Amid the reconstructed pyramids of Monte Alban, a pageant is performed commemorating ancient legends of how the sun and the moon and the Earth were born, and were set free to roam the heavens. Designed with help from the Dragon Theater of Maine, and performed by local singers, dancers and musicians, “Sol y Luna” will, hopefully, become an annual event.

“Curar”: to cure; thus Curandera(o): one who cures. Curanderas are “white witches”: practitioners of a medical system older than Hippocrates and as new as megavitamins and herbal teas sold at Safeway or Cub Foods. Many Mexicans (and others) believe that curanderas are at least as good as medical doctors, and it is not unusual for someone to consult both.

Last month, a new friend E-mailed me from the States, looking for a curandera. My friend, who suffers from a chronic, painful, but not fatal ailment, works as a health care provider. Because of her own combination of fear (am I going to be in the hands of a charlatan, or a “black” witch?) and skepticism (how can this be real?), she wanted to interview her practitioner before turning herself over for treatment. Her search piqued my interest, and I agreed to help.

Before you can use a curandera, you have to find her. Curanderas don’t hang out their shingle, especially not in a Catholic country, where claiming to have “powers” comes fairly close to heresy. Nonetheless, they are not hard to find. I asked my friend Yolanda, a bilingual Mixtec woman from a nearby village, to find me a curandera of high reputation. She immediately came up with three, in her village alone.

Her first choice was an “anciana” (old one); a woman with so extensive a reputation that people come to her from as far away as San Francisco, California. Her office hours are from noon until eight at night, and no-one may join the queue after 4 pm. Her business is so brisk that her husband acts as her business manager, controlling all aspects of her practice outside the consultorio. Although it had been set up for weeks, hubby decided at the last minute that while a treatment would be ok, an interview would not.

Second choice was a woman who had been practicing for “only” forty years, with a reputation that at this point extends only to Mexico City. She has no office hours, treating people as they come to her. Her husband is a farmer and leaves her business to her. It was to their house that Yolanda led us one February morning.

“Maria” (not her name) lives with her husband and children in a cement and adobe structure, on a side street in a small village not far from Oaxaca. The street is barely graded, and unpaved. There are at least eight dogs playing in the yard, along with three children. The consultorio is at the far end of a row of rooms along one side of the structure. When we arrive, the room is full of smoke from burning incense. One wall is decorated from floor to ceiling with images from the Catholic religion, tending toward illustrations of the Virgin Mary and the bleeding heart of Jesus. On the table (altar?) set against this wall are figurines and reliquaries. Some appear to represent deities more ancient than those brought by the Spanish. There is a table and two chairs for patient and curandera, and a bench for guests.

Maria is in her forties, plump, sparkle-eyed, relaxed. Like almost all village people I have encountered, she is open, generous and without guile. She answers our questions like she has done this thousands of times, yet she probably has never been interviewed before. She tells us she manifested her gift from earliest childhood, when her mother saw “a light” in her bedroom, which no-one else in the family could see (her great grandmother was said to have the gift, her grandmother not at all, and her mother only this small insight). She does not remember when she performed her first healing, but her mother told her she was around 6 years old. Her father disapproved of her gift, and warned her that people would think she was crazy and would be afraid of her. She understands now that he was just expressing his own fears, which ended when she cured him of cancer last year.

As we interview Maria, I keep an eye on my friend. Her body language is changing: from sitting back with her legs together and her hands folded in her lap, she is leaning forward, arms open, barely perched on the bench. There is a yearning in her eyes. She is ready to be cleansed. If it wasn’t for my own curiosity, the interview would have been terminated much sooner (more of Maria’s story another time).

My friend asks Maria if she will cleanse her (“limpia”, a cleaning, is the traditional word for the healing process, the theory being that sickness comes from a “bad wind” that enters the body and must be cleaned out). Maria agrees and asks me and Yolanda to leave. We go out to the courtyard, where Maria’s husband is shucking corn for tortillas, and chat about the weather.

About twenty minutes later, my friend emerges. She tells us that “something” took place which she can’t explain, but it left her feeling “giddy”. She is to return the next day. Yolanda agrees to accompany her. We part company, each to his or her own concerns. Through happenstance and error, my friend does not return to complete her treatments. I am allowed, therefore, to retire from the experience with my skepticism intact.

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In the seven years that I have lived in Oaxaca, I have often caught glimpses of the Maestro working in his studio; run into him at various cultural functions; and crossed his path on the street. His life and his works have had an affect on my life here, far greater than our nodding acquaintance would suggest (he probably didn’t even know my name). For me, and a great many others, Morales embodied not only Oaxacan culture, but Oaxacan civility and civic responsibility as well.

A Zapotec, born of working class parents, in a small town near Ocotlan de Morelos, a regional market town about 30 miles from Oaxaca city, Maestro Rodolfo rose to be a very wealthy man, with paintings being displayed in major galleries throughout the world. Many who have had his talent and good fortune turned their back on their roots, but not Rodolfo.

