a profile

this is francisco. i would guess he's around 60 years old and he works primarily in tending goats that are used for various purposes. however, he is also a prominent leader in his community, Tamaula, made up of about 50 families, in which the most prominent problem is the lack of a clean water source. (the goats were donated, partly through the work of the foundation i'm working with.)

francisco founded Tamaula when he was 18. i imagine he hiked up this hill, with a few other people and the few animals he had, and began living. there were no roads. in fact, there was no road up to the community from the nearest highway until about 5 years ago. when the director of the foundation first went to see it, she had to go on donkey. (11 years ago.)

over the years, things had their ups and downs in the community. and at times, Francisco had to migrate to the states. and he depicts it like that: if things were going well and he could support his family, he didn't have to migrate. but, when things weren't going as well, he was forced to go.

he told us of one trip at some point in the 90s, which began with the dangerous hike through the desert with a coyote for guidance. most of us can have NO idea how horrible of a journey that is. many people go with the understanding that they may die, but figure they have very little to live for anyways, so it's worth a try. how many of us (people reading this blog) can even understand that mind set? there is an amazing organization i'm learning about called no mas muertes (no more deaths) which works by training volunteers to be in the desert where people typically walk, and giving them water and food to help them survive. one of the guys i'm volunteering with here is going directly from here to work there for a month and has done it before. he's taught me a lot. did you know that the primary strategy of the border control helicopters is to fly close to groups of migrants in the desert so that they scatter, lose each other, and die? these aren't the crazy "minutemen" with rifles (although a lot of them do exist), but rather the employees of the US government.

anyways, back to francisco. when he made it through the desert, he was put into the back of a truck with 40 people. he said it was the most terrifying and painful thing he's ever experienced. he thought for sure he was going to die in the truck. he made it out, and was put on a plane (proof that this was a while ago, and pre-9/11). he didn't speak any english, so he didn't know that the food on the plane was free. he hadn't eaten for 3 days, but he didn't eat it because he didn't have any money.

during that trip, he stayed for a couple years, sending the money back to his family in Tamaula, and returned as soon as he was able. i believe he has gone to the states a total of 3 or 4 times (in the same manner), for a total of 6 or 7 years.

francisco is a very intelligent and eloquent man. he explained clearly that he and his family are very happy in tamaula, they just need to figure out a way to find clean water and buy a tank to store it in. he didn't complain, he wasn't angry, and he offered our group a really delicious lunch.

i don't want to idealize the situation. tamaula isn't perfect. there are issues between francisco's family and the family that owns the other half of the goats. i'm also not proposing a solution to US migration or saying that everyone should be allowed to enter the states. i'm simply trying to offer up a realistic example of a migration story, like the ones i hear every day, rather than many of the things reported in the news of drug-traffic-ers and swine-flu-carriers.

i hope to add more of some of the things i'm learning through the people that live them. thanks for reading.

michoacan

so, this past weekend, all the current summer volunteers (me, 3 students from UNC, 3 from notre dame, and about 15 from iberoamericana in mexico city) went with adriana to a nearby state called michoacan. we went to visit some of the small towns around and to meet some of the local artists. it was a really great time and i took a TON of pictures. so, i'm going to post a couple here and write about them, and then i'll put the rest up on facebook later.

this is a town we visited on the first day (after driving for like 4 hours in an '89 volkswagon van, which didn't have any type of stereo, of course, so we decided to sing the whole way there. the guys driving led the songs/yells, including screaming WOODSTOCK!, so they were mostly in spanish, but every once in a while they'd switch to either beatles or disney songs so we could sing along. we called it the "coche feliz" "happy car").

anyways, this town is called patzcuaro, and this was a performance of a dance called the dance of the viejitos (old men). it's a traditional folkloric dance in this state. it was really fun to sit in the plaza and people watch. and it made me think a lot of cuzco, peru, for some reason.




this was the tiny little town we stayed in over the weekend. they were celebrating the catholic holiday of corpus cristi, which, in this town i guess, entails putting up this HUGE pole/cross thing the night before and then letting people try to climb it the next night, during the fiesta (see below). we went to watch them put this up (with one tractor and mostly by hand with ropes) because people kept screaming when it seemed like it was going to fall, and we wanted to see what was going on. fascinating.


this is a mural facing the plaza. it is INCREDIBLE. this is only a small part of it, but it had a lot of indigenous images (there are still many people who speak an indigenous language in the town) and also an image of emiliano zapata, along with phrases like "this community has said ENOUGH" and "restoration of communal lands."


after visiting a small tequila/mezcal distillery, on the second day we went to this mask workshop/store. every mask is made by hand, and many of them out of one piece of wood. they were really beautiful. the second pic is to give you all a bit of my "kait" personality that i'm sure you're all missing.





and this is a copper workshop that we went to after. again, everything is made by hand, and we even got to help hammer some pieces of copper fresh out of the fire. it was really interesting.


this is a shot of where we stopped for a quick lunch after the workshops and got these amazing, although pretty greasy, cheesy quesadillas for 10 pesos, which is less than $1US. a beautiful thing.


this is a shot of the guy that we saw get the highest on the pole thing. he was also the first and he was pretty built. he's about a THIRD of the way up, if that. so, at that point, we realized that as it got darker and everyone got drunker, there was NO way anyone was going to make it up. eventually people started trying to do pyramids and stand on each others shoulders, but it still didn't work. we DID however talk the guys in our group into giving it a try. "cmon!" i said, "don't you realized how much this crowd would love to see a bunch of gringos get up and try it! they're already staring at us as the only white people in town, you might as well give it a go!" they didn't make it very far. the picture below is everyone watching.




this was when we tried to talk our boys into trying. don't you especially love jack--the guy in the pink polo? he's this quiet guy who doesn't speak a ton of spanish and while we were just standing watching, this guy came up to him and said (in spanish), "excuse me, but my niece would like to take a picture with you. is that okay?" ja, that's what i mean by the ONLY white people there.



and then these last two are the final fiesta for the corpus cristi thing. there was a live band playing "banda" music, which is a style of dance that is basically running in place, sometimes with a bit more flare. and we did it for about 3 hours. it was really really great. (and ps--i think both of these pictures were taken about at eye level.)






ok, so that's a summary of a long but great weekend, in which i took 200 pictures. thanks for checking in on the blog!

more fotos

check them out here

it didn't take long...

well, as i should have prepared for after my experience in chile, i realized that when i'm in travel mode, a guitar is really important to me. i don't even write that much, but there's something about playing, and especially singing, that is a huge comfort for me. it was handmade in a nearby state here in mexico. which means, it's pretty, but it's not of top quality sound. but luckily, it was really cheap. so, it'll be a nice souvenir if i decide to take it back with me. a quick foto below.

a few more pictures

click here for some pictures with descriptions from last week.

besos!

happy birthday mama! feliz cumpleanos!