Makin´ Bricks, Pushin´ Cattle

Tonaya, Jalisco

Israel Robles.  The indomitable campesino with the broken hat.  He´s 28 years old and skinny as a post and stands as straight as one too.  He burns with fury at everything capitalist.  He burns with fury at everything American. He burns with fury at trans-genetic crops.  Though born in Jalisco, he renounces his identity as a Mexican and refuses to sing the national anthem though the whole town may be looking at him in as he sits in silent protest.  But he is not all fury.  When it comes to human beings he beams at them with a sunny smile and immediately engages them as brothers and sisters.  He proudly claimed to me that he and his dog have a secret language, which is a ridiculous combination of sounds: "Du-du-ru-du-du.  Como estai, uh? Dodo bai? Preciosa."

Not long after I arrived he told me, "Collin, you are welcome in this house.  The United States is not welcome."  It took me a while, but in the end I believed both parts.

In the nine house-town of Santa Gertrudis, Israel works indefatigably to realize his dream of having a self sufficient community, where all the basic needs are provided for right there on the land.  We worked day in and day out making bricks so he could build his house, and pushing cattle in the sierra for the family's butcher shop business, which sustains him while he develops this farm.

There is a major obstacle in the way of Israel´s dream.  Way above in the sierra there is a heavy metal mine owned by foreigners.  This mine dumps arsenic, lead, cyanide, and other metals into the nearby stream, and this stream flows down beside the ranch at Santa Gertrudis.  Israels whole life is bent toward stopping this pollution so that he can move on with his dream.  I decided to join him in the effort.

Not long after we arrived there was a meeting in the county seat of Tonaya, where all the government leaders gathered to blather about the successes they had accomplished during their stint in the presidency.  This same presidency refused to recognize the problem in the stream in Santa Gertrudis.  Israel had just received the results from some independent tests he initiated that showed dire levels of heavily toxic metals.  He came to the meeting armed with this paper.

I had only been with Israel two days and as we arrived in the central plaza, the crowd that had been mostly dozing off or looking longingly at the free meal stirred and looked at this strange bearded blondie in their midst.  In front the president was speaking falteringly into the microphone about a project cleaning up one of the side streets in town.  As he drew to a close Israel stepped up to the front, ramrod straight under his perpetual tattered hat.  He raised his hand to speak.  The crowd murmured.  This was not customary. Israel began, projecting loud without the microphone, calling the town to action to hold the government to account for its environmental budget and to stop the pollution of the stream. He waved the test results at the crowd and invited them all to come take a look.

"It is time for the truth to be told.  It is time for action.  It is time for us to stop the pollution of this land on which every one of us depends for the air we breath, the food we eat, and the water we drink."

The president sweated on the stage. Israel stepped down and over to where I was sitting.  All eyes were on him.  I stood up next to him.  All eyes were then on me.  What were they thinking of this American in rural Jalisco with the crazy radical environmentalist?

Israel. 

Israel and I, we made bricks.   We loosened fine dry earth with pickaxes, brought water from the stream to wet it, threw in the fibrous leftovers of agave plants, churned the mud with our feet, turned it with shovels, cleared and leveled a patio to set the bricks, hauled the mud to it in wheelbarrows, set it into the molds, turned the bricks as they began to dry, loaded them into the truck when they dried, and unloaded them at the construction site of his new house.  And all the while we talked.  Israel told me about how the local farming economy had been destroy by the free trade agreement with the United States in 1994.  Here is Nafta according to him:

Down to earth.

The U.S. Mexico border opens.  USA subsidizes its agricultural exports (corn, beef, etc.) and sells them at a loss to Mexico. Mexico can't compete.  Farmers everywhere go bankrupt, sell their equipment, then sell their farm to huge agribusinesses, and stay in extreme crisis.  The Mexican economy implodes and people begin to flood northward into the U.S.  The U.S. does not want this burdensome flood and so pays a huge aid to Mexico which is divided up among the campesinos with just enough for each to make them stay on their land, if they still have it, or find some other work. The bankrupt farms continue to be bought up by huge companies under U.S. control until the U.S. has Mexican agriculture in its pocket.

When we weren´t making bricks we were in the sierra with his father pushing cattle. We swung up onto our mounts, Israel on the big unsteady mare, Ramiro on the big mule and I on the mangy but steady little mule.  My feet nearly drug on the ground.  We plodded up the dusty trails past the organos with their thick spined arms raised to the sky. Pyramids of corn stalks like giant insect colonies sat in the field, awaiting the grinders.  Ramiro and Israel excitedly pointed out every plant we came across, telling me its name in Spanish, and in Nahuatl, the ancient language of the Aztecs. 