The Zapotec traditions include a commitment to sharing good fortune with others. The Zapotec word for this social service, transliterated into Spanish, is “Tequio”. It is similar to tithing, where labor may substitute for money. In the poorest villages, it is how the roads and the schools get built: everyone gives some labor (or money) to a common project to benefit the community. Rodolfo gave a lot of tequio, far more than was required, but, he acknowledged at one project innauguration I attended, far less than was needed.

His contributions, mostly through a foundation he set up in later years, includes the renovation of fifteen churches and cultural spaces throughout the municipio of Ocotlan. The flagship of this fleet is the church and ex-convent in Ocotlan itself, a dazzling and exquisitely tasteful complex which hosts a gallery, a restaurant, and spaces for meetings, performances and classes.

There is a permanent staff of architects and other experts overseeing all the projects, but each and every project hires local young people, mostly women, to do the work of restoration. We were fortunate enough to spend some time with one of these young women, working on restoring a church in the town of Zagache, Ocotlan. When her work with the restoration project is over, she will be a qualified antiquities restorer, able to get work anywhere. This project has opened up the world to her.

Morales gave his house in Ocotlan, a colonial house, to the Casa de Cultura (state culture ministry) of Oaxaca. Aside from the beautiful garden, and the Maestro’s studio, it contains a computer classroom. The Maestro noted, a few years ago, that computers were the future, and immediately bought a roomful so the local youth could learn.

Much of the house is a sort of museum, housing Rodolfo’s collections of china, stained glass, furniture and bric-abrac; similar to Frieda’s house, and Trotzky’s house, and Abe Lincoln’s. The center of this obra (work) is, in fact, in back and on the second floor: a three-room walk-through that contains the master’s studio.

Every Friday morning, Rodolfo could be found there, painting. In the far room, surrounded by tubes of oil paint, open jars of wash, and in the last couple of years a television set, the master demonstrated to friend and stranger alike, the techniques he used to create the unique canvases that made him famous. We visited him there just three weeks ago, along with a family of friends from California.

Working on five or six pieces at once, Morales answered questions, posed for pictures, and generally played the humble host. Only the humility wasn’t put on. Rodolfo was, in bearing, manner, and presence, a truly humble person. Walking down the street in Oaxaca, he reminded me of a small-town grocer or hardware store owner.

All this past month, the Museo de Arte Contemporanéo de Oaxaca (MACO; the modern art museum) has dedicated its entire second floor to a retrospective of the maestro’s works, from a very “realistic” picture of a drunken campesino sleeping it off on a pile of refuse, to a group of cylendrical “pillars” of painted canvas.

An “out” homosexual, he gave much to the effort to control the spread of AIDS. Currently, some sixty of his prints are for sale by the Frente Común Contra SIDA (common front against AIDS), having been donated by Rodolfo to help them raise needed funds.

I don’t know much about art, and so I leave all that to those who do. We don’t own any of his works, mostly because they are a little too costly for us. Still, I will miss Rodolfo Morales a lot. His life and his works, both artistic and charitable, touched mine directly. I am better off for the contact.

Published or Updated on: September 1, 2001 by Stan Gotlieb and Diana Ricci © 2008

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Mexico is a noisy place. Unless your cave is very high up the mountain, far beyond human habitation, noise is an integral part of your life.

Certain kinds of noises are universal, occurring with equal frequency and comparable decibel levels in both urban and rural locations. The chief among them is church bells, which ring out several times daily, calling the faithful to mass, summoning the villagers to gather, announcing an emergency, or displaying the high spirits of a drunken parishioner who, at five in the morning, wishes to share his happiness with his neighbors.

Fireworks run a close second. In Mexico, everything is celebrated with a loud bang, the louder the better (there are cannons that cannot rival the volume of some commercial cherry bombs), and an early start is considered lucky. Most of the time, one is hard pressed to know if the bang that one hears at 2:00 a.m. is the start, or the finish, of someone’s percussion extravaganza.

Third place goes to automotive noises, although their character varies with location. If you are in the city, it’s car alarms, orchestrating their computerized wails at the merest glance from a passing stranger; in the country it is more likely to be faulty or nonexistent muffler systems. Squealing bus brakes are common to both places. So is the neighbors’ radio, playing at full blast.

Man’s best friend, stationed on the roof of most houses, joined together in choruses of frenzied barking, provides the moon, the casual stroller in the street, and the insomniacs among us with examples of his devotion to duty.

The rest of the noises vary, depending on location. Animals, particularly burros and chickens, are more common outside the city, and ghetto blasters less so. Also more to be heard in the country: little cars with big speakers mounted on the roof, advising the citizenry as to how to vote, where to shop, or when the workshop on sanitary latrine building begins.

In the urban milieu, we have a surfeit of television, and street advertising is less needed. Always rushing in to fill a vacuum, our citified neighbors replace town criers with big city criers. The chief among these are the schools, each of which has a super-decibel sound system installed in the exercise yard. Every morning, we are treated to the cries of the p.t. teacher, exhorting her students: “manos ariba” (hands up), manos afuera (hands out to your sides), uno-dos-tres-cuatro, uno-dos-tres-cuatro”.

The Church also contributes. No matter how poor the congregation, how old or how disheveled the building, each and every church boasts an amplification system. Thus, without leaving the comfort of one’s living room, one may receive the homily from the nearest house of worship.

