Heading Out
Monday, January 1, 2002 New Year's morning Kirk and I follow Ann and Jack to Nabor's mother, Rogelia's house, which is located on the dry rocky slope of north-facing mountains at the entrance to La Purisima. It is not far from where the too-narrow paved road enters town. Rafaela is the first to see us drive up and she greets us excitedly with loud and grotesque guttural noises. I had forgotten how very slender and surprisingly pretty Rafaela is, and one cannot help but notice she wears make-up and jewelry, though her clothes are modest and thread-bare. In tow within her shadow is her young son, Carlitos. We are all pleased to see Carlitos has put on weight since we last saw him. For the first time he looks somewhat healthy, despite being very small for his age. He has been a very sickly child for most of his short four years of life, and he suffers from allergies and asthma and respiratory problems. Last year we privately wondered if he had aids. This year the dark circles from under his eyes are no longer evident, and his little cheeks have some healthy color.

It always makes us uncomfortable visiting Rogelia's house, because without fail, she insists we all sit down under her unusually short palapa, while she stands and orates in Spanish to her captive audience about her woes and need of money. I realize I am thinking cruel thoughts. It is her voice, I think - a whiney sing-song set to an almost metronomic pace - that makes her so irritating. How odd life is. Here we sit with Ann O'Neil, born in 1920, listening to the complaints of a woman born seventeen years later, in 1937. I feel sorry for Rogelia and I wish she were happy. We listen politely as she describes her daughter's recent, and very expensive, surgery for what we vaguely figure was kidney stones. My eyes wander to three small, half-full bags of macaroni and vidéo tucked above Ann's head into a roof pole of the low-slung palapa under which the four of us now sit. I think maybe they keep it there out of reach of chickens, and I wonder if La Purisima has rats. Wired to the side of the palapa is a tightly woven petate which supports almost a dozen well-watered purple wandering-jews planted in a variety of used cans and wired at different heights. I remember Delia telling me her father, now 79, makes and sells petates for a living. Perhaps he made these that surround us.

It is Rafaela who relieves our discomfort and unknowingly rescues us as she approaches with a large, thin, olive-drab plastic leaf-bag, somewhat stretched-out along its sides. With enormous and well-deserved pride, she pulls out an entirely hand-stitched polyester bed-cover - a quilt of very strange sorts. It has taken her almost a year to complete. Each individual square appears actually to be composed of two tufted rounds, one atop the other, giving the quilt surprising height. The round piece on top is smaller, about half the size of its base. The lower round looks like a pleated and inverted, then slightly squashed, psychedelic-colored muffin-cup, iced with a mouse-sized tam-o-shanter of clashing polyester. In fact, when I think about it, each piece also somehow looks like a miniature old-fashioned ice-bag. I've never seen anything quite like it. Ever. Or even close to it. We don't know what to say, except that it is beautiful. Rafaela lifts her shirt to show us her two-month old scar that snakes up her belly, and she signs that she wants money for her quilt. Ann asks her mother in Spanish how much Rafaela wants, and without hesitation, Rogelia answers "300 pesos," about $33 U.S. Kirk gladly pays Rafaela 400 pesos for her innovative folk art. It is encouraging that she has found a creative way to make money. I will try to remember to bring her my sewing machine next year, one of the many excesses I never use.

Time to go and find the Higueras and hit the road. Since they weren't at Nabor's mother's house, we know they will be at Delia's family's house a block higher up the slope and to the west. Kirk leads the way as the two campers collect a swarm of children in the short drive between houses. Nabor and Marisol greet us with freshly shampooed wet hair, and Delia stands silently to the side between two sort-of houses. Her 78 year-old mother is standing in the dark shadows of a semi-open Mexican kitchen to my left, crying silently with tears running down her plumped brown cheeks. She has temporarily abandoned her mound of masa in a large bowl. I can only guess that she is sad or afraid that her daughter and grandchild are going so far away. I am surprised to see a blondish woman approach from nearby, mostly toothless and about my age. She has a young Down's Syndrome child in hand, and I realize they must be Delia's sister-in-law and niece. Or maybe nephew. I can't tell without looking too much, and I don't want them to see me looking again. Unfortunately, Luis is nowhere in sight and Nabor tells us he has decided not to come with us. When I ask why, Nabor doesn't know. Persistent, I want to ask Luis 'why' for myself, so Nabor sends some children off to find him. They run down the dirt street to the east, and within a few minutes Luis returns with a very fat teenage girl with shaved and repainted eyebrows. He shyly tells me he is afraid of going north, and he introduces us to his girlfriend. He simply says it is easier for him to stay. I tell him I wish he were coming with his family, and not to be afraid. To my surprise he simply says O.K., and in less than two minutes he is back, ready to travel almost 1000 miles away. No muss no fuss. We had given Nabor and Luis day packs for Christmas and they now carry them on this trip. Delia also has clothes in a thin, see-thru plastic bag. So off we go to Loreto via the paved highway and Villa Insurgentes. It is about a five hour drive with one stop for gas and peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and lemonade en route.

Next Chapter: Loreto