of Apoala.The first photograph showed the Devil’s Cave. At one time children routinely disappeared from the village. The Devil stole them from their parents, carried them to his lair and ate them. An intrepid villager solved the puzzle of the missing children. He banished the Devil, and the children of Apoala were safe from then on. The mouth of the cave loomed high above the village, visible to all, witness to the story.
The other photographs depicted pre-Hispanic agricultural terraces used by the Ancients and a beautiful waterfall. “And here is the most important bit of news,” the receptionist proudly announced. “We have a cave where a live double-headed eagle was discovered!”
Nothing, not even a live double-headed eagle, could divert Octavio’s attention away from the fact that the fog had increased. It had crept down the mountains and obscured the mouth to the Devil's Cave. We only had enough gas to make it back to the City. He was nervous.
“Let's hurry to the church,” Octavio said. Rushing through the gate, we entered a grassy plaza surrounded by a stone wall. 
A small white-washed open-sided chapel topped with a red dome stood at each corner of the plaza. The church was white-washed and had red domes and steeples.We pushed open the entrance door and entered. Octavio bowed his head in a long prayer. I dipped my index finger in the holy water, crossed my third eye and prayed. We petitioned the fog to lift. We both sought encouragement, but Octavio needed it more than I.
On our way back to the yu’u we stopped at Tony’s Store. Two women lounged in the door. Their fingers were almost invisible as they wove palm fronds into a basket. The hands of the shorter woman were like machines. They moved with rapid-fire precision while she talked. Her eyes never strayed from our faces. She would finish her basket within the hour.
A tall, well-dressed man stopped us as we neared the yu’u. Octavio shared our predicament of not having spare gas. “There is no gas in Apoala to buy,” the man said. “If you get stuck on the steep ascent into the mountains, I will send help from the village.”
I persuaded Octavio to eat. We needed good food and hot coffee in case we met an emergency. While the attendants prepared tamales, the village host caught up with us in the yu’u.
He regaled us with a story about an American man from Georgia. “He lived in Apoala a long time ago. He arrived one day to learn our language. He left as silently as he had appeared, without a word. No one saw him go. There were no good-byes. He never contacted us. I would how you his house if you had time. It’s still down by the river.
“Be sure and alert the Tourist Office in the City that the people of Apoala are ready and waiting for tourists.”
He opened the screen door. It closed behind him with a click.
His departure gave us time to inspect the yu’u. A solarium, which served as a living-dining room, ran the length of one side of the building. Along the opposite side were a matrimonial room with double bed, an open kitchen area with a refrigerator and stove and two single rooms with private baths, comfortable lodgings for overnight. Guests could cook food that they brought or pay the women on duty to prepare food stocked by the yu’u.
The two attendants put our plates in front of us and sat down to gossip. “The girls here in Apoala leave, because there are not enough men. They go to the City, get a job, meet a man and return home with babies.” They sounded envious as if they also wanted to escape life in Apoala and have a baby or two.
We finished eating. I led Octavio outside. “Look up. Look at the Devil’s Cave. The fog has lifted. We can see the cave’s entrance.” Octavio relaxed.
Red poinsettias and giant hibiscus bushes, the color of their flowers intensified by the overcast sky, crowded gardens and towered to the roofs of the simple homes. Like a stage curtain, the receding fog rolled upwards to reveal tangles of yellow flowers covering the flanks of the mountains.
Chicken wire divided the yu’u from a small medical clinic. The ends of a white sheet were tied to the wire. A list printed in red, blue and green letters notified the community of the need to be vigilant in preventing disease and to save the children from dying from pneumonia or diarrhea. The instructions combined good sense and good hygiene and included a command to stop smoking around children.Taking a last look around, we got in the car and began our journey out of Apoala. It was not the time to talk. The road ascended in precipitous curves, and the red clay was still wet and slippery. That meant possible skids, plunges over the cliff edge and rock slides. The fog had cleared, allowing us to see across the valley. Deep folds creased the lower parts of the mountains; agricultural terraces mounted the sides.
We couldn’t resist the pretty white church in Fortin Alto. It had red steeples and pale blue trim around its windows and a pale blue string course and door. It looked more like an edible confection than a religious structure. In fact, it was the perfect scene to place inside a sugared Easter egg.
A tree was placed in the ground a short distance from the church. The slender trunk with its two outstretched branches had been stripped of bark and leaves. “A cross!” Octavio exclaimed. We examined the strips of faded crepe paper that were tied around its branches and the two red paper flowers tied in its forks. Adjacent to the tree cross was a boulder covered with moss and lichens. An equal-arm cross was crudely carved into its side.We stopped again. My shoes and jeans were encrusted with thick red mud. Not Octavio’s, though. He was always immaculate. Wherever we went, he automatically repelled dust, dirt and mud. As for the car, it would have to be cleaned when we reached Octavio’s home on the outskirts of the City.
I gathered a few twigs and loosened the clay on my jeans and sneakers. Discovering plants with large leaves that would make perfect washcloths for wiping off the mud, I asked their permission to break off a few leaves. I found low bushes with deep green leaves. “Pinch my leaves,” a voice told me. I did, but only after I obtained their consent. I crushed the leaves between my fingers. The leaves gave off a fragrant, sweet-smelling aroma. I brushed the leaves over me. “Thank you,” I said, addressing the bushes, “for cleaning and perfuming my clothes and shoes.”
Arriving at Octavio’s home, I met his family. They ushered me into the living room and showed me their shrine and Christmas tree. Octavio introduced me to the family portraits that illustrated important stages in the growth and development of the nuclear and extended family. Someone had casually flung a yellow evening gown on a couch. One of the daughters would turn 15 in a few months. She would wear the dress for her quinceanera or coming of age party.
After the family washed the car, the owners never would suspect the hardships it had endured nor the mud it had accumulated. Swinging a book bag over his shoulder, the eldest son climbed in the back seat. Octavio’s wife waggled a finger at me; Octavio slid into the driver’s seat. We were off to the center of the City. Octavio would deliver his son to an English class, me to my posada and the car to its owner. Octavio and his son would return home by bus.
Before I left Oaxaca, we planned another trip to Apoala. It would be during the dry season in May of 1999. The route would be safer to drive.
Six months later I was back in the City in time for our second trip to Apoala. Octavio had booked a guide and rooms at the yu’u in Apoala. Our arrival time scheduled for 11:30 a.m. dictated an early morning start.
