Tireless and Magical

I am at home, utterly exhausted and with a deep, smoker's cough (despite the fact I don't smoke). Curse you, Flu! The exhaustion and respiratory challenges make tomorrow seem challenging. However, I thought I'd take a moment to jot down a few notes about how I spent the last three days.

Through a bit of friendly networking, I was recently contracted by a non-profit organization to act as a facilitator/translator for a field project in Oaxaca. The non-profit, WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing), runs a social policy dialogue every year. This year the conversation happened between Mexican researchers, policy makers and civil society on the one hand, and a group of international researchers and activists on the other, on the topic of social policy, informality and poverty. Before the actual dialogue, the program sends the participants mentioned above, along with their accompanying translators, to stay with host families in order to live and experience the lives and conditions of the working poor.

What does that mean? What does that look like? Well, Monday morning I found myself in the midst of a long lecture held at a luxury hotel. Around the table were various economists and academics, a smattering of people like myself who are foreigners doing work in Oaxaca, and several women from very humble homes, working in and around the city, trying to scratch out a living. When the lumbering Power Point presentations finally ended, and we were sectioned off into field groups, the real work began. I was paired with a French-born, West-African raised researcher who now lives and works outside of Boston, an Indian-born economist and now Head of the Comparative Economics Department at Cornell University in NY and a young Mexican woman, living and working at Harvard University for the WIEGO organization. We headed out to Teotitlán de Valle (very close to Yagul, in fact) to live and observe a family of rug makers.

It's hard to summarize all that I saw or thought in the last two days. And I'll admit that I was in the midst of recovering from a fever and cold--so some of it is a bit hazy, as well. Thus, I will share a few of the tidbits, in no specific order.

• Our group plods the seven blocks from the hotel to the bus stop just south of the baseball field. Ana Berta is desperately trying to keep her two girls (Daniella-9, Ana Cristina-7) within grasp so they won't run out into the loads of traffic they are unaccustomed to finding in their own village. Kaushik and Françiose struggle with their rolling suitcases and duffel, respectively; I'm wondering if someone armed with a rolling suitcase is prepared to sleep the night on cement floors.
• Conversation peters off as the city finally fades behind us, rows of maguey plants and tire shops whiz by.
• The López home is a long, rectangular swath of land, cut in two by a partially-finished cement block wall; Orlando and his cousin get along well enough to share a bit of space between their homes--the wall uncompleted so that the women can pass back and forth to gather water from Constantino's side of the property; but signs of family distress reveal themselves, as today two men are shoulder deep in the earth, digging and fortifying a new well squat in the middle of Orlando's home.
• The three young girls quickly dart their eyes between the strange visitors, casting their gaze down at the floor if someone takes notice of them. Their chin-length braids are cinched at the bottom with tiny, colorful rubberbands--one of them featuring the upright, jumping, Tigger.
• Ana Berta nervously laughs as we ask how we can help with her daily work. The truth is we can't. We're clumsy and awkward at everything she does. And though she is supposed to treat us not as guests, but as helpers (giving the visitors a chance to experience how her work is done), it is hard for her to supplant 34 years of acculturation that instructs her to treat a guest with kid gloves.
• Marcelina, Orlando's mother, wide and weathered, waddles back and forth between comal and basket--making large, bright yellow dough into Tlayudas for us to eat. She waddles back and forth between kitchen and loom-waddles back and forth between Castellano and Zapotec.
• Gathered around tall, straw baskets we break open dried ears of corn. The kernels are bright yellow, like Marcelina's Tlayudas. We crack them from their husks and toss them into a clean basket. We're preparing the kernels for tomorrow's batch of fresh tortillas. I shuck an ear from the leaves and a burst of fine, white powder covers my hands and forearms. "That one, that one," Marcelina points, "has gone bad." It must go into another pile. The spoiled corn will be fed to the chickens. Nothing goes to waste. The shucked leaves will go to the cattle and goats. The kernel-picked ears go to the donkeys. Pulling the hard, shiny kernels from the ears is near impossible when they're hard like this--and yet there is Ana Berta flying through the task with speed.
• It's time to card the wool. We each take the wooden paddles in our hands, the metal teeth facing opposite directions, clumps of red wool held gingerly between. Oh, this is hard. A few swipes and I've already cut myself on the knuckles. Back and forth, we rake the combs over the wool, trying to disentangle the fibers before spinning. My wrists hurt. My fingers sting. My legs are covered in tiny hairs. I sneeze. The tiny stool under my bum isn't big enough to offer much support. How do they do this every day?
• The girls hover around whatever we are doing. They giggle as we gracelessly shovel beans and tortilla into our mouths. They toss each other looks as we marvel at the two huge oxen brought back from the pasture that afternoon. We are strange--but interesting. They let us struggle through with Spanish. They let us pull some English words from them. They are the first (except for the tinniest one, Naiyeli) to feel comfortable around us.
• We lay three wide mats down on the cement floor in a spare room. We four strangers lie side by side for the night. I spend the bulk of the first evening concentrating on not coughing. I don't want to keep my "bunk mates" awake. So I stiffle the bursts and gasps from my lungs, swallowing, swallowing, swallowing all night long to keep my throat lubricated. I listen to the muffled sounds of Paola, Françiose and Kaushik each taking their turns at snoring. I suppose I'll catch up on sleep later.
• It's time to make soup. We separate leaves from chepil stems, tossing the herbs into a pot. The squash sits in water boiling as we saw the kernels from young ears of corn. Ana Berta takes them in a dish out to the kitchen with the earthen floor. She must grind them into a smooth paste on her metate--a long stone base with heavy stone rolling pin. When she wipes the sweat from her brow, embarrased at us watching her work, I ask if I can take a go at it. She hands me the heavy stone rolling pin. I studied her doing it. This time I will make an educated attempt. Oh, this is hard. She instructs me to keep the pin on the stone, not to lift and waste energy. The corn doesn't seem to be emulsifying at all. Kaushnik has a go. Then Françiose, then Paola. We're utter failures--and yet still high five each other. Ana Berta resumes. She's like a dancer--her short arms and squat, little hands gripping the stone. She sways back and forth over the task--her movements never a waste. Each pass is graceful. Each pass turns more kernels into a pale, smooth cream. She sloshes the water from a waiting bucket onto the metate then back into the bucket in one move--cleaning the stone service without losing much liquid. This is her ballet.
  
