When I left the U.S. in January 2003, I brought with me certain phobias. One of those phobias was that of men. No, I didn't run away at the sight of men. But I had the tendency towards avoiding them, having mainly female friends, female employers, etc. My girlfriends tended towards not having brothers or those brothers weren't nearby. Their parents tended towards being divorced, meaning that their fathers weren't around; they grew up with their mothers... Upon meeting Margarita I learned to manage those difficulties with men, something about my own self image. As you know Margarita has 8 brothers and her father is always around. She has 4 uncles on her mother's side, with a total of 29 children, mainly males, living nearby. Not only did I have to overcome my discomfort around them, I learned all their names and their birthdays and inserted myself into their lives..., later on managing up to 6 of them in our cupcake and coffee businesses, managing the conflicts and coming out on top as was necessary. This is a very male chauvanist society with it's machismo. Somehow I learned confidence and how to present myself as the owner of our small business that is in constant public view. Being a coffee bar, we are below the noses of everyone; the municipal inspectors, fair organizers, local police, the board of health, local thieves, local businessmen, some of them our competition, and the press. I quickly learned to stand with my back straight and my chin up, so to speak. I am treated with respect and sometimes feared. Why feared? Fantasies of the people. Plus, in Mexico, especially behind the coffee bar, I am no nonsense. When I am working seriously, people mis-interpret my facial expressions as being a sign that I am angry. Angry no, intense yes... For instance, Tuesday I was highly immersed within my writing and had no idea that my mother-in-law Paz had prepared a special birthday dinner for me. Margarita entered our bedroom and asked me if they would be waiting a long time to begin eating with me. I quickly found a stopping point in my writing, entered the dining room and hugged all the children who were waiting to give me a birthday hug, lifting them up in the air. Not long afterwards, Margarita's sister-in-law Rosa asked me, "Ross, are you bravo?" Bravo is a bull. Bravo is a drunk man who becomes violent with alcohol. Bravo is a soccer or baseball fan in the bleacher seats egged on by the drunk fanatics of the rival team... I said to her that I had no idea what she was talking about and then I became annoyed. Later on, I confronted her saying, "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't call me bravo. When I am very focussed upon something, my face takes on a serious look. In fact, I was surprised and very content that you guys decided to celebrate my birthday and had just hugged all the children..."
The problem is that I see a lot of laxness with the children, with the young adults, with the animals and with the economy. So, I've always mentioned the things that concerned me at the ranch, the things I believe would help them help themselves. Often those comments incite an argument. It's easier to do what was always done than to insist upon people being more focussed, more alert, more responsible, more thoughtful. As you know, the outsider has a view of everything. The insider "can't see the woods for the trees..." I believe in constructive criticism. If you don't say anything, there is no change.
Over the years Margarita and I fought intensely, especially during the 4 years in Xalapa. I told her, "I don't want a servent for a wife. I want my equal. I want to respect you. You must learn to make the phone calls to the suppliers, to the fair organizers. You must learn to organize your thoughts and speak clearly, have confidence. You are the face of this business. You must learn to run it." Rancheros/Campesinos (Ranchers/Farmers) are very soft spoken for the most part and speak little. Outside of the ranches, in town or in the cities, they are very timid. So, I had to teach Margarita and my brother-in-laws to speak directly to the potential clients, to speak loudly and clearly and what to say, all in my 2nd year of Spanish. Too bad there aren't photographs of me addressing the passers-by infront of our cupcake stand.
Today some fair venders we work next to throughout the year call Margarita La Cabrona Veracruzana. Why? Cabra is a female goat. What do goats do? They butt heads, especially the mountain goats with the large antlers. When you put n for male or na for female, it is an emphasis giving force to the name. Margarita doesn't give breaks. She doesn't like giving discounts. She tells the neighbors if they have their music too loud or if they are encroaching upon our space of if they owe us something, or if they should return the broom or the ladder or the screw driver they borrowed hours ago. If you don't ask for those things to be returned, they cease being yours. It's a popular game played here... Oh! I'm sorry! I forgot that you had lent it to me. I thought it was mine... She's on top of her brothers on this issue. She's on top of them about not sitting down on the job, about being attentive towards the customers, about maintaining the stand in it's utmost cleanliness... I'm the one who gives discounts, often over-riding her negative. I believe that in certain situations it's best to maintain regular clients with discounts and treat certain people more as friends than as clients. We have arguments about this. But, in the end, she is the backbone and the image of our business. I've learned to slink into the background. Gringo can have negative effects at times.