Not to be outdone by the religious sector, the secular too offers aural delights. Festivals, birthday parties, weddings and wakes: all call for music, and there are hundreds of bands, troupes, trios and other assorted day-sleepers who live to play from dusk ’til dawn.

Unless you are as fortunate as I when it comes to the ability to sleep in the middle of a battlefield, don’t forget your earplugs. It’s not done to ask your neighbor to turn down the noise, whatever its origin. Don’t like your neighbor’s choice in music/news programs/punch presses? Just turn your own radio up loud enough to drown it out…

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All my life, I have been a coward about death and dying. It’s all so unsanitary somehow; so negative; so threatening. Better to turn your head, tune out suffering, and tune in to the happy positive life of eternal youth that is the birthright of every television-watching white kid who grew up in the U.S. the ’50s. Hand over the unpleasantness to a nursing home, and a funeral director. Put it out of your mind.

All that stuff is different in Mexico (and most of the rest of the world). Death and dying, like living, are family affairs. Although the demands of industrialization and the resultant breakdown of family structure are making inroads into the traditional ways, most families still house and care for their elderly at home, where the vast majority of nonviolent deaths occur. What we euphemistically refer to as “the remains” lie in state in the house of the bereaved family for several days, the focus of family and neighborhood attention. Traditionally, the gravestone is erected about a week after burial. It is not until this ceremony that closure is achieved, but even this is not “adios”; only “hasta el dia”: El Dia de Muertos, the Day of The Dead.

While the actual Dia is November 2, Oaxacans celebrate for about a week beforehand. Church, state, culture and tradition combine to create a fiesta that is both rich and enriching. The plaza in front of the Cathedral is filled with sand sculptures and wooden skeletons. Booths sell candy skulls and Halloween masks, as well as food and craftworks. Flowers in various shades of orange, from red to yellow, flood into the local markets along with the seasonal harvest of pumpkins and squash. Bakeries cut back on their usual fare to produce “pan de yema”, a mildly sweetened egg bread. Candle makers and chocolate blenders shift into overtime.

Altars with pictures of the dead are erected and decorated in people’s homes, and furnished with food and drink for the spirits of the departed, who will come to visit. Students at the various university branches and functionaries at the Cultural Institute vie with one another to see who can put together the most elaborate structures. The city erects a giant altar outside the post office.

There are other places in Mexico whose traditions and elaborateness are said to exceed Oaxaca’s. However, Oaxaca’s accessibility and an infrastructure of inexpensive and comfortable tourist accommodations are inspiring an increasing number of tour operators to choose Oaxaca as a Day of the Dead destination.

Oaxaca has grown in recent years to encompass what used to be separate outlying villages. Most of these villages had their own cemeteries, usually relatively small and modest in their appointments. The larger, more elaborate (richer) cemeteries in Oaxaca proper and in the suburb of Xoxocatlan garner most of the tour buses, and leave the others relatively undisturbed by crowds of flashbulb-popping foreigners.

San Felipe del Agua, where I lived for the first year after I arrived, used to be out of town. Now an affluent neighborhood, with an incredible growth rate and lots of foreigners in residence, its chief claim to fame historically is that most of the water consumed in Oaxaca originates in San Felipe’s springs. A poor peasant community for most of its history, its panteon (cemetery) is small, unpretentious, and minimally maintained. Strolling by on walks through the neighborhood and observing its humble appearance left me unprepared for my first Day of the Dead there.

Arriving after dark, I found the street around the cemetery entrance lined with makeshift restaurants. A brass band was playing. Outside the graveyard, everyone was smiling, joking, having a good time. Inside, the local Catholic church choir, singing hymns, was followed by Ranchero music, interspersed with speeches by local bigwigs. Candles were burning, and graves were decorated with flowers, bread, mezcal and candy skulls. Folks were hanging out and socializing. This normally desolate graveyard had been transformed into a magic wonderland of softly lighted good spirits.

Last year (my second), I went back to San Felipe, even though I no longer live there. This time I did some visiting with folks I had come to know, and made a discovery that will keep me coming back as long as I am here: there is a U.S. expatriate buried here, and no one remains to decorate his grave and sit with his spirit.

According to his tombstone he was a poet, teacher, environmentalist and historian who passed away after 20 years in the village, many years before I came here to live. Although he still lived when I first visited here in 1973, we did not meet. Nonetheless, I felt an immediate connection, not so much to him, as to the whole spirit of El Dia; a way to a different consciousness about this central event in the year’s passage.

Next year, I will return to the panteon de San Felipe with flowers, chocolate, bread and sugar skulls. There will be candles, and mezcal. Stop by for a drink and a chat.

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Some days are better than others. Visa days are hardly ever good, filled as they are with anxiety and uncertainty. All this visa business seems so silly to me, and so costly, and so inconvenient. Why can’t I just live here in peace? It’s enough to drive a person to drink…

Welcome to the ripoff zone: Talisman, Chiapas, Mexico. Across the bridge: Guatemala. Across the street: Oficina de Migracion (Mexican Immigration). Hold tight to your wallet, we are about to be Hoovered for every cent — or centavo — that can be cajoled, threatened and lied out of us.