We drove the federal highway, paid the toll and turned off at the exit for Nochixtlan. We bought oil at a Pemex gas station before going into the center of town to buy fruit and bottled water at the market. Before we shopped, we visited a church at the edge of the market. The interior was cool and dark. “It is the custom,” Octavio whispered, “to visit the local church in order to pray for a safe journey.”
Octavio selected a restaurant. Customers sat at the back in the open air at trestle tables and long benches. At the front, the chef presided over a brazier on the sidewalk. There was no better advertisement to attract customers than the smell of sizzling meat and poultry.
We ordered goat consommé. It was filled with goat meat, goat bones and vegetables. Succulent fare. Hot and tasty. The consommé came with bowls of chopped scallions, chopped cilantro and salsa. We took what we wanted and stirred it into the consommé. Dark red cubes floated in the broth. “These are cubes of congealed and hardened goat blood,” Octavio confided. “Very nourishing," he added.
An elderly couple with weather-beaten faces sat across from us. The man had plantain leaves piled with white corn mush and topped with cubes of goat blood. He scooped up the mush with a rectangle cut from a plantain leaf.
Our hunger satisfied, we departed Nochixtlan, passing the bread kilns, the thatched roof houses, the outhouses, through Amatlan, by the Swiss style houses and through Fortin Alto.
The terrain was eroded. Slabs and boulders were strewn about as if tossed by an angry giant. Patches of dried grass interrupted barren red-brown soil. Agaves dotted the background. In the distance were clusters of trees with crowns of green foliage and bent and angled trunks.
The car crested a mountain. All we could see was a blue sky awash with white clouds. As the car nosed downwards, shafts of brilliant sunlight pierced the deep shadows on the lower flanks of the mountains. Potholes jerked the car to abrupt halts.“Look, another tree cross!” we exclaimed. It stood in a field to our right. Its wood was deep red. The two thick branches that extended outwards made the cross look like a stick man with his arms extended. White crepe paper hung from its top. Someone had carved a large dove from white stone and placed it atop a cylindrical rock in front of the cross. A dirt road led from the cross to a small house hidden behind a screen of trees.
Farther on the left, the ground had been freshly turned to form a circle of bright red soil. Boulders and rocks enclosed the circle. Two lance-shaped boulders, similar to menhirs, stood in the center. Who had built the circle; what was its purpose?The clouds had moved on, leaving the sky an intense blue. It stared down on eroded top soil, mats of dry grass and lightly forested mountains with bare summits. The land pleaded for nourishment.
We paused at a fork. Last year we had gone right. The road to the left was new, dug from the deep red earth of the surrounding countryside turned to the color of rich, vibrant blood by the night’s rain. The left fork was the most direct and also the most difficult; it ascended almost vertically. Our reward for choosing the left fork was another tree cross.
We drove through more dust and more arid land. Plots had been cleared for planting. They too bled red. It seemed as if we were constantly being reminded of blood: first, goat’s blood, later the red blood-soaked soil of Mother Earth. Perhaps we were meant to give thanks that Mother Earth gave her blood to us to nourish us, not only through rich soil that produced crops but through the animals that grazed upon her.
To be continued...
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Magic
I met a native of Mexico City. He told me he had given up everything to live in Oaxaca. “I can’t leave,” he said. “It’s a magical place.
On a flight from the City, I looked out the window while the plane banked over Monte Alban. It was early morning. The sun’s rays illuminated the ruins atop the mountain. Tears streamed down my face. My seatmate was a man in his late 20’s from Acapulco who installed telephone lines throughout Oaxaca. Taking pity on me, he leaned over and patted my hand. “If you never return, Oaxaca will always remain in your heart. It is in my heart. I meditate at Yagul and Monte Alban. I feel the antiquity and the sacredness. My heart is here.
A young Australian woman employed at a Mexican resort stopped me in the City. “I can’t stay away!” she exclaimed. “Every cent I earn, I spend. Not on clothes, not on anything tangible. I spend it on trips to Oaxaca. Oaxaca is the air I breathe.”
At the hotel where I was staying, a woman from Virginia joined me for coffee. She was in Oaxaca, because a friend had recommended it. Her friend had told her that wishes came true in Oaxaca.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Greece, but I can’t afford the trip,” the woman complained as she sat down beside me for conversation and a last cup of breakfast coffee. Later that evening, she rushed to my dinner table. “Guess what happened today?” she cried flinging herself in a chair. I listened.
She was shopping and met an American couple. The wife suddenly said, “If you would like to go to Greece, we have a house on one of the islands. It is yours to enjoy. Here is my address; let me know when you would like to go.”
The husband turned to his wife. “You’ve never offered our home in Greece to anyone. Why now?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Something came over me.”
A man hailed me one day in late fall when the sun was setting, and the streets were redolent with the scent of gardenias from the corsages the gardenia sellers carried on the wide brims of their hats. “What a perfume! Are you an American?” he inquired. Delighted to meet a fellow countryman, he proceeded to extol the charms of the City.
“What am I doing here?” he asked rhetorically. “I don’t know. I only know that it is imperative that I return again and again. There is something in the air. My wife was sick. I kept praying that she would be well. When I arrived home after my last trip, I found her in perfect health.
“Tell me,” he urged, “what goes on here?”
I know what they mean. I, too, feel the magic. Perhaps it is the altitude, perhaps the echoes of the Ancient Ones. All I know is that within 24 hours after I deplane, my mind quiets. It becomes empty and peaceful. I enter a meditative state. I have learned to be careful of what I wish for when I am in Oaxaca, because sooner or later my wish comes true.
Jose, a worker from Argentina spoke, “I am lost without Oaxaca. I have been here four times. Each time something special happens to lure me back. I am in love.”
“In love with the City or with an individual?” I inquired.
“In love with the City. I come to paint. I paint the same thing at different times of the day and at different times of the year. I can’t stop. It is an obsession.”“Do you exhibit?”
“Yes,” he said, “but the only paintings that sell are the ones I paint in Oaxaca.”
An expatriate sat down beside me while I was lingering over a coffee in the zocalo. We exchanged where we were from. “I usually don’t talk to Americans,” he confided. “but there is something about you. Something that tells me that you are in love with Oaxaca as much as I am. Are you?”
“Yes, I can’t seem to stop coming here. What is it that attracts us?”
“Don’t’ ask me,” he answered. “I’ve lived in the City for five years. I have yet to discover why. There are so many places in the world, but I needed to live here. I missed Oaxaca so much that I sold my possessions and came.”