I don't know if it is directly related to growing up with a single mother and with two sisters, but I firmly believe in women being as much leaders as men. At the ranch I have more faith in the women than I have in the men. I don't know if that's a direct response to the foolish machismo here or if it's purely due to my observance. I know. But, we must always consider the other possibilities. If you study the system of modern slavery, you'll find that the system was created to break the men. In the plantations of the world, there are many more slaves than there are slave owners, slave drivers, and free people. The slaves are in much better physical condition than the others, since their life is constant physical exertion. Plus, the slaves have every reason to be resentful, to want to overthrow the system. The free people and the owners always knew that. They weren't as stupid as they made themselves seem. To protect themselves against the potential monster they created against themselves, they gradually created ideologies and systems of security that protected their positions from the slaves. What was most affective was that of separating the women from their husbands, children from their parents. Afterwards, after slavery supposedly was banned and the husbands were able to live with the wives and the parents with the children, the men were kept at bay with poor employment opportunities and horrible working conditions. They were demeanered, like calling a grown man "boy". The women had and have almost always had more work opportunities for protecting the family economy than the men. And the men, inmasculated by not being able to care for their family economically and offer a strong example as a role model, feeling foolish, tended to leave their families behind. Southern blacks leaving for the northern cities. Mexican men leaving their families for the U.S. He suddenly stopped sending me money. I haven't heard from him in years... The last thing we heard about him was that he had another woman over there. I believe he remarried and has children born in the U.S. If you cross Mexico you will find whole towns without men, without fathers and husbands. Ricardo Arjona has a very touching song criticizing the tendency of Latin Americans adventuring to the U.S. called El Mojado (El mojado signifies how the latino entered the U.S: swimming across the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. Mojado means "wet").http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDAjXoWuibI
He packed a pair of shirts, a hat,
His vocation of adventurer, six lucky phrases, 6 photos, 1000 memories,
He packed his 6 desires to stay,
His condition of transforming himself in the man of whom he dreamed and had not achieved,
He said goodbye with a smirk desguised as a smile,
And he pleaded with his God crucified on the mantelpiece the protector of his people,
And he perforated the frontier, the best he could.
If the soft moon slides,
For whichever geography without any permission,
Why the drenched (the migrant) precises,
That Neptune doesn’t check visas.
The drenched (the migrant) wishes to dry himself,
The drenched (the migrant) is wet because of the tears shed by nostalgia,
The drenched (the migrant), the undocumented,
Carries the baggage if legal would not carry, nor obligated,
And he is not from here, because his name doesn’t appear in the archives Nor is he from there, because he left.
The torture of a paper has converted him in a fugitive,
If the soft moon slides,
For whichever geography without any permission,
Why the drenched (the migrant) precises,
That Neptune doesn’t check visas.
Mojado,
Mojado,
You know to lie is your truth, you know to sadness is the anxiety,
To see a freeway and dream with the trail that conducts to your house.
Mojado,
Mojado from crying so much understanding that somewhere
Awaits you is a kiss pausing since the day you left.
If the soft moon slides,
For whichever geography without any permission,
Why the drenched (the migrant) precises,
That Neptune doesn’t check visas.
If the universal visa extends the day we are born and expires with death,
Why do they pursue you mojado,
If the consulate of heaven,
Finally gave you permission.
Ricardo Arjona was a former basketball star for the Guatamalan National Team who became an extremely successful singer who now lives in Miami.
The extremely popular Mexican rock group Maná produced a song about how the father of a young boy bid his son fairwell one morning and never returned called El Reloj Cucu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecxc7sZ75sw where he is talking to the kookoo in his clock that chimes the hour that his father left. I wasn't able to find an original video. But what I found is a nice slideshow someone made for his friend Jimmy who had lost his father. All leavings and endings of relationships are losses and forms of death. Here's the translation:
The Little cuckoo clock sounded
My daddy kissed my forehead
And said “good night my little son”
And turned off the light
“hey cuckoo daddy’s gone
Turn on the light.
I’m afraid”
“hey cuckoo daddy’s gone
Turn on the light.
And turn off time.”
This song of love.
Is for my dad.
He escaped on the wind.
He left us alone.
This song of love
Is for my mom.
Who withstood all.
It hurt her to the bone.
It’s for this that mom
Cried for dad in silence
Cried for dad in the nights
And withstood all during the mornings
“hey cuckoo daddy’s gone
Turn on the light.
I’m afraid”
“hey cuckoo daddy’s gone
Turn on the light.
And turn off time.”
This song of love
Is for my siblings
We grew up together
And are missing each other for years
This scream of Love
I give to the sky
I’ve asked it so often, so often, often
Doesn’t respond never, never.
“hey cuckoo daddy’s gone
Turn on the light.
I’m afraid”
“hey cuckoo daddy’s gone
Turn on the light.
And and turn off time.”
“hey cuckoo daddy’s gone
Turn on the light.
How I miss him.”
“hey cuckoo daddy’s gone
Turn on the light.”
What I've noticed at the ranch is that the women work more than the men. The house work begins at 5am and ends at 11pm. Many of the women create odd jobs for themselves to contribute economically. My mother-in-law Paz grinds corn into corn dough for tortillas in the mornings. She sells cheese door to door with her daughters. She use to sell bread she and Roberto baked. Rosa, Margarita's sister-in-law kills chickens, cleans them and sells them in parts. She also has a hotdog and boiled corn cart she puts infront of the church and the baseball/soccer field on the weekends. Some women wash and repair clothing. Others manage their family grocery store (local general store). But all these women must do the chores around the house, prepare 3 meals per day and look after the children. We are minimally 12 adults in this house. The men leave their dishes and cups on the table and retire from the kitchen table to the television. At the moment Margarita is working in the kitchen since 9am with two of her sisters Alba and Iris. It is 2pm and they are still at it with preparing lunch.
The men may work up to 10 hour days. But they are free when they aren't working. They are free to watch t.v. for hours, to get drunk with their compas, brothers and brother-in-laws, to play soccer or just sit on the side of the road watching the cars go by. They are free to talk badly about their women, about their women not understanding politics and being gossipers and less intelligent than the men because maybe they didn't go to school as much as the boys.
Margarita has the equivalent of a 2nd grade education. But she is much more intelligent, responsible, concerned about evolving and about the future than are her brothers. Aside from being responsible for the