Foreigners traveling in Mexico on Tourist visas may stay in Mexico for no more than 180 days. Therefore, every five-to-six months, I cross a border (Mexico has three: U.S., Guatemala, Belize) and re-enter, to obtain a new visa. Likewise for a foreign-registered automobile. In August, 1994, I entered through Laredo (Texas) / Nuevo Laredo. Aside from the confusion of having to find the right buildings without benefit of signs, the treatment I received from the eight or so officials, clerks, bureaus and cashiers was courteous, honest, and relatively (2 hours) swift. So far, so good.

In September, a buddy asked me to accompany him on a business trip to Guatemala. We exited Mexico through Ciudad Hidalgo, close to the Pacific coast, and everything went smoothly. We spent a week in Guatemala, and returned through Talisman, on the Pan American Highway. When we got to Mexican Migracion, there were three clerks behind the counter. As soon as we walked in, the Jefe (chief) dismissed the other two and took personal charge of our processing. He took us down to the far end of the counter, away from the ears of his subordinates. He told us that the rules prevented him from giving us the normal 6-month visas. He cited Rule xx.y of the Visa Code (while neglecting to mention that it had been canceled six years ago). This rule allowed six-month visas only to those who entered from their own countries; people who entered from third countries were entitled to only 1 month. However, if we were willing to pay a “tax” of $20 u.s. for each additional month, a six-month visa could be arranged. My pal , who had been living in Mexico as a tourist for five years, said it was a shakedown, and he would not pay. El Jefe was clearly astounded. And personally hurt. We stood our ground. A one month visa was issued. Nobody was happy.

When we got to Oaxaca, we went to the local Migracion office and had our visas extended. The clerk shrugged. Yes, she knew of this official, who was said to be corrupt, and of course something would have to be done about him, but what? He is in Chiapas, far from the seat of government. She is in Oaxaca. Alas.

Now it is February, 1995. My car’s permit is about to expire, although my personal visa has another six weeks to run. I have already gone to the Hacienda (the bureau in charge of car permits) and turned in my old permit. Last stop: Migracion in Talisman, Chiapas. And guess who is behind the counter — and bearing old grudges…

“I remember you. How did you get the visa I gave you extended? Do you work in Oaxaca (a no-no for tourists)?” I point out that this is not information he is entitled to, especially as I am attempting to leave, not to enter his country. “Do you know about Regulation aa.b?” Huh? “It requires that you remain out of our country for 15 days before you can re-enter.” Jeez, what a sorehead. “I will remember you, senor. Enjoy your stay in Guatemala.”

I return to my car, to find a crowd around it. No, they are not admiring it (even though it is a “classic” 1967 Barracuda convertible); in fact they all have their backs to it. There are seven boys under 10 years old, all of whom are demanding a peso for “watching the car”; ten licensed official money changers, eager to sell me inflated Quetzales (Guatemalan pesos); three pairs of licensed “tourist guides”, all promising to make my trip to and through Guatemalan officialdom safe, clean and brief. I choose the oldest pair of guides, and ask them if they can also get rid of all the other people. They pass this on to the others. Nobody moves, except for the kids, who crowd around closer and raise their voices. “Get in the car”, I say to my guides. “I have hired them”, I say to the other guides. “I do not wish to exchange any money”, I tell the moneychangers. I give the biggest kid two pesos, and he tells the others to get out of the way. Ahead: the Guatemalan border. Hang on to your wallet.

First stop: the fumigation station. It wouldn’t do to give a Mexican insect a ride into Guatemala, since they don’t have any money. A little DDT teaches them a lesson: walk or die. “It’s 20 pesos”, says my official, licensed guide. “Give it to me and I’ll pay”. No, that’s o.k., I’ll pay. Eleven pesos, says the official. My guide smiles at me. Next stop: the Guatemalan car-permit station. “Two hundred Quetzales”, says my guide. “One hundred fifty Quetzales” says the clerk. Last stop, for my personal Guatemalan visa, costs fifteen Quetzales instead of my guide’s fifty.

Final negotiation: the fee for my guide (and his non-talking “partner”). Whaddya mean, a hundred Quetzales? When I hired you, you said twenty-five. “But you got extra service, and two people.” Yeah, besides which I didn’t let you skim off extra money. OK, here’s 25 apiece, lemme out of here!

Guatemala turns out to be three days of spectacular mountain scenery, malfunctioning brakes, and hours on end in garages that ALMOST fix the problem. I promise the Powers That Be that I will sell this car the next time I drive back to the States (and in June 1995 I do).

Time to go back home to Oaxaca. I return via the coastal route (Ciudad Hidalgo), hoping my pal the Jefe doesn’t get rotated out of Talisman. Here comes the Mexican border, and Migracion. Sitting behind the counter, a guy in aviator sun glasses, a military brush cut, and uniform creases that could cut wood. “Passport!” in a voice that would do a Gestapo agent proud. A stone face swivels up. “How long you want to stay?” As long as I can. I watch as he writes “180 days” on the visa. Yeah! Next day, I am home again: another six months in Paradise.