“How do you spend your days?”
“I visit the markets. I take buses to local towns. I have made friends. I am happy. I am content.”
I approached a sales clerk in a dress shop. She was leaning against a counter and staring into space. She was from Texas. She revealed that she also had been bitten by the Oaxaca bug. She and her boyfriend sold everything. Left parents and friends and moved down. They brought nothing. They rented an apartment.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I sit in the zocalo. I work at this job. We meet friends and go to the country.”
“Are you happy?”
“I have never been happier,” she answered. “I don’t want to go back. This is our home now. Even if Ivan left me, I would stay. It is bliss.
“Yes,” I agree, “Oaxaca is bliss.”
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
A Cleaning Part II
The next day we set forth in the early afternoon to visit a curandera, a friend of Octavio’s. “She lives in the mountains to the south. She healed me when I was very sick. She gave me herbs. No one else could cure me. I was so sick I couldn't walk or work. It was a curse.”
We departed three hours later than planned, because whenever Octavio telephoned the bed and breakfast, the staff told him I was out. The delay benefited us. If we had set forth in the morning, the ending of the day would have been different.
We were not the only ones planning on visiting a curandero. On the outskirts of the City, there was a van in front of us packed with people. It turned left; we continued south. “They are going to a curandero,” Octavio said. “Someone is taking a group for treatment.”
We arrived at the town closest to where the curandera lived. I wanted to buy candles for her, and we both wanted sodas. We stopped at a store. “No time to loiter,” Octavio warned.
The main street was empty of traffic except for an occasional man on a bicycle or a driver slumped on the seat of a horse-drawn cart. The reins were slack, the horses’ heads bent. It was too hot for them to step smartly. Rows of limp purple triangles dangled over the street.
At the edge of town, the paving ended, and the car jolted onto a dusty dirt road. Trees lined either side. Beyond the trees were fields under cultivation. A quick turn to the left, and the road ended.
“Las huertas,” Octavio announced. “The orchards. From here, we go on foot.” The heat was intense. We faced a long walk through the orchards and up a neighboring mountain. The prospect was daunting.
A family lived at the beginning of the orchards. We parked beside their house. Children, laughing and playing, raced back and forth among the fruit trees. The woman of the house asked us to join her in the yard where we sat on sagging chairs. Conversation was leisurely. We relaxed. It was refreshing to rest and have a woman with a beautiful smile and an easy manner talk with us. She knew where we wanted to go and whom we wanted to see.
A man emerged from the house. Sleep clung to his face and eyes. He rifled through a batch of papers and filed them in a satchel. “The assistant to the curandera is working in town. You know her? I will take you to her. I will show you the house.”
Octavio muttered, “She must be doing housework.”
The man mounted a motor scooter. We thanked our hostess and drove off behind him. We followed our escort, not so far behind that we would lose sight of him, but not so close as to choke him with dust. In Oaxaca, one extends good manners not only to those who offer hospitality but to travelers on the road.
Before entering town, our escort checked to make sure we were behind him. He turned down several side streets and turned right onto a street lined with brightly colored houses like toy blocks. Without warning, he braked in front of #36, a turquoise blue cube. He waved his right hand towards the house, accelerated the scooter and sped out of sight.
Octavio parked in front of the house and disappeared through its open door. He raced back. “Hide your camera. Come quickly. They are beginning.” I knew in a flash that the woman we sought was not doing housework. I checked my watch. It was 3 p.m. on a Tuesday. Would we ever find this place again? Do they heal at the same time every week?
Shading my eyes from the glare, I stepped through the door into a cool, windowless room furnished with a double bed, several chairs and a television on a table. Ahead of me, Octavio was stepping through a door in the opposite wall. Following him, I too went through the door and out into the blinding sun of the rear courtyard.
Octavio whispered, “Espiritualistas. Espiritualistas contact the dead. They go into a trance and bring the dead to visit you. They’ve just started healing. My friend is helping. Let me do the talking.”
The courtyard was hidden from the street. High walls concealed it from the prying eyes of neighbors. In the lower left corner was the treatment room; in the upper right corner, the pharmacy. Rustic wooden benches were placed along the walls.
A young man who carried himself with unmistakable authority greeted us at the entrance. He wore a spotless white jacket over street clothes. Admission was impossible without his approval. There was no mistaking his, “You are not eligible.” Tourists were not welcome.
“We are believers.” was Octavio’s simple, but effective response. His words were the magic formula.
The receptionist ushered us to an empty bench directly across from the door to the treatment room. Clusters of women stood or sat together on benches. They talked while their children darted in and out of the house or peeked around a corner to see if they could tempt us to play hide-and-seek.
In the lower half of the treatment room, a man with a black moustache sat side to us. His straight-backed chair was placed on a low platform. He wore a loose white cotton shirt and white cotton pants. His head tilted down, his hands were clasped in his lap, and his voice rose and fell in murmuring cadences. He was in a trance.
Above him on the wall was a picture of a hand severed at the wrist. A flaming candle sprouted from the tip of each finger. The healing hand.
A young woman, wearing a white lab coat, stood in front of him. She held a spiral ring notebook open in her left hand and a ball point pen in her right hand. She was recording his channeled messages,
Strange noises emanated from the room. Animal-like hissing sounds. We couldn't see who was making them, but the persistent, piercing sounds prepared our minds for the cleaning. Suddenly the receptionist conducted us to a bench beside the entrance to the treatment room. We were promoted to emergency cases thanks to Octavio’s vivid account of our hike.
A nod from the receptionist, and Octavio rose and entered. His muffled voice retold the details of our ordeal: the witches, the smoke coming out of the ground and my difficulties. “You both experienced negative energy.” I heard. “You were affected more than the American, because you were in a cave.”
While I waited for Octavio’s cleaning to finish, I concentrated on memorizing the Spanish phrases that were posted beside the door to the treatment room. Each patient repeated them before the limpia began. Even though Octavio would be with me and had promised to prompt me if I forgot them, I wanted to hear the words resound in my head and feel my lips form the syllables.
“Tu salud es
En nombre del padre espiritualizale
En hijo y espiritu santo.”(1)
Someone called my name. It was my turn. My heart beat faster. The receptionist and a short, slender woman in an ankle-length cotton dress with her long hair tied back waited in the open door. I stepped into the room. Nothing made sense until my eyes adjusted to the darkness. A woman stood in front of me, and another at my left. Both looked and dressed like the woman who had welcomed me at the door. For a moment, I wondered if they were triplets.
