Semana Santa Day 3

The four of us, Luchi, Moni, Au and I woke up in Auroras house in Norogachi and prepared for breakfast. On this day we started talking about Machsimo, a social phenomenon in Latin America that could be considerd the antithesis of feminism. Machismo is about being a man, doing what men are want to do, and never apologize for it. Machismo says a man doesn’t wash the dishes, or clean the house, or play with the kids, that’s woman’s work. Machismo says that a man should make a lot of money, get himself a hot wife, and then a series of girlfriends who he maintains on the side, or if he cant do that, let his wife work for him while he trys to screw everything that moves. Machismo says if a wife doesn’t do what a man wants, he can it her until she does. Machismo used to be an unspoken reality throughout the western world, now it’s gone out of style in most places and been replaced by an attitude that claims to be gender neutral, while in reality I’ve seen how it really has just reversed the gender which has the right to be abusive. But that’s a rant for another day, the point of bringing this up was that au didn’t want us “the men: working in her kitchen, because she is “really submissive” and like machistas, men who like machismo. Lots of chicks here have passed that line by me trying to impress me, one even went so far as to tell me she wasn’t sure shed leave a man who hit her (shes about to graduate as a lawyer), needless to say, my american upbringing has guaranteed that everytime one of these ladies says something like this it has the opposite of the intended effect, a red light turns on and an angry buzzer screams “epic fail” and then my penis shrivels up, falls off, and rolls out of my pant leg. There is nothing more disgusting than a week woman, at least, that’s how I feel about it. So when my attempts to convince Au to let us stay and help failed, I went outside and tried to work on something useful, like saving the broken branch on Au’s peach tree, hoping to make a new tree in the process.
The funny thing about fruit trees is that many cant reproduce by seed. Each seed is a new genetic combination and wont have the same charachteristics as the parents, for instance apples produce markedly different fruit sizes, shapes, tastes, most of which aren’t pleasing to the human tongue. Every tree that produces an apple of one variety, say granny smith, was the branch of the original granny smith apple tree, or a brach from one of the branches that grew into trees. Something I’d like to start in the Sierra is a ngo agricultural station which produces trees and seeds for fruits and vegetables that are adjusted to the climates of the Sierra, with communities at 200 feet above sea level and others at 8,000 feet above sea level the weather conditions between villages can vary drastically, even if the villages are only 70 miles apart as the crow flies. However if you look at a USDA hardiness zone map of Mexico, the Sierra Tarahumara is lumped into the same area as Texas and Chihuahua. This means that the seeds that are shipped to the NGO’s here as well as the seeds available in the major agricultural regions, are adapted to very very warm regions of the world, with long growing seasons. In Creel, the last frost is in late May, it sometimes still snows in that part of the year, and the first frost is in September, there is only rain from mid June until mid September. What this means is that for the people living in the Sierra, the seeds and plants they receive in development programs aren’t accustomed to growing in their region, which means that many of the plants die or never reach a fruiting stage. Most of the fruit trees blossom in April or may and their blossoms are killed and they don’t produce fruit, had a cold region variety been planted, say a variety hardy up until Zone 4 that blossoms in August, then people would actually have trees that can produce food for them. Another example would be Tomatoes, the tomatoes sold in Cuahutemoc, the closest major agricultural city to Creel, the tomatoes sold have a growing period of 80 days. The plants begin to produce fruit 80 days after being planted. If you cant begin to grow them until the end of May, and they have to produce all of their fruit before the first frost In September then you only have a growing season of about 100 days, only 20 of them ever see tomatoes. Had a cold region variety like “Subartic plenty” which has a growing season of 45 days been used, then the plants would have 55 days to produce fruit, which can be stored by sun drying and bottling, helping the people to shorten the hunger season, December through June, when chronic malnutrition becomes acute malnutrition and people begin to die from immune systems weekened by a lack of nutrients, anemia is a particularly common problem in the Sierra Tarahumara, and one of the main causes of death during childbirth for women in the developing world. That’s actually part of the current project I’m working on, trying to test appropriate technologies like cold frames, short season variety fruits and vegetables, and low cost food preservation techniques like fruit leather, canning, and root cellars, to see if they are viable ways to shorten the hunger season or eliminate it. What id like to do in the future is have several agricultural stations set up throughout the different climatic zones of the Sierra, where we could collect weather and climate information, and report it, so things like USDA maps could be created with information that reflects reality, at these stations different fruits and vegetables could be tested, and propagated on a large scale, the food could be sold to help support the station, and the seeds and cuttings could be sold to people based on what they can afford to pay, with the one condition being that they too should propagate seeds and cuttings and that they should give or sell based on the capacity to pay to other villages. The stations could be a place where people could come to see capital non intensive solutions to the agricultural problems in the Sierra Tarahumara, eliminating the perceived risk in trying something new. We could demonstrate that a new technique is not a gamble with one possible outcome being a crop production worse than the poor production that already exists in the Sierra. People would be able to see with their own eyes what did and didn’t work.
After I had finished working with the cutting we had breakfast and headed to the main plaza for more dancing. The drums were still beating (they had never stopped since Semana Santa began) It was another long day of following the pintos as they danced around the town, I spent most of the day engaged in idle chat, making new friends, and just hanging out, wishing I had enough money to buy food. AS the day came to a close the dancers made their last tour around the city and then as they were approaching the concrete arches next to the Diconsa store, the made a hard right, during the day, all of the dancers had accumulated together to form a giant group of dancers and as the son began to set we headed down a dirt road toward the grave yard. The effigy of Jesus that the dancers had been carrying was now wrapped in burial shrouds. He was to be buried in the grave yard. We passed brown picket fences and little houses of different colors, we arrived at the grave yard during “the golden hour” the time of day that photographers love due to its yellow and orange hues. The Grave yard was a beautiful little fenced plot, with wooden crosses and stone tombs, with dead grass, a dirt and an occasional pile of horse manure (the tarahumara tend to give their larger animals plenty of freedom of movement) and on one side a large granit cliff rose 50 feet or so above us, its walls were slightly slanted and different people, some spectators and others dancers, were sitting on the lower slants of its walls, some were above on the top of the cliff looking down at us. We reached the open tomb where Christ would be placed, and a small preacher known as Juan, a Jesuit, began the ceremony with a prayer to Onoruame in Raramuri the language of the Tarahumara Alta, the region of the Sierra that is farther away from the BArrancas. I didn’t understand the prayer and with so many people I couldn’t here what he said when he repeated the prayer in Spanish, I only caught occasional pieces, he thanked god for sacrificing his son for us, he talked about how Jesus was human like us and that we should try to follow his example, and that was basically all I got out of it. Jesus was then placed in the tomb and we headed back to town where people were getting ready to begin to visit friends and family. It’s a custom that the night of burying jesus people can go to their friends homes and expect to find a giant feast awaiting them, Au wanted us to go to two of her friends houses, so we hiked up to a bed and breakfast close to Cheerio’s house, Cheerio is a friend in Norogachi, his house becomes important for the story in a little while, all you need to know is its about a 10 minute walk from the main plaza. The Hotel is a colonial style building, think Santa Fe architecture, it has a flat roof, wooden beams coming out of the top, it was a square frame with a garden in the middle. There were various European and American tourists, including a very verbose French man and our friend the “human ones” guy. The owner was a heavy, happy talkative woman, plae in complection, and married to a menonite. He had visited the states and wanted to talk to me about America, but our conversation failed to touch on the profound so lets leave it at we chatted a bit and then all of us gathered up a bowel of fish soup, potato salad, bread, tortillas beans and lentils. We went to the garden and ate and chatted amongst ourselves about what had happened that day and engaged in the Sierra’s primary pass time: gossip. After chatting with the owner of the Bed and breakfast we headed to the house of another friend of Au’s. This house was higher up in the village geographically speaking and we had to do some hiking to get there, but it was all worth it. As we passed the picketed gate and then entered the white house we were welcomed by the smell of cooked fish, beans, and salad. The fish was small trout, prepared according to Tarahumara custom, the guts removed, and the whole fish fried in oil, then salted to taste. The salda was lettuce, tomatoes, and onion slices, with a cesar dressing, the beans were stewed and the potatoes were mashed with butter. It was like a mini thanksgiving in the heart of the Sierra Tarahumara.
After thanking our hosts for the tasty meal, we started heading back to the house. On the way, Moni and I took a detour to the house where the people were beginning to drink tesguino. Semana Santa is atypical of Tarahumara festivities in the sense that during most of the week, prior to burying Jesus, tesguino is prohibited. The moment Jesus is buried; it starts to poor forth in its sugary, corn flavored goodness.
This must be like Sylvester Stalone week because Rambo 3 is on. I have to admit that I am a little surprised that the Muhajadeen are the heroes in this movie, my how america’s opinion has changed in the last two or three decades.
Anway, we went to the house and everyone, the former volunteers, the dancers, the people of the village, were all drinking tesguino while the Matachin dancers were being painted with red, black, and white paint, made from different soils in the Sierra. While we drank people asked me the usual round of questions, where are you form, whats it like there, how did you come to the Sierra, etc, etc. However Lori one of my coworkers, and a native daughter of Norogachi, showed up. When she saw me drinking tesguino she said, “Vagabond, you can’t drink tesguino!”
I looked back at her in annoyance, “I already told you, celiac means I can’t eat wheat, barley, and rye, and sometimes oats because of cross contamination, Corn isn’t on that list,” I lifted the gourd of tesguino to my bearded lips, and soaked it in like a mop sucks up water off a floor (if tesguino ever spilled, I can assure you, it would be worth drinking off the floor.)
Lorena shook her head. “No, no, no. I’m not talking about the corn, I’m talking about the Basihuare, its wheat Manu, its wheat.”
I choked and sputtered like an old Ford. “WHAT?!?!?!?!” I cried out in protest. “It can’t be! I won’t believe it. Of Basihuare is a mountain grass not a wheat.”
“No manu,” Lorena said cooly. “It’s a wheat, its Spanish name is triguillo, little wheat.”
Yeah. I was totally fucked. I walked home in the dark at 3 am that morning with my hung low, and a belly burning from indegestion, a symptom of my celiacs kicking in. But I refused to believe it, it was a mountain grass, triguillo was a misnomer. A fucking misnomer. God. Damn. It. And tomorrow I was going to drink more tesguino than was humanely safe, or had been drunk by any other chavochi before me, Or I would die trying....