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As you stroll through the Alameda, the vest-pocket park in front of the Cathedral plaza in Oaxaca, around 7:00 in the evening, keep an eye out for Ignacio Cervantes. He’s the elderly, white-goatee’d guy standing near the corner, next to a sort of Cross of Lorraine construction with a bunch of wire thingees dangling from it. He’s not hard to spot. Actually, he sort of glows. His spirit seems lighter than those around him, and all the more so if he has an audience.

Ignacio sells puzzles. He makes them and he demonstrates them. They are simple puzzles in construct, composed entirely of bent galvanized wire. They all have a simple goal: separate two intertwined pieces of wire. Some are quite easy, some are medium tough, and some can lead otherwise rational persons to commit homicide.

Ignacio learned the puzzle business from his father, as a youth in Mexico City. Born in 1922, he was the youngest of four brothers, and the last of them to ply his trade. He has one son left at home. “My son was never interested in the puzzles,” he said. “I have heard that a nephew who lives in Juarez makes them, and sells them on the other side (the U.S.), but I have never met him.” His oldest grandson says that he wants to be a puzzle maker when he grows up, but Ignacio doubts that his interest will survive his teen age years.

When his father retired from the trade, he had around 25 designs that he manufactured. Ignacio now has 68 designs including his father’s. He keeps them in a book he started in 1963. He insists that all his own designs are original, even though some of them are very much like others uncovered in ancient Chinese texts. Art, he points out, tends toward the universal, and coincidental duplication should be no surprise.

We were sitting in his workshop, and the day was very hot. Oaxaca just before the rainy season when the sun is brutal and the shade a blessing. Constructed of wood and bamboo, with a thatched roof and a bare floor, it consists of a small table and a couple of chairs. His tools are a half-dozen differently shaped pairs of pliers, and a matrix which he made himself for winding wire into spirals. “You couldn’t buy such a thing. I am not sure you can buy one now. We Mexicans have had to be very good at making the tools we need to do our work.”

Ignacio proudly showed us some books of puzzles and puzzle designs, in English and in Chinese, compiled and distributed by Wei Zhang and her husband Peter Rasmussen of Berkeley. “They sent me these,” he said. “They wanted me to know about other puzzles and puzzle makers.” He points out several designs like his own in the Chinese book. “You see? These are ideas that are eternal. They come to people everywhere.” I asked him if he knew of others doing the same work in Mexico. He said he did not know them by name, but he had heard rumors of others. “There are certainly others in Guadalajara, Mexico City, and other large cities. It is natural that there would be.”

I asked Ignacio if he had done much traveling in his life. “Mucho.” He has been in every state of Mexico save three, and in many states “on the other side”. For much of his life, travel was a primary factor of his existence. As well as making his puzzles and selling them, he has been an itinerant buttons-and-bows salesman, a vocation that took him to villages so remote that “they didn’t know whether to welcome me or to kill me”, where no-one knew how to count money. “They would bring me a sack with money and tell me to take what I had coming. It was good for them that I was honest.”

As well, Ignacio would buy pottery and other local artesania for resale in the bigger towns. “If my VW van could get there, I would go.” For thirty years, starting in the mid-forties, Ignacio crossed over to work the crops in almost every state west of the Mississippi river. “The money was wonderful, but not the life. I have never had any desire to settle down in the U.S.” He has two sons in the States but he can’t go there to visit any more. “They made it so difficult to cross, I have given up”. When he worked the crops, and when he traveled in Mexico, he also sold his puzzles. “They used to sell for one peso each. That was enough to pay the bills in those days.”

In 1962, he married a woman from Oaxaca, and while he traveled she stayed home and took care of their children. Now he lives with his youngest son, his wife, and their three children on a property he has owned for more than thirty years. “Sometimes I think how much I would like to see the rest of the world again. I know that I can support myself by making and selling my puzzles. It only takes me five minutes to make one. The profits are good. It would be interesting to travel again. But then I think of my grandchildren, and how much I am enjoying watching them grow up, and I decide to stay home.”

That night, down near the Zócalo, Ignacio is plying his trade. About ten people have gathered around him as he very slowly demonstrates how to separate the wires of a particularly tricky puzzle. Once, twice, three times he unwinds and then rewinds the puzzle before some brave soul says “I can do that.” Patiently, he watches as the guy tries over and over to do it. Eventually, the customer gives it back. “I can’t do it.” He demonstrates it again and offers it to him. This time he figures it out, and a sale is made. “This is where I need my patience”, Ignacio says. “It’s a good thing that I like dealing with people. Besides, I meet so many interesting folks.”

I ask him if he ever thinks of retirement. “To do what? Sit around all day and do nothing? No, no, I am much too young (76) to do that. Besides, if I don’t do this, who will?”

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November first is children’s day in the series of remembrances and festivities that are known as Dias de los Muertos (days of the dead). On this day, the souls of departed children migrate to the homes of their still living relatives to take a sip of chocolate off the altar which has been constructed to give them a proper welcome home.

Guided by the smoke from copal incense, burning amidst the gold and magenta flowers, the children arrive a day before their older departed. By arriving early, they are assured the choicest morsels, and an easy place at the table.