I heard myself speaking the Spanish phrases in a clear, firm voice. The cleaning began. The woman facing me reached up and signed crosses over my body, favoring my left side. Her fingers curled into claws. She dragged them downward through the air in front of the right and left sides of my body. Down they went from my shoulders to my feet. Down went my heavy energy.
Constantly hissing, she threw the heavy energy away from me into the air behind her. So loud, so penetrating and so realistic was the noise that it was difficult to believe it came from a human. The sounds filled the dusky room. The hissing, interspersed with Spanish invocations to the Trinity, Spanish prayers and indistinct chanting, reverberated throughout my body. Her fingers again signed me with the Cross, especially in front of the heart.
Gentle hands slowly turned me clockwise so that the curandera could clean my back. I faced a shrine banked with statues of saints and flickering candles. Tender hands turned me back.
An assistant handed me a small glass of water. “Take three sips.” Then, “Drink the rest. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” More invocations, more crossings and another cleaning of the area over the front of my body followed. One final time the Trinity was invoked; one final time the sign of the Cross was traced over me.
The curandera's right hand shot upwards to the space in front of my heart. She plucked something out and violently flung it behind her. Her hands swiftly moved in the air, raking the air up and down over my left and right sides. As her hands moved, a fountain of energy rushed up and cascaded down inside me. The cleaning was done. It was a success.
Octavio joined me as I drew near the altar. We bowed our heads and offered prayers of gratitude. As we exited through the rear door, we almost stepped on a woman who was resting on a mat on the floor. She was recuperating after an especially rigorous treatment. Her blanket-wrapped body was a formless shape; only her black eyes glittered with light.
We sat on benches in the rear of the courtyard across from the dispensary. A black cloth doll hung in its only window. After our prescriptions were delivered to the short, plump pharmacist, he busied himself preparing the medicines. He brought them to us, keeping them tightly clasped in his hand until he explained how to take them. He wanted us to be very clear about our regimens.
He handed both of us bottles of slightly salted water. We were to drink three small glasses of the water morning, noon and night for seven days. He gave me a second bottle. It was filled with thick, brown aromatic balsam.
I was to prepare a mixture of one red rose, two fingers of sugar, a squirt of the balsam mixture and a squirt of alcohol. He instructed me to take a cup-shaped gourd and pour nine cups of the preparation over me on Sunday at noon (2).
For each cup that I poured over me, I would recite in sequence the following nine phrases: “I love God the Father; I love God the Son; I love the Holy Spirit. I believe in God the Father; I believe in God the Son; I believe in the Holy Spirit. I await God the Father; I await God the Son; I await the Holy Spirit.”(2) At noon on Sunday, I would be in the airport in Mexico City.
Octavio listened intently while the pharmacist cautioned him to complete all of his treatment. Octavio had a more complicated routine, because he had been exposed to so much heavy energy. He needed to place three chrysanthemum flowers in the water tank on the roof of his house. In addition, he would have to purify the corners of the rooms in his house, especially his bedroom. A candle must burn in front of the entrance to his house for seven days and seven nights.
The local women showed no signs of impatience at our prescriptions being prepared first. When it was their turn, they focused their attention on the words of the pharmacist before reaching out to receive their bottles wrapped in newspapers and brown bags. Their work-worn hands gently rested the cures in commodious straw baskets.
Everyone left at the same time: women, children, Octavio and I. We observed the women's etiquette as we filed out of the courtyard. We imitated them as they bowed their heads in a short prayer when they passed the treatment room. Our cleanings had cost nine dollars each. Copying the women, we dropped a few extra coins into the donation box before we stepped into the house and out to the street.
It was a relief to feel in balance. Although the morning had held unexpected and unexplained obstacles, we had arrived at the right time, in the right place and on the right day to participate in a healing.
“It is often the way with things of the Spirit,” said Octavio.
“And don’t forget, we both are wearing white,” I reminded him.
Confident that our spiritual bodies had been taken care of, we attended to our physical bodies with soup and tacos from a local restaurant. We lingered over our meal, talking about family life, the rapid pace in America, the lyrics of rap songs and the skyscrapers in New York City. Learning that workers eat breakfast and drink coffee during their morning commute to work, Octavio shook his head. He called my attention to a man and a little boy sitting side-by-side on the curb at the edge of the park across the street. “It is too bad to be in such a rush,” he said. “Everyone needs time to listen to the wind and watch the birds.”
(1) Your health is in the name of the Father; he spiritualizes you in the Son and the Holy Spirit.
(2) ”Que sus oraciones no falter en su hogar
En crudo bano domingo e las 12 de medio dia
9 jicaradas
1 rosa roja
2 dedos de azucar
Un chorro balsamo preparado
Un chorro de alcohol
9 palabras
1. amo a dios padre
2. amo a dios hijo
3. amo a dios espiritu santo
4. creo en dios padre
5. creo en dios hijo
6. creo en dios espiritu santo
7. espero de dios padre
8. espero de dios hijo
9. espero de dios espiritu santo”
We departed three hours later than planned, because whenever Octavio telephoned the bed and breakfast, the staff told him I was out. The delay benefited us. If we had set forth in the morning, the ending of the day would have been different.
We were not the only ones planning on visiting a curandero. On the outskirts of the City, there was a van in front of us packed with people. It turned left; we continued south. “They are going to a curandero,” Octavio said. “Someone is taking a group for treatment.”
We arrived at the town closest to where the curandera lived. I wanted to buy candles for her, and we both wanted sodas. We stopped at a store. “No time to loiter,” Octavio warned.
The main street was empty of traffic except for an occasional man on a bicycle or a driver slumped on the seat of a horse-drawn cart. The reins were slack, the horses’ heads bent. It was too hot for them to step smartly. Rows of limp purple triangles dangled over the street.At the edge of town, the paving ended, and the car jolted onto a dusty dirt road. Trees lined either side. Beyond the trees were fields under cultivation. A quick turn to the left, and the road ended.
“Las huertas,” Octavio announced. “The orchards. From here, we go on foot.” The heat was intense. We faced a long walk through the orchards and up a neighboring mountain. The prospect was daunting.
