Exploring the Campo

One of my assignments from my classes that I'm taking this semester is to explore the countryside (campo) and interview farmers, work on farms/gardens, map towns, and other small stuff to get to know how life really is. So Tuesday afternoon I set out with the goal to accomplish at least one of the above assignments, without having the foggiest idea of where I was going or who I would talk to except that I wanted to head west, past the famous pyramids of Cholula.

I hopped on a bus that said it was going to Cholula, then waited until the driver said it was at the point furthest west on its route and hopped off again. My pre-explorations of the route on Google Maps had given me a rough idea of where I was going based on the locations of several hills in the area, so upon my descent from the bus I began heading roughly in the direction of a tiny town I had spotted. After several minutes the buildings began to melt away and I entered the beautiful countryside (see right), with little buses whizzing past me on the tiny one-and-a-half-lane highway. It was lovely, except that I still had no idea which would take me to the little town I was looking for. In fact, I didn't even know the name of the town! And if I didn't ride a bus, I could see it would be two hours walking, which I was not looking forward to.

As I pondered this dilemma, I noticed a man standing outside of his workshop on the highway. At first I just waved, but his response was so genial that I figured he might actually be willing to help. I dashed across the highway and introduced myself, then pointed out a hill in the distance and said that I wanted to go to the little town at its foot. He looked at me quizzically, and asked, "What are you looking for?" Naturally I had to explain my assignment and where I was from, and when I told him I was from Utah he asked, "With all the Mormons?" I had to chuckle a bit, and told him that I was indeed a Mormon. "So am I!" he replied, and then excused himself rather suddenly and took off into his shop. A moment later he returned, carrying a little slip of white and tan paper. "That's the recommendation to get into the temple, isn't it?" Well, I ask you, what are the odds of meeting a card-carrying Mormon on a country highway in the middle of nowhere? So cool. We talked about the church for a few minutes, then about my visit to Puebla, and finally settled on a nearby town that I could get to fairly quickly. He pointed out the little bus (combi) that would take me there, and off I zoomed to Santa María Acuexcomac! My only regret is that I failed to get a picture with dear Umbaldo, my new member friend.

The bus dropped me off in the middle of the town, and from there I was on my own. I explored for a bit, and was astonished at how much it reminded me of Mattawa, my first area on the mission. Mattawa, a small town in the middle of Washington state, is 95% Mexican, almost every one of them immigrants from small farm towns in Mexico come to work the agriculture there. The houses, the markets, the people, the cars, the dogs, it was eerily similar. The biggest difference was the beautiful Catholic church and the predomination of stone, brick, and mortar houses instead of trailers. However, after a few minutes of exploring, I decided that it would be more useful to proceed out of the city and into the country in order to find some farms and good people to interview. I spotted a nearby hill, just out of town, and decided to climb it, get my bearings, and eat the small lunch I'd packed. When I reached the top, I saw this:

It was rather breathtaking. In the distance is the city of Puebla, though you can hardly see it because of the smog from the city and the volcano behind me. Just to the right is the little town of Santa María that I came through, situated on another hill.

Finally I had to get down to work. It was sprinkling a bit (it rains almost every day this time of year), so I jogged down the hill and spotted the following:

Make sure that your livestock stay close together... :)

A real horse-drawn cart with rubber wheels! I was trying not to
show too much excitement when I took this picture. :)

A cactus farm. The plant is called a nopal, and is quite popular for
human consumption. So far I have managed to avoid it.

Finally, after about half an hour of wandering the countryside, I spotted my suspect -- a short woman, middle-aged, hunched over some sewing outside of her house. She had a walker and a wheelchair close by, so I knew she couldn't be going too far, and I figured it couldn't hurt to ask her. The ensuing conversation was one of the more interesting of my entire life, but I've gone on much too long in this post and can only include a few highlights from the short biography/summary I wrote last night:

"She had been born in Santa María, to a father who was a peasant but definitely not the poorest in the town. Each of her five siblings had attended the primaria in town, which covers the years of elementary school, but only the youngest had received any further education, and that only one year of middle school in the neighboring town. She lauded the schools of her day, saying that students actually studied—and if they didn’t, they got the belt or a stick with thorns on their wrist. In fact, she was quite critical of the lack of respect of the whole generation of current children, and said that many of the things going on today would have been seriously punished in her time. With the faint suggestion that perhaps they should still be so punished...

"Before the age of twenty, she had been married to a young man whom she preferred not to talk about. Without pushing too much, all I could learn is that she had been separated at twenty years old (she is now fifty) with a tiny baby boy. For those thirty years, she had mostly lived in the same house I found her in, going to town every day to sell snacks (botana) and make other kinds of food...

"Two years ago, however, Gloria’s work in the city was suddenly cut short. She started to have a serious pain in her lower left leg, and when it became unbearable she decided to visit the doctor. He told her that her leg was infected beyond recovery, and that they would have to amputate her leg from the knee down. She was stunned, and adamant that some other solution could be found. Finally, at the fifth hospital they visited, a doctor said that they could try amputating two toes and cutting out an entire section of the muscle in her leg to see if they could contain the infection... Despite the trials of the last two years, and really the last thirty if her subtle hints were any indication, she still managed to find things to anticipate..."

(If you're interested in learning more about Gloria, I posted the whole article on scribd.com -- here's the link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/96222828/Gloria-Azcatl-Clatlipachito?secret_password=2fzmctkmaotjiw6u8x2y)

Finally, with invitations to Thursday's fiesta in the town and a real rainstorm coming in the distance, I snapped these two pictures with Miguel and Gloria and dashed off to catch the bus home!

Gloria A

Miguel Tiro -- I'll have to get a better picture next time I go.

Right before I turned the corner to our house I looked west towards the sunset, the country from which I had come just hours before, and was stunned by its beauty. For the first time all day the majestic smoking Popocateptl was visible, along with its sister to the north, with the sun was just approaching their peaks, and it wrapped up the day so beautifully. The haze was lifting, just a little more, on my view of the Mexican people and their roots. They are beautifully simple, incredibly complicated, and once they let you into their lives you are there to stay. I am so grateful to be here. I leave you with the picture I took at that moment...