• Roberto, Orlando's unmarried brother, makes his way out in the late morning with a small army of goats and cattle. Kaushik and I trail in their dust. We each try our hand at Roberto's sling shot-like tool--used to hurl rocks at straying members of the herd. I release too late and end up spooking the tiny cow walking in front of me with the end of the sling. They leave us in their wake, at the edge of a river. The rest of the journey is another 2 hours to a distant grazing field. Kaushik and I opt to return to the house to spend the remainder of the day there--unsure our legs can make it in this heat.
• We're gathered around a tableclothed table at the luxury hotel again, with the our group of foreigners and the family. This is such a strange juxtaposition of people and place. The waiters seem flumuxed to have to serve this combination of visitors and humble families. The grandmother notes the service isn't so good--remembering they have forgotten to bring Paola her lunch. Roberto adds, "What a strange combination of foods on this plate." It's beans and bistec steak with a salsa; an oatmeal water to drink; the hotel's efforts at a "traditional" meal, that is also tourist-friendly, seems to fall short. We talk about earlier that day, when Ana Berta, stiffling tears, was asked to stand and speak in front of the group about what she thought of this strange experiment. She'd never spoken in front of people before; it overwhelms. The girls float between the nearby playground and the table. They reach up and touch our faces, testing that we are still there. Françoise, foresaking the translation, stumbles through, linking nouns and verbs awkwardly in Spanish and without fear--the family now experts at deciphering her sentences.
  

This family is tireless and magical. There is not one moment in which they are not moving and working. They start at 5, stumbling straight out of bed and to the loom to pass the shuttle between threads. They don't stop for breakfast--but hunch over a fire to flip corn disks into crispy Tlayudas. They shuffle to the school. They shuffle back home. They shuffle to the market to sell tortillas, and then again to buy produce. They shuffle to the bus to ride it into town to sell tapestries on the street all day to tourists, tourists who sometimes never come. They shuffle home--and take up the shuttle again, though it is 9 or 10. They spin thread from tufts of wool. They grind colored dyes from plants and berries. They sweep. They wash. They stir. They heft. By the end of the second day my knuckles are split, my lips are chapped, my brow is heavy with exhaustion. And they, they are cheerful--easy to laugh at our simple jokes. A smile breaks across each of their faces as we attempt to play a version of Duck-Duck-Goose with the children and their cousins. The smallest, and shyest talks easily with herself as she rocks back and forth on a hammock slung between two close-set trees.

This has been an exercise in meditation, much of it silent. Each task, and there are a million that fill their day, is a lesson in how to do something well and happily. When Paola futilely asks, "How would you like to spend your day, if you could choose," Roberto jokingly says "Laying around." But the true answer, the one we hear echoed over and over by each of them for the three days we are there is, "What else is there to do but work? What else is there for us? This is what we do. This is who we are."

I am at home, utterly exhausted and with a deep, smoker's cough (despite the fact I don't smoke). The exhaustion and respiratory challenges make tomorrow seem challenging. The reality of this family--and the days stretching before them make my challenges seem silly--and yet somehow, heavier. I feel heavier today. I'm not sure why.

I don't want to forget this happy family and the unselfconscious way they keep their heads down, and move forward, one task at a time. I don't want to forget their combination of joy and tirelessness. I don't want to forget their grace and generosity. But I feel heavier today.