A family lived at the beginning of the orchards. We parked beside their house. Children, laughing and playing, raced back and forth among the fruit trees. The woman of the house asked us to join her in the yard where we sat on sagging chairs. Conversation was leisurely. We relaxed. It was refreshing to rest and have a woman with a beautiful smile and an easy manner talk with us. She knew where we wanted to go and whom we wanted to see.
A man emerged from the house. Sleep clung to his face and eyes. He rifled through a batch of papers and filed them in a satchel. “The assistant to the curandera is working in town. You know her? I will take you to her. I will show you the house.”
Octavio muttered, “She must be doing housework.”
The man mounted a motor scooter. We thanked our hostess and drove off behind him. We followed our escort, not so far behind that we would lose sight of him, but not so close as to choke him with dust. In Oaxaca, one extends good manners not only to those who offer hospitality but to travelers on the road.
Before entering town, our escort checked to make sure we were behind him. He turned down several side streets and turned right onto a street lined with brightly colored houses like toy blocks. Without warning, he braked in front of #36, a turquoise blue cube. He waved his right hand towards the house, accelerated the scooter and sped out of sight.
Octavio parked in front of the house and disappeared through its open door. He raced back. “Hide your camera. Come quickly. They are beginning.” I knew in a flash that the woman we sought was not doing housework. I checked my watch. It was 3 p.m. on a Tuesday. Would we ever find this place again? Do they heal at the same time every week?
Shading my eyes from the glare, I stepped through the door into a cool, windowless room furnished with a double bed, several chairs and a television on a table. Ahead of me, Octavio was stepping through a door in the opposite wall. Following him, I too went through the door and out into the blinding sun of the rear courtyard.
Octavio whispered, “Espiritualistas. Espiritualistas contact the dead. They go into a trance and bring the dead to visit you. They’ve just started healing. My friend is helping. Let me do the talking.”
The courtyard was hidden from the street. High walls concealed it from the prying eyes of neighbors. In the lower left corner was the treatment room; in the upper right corner, the pharmacy. Rustic wooden benches were placed along the walls.
A young man who carried himself with unmistakable authority greeted us at the entrance. He wore a spotless white jacket over street clothes. Admission was impossible without his approval. There was no mistaking his, “You are not eligible.” Tourists were not welcome.
“We are believers.” was Octavio’s simple, but effective response. His words were the magic formula.
The receptionist ushered us to an empty bench directly across from the door to the treatment room. Clusters of women stood or sat together on benches. They talked while their children darted in and out of the house or peeked around a corner to see if they could tempt us to play hide-and-seek.
In the lower half of the treatment room, a man with a black moustache sat side to us. His straight-backed chair was placed on a low platform. He wore a loose white cotton shirt and white cotton pants. His head tilted down, his hands were clasped in his lap, and his voice rose and fell in murmuring cadences. He was in a trance.
Above him on the wall was a picture of a hand severed at the wrist. A flaming candle sprouted from the tip of each finger. The healing hand.
A young woman, wearing a white lab coat, stood in front of him. She held a spiral ring notebook open in her left hand and a ball point pen in her right hand. She was recording his channeled messages,
Strange noises emanated from the room. Animal-like hissing sounds. We couldn't see who was making them, but the persistent, piercing sounds prepared our minds for the cleaning. Suddenly the receptionist conducted us to a bench beside the entrance to the treatment room. We were promoted to emergency cases thanks to Octavio’s vivid account of our hike.
A nod from the receptionist, and Octavio rose and entered. His muffled voice retold the details of our ordeal: the witches, the smoke coming out of the ground and my difficulties. “You both experienced negative energy.” I heard. “You were affected more than the American, because you were in a cave.”
While I waited for Octavio’s cleaning to finish, I concentrated on memorizing the Spanish phrases that were posted beside the door to the treatment room. Each patient repeated them before the limpia began. Even though Octavio would be with me and had promised to prompt me if I forgot them, I wanted to hear the words resound in my head and feel my lips form the syllables.
“Tu salud es
En nombre del padre espiritualizale
En hijo y espiritu santo.”(1)
Someone called my name. It was my turn. My heart beat faster. The receptionist and a short, slender woman in an ankle-length cotton dress with her long hair tied back waited in the open door. I stepped into the room. Nothing made sense until my eyes adjusted to the darkness. A woman stood in front of me, and another at my left. Both looked and dressed like the woman who had welcomed me at the door. For a moment, I wondered if they were triplets.
I heard myself speaking the Spanish phrases in a clear, firm voice. The cleaning began. The woman facing me reached up and signed crosses over my body, favoring my left side. Her fingers curled into claws. She dragged them downward through the air in front of the right and left sides of my body. Down they went from my shoulders to my feet. Down went my heavy energy.
Constantly hissing, she threw the heavy energy away from me into the air behind her. So loud, so penetrating and so realistic was the noise that it was difficult to believe it came from a human. The sounds filled the dusky room. The hissing, interspersed with Spanish invocations to the Trinity, Spanish prayers and indistinct chanting, reverberated throughout my body. Her fingers again signed me with the Cross, especially in front of the heart.
Gentle hands slowly turned me clockwise so that the curandera could clean my back. I faced a shrine banked with statues of saints and flickering candles. Tender hands turned me back.
An assistant handed me a small glass of water. “Take three sips.” Then, “Drink the rest. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” More invocations, more crossings and another cleaning of the area over the front of my body followed. One final time the Trinity was invoked; one final time the sign of the Cross was traced over me.
The curandera's right hand shot upwards to the space in front of my heart. She plucked something out and violently flung it behind her. Her hands swiftly moved in the air, raking the air up and down over my left and right sides. As her hands moved, a fountain of energy rushed up and cascaded down inside me. The cleaning was done. It was a success.
Octavio joined me as I drew near the altar. We bowed our heads and offered prayers of gratitude. As we exited through the rear door, we almost stepped on a woman who was resting on a mat on the floor. She was recuperating after an especially rigorous treatment. Her blanket-wrapped body was a formless shape; only her black eyes glittered with light.
We sat on benches in the rear of the courtyard across from the dispensary. A black cloth doll hung in its only window. After our prescriptions were delivered to the short, plump pharmacist, he busied himself preparing the medicines. He brought them to us, keeping them tightly clasped in his hand until he explained how to take them. He wanted us to be very clear about our regimens.
He handed both of us bottles of slightly salted water. We were to drink three small glasses of the water morning, noon and night for seven days. He gave me a second bottle. It was filled with thick, brown aromatic balsam.