Child mortality rates are higher in third world countries, and the child-spirits will have lots of company in spite of serious efforts to reduce the rate of infant death. Government and nongovernment agencies work aggressively and tirelessly to eradicate the causes: inadequate prenatal diet, sceptic birth circumstances, lack of breast feeding (bad water and subsequent diarrhea are big killers), and failure to vaccinate against childhood diseases such as diphtheria and smallpox. By all reports, these efforts are succeeding, poco a poco (little by little). Still, it is not unusual to see a funeral procession winding its way through downtown Oaxaca, carrying a three-foot coffin.

For us gringos, who are observers of, rather than bound up in, the traditions and celebrations of the Mexicans among whom we live, Los Dias offer an opportunity to admire other people’s altars and grave decorations; to eat special foods like candy skulls and pan de yema (a glazed egg bread); to join parading masquers and musicians walking the streets and drinking mezcal.

There are cemetery tours for the less adventurous, along with mole (MO-lay, a paste used in sauces) and chocolate cooking classes. Certain graveyards are “favorites” for tours, and the most crowded and well known are the cemeteries of Xoxocotlan (Ho-ho-coat-LAN), a village outside Oaxaca. We have always avoided Xoxo for that reason, preferring to visit the smaller and less well known places.

When we journeyed to Xoxo on November 1, it was to observe the annual building of the sand paintings in a local church. We had no intention of going to the cemetery, but we got misdirected and we ended up at one. We were with two friends (it was their car) who thought that as long as we were there, we might as well go in, and so we did.

Shortly after entering, our friends wandered off in one direction, and we in another, where we eventually encountered two young men holding beer bottles, and obviously intoxicated. The first, in slurred Spanish, kept calling me “Jefe” (chief), a distancing form of address to say the least (think of “amigo” as a way of including someone and you’ll see what I mean). The second, picking up on my discomfort, started reassuring me that they really weren’t so bad, and asked us to accompany him to a distant corner of the cemetery. There, next to a large marble mausoleum, was a small heap of dirt and a wooden cross with a plaque attached. “Cristina, 5 Julio 1997 – 12 Julio 1997”. “Mi hija” (my daughter), he said, a kind of wistful sadness in his voice. I asked him of what she died. “Ask Him, He knows”, he replied, pointing at the sky and shrugging his shoulders. I asked him if he had other children, and was told that there is a son, about 5 years old, very healthy. “She is an angel now, she had no time to sin” he said. “I don’t know if angels can return, do you?” I didn’t, but suggested that maybe the priest would know. “Yes”, he said, “That’s a good idea. Perhaps I will ask him”.

He walked with us to the entrance of the cemetery, where we joined our friends. We shook hands solemnly, smiled at one another, and parted, us to get back in the car to continue our search, he to enter the grocery store across the street to get another beer and — who can say? — continue his . . .

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Gringos call them “speed bumps”. Mexicans nickname them ” policia durmiendo” (sleeping policemen). The tópe (TOE-pay), a bump in the otherwise potholed road of Mexican life, is an endless source of fascination for anyone, like myself, who loves to categorize the phenomena of everyday existence.

However and wherever constructed, speed bumps are self-regulation at its most basic. The faster you go over them, the more damage you do to yourself and your vehicle. They also help you to stay awake while driving, and to keep your mind on the road ahead. You don’t have to pay attention to them, but if you don’t, the mobs of muffler shops, shock absorber salesmen, and whiplash chiropractors that abound in Mexico will be waiting to welcome you with open arms.

In Mexico, there are many persons, living in small towns, without work. At those times when the TV isn’t working because they could not pay the satellite fee, they often hie themselves down to the highway, take a seat in sight of a tope, and wait for an inattentive motorist to go sailing into the air; or observe how well various models of automobile perform during panic braking in the time between when the driver belatedly notices the speed bump and the moment of impact. As entertainment, it certainly beats watching the milpa grow.

Since many topes are neither signed nor painted, the careful motorist is on the lookout for tope watchers, a warning that a surprise may be coming up just ahead.

Most topes are painted, usually yellow, often in stripes; although some I’ve seen were blue or red. In the best of circumstances, there are warnings posted ( tope 150 meters, etc.), and a sign right alongside, pointing at the tope. However, many topes come up without warning, and many have no paint at all. One of my favorite signs is on the street entering Teotitlan del Valle. It says ” tope, 8 meters”. Not much time to respond. Fortunately, one is going pretty slow by then anyway.

The bigger the town, the more topes along the highway – generally. While one does occasionally find a one-horse town with six topes, it is not the norm. This is because of several factors, mostly having to do with cost. Unlike the highways themselves, topes are paid for by the people (or the town) who want them, and so a poorer town is likely to have fewer of them. The obverse of this is that since the builder must bear the cost, any person or neighborhood with enough money can put one up if they want to. When I see two topes within twenty yards of each other on the outskirts of a dusty village with nary a school in sight, I imagine some bizarre family feud ending in the erection of rival monuments, four inches high, six inches wide, and thirty feet long.

Most topes are either concrete or bituminous in composition. The concrete ones tend to be thinner than their bituminous brothers, with squarer corners.

Topes come in several basic models. There is the common single strand tope, described above. There is the double strand, and occasionally the triple strand. After that there are vibradores.