Soon we were up in the cool shade of the oak forest where the cattle thrash and groan and Ramiro took out a big horn and began to blow deep blasts that vibrated on the hillsides.  Israel began to call the cattle as well:  "Haliegho, Haleigho, Haleigho-way-o,  dough dough dough."  The cattle came down without haste, chewing their cud.

I am on the cranky little mule.

We began pushing the cattle down the mountain.  We were plowing through a dense thorn-scrub with putrescent red spiders wobbling on every branch and rolling off my sombrero and the ears of the mule.  Ramiro and Israel were yelling at the cattle in some complicated language I didn´t understand, so I just yelled at the cattle and waved my hat like I´d seen cowboys do in bad Hollywood Westerns: "Hey-up! Hyah!" It worked.  Ramiro cracked up and took up my style.

"They speaki eenglish! Heyyup! Yah!  Now we go down.  HEY-DOWN! They speaki eenglish Colí!" He nearly choked himself with laughter.

We ate a meal without utensils, heating up the tortillas on the ashes of the fire, and grabbing the meat with them.  Ramiro told me about his time in the California in the 80s as an illegal immigrant working long hours in a factory that makes cupboards.  He and Israel told me about how an elite cadre of capitalist Jews runs the world and is responsible for all the problems therein.  They told me about how the U.S. destroyed the twin towers itself to stimulate its military economy.

"And Mexico is just a bad copy of the United States," said Israel.

"Yep Colí.  Mexico: far from God, close to the United States.  That the way it is Colí."

I couldn´t stomach the claim that the U.S. had itself instigated the attack on the World Trade Center. "That´s just not true," I told Israel and Ramiro.  They looked at me incredulously and with pity.

"You are still inside the bubble your government has put around you. You have to look deeper.  Use your mind.  Make connections.  See that the U.S. economy is driven by its military and must have war."

"But if you are hungry to see things a certain way, you will draw connections to see them that way regardless if they are true."

Don´t worry, it´s not water from the contaminated stream.



They began to believe I was an indoctrinated nationalist.  Our brick-making discussions became hotter, devolving into epistemological discussions whose significance was swirling up in the stratosphere beyond the grasp of either of us.  Good thing our feet were firmly planted in the mud or God knows what would have happened.  And good thing we were eating a lot of beans.  At the point of our temper breaking over our differences, one of us would let out a huge fart.

"Huele mal, pero decansa el animal." 

And we would break into laughter and bend to work over our wheelbarrow full of mud. There the earth--the food that comes from it, and the shit that goes back to it-- prevailed, regardless of the crisscrossing grid of folly we human beings lay above it.

The time was coming for the event we had planned in the nearby town of San Pedro.  We had the teacher there in on our plan, which was to show a film about the nearby town of El Salto, where many were dying of cancer due to similar water quality problems.  We push-started the old custard colored '78 Ford and rattled into Tonaya.  Everyone stared at us, whispering to each other that there was Israel, the one who had caused such a fuss at the meeting, and his gringo friend, probably a spy for the CIA.  We ran into the president walking down the street and invited him to our event, which he sullenly declined.  We raced around researching the effects of various heavy metals, downloading short video clips, preparing a petition to be signed, and readying our speeches.  Then we rattled back to the farm, separated the cows and their calves to milk the next morning, watered the gardens, and went to bed.

The next day we made bricks all day and then went to San Pedro around dusk.  We set up the movie to project onto a tattered white sheet.  The crowd was small, mostly the elementary school kids and their moms.  The kids all jumped up and down trying to tear at Israels ripped sombrero.  I had to readjust my vision.  In moments imagining my role fighting against the mines I thought that all I would lack to reach Che Guevara status was a motorcycle.  But we instead we spoke to the small crowd in the sleepy San Pedro night, served them sweet hibiscus tea, and got around 50 signatures to start our petition.  As Israel and I lugged the leftover jug of sweet tea home, we watched the Persiad meteors streak down, sang ridiculous impressions of Maná, and were satisfied with day of work well done.

 


I guess it´s safe to say I´m a tree hugger.



The southward sirens began singing their songs and it was time for me to leave.  As I shouldered my pack to hit the road, Israel came out of the house at the last minute. 

"I have talked with my father, and we both agree, that if you ever want to, whatever plot of land you want on this ranch is yours to build your house on, and we will build it together."

He presented me a sombrero to take on my journey, not ripped like his, but woven of the same material.  I put it on to shade my face from the sun that rises on my home in Colorado, that rises on Jalisco, that rises on the burning Sonoran desert that stretches over the border, and turned to the road.