I was to prepare a mixture of one red rose, two fingers of sugar, a squirt of the balsam mixture and a squirt of alcohol. He instructed me to take a cup-shaped gourd and pour nine cups of the preparation over me on Sunday at noon (2).
For each cup that I poured over me, I would recite in sequence the following nine phrases: “I love God the Father; I love God the Son; I love the Holy Spirit. I believe in God the Father; I believe in God the Son; I believe in the Holy Spirit. I await God the Father; I await God the Son; I await the Holy Spirit.”(2) At noon on Sunday, I would be in the airport in Mexico City.
Octavio listened intently while the pharmacist cautioned him to complete all of his treatment. Octavio had a more complicated routine, because he had been exposed to so much heavy energy. He needed to place three chrysanthemum flowers in the water tank on the roof of his house. In addition, he would have to purify the corners of the rooms in his house, especially his bedroom. A candle must burn in front of the entrance to his house for seven days and seven nights.
The local women showed no signs of impatience at our prescriptions being prepared first. When it was their turn, they focused their attention on the words of the pharmacist before reaching out to receive their bottles wrapped in newspapers and brown bags. Their work-worn hands gently rested the cures in commodious straw baskets.
Everyone left at the same time: women, children, Octavio and I. We observed the women's etiquette as we filed out of the courtyard. We imitated them as they bowed their heads in a short prayer when they passed the treatment room. Our cleanings had cost nine dollars each. Copying the women, we dropped a few extra coins into the donation box before we stepped into the house and out to the street.
It was a relief to feel in balance. Although the morning had held unexpected and unexplained obstacles, we had arrived at the right time, in the right place and on the right day to participate in a healing.
“It is often the way with things of the Spirit,” said Octavio.
“And don’t forget, we both are wearing white,” I reminded him.
Confident that our spiritual bodies had been taken care of, we attended to our physical bodies with soup and tacos from a local restaurant. We lingered over our meal, talking about family life, the rapid pace in America, the lyrics of rap songs and the skyscrapers in New York City. Learning that workers eat breakfast and drink coffee during their morning commute to work, Octavio shook his head. He called my attention to a man and a little boy sitting side-by-side on the curb at the edge of the park across the street. “It is too bad to be in such a rush,” he said. “Everyone needs time to listen to the wind and watch the birds.”
(1) Your health is in the name of the Father; he spiritualizes you in the Son and the Holy Spirit.
(2) ”Que sus oraciones no falter en su hogar
En crudo bano domingo e las 12 de medio dia
9 jicaradas
1 rosa roja
2 dedos de azucar
Un chorro balsamo preparado
Un chorro de alcohol
9 palabras
1. amo a dios padre
2. amo a dios hijo
3. amo a dios espiritu santo
4. creo en dios padre
5. creo en dios hijo
6. creo en dios espiritu santo
7. espero de dios padre
8. espero de dios hijo
9. espero de dios espiritu santo”
A Cleaning
The scent of adventure and the thrill of exploring new territory added spice to our 7 a.m. departure one May Sunday in 1999. It was hot and dry and just before the rainy season. Our spirits were high. We had been anticipating this overnight hiking trip into the mountains of northern Oaxaca for the past six months.
I attuned my nose to the smell of the freshly made tortillas that a father and son were selling at a stand on the sidewalk just below the steps where I waited for Octavio. The aroma was tempting on an empty stomach. I had left the bed and breakfast too early for breakfast.
Behind me the bells of Nuestra Senora de Soledad announced mass, and a line of women trudged past me up the steps leading to the church. The elderly and infirm brought up the rear, steadying themselves against the wall beside the stairs.
Octavio arrived, and I climbed into his van. Within a few minutes, we had reached the outskirts of the City where we stopped at a Pemex gas station. Octavio filled two red plastic containers with gas. “Ten gallons for safety,” he announced. “This will be the last gas station. There will be no gas where we are going unless it's sold privately. I don't trust private supplies. They might be diluted.”
We headed north, all the while maintaining a harmonious silence; we and Oaxaca were waking up together. We stopped at the sanitorios beside the turnpike, the last chance to use a real bathroom before we arrived at our destination. Any future roadside bathroom would be located behind a large boulder, a tall thick cactus or a sheltering tree.
We continued north and turned northeast. We stocked up at an outdoor market: toilet paper, a sun hat, bottled water, beer, bread, cheese, a bag of bananas, a bag of mangoes and a can of motor oil. Then we were on our way into the unknown.
In no time, we were high in the mountains following a winding dirt road that kept to the edge of steep cliffs. To one of the vultures slowly soaring overhead in the updrafts, the road would appear as an undulating dragon snaking over and around the mountains. No white roadside crosses marked the scene of fatal accidents in that remote area. Traffic was non-existent. We never did meet another vehicle.
It was noon by the hands of our synchronized watches when we pulled into the village. Israel, the local guide, was waiting. He would accompany us on our hikes through the communally owned land. He waved and gave us thumbs up. We were on time.
We selected three beers from our provisions and presented one to Israel. We ate fruit, bread and cheese while we discussed the details of the hike. I sprinkled the last few drops of my beer on the ground. Turning to face the tallest of the encroaching mountains, I silently petitioned that its spirit would grant us safe passage.
Octavio was amazed. “What are you doing?"
“Appeasing the gods.”
“The Mixes to the south do that; they don't here.”
"Never mind. The ritual is important to me.”
Off we went, well-fed and well-hydrated, following a river until we detoured to the left to labor up a steep foot path. We were headed for a barely visible overhang. Below us, the water sparkled with diamonds as it flowed over and among stones bleached white by the burning sun.
Under the overhang, an opening led to a small cave. Not enjoying close, dark quarters, I sent Octavio and Israel into the cave and settled myself in the lap of a ledge carved by the elements into an armchair. I leaned back against the warm rock and closed my eyes. The sound of the speeding water seemed far away. How high we had climbed in such a short time!
Octavio reappeared, abruptly interrupting my reverie. His face was drained of color. It took him a few minutes to regain his composure. After several deep breaths, he reported, “It was dark, and there were bats. I saw smoke rising from the floor. I got scared and ran out." Israel hadn't seen the smoke, but he believed Octavio’s story. We decided it was energy being released from the earth.
We left the cave's entrance and picked our way back down the trail, slipping and sliding the last few yards. We followed the river into a canyon and then through a succession of canyons fortified by towering cliffs. Vertical walls soared to the sky. Gray-green mosses and lichens created frescoes of impressionistic pictures of deer, dogs and celestial bodies. The landscape was magnificent.