Vibradores are composed of several low, thin topes, with very small gaps in between. Much like the warning strips that US motorists encounter before they come to a stop sign on the highway, they differ in their severity. Often, vibradores are much harder on vehicle and driver than are topes. They are always concrete, and more expensive than topes to build and maintain.

For the really poor villages, there are rópes (RO-pays). These are, not surprisingly, made of rope, often old ship’s hawser, or fiber strands, soaked in tar. Just as effective as single-strand topes, they have the added advantage of being mobile. That’s why the Army likes them.

Most often found in coastal areas, rópes are one way the military check points have of letting you know they want to talk to you. (In the interior, there is more likely to be a couple of big boulders across the road, diverting you to the shoulder; in swampy areas there is no shoulder.) Rópes are every bit as jarring to drive over as are topes.

Banditos also use the tope system, although their usual choice of material is a tree dragged across the road. Unlike the vibrador, the tope or the rópe, the tree is neither a source of community pride and significance, nor a place where local idlers come for entertainment; nor is it meant to merely slow down the motorist. Fortunately, this device is rarely seen on the Mexican roadways; certainly not as often as certain alarmists would have us believe.

Whether tope, rópe, or vibrador, Mexican speed bumps, while annoying to the motorist, are a brilliant way to save lives and promote commerce in places where drivers would otherwise pass through at top speed. If you live in an area where children like to play near the street, or are crossing the street to go to playgrounds or schools, you can’t beat a good tope for getting people to slow down.

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We are tall, white, middle aged and well fed. They are short, dark and thin. We are foreigners and they are native born, “Indio”, indigenous. We are retired academicians and professionals and they are farmers, ” campesinos“, “peasants”. We are donors to a relief effort that was mounted in response to the devastating earthquake and monsoon rains that occurred in October of this year. They (some 120 of them) are among the survivors.

We have come to this large warehouse on the outskirts of Oaxaca city by invitation of one of the four organizations responsible for collecting relief, to attend a press conference and to witness the process by which goods are being actually distributed. We have no idea what to expect, except that we had asked our host to please not make any special recognition of our efforts. What we learn in the process will affect our thinking and our perceptions about Mexico, Oaxaca, and ourselves.

San Lorenzo Texmelucan is the central village for seven communities with 800 families. Located on the western slope of the southern mountains of Oaxaca, above the road between Puerto Escondido and Acapulco, it is not a tourist destination. Neither are the other communities represented here, containing almost 4,000 families.

“Emiliano” is a district delegate. He lives in the central village of a “municipio” (township) containing seven communities and 800 families.

When he is not farming, Emiliano teaches his neighbors about their rights under Mexican law, helping them to organize themselves in order to claim some simple freedoms that we take for granted, and for which they and their ancestors have shed blood to achieve, so far with limited success.

After the paper is read, the reporters ask questions. One asks about the actual conditions in Emiliano’s village. Like most of the “Indios” present, Emiliano prefers not to make too much eye contact, as it is considered aggressive. His Spanish is slow, and clear, and I wonder if perhaps it is a second language for him. He tells us that 70 to 90 percent of all buildings in his area are uninhabitable; that there is not enough purified water, so that people are forced to drink from uninspected water sources; that all the crops have been destroyed; that the road from the district center to his community, which is unpaved, is impassable because a landslide sent ninety feet of it down the mountain.

The government, he tells us, has not put in an appearance, although the Army touched down briefly while doing an “assessment” of needs a month or so ago. “We told them we need everything; we have nothing left. They promised to return soon. We never saw them again”.

“Armando”, from another village, works to help campesinos organize around land reform issues. In his village, he tells us, there are only two houses left standing. When they lost their homes, the villagers set up tin and plastic shelters on the village basketball court, the only flat and firm surface around. After a while, the “municipal authority” imposed on them by the central government came around and told them they must leave, because the encampment looked bad, and was an embarrassment. What if someone from the outside saw this? They might think that the authorities couldn’t take care of their citizens…

One of the staff members has taken us in tow, and seated us in the back row of folding metal chairs that were brought into the warehouse for this meeting. Only about two thirds of the attendees can sit on chairs, as the crowd is unexpectedly large. We offer to stand, or sit on stacks of beans as others are doing, but are told that if we abandon our seats no-one will take them. We are guests.

Over and over, men and women, young and old, get up to report to the press about the terrible conditions they are enduring in their villages, and about the indifference of the authorities to their situation. In doing so, they are also reporting to each other.

This sharing of experiences – and of possible solutions – is the result of years of painstaking and often dangerous work that is being done by “non governmental” (read: non-profit, non-political, non-official) organizations, here and elsewhere in Mexico.

The four organizations who are overseeing this campaign in Oaxaca all have been working in the affected area for some time. If they had not, they never could have pulled this effort together. They have been organizing the local folks for awareness of, and agitation for, human rights, educational opportunities, intertribal co-operation, and sustainable agriculture. It is tricky work. The “coyotes” (middlemen) who buy their coffee at bargain basement prices do not like it when the farmers decide to form a cooperative and sell it themselves. Neither do their friends in authority with whom they share their profits. The landlords for whom most of the campesinos work as sharecroppers do not think that peasants should be taught to read, as they may “misinterpret” the one-sided contracts they must sign in order to work. The vendors of poison chemicals are not overjoyed when local farmers begin discussing organic farming methods.

