Primero de Mayo- Finalmente!

It’s come down to this: all those horrible, long, tortuous weeks of suffering, discomfort, and continual nervous breakdowns from worry were for naught- the community is great! Working with them has been a wonderful experience (minus one or two days, of course); most everyone has been so kind and open to me, generous with their time and food and with what they have. I went to go stay for three days starting last Wednesday, arriving in a daze from Papantla with my huge backpacks full of my stuff, sweating profusely from having to walk about 45 minutes from the highway in the sun with my heavy load. I went to the house of the president of the cooperative, Don Basilio, waited a while and tried not to be bothered by the frightened/hateful looks of his two boys (they’re anomalies, thankfully), and got to talk to Don Basilio for a bit and do my first interview.

He then led me to the house I’d be staying at; it is owned by Don Rosendo, a single guy who has consistently migrated to Los Angeles to work at American Apparel and whose wife left him, but his neice and nephew and their two little boys also share the house so I wouldn’t be alone. After getting over the mandatory introductory discomfort, my impressions of the family and house were good. The littlest boy, Kevin, is a cheerful little brat, and Isaura, the mom, is a 25 year old over-worked housewife who was delighted to have someone closer to her age come and hang out. I was fed twice in two hours, a telling sign of things to come; Dona Estela, Basilio’s wife fed me homegrown chicken in the most delicious mole I’ve ever tasted, with handmade tortillas, and when I went to Isaura’s house she fed me fried pork in a spicy sauce with even more delicious handmade tortillas. The facilities are very rural- outhouse for bathroom, river or bucket of water for bathing. The kitchens all have open stoves with wood burning for cooking, masa is made to make tortillas by first chucking the dried corn, grinding it, and making tortillas on a big skillet called a comal. There's no air conditioning and houses are made of different materials; some wood, some cinder blocks, and most are a combination. All in all, though, I loved it! It felt homey and real and not cold or sterile in any sense.

Later that night and continuing into the next day I had more interviews with more farmers, had a tour of the vanilla fields, and was convinced that with just 3 days I would have enough interviews and information for my purposes and was ready to head out. Honestly, I was starting to feel lonely and sick (probably from eating so much food- hasn’t changed- and from the heat, sun, and lack of water), plus the little boys were getting on my nerves- they just wouldn’t leave me alone or stop talking, and I couldn’t understand a WORD of what they were saying. Really, I just needed a break, so I was relieved when Lindsey, a grad student of my “supervising” professor Rebecca, came to do some of her own interviews on migration and get to know the community. I left with her that day to stay in an expensive hotel in Papantla on the other side of town from my old apartment- thankfully I have yet to run into the same people I constantly bumped into before! Lindsey and I continued conducting interviews in the days following, and Sunday took a gringo day to Poza Rica, an awful industrial city belching out oil fumes, to go to a diner for a huge salad and to the movies to see Harry Potter (which was surprisingly good!).

The other interviews have left me feeling much more enlightened about the community and its complicated social, political, and familial structure; almost everyone is related, and everyone has a story to tell. Perhaps one of the most surprising finds was meeting a man named Manuel; he actually migrated to Boerne back in 2001! His story of working there was interesting- for me, he provided a much needed link between my world and this one. It’s hard to imagine what life is like for these people in the States when they migrate, and feel like now I have a much better understanding and can empathize a bit more. The world is opening up some of its secrets, and I feel like everything is a bit clearer, more connected.

The interviews with women were especially interesting; stories of abusive, irresponsible, cheating husbands, long days working around the kitchen and house, and lack of other job opportunities left me feeling that this idealized rural life definitely isn’t ideal for some, for those who don’t know how else it could be. They have to make all the food and tortillas by hand, take the clothes down to the river to wash them, get water from the one well in town with buckets (the men help with that sometimes, too), collect firewood to cook, take care of the kids, take early lunch to the men in the fields, and just in general keep order around the house. Where is the time to read, to relax, to have fun? Most women have the television or radio blaring in their smoke filled kitchens as they cook for company, and perhaps to drown out the kids. Men too work hard, though they just go to the fields usually from 7-2 and are done for the day, coming home expecting their lunch to be ready and their clothes washed and off they go to relax and hang out and play soccer and drink. In Primero it’s not as bad as other communities; men don’t drink as much or as often and also work on community projects. Women have a bit more say in things as well, and are usually included in decisions of the community. Still, it is a very traditional system and one in which I know I couldn’t live, not without some changes.

Again, though, it is more of the culture that is at fault, and not the people as individuals; every culture has its ups and downs, its costs and benefits. Here people make time to keep the community like a family, to have parties and celebrations together, to dance and have fun. They support each other and have managed to stay united, and their lifestyle isn’t nearly as destructive to the environment and other people as that of many in the United States. They eat what they grow, though that is changing too with the years and with the influence of outside forces. And just about everyone is generous and kind and honest, as far as I can tell; you go to someone’s house and they offer you what they have, including their time, food, and knowledge, and sit and chat and take their time, even though they already have more than enough to do. Like any small towns, there are downsides to this familiarity too; everyone knew me before I knew them, and rumors even spread like wildfire- some thought I was Rosendo’s girlfriend whom he brought back from Los Angeles! And when something bad happens, everyone knows. But how are secrets any good, anyway?

Well, I’ve been doing my best to understand the community and have been working hard to try and help out the cooperative; every person I talk to says “we need markets!” so I’m doing what I can and will continue to do so until I meet some success that will last. Who knows, maybe I’ll keep coming back here…in the meantime, I have to catch the next bus to Primero; I’ll be staying there until Sunday morning, swimming in the river with Isaura, hopefully gathering a few recipes and knitting together more information about the community and cooperative, and maybe even going to visit the nearby ruins that I’ve heard so much about. Sunday morning I’ll accompany a member of the cooperative committee to one of the only restaurants in miles- they have a special shindig every 2 weeks and they’re going to take some crafts and vanilla to try and sell. After that, it’s back to Xalapa and then Mexico City, back to where I started, as scared as a squirrel with a dog on its tail, not knowing what would happen, what I was doing, what anything meant. It’s funny how our imaginations play against us, and how powerful that fear and worry is when really it’s just a shadow in our mind, a figment of our imagination. And I’m sure I’ll keep learning and experiencing that. But in the meantime, I’m off to go spend my last 4 days in the country learning and enjoying what I can. Handmade tortillas, hammock, and river, here I come!