Octavio and I never could identify just when our mood changed. Talking about it was a relief, because we were feeling increasingly angry and depressed for no reason whatsoever. There seemed to be no logical explanation for our irritation and impatience.
Walking was difficult. My feet refused to obey me. I was unable to lift them more than an inch above the ground. They felt as if heavy weights were attached to their soles. Or as if they had grown massive roots, which were anchored deep within the earth. In order to begin a step, I had to uproot one foot and counteract whatever force seemed to be pulling it back down.
We moved through a seemingly endless series of canyons. Hidden springs birthed tumbling brooks that fed the river cutting the canyons’ floor. Small caverns beckoned to be explored. In the distance, a goatherd and his goats stood immobile, as if bewitched.
A constant breeze had been at our backs since we began the hike. The canyons narrowed. Their diminishing width compressed the breeze into a funnel of strong wind. Its hot, incessant breath fueled our edginess. Our mood soured. I clutched my hat. The wind blew it off. I snatched it back. The wind won, and the hat sailed up to an inaccessible ledge.
There were no vultures in the sky, no insects buzzing, no birds singing, no butterflies. The only sign of wild life was a gray squirrel. Israel saw it first. He dove towards it with outstretched hands. He caught it, and for a second, man and squirrel were splayed against the face of the rock. Hunter and hunted froze into a long, continuous line until the squirrel shot up and out of Israel’s grasp and disappeared over the top of a cliff.
A circle of stones, each the size and shape of a cantaloupe, was in front of us. “Look, Octavio. Here is a sacred circle. You and Israel go on. I will wait inside the circle. I will be safe here." The men disappeared. I stepped into the circle and sat on the flat ground. I closed my eyes. Vivid scarlet swirls swam behind them, then erupted into the colors of the rainbow, a kaleidoscope of color and form.
After we regrouped and began the trek back, my feet developed an unanticipated independence. They refused to go in the direction I intended. When I tried to go straight ahead, they veered 45 degrees to the right. After several yards, they effortlessly carried me 45 degrees to the left. Meanwhile, the distance among the men and me lengthened. They stopped and waited for me to catch up. The only thing to do was to surrender to the experience.
It wasn't until we entered the village that our emotions turned positive. It was as if two parallel worlds existed side by side, and we had stepped from one world to its opposite. The world we had left fostered negativity and darkness; the village, with its fertile land and abundant life, fostered tranquility and light. To be an integral part of Nature’s polarity was, for us, a living reality. Our task would be to unify its two aspects.
That evening we wandered through the village, scuffing our shoes in the dirt. The sun had set behind the mountains, and the village was quiet except for the sound of the river, which ran through the lush valley.
Later, I stared up into a night sky spangled with bright stars. They looked as close as the fluorescent stars and planets that once had glowed on my nursery ceiling. Just as when I was a child, they blanketed me with comfort and reassurance. The peacefulness of the night lulled me to sleep and put to rest the day’s tumultuous events.
If Octavio had not dreamt that three witches tried to steal his soul and carry him out the window, we might not have gone for a cleaning. His dream, however, clinched it. Frantic knocks on my door early in the morning attested to the impact the dream had on him. His face was pale. He had awakened with his limbs contorted and his face twisted to one side. I was stunned when he demonstrated the position of his body.
“I protected myself. I made crosses on my back and front. They didn't get me. I fought them off. Are there witches living nearby?”
“No, no witches live nearby,” a villager informed us. “Only a curandera in a distant village. She does limpias (cleanings).”
Israel had scheduled us for a morning hike along a trail rated difficult. I stayed in the village and joined the early risers on their way to the fields. After waving good-by to Israel and Octavio, I wandered along the footpath that bordered the bank of the river. I stepped aside into the tall grass to let a father and son drive a herd of cows to pasture. The path was well worn. Men, as well as animals, had traveled that route many times.
I discovered a low stone wall where I sat and bathed in the early morning light. Mountains enclosed the valley. The sun, inching above their crests, spread long shadows over the swaths of grass that lapped at the base of their slopes. Clouds, shaped like white hats, topped the mountain peaks; wisps of clouds trailed down like white beards. That morning the mountains appeared to be venerable spirits, blessing and protecting the valley and its occupants. Behind me was the extraordinary landscape of yesterday. I kept turning to look in its direction as if I might be able to decipher its riddle.
I heard the men calling my name and went to join them. We ate, and Octavio packed the car for the trip back to the City. During the drive, our mood was thoughtful. We were struggling to assimilate the extremes we had experienced. We agreed that the balance of our bodies, minds, emotions and spirits needed to be restored. Our decision was mutual. Tomorrow we would go for a limpia (cleaning). There was no discussion.
To be continued...
I attuned my nose to the smell of the freshly made tortillas that a father and son were selling at a stand on the sidewalk just below the steps where I waited for Octavio. The aroma was tempting on an empty stomach. I had left the bed and breakfast too early for breakfast.
Behind me the bells of Nuestra Senora de Soledad announced mass, and a line of women trudged past me up the steps leading to the church. The elderly and infirm brought up the rear, steadying themselves against the wall beside the stairs.
Octavio arrived, and I climbed into his van. Within a few minutes, we had reached the outskirts of the City where we stopped at a Pemex gas station. Octavio filled two red plastic containers with gas. “Ten gallons for safety,” he announced. “This will be the last gas station. There will be no gas where we are going unless it's sold privately. I don't trust private supplies. They might be diluted.”
We headed north, all the while maintaining a harmonious silence; we and Oaxaca were waking up together. We stopped at the sanitorios beside the turnpike, the last chance to use a real bathroom before we arrived at our destination. Any future roadside bathroom would be located behind a large boulder, a tall thick cactus or a sheltering tree.
We continued north and turned northeast. We stocked up at an outdoor market: toilet paper, a sun hat, bottled water, beer, bread, cheese, a bag of bananas, a bag of mangoes and a can of motor oil. Then we were on our way into the unknown.
In no time, we were high in the mountains following a winding dirt road that kept to the edge of steep cliffs. To one of the vultures slowly soaring overhead in the updrafts, the road would appear as an undulating dragon snaking over and around the mountains. No white roadside crosses marked the scene of fatal accidents in that remote area. Traffic was non-existent. We never did meet another vehicle.