” Poco a poco” (little by little), the concept of mutual aid has been reawakened among a people suffering the effects of over 500 years of colonization, and little by little, in a quiet and respectful way, it has been suggested that perhaps the individual villages ought to set aside old grudges and find ways to communicate with each other; that they might find that they have much more in common than they do in disagreement; that they might, in such a case, draw strength from each other. And it is this work, built up over years of patient and respectful listening and learning on the part of the teachers, that has culminated in this extraordinary process which we have the privilege of witnessing.

Everything that comes in and goes out from this warehouse is accounted for. All the statistics are published and distributed to everyone. The villagers themselves load the trucks in Oaxaca and unload them at their destination. Nothing gets diverted, and nobody profits.

The schedule and methods of distribution for the beans, corn, salt and sugar that leave this warehouse were debated on the community level. The representatives here were elected by the people to carry out their wishes. Some forty-five communities of nearly 4,000 people are communicating, co-operating, and building bridges that will take them into the future together.

Oaxaca has always had bad times. Everyone, no matter how old, can remember more than one disaster that befell them in their lifetimes. Everyone lives with the knowledge that the latest one was not the last one. Fatalism is part of the birthright of the marginalized. These organizations, and this campaign, have added hope to these lives: hope that next time, the pathways of communication and co-operation they have built together will help them to survive a little better; each time a little better.

Published or Updated on: December 1, 1999 by Stan Gotlieb © 1999

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Santa Maria Tiltepec was once a thriving village, important enough for the conquering Spaniards to order a fine church built. The church still stands, a monument to the determination of the conquerors and the artistic and architectural skills of the indigenous Mixtec peoples who constructed it from drawings of other churches, brought over from the Spain. We are two hours west of Oaxaca city, 3,000 feet above our mile-high home, in an area known as the Mixteca Alta (the high Mixteca), land of the Mixtec people, one of the 16 identified tribes that live in the State of Oaxaca.

Today, the village is all but empty, a victim of natural and economic disasters. Almost all the men between the ages of 18 and 45, and many of the women, are gone in search of work. Mario is one of the few who have been able to remain, thanks to INAH, the ministry in charge of preserving the antiquities that form part of the patrimony of Mexico.

Mario has worked for INAH for 27 years, since he was 16. Starting as a laborer on his uncle’s team, he is now a foreman with anywhere from two to ten workers, mostly older local men who no longer care to travel very far. Short, broad shouldered and heavily muscled, Mario has been able, over the years, to remain at home, in the Mixteca Alta.

“Work is never certain”, he says. “We are here on a six-month contract. On this church, we have so far had three contracts, but not one after the other. In between, I have had contracts at four other sites. So, I have been working steadily, but there are no guarantees. It’s the way the contracts are let. INAH tries to spread the work around, so every village gets some attention, and some jobs.”

When asked why so many people went away, Mario walks to the edge of the hilltop on which the church rests, above the village. The view is spectacular, with mountains all around. “Look over there”, he says, pointing to the deeply eroded landscape around us. “See that red earth? You can’t grow anything there. Nothing at all. See the green patches in between? You can grow a few things there, but only during the rainy season. A week after the rainy season ends, there is no more water. Everything dries up.”

What happened? “There used to be forest here, but they came and logged it, maybe 60, 70 years ago. Then they brought the sheep and the goats. Soon, there was nothing to contain the runoff; nothing to hold back the soil. Now it is useless.

“Still, it is not a bad life here if you have money coming in. Look over there.” He points out a modern bungalow with 3 or 4 bedrooms, maybe a mile away. “They built that house from money sent back from the north. That one over there, too, and that one over there.”

And the one over there, with the roof fallen in? “They all are gone. There was no-one to look after it. I do not think we will ever see them again, unless their children come back to see where the parents grew up. More and more this is true. They used to always come back, for fiestas and family occasions, but now they are afraid. They are afraid that if they cross over, they will not be able to get back. They stay there because they are afraid.”

It begins to rain, and we repair to the doorway of the church. “I do not remember so much rain here. This year has been very rainy. On top of the two earthquakes (there was one in June that did a lot of damage in the Mixteca Alta, but received little notice from the outside world because it did not damage any urban areas), we have had to deal with this rain, which does not remain, but washes out even more of our top soil.”

But the presas (reservoirs) I saw coming up here, don’t they help? “They make it possible to grow small plots of vegetables and to water a small amount of livestock, but our villagers can only get a subsistence living from these small holdings. It is enough to live on, but not enough to thrive. Our children do not want to stay and work the land because it is too hard. And no-one can blame them, they are right.”

“You are a tourist”? Not exactly. I live in Oaxaca, and write about my experiences of Mexico.

“Then you should tell your people, especially your government, to treat us better when we come to your country to look for work. It should not be so hard for our friends and family to return to us when they can. The money they send is needed, but we also need to preserve our village life, and our ties with our loved ones who must go away from this red earth in order not to starve. We Mexicans, we like to go where it is green, where the food can be grown. We should not be treated like criminals for wanting to feed our families.”

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