Proud Member of the CEA - Part I

On the path toward enlightenment we learn to be with the unknown. Cultivating beginner’s mind, we open to the flow of life. We don’t know what will happen next.

 – Donald Rothberg, On the Darkness and the Light

                                                          

               Yesterday was a day in the dark.  I was ready and waiting at nine sharp, with backpack, water bottle and sunhat, on the stoop of the Maria Delores, as instructed.  Nine came and went. Nine-thirty was approaching. To kill time I’d brought my book; I’d learned that much so far in Mexico.

               I read a few lines, looked up for the truck, and lost my place. Ten o’clock arrived and still no sign of the Engineers. I replayed yesterday’s conversation in my head – we had a full day planned in the campo, they had said.  So don’t be late.  

               Had I gotten the meeting spot wrong?  I often lost details in translation. I noticed dukha and doubt filling the time-space. Breakfast patrons were stepping around me. I felt my mood shift from annoyed to resentful, tired of always waiting for unclear appointments, and never a decent place to perch:  a curb, a stair, a planter, never a bench. 

               Tranquilo, I reminded myself, like I often tried to remind myself in Mexico, in my habitual rush, always hurrying, and then waiting. Espera was a verb I’d learned well, to wait or to hope, or both.

               Just then I heard the horn sound.  I jumped-up, dusted off my ass, and bolted to the truck, still the eager gringa after a year here, trying to reach my goal, something bigger than me.

               I noticed the truck bed was empty.  Where were the tools and the Tenaco for the water? I thought that was the reason for our trip today, to make the delivery.  Maybe I’d gotten that wrong too.  Timidly I inquired:  The Tenaco?

               There was silence at first. I always had the feeling I was probing for government secrets when I asked the simplest questions. 

                Es que...para decir, en pocas parablas, it’s to say, in a few words, Engineer Noé, the jefe of the duo, spoke-up:  the purchase order wasn’t approved.

               I’d gathered from conversations in the office that the new administrator was holding back the payments, forcing them to justify every peso, asserting his power, even cutting off funding for the water cooler and cleaning woman in our tiny regional office that served the entire Zona Media.

               It’s easy for them:  we’re the ones that have to deliver the bad news to the communities, Inginero continued.  Pero ni modo, he concluded his diatribe, shaking his head, so it goes, the Mexican way of letting go of control they don’t have anyway.

               Año de Hidalgo, I added.  I’d learned that expression from Engineer Bibiano. In an election year the politicos take as much off the table as they can before they’re replaced by the incoming regime – a sort of election-year bonus.  And it doesn’t leave much money to actually do the work.

               Es asi, it’s like this, they nodded in agreement.

               The Engineers complained a lot, and fought back very little. That seemed to be the Mexican way. Though on this particular day they had their government-issued monopoly money for a Pemex fill-up; and we were going anyway.  The women of Zamachihue were expecting us.

               But not before we’d had our gorditas.  We were in a rush. Yet there was always time for the gorditas under the Mesquite tree.  The señoras there cooked them on an open wood fire, imparting a smoky taste, and the guiso fillings were always generous. I pointed to the Tupperware container of egg and green chile and another of black bean.  We relaxed under the tree like there was no tomorrow.  When we finished, the lady took our money with a baggie over her hand.

               Finally on the road, already past 11, we journeyed through the cutout in the mountain and followed the rim of the San Ciro floodplain where rice grows and the day laborers were visible specks of color against the monotone brush. At the Rayon crossroads we were waved over by a force of masked military police.  I held my breath as Engineer Bibiano rolled down his window; and after a few questions about the purpose of our trip, environmental work in the indigenous communities, they waved us on with their machine guns.  Supposedly a sign that the Mexican government had things under control, these armored checkpoints did nothing more than remind me of my vulnerability.  The violence was creeping south, and at any moment Uncle Sam could decide our state was off-limits to even us ‘imbedded’ Peace Corps volunteers. 

               From lush the Rioverde valley suddenly rounded a bend and entered a new ecosystem where nothing grows but spikey things that water themselves, the camels of the plant world:  pitayas, yuccas, nopal.  I used to think of the desert as a dead place, compared to the mid-Atlantic deciduous forests and swampy humidity of my hometown Washington; but the high-plains desert austerity was beginning to grow on me. 

               We traveled to where the pavement ends; then it was another good hour along the dry riverbed, terrain so rugged I felt my organs jostled out of place and the urge to vomit-up my breakfast.   I opened my window and gulped the dusty air. We’d lost our radio signal and all that was left was static.

               Navigating out of the arroyo and onto the rocky bank, we’d finally arrived. The clearing was beginning to look like a real vivero.  The Zamachihue women emerged out of their cinderblock sanctuaries in pairs and trios, moms and daughters and granddaughters.  They’d been watching for us. 

               I’d thought at least we’d have the first payment for them, and they did too.  But apparently that money didn’t get approved either. More inexplicable red tape or power lording; or maybe the engineers didn’t do their job or were holding back the payments to simplify their work. I’d been trying to document the process, identifying opportunities for standardization and improvement; but sometimes that idea seemed…irrelevant. 

               We took photos, even though the work was already done. Mas justificación, they said; you couldn’t be sure what Licenciado Miguel would ask for next.  Blood samples?

               The women picked-up their shabby tools (not the new ones that would arrive after the project was done) and got to work, posing in the leveled field for the cameras, hoeing the endless supply of rocks out of this dry land and tossing them in the improv wheelbarrow, a milk-crate on training wheels. 

               Don’t smile – it won’t look real, Engineer Bibiano told them. But they couldn’t help it. Soon everyone was laughing, t-shirts draped over their heads to protect them from the afternoon sun, though you could still see their smiles beneath.  

               Ya! they said. And that meant we were done. And I knew this was coming:  we retreated to the cool adobe house of Angela. It was dark inside; my glasses took time to adjust. They set the clay casarola on the table and lifted the lid. Once it was a mole of chicken, another time a picadillo of beef and potato. But this time it was a steaming stew of pork and cactus, and always their handmade corn tortillas cooked over a wood fire, the kind that tear like fabric and hold in the juice. They taught me which side is up.

               The señoras watched us eat. Then Engineers made jokes that went over my head, though I laughed at the laughter. We swabbed our plates clean with the soft tortillas, and they offered us more.  But we had to get going – it’s was a long journey back to Rioverde on dark, isolated roads, and close to the Tamaulipas boarder.  Abuelita, the grandma with the cloudy blue eyes I couldn’t look into, blessed my forehead and forearm with kisses and crosses of spit. 

               On the drive home I watched the light drain out of the sky and the stars flicker on.  But somehow the yuccas were still visible in the blue darkness, like bones of the dead poking out of the earth.