It was noon by the hands of our synchronized watches when we pulled into the village. Israel, the local guide, was waiting. He would accompany us on our hikes through the communally owned land. He waved and gave us thumbs up. We were on time.
We selected three beers from our provisions and presented one to Israel. We ate fruit, bread and cheese while we discussed the details of the hike. I sprinkled the last few drops of my beer on the ground. Turning to face the tallest of the encroaching mountains, I silently petitioned that its spirit would grant us safe passage.
Octavio was amazed. “What are you doing?"
“Appeasing the gods.”
“The Mixes to the south do that; they don't here.”
"Never mind. The ritual is important to me.”
Off we went, well-fed and well-hydrated, following a river until we detoured to the left to labor up a steep foot path. We were headed for a barely visible overhang. Below us, the water sparkled with diamonds as it flowed over and among stones bleached white by the burning sun.
Under the overhang, an opening led to a small cave. Not enjoying close, dark quarters, I sent Octavio and Israel into the cave and settled myself in the lap of a ledge carved by the elements into an armchair. I leaned back against the warm rock and closed my eyes. The sound of the speeding water seemed far away. How high we had climbed in such a short time!
Octavio reappeared, abruptly interrupting my reverie. His face was drained of color. It took him a few minutes to regain his composure. After several deep breaths, he reported, “It was dark, and there were bats. I saw smoke rising from the floor. I got scared and ran out." Israel hadn't seen the smoke, but he believed Octavio’s story. We decided it was energy being released from the earth.
We left the cave's entrance and picked our way back down the trail, slipping and sliding the last few yards. We followed the river into a canyon and then through a succession of canyons fortified by towering cliffs. Vertical walls soared to the sky. Gray-green mosses and lichens created frescoes of impressionistic pictures of deer, dogs and celestial bodies. The landscape was magnificent.
Octavio and I never could identify just when our mood changed. Talking about it was a relief, because we were feeling increasingly angry and depressed for no reason whatsoever. There seemed to be no logical explanation for our irritation and impatience.
Walking was difficult. My feet refused to obey me. I was unable to lift them more than an inch above the ground. They felt as if heavy weights were attached to their soles. Or as if they had grown massive roots, which were anchored deep within the earth. In order to begin a step, I had to uproot one foot and counteract whatever force seemed to be pulling it back down.
We moved through a seemingly endless series of canyons. Hidden springs birthed tumbling brooks that fed the river cutting the canyons’ floor. Small caverns beckoned to be explored. In the distance, a goatherd and his goats stood immobile, as if bewitched.
A constant breeze had been at our backs since we began the hike. The canyons narrowed. Their diminishing width compressed the breeze into a funnel of strong wind. Its hot, incessant breath fueled our edginess. Our mood soured. I clutched my hat. The wind blew it off. I snatched it back. The wind won, and the hat sailed up to an inaccessible ledge.
There were no vultures in the sky, no insects buzzing, no birds singing, no butterflies. The only sign of wild life was a gray squirrel. Israel saw it first. He dove towards it with outstretched hands. He caught it, and for a second, man and squirrel were splayed against the face of the rock. Hunter and hunted froze into a long, continuous line until the squirrel shot up and out of Israel’s grasp and disappeared over the top of a cliff.
A circle of stones, each the size and shape of a cantaloupe, was in front of us. “Look, Octavio. Here is a sacred circle. You and Israel go on. I will wait inside the circle. I will be safe here." The men disappeared. I stepped into the circle and sat on the flat ground. I closed my eyes. Vivid scarlet swirls swam behind them, then erupted into the colors of the rainbow, a kaleidoscope of color and form.
After we regrouped and began the trek back, my feet developed an unanticipated independence. They refused to go in the direction I intended. When I tried to go straight ahead, they veered 45 degrees to the right. After several yards, they effortlessly carried me 45 degrees to the left. Meanwhile, the distance among the men and me lengthened. They stopped and waited for me to catch up. The only thing to do was to surrender to the experience.
It wasn't until we entered the village that our emotions turned positive. It was as if two parallel worlds existed side by side, and we had stepped from one world to its opposite. The world we had left fostered negativity and darkness; the village, with its fertile land and abundant life, fostered tranquility and light. To be an integral part of Nature’s polarity was, for us, a living reality. Our task would be to unify its two aspects.
That evening we wandered through the village, scuffing our shoes in the dirt. The sun had set behind the mountains, and the village was quiet except for the sound of the river, which ran through the lush valley.
Later, I stared up into a night sky spangled with bright stars. They looked as close as the fluorescent stars and planets that once had glowed on my nursery ceiling. Just as when I was a child, they blanketed me with comfort and reassurance. The peacefulness of the night lulled me to sleep and put to rest the day’s tumultuous events.
If Octavio had not dreamt that three witches tried to steal his soul and carry him out the window, we might not have gone for a cleaning. His dream, however, clinched it. Frantic knocks on my door early in the morning attested to the impact the dream had on him. His face was pale. He had awakened with his limbs contorted and his face twisted to one side. I was stunned when he demonstrated the position of his body.
“I protected myself. I made crosses on my back and front. They didn't get me. I fought them off. Are there witches living nearby?”
“No, no witches live nearby,” a villager informed us. “Only a curandera in a distant village. She does limpias (cleanings).”
Israel had scheduled us for a morning hike along a trail rated difficult. I stayed in the village and joined the early risers on their way to the fields. After waving good-by to Israel and Octavio, I wandered along the footpath that bordered the bank of the river. I stepped aside into the tall grass to let a father and son drive a herd of cows to pasture. The path was well worn. Men, as well as animals, had traveled that route many times.
I discovered a low stone wall where I sat and bathed in the early morning light. Mountains enclosed the valley. The sun, inching above their crests, spread long shadows over the swaths of grass that lapped at the base of their slopes. Clouds, shaped like white hats, topped the mountain peaks; wisps of clouds trailed down like white beards. That morning the mountains appeared to be venerable spirits, blessing and protecting the valley and its occupants. Behind me was the extraordinary landscape of yesterday. I kept turning to look in its direction as if I might be able to decipher its riddle.
I heard the men calling my name and went to join them. We ate, and Octavio packed the car for the trip back to the City. During the drive, our mood was thoughtful. We were struggling to assimilate the extremes we had experienced. We agreed that the balance of our bodies, minds, emotions and spirits needed to be restored. Our decision was mutual. Tomorrow we would go for a limpia (cleaning). There was no discussion.
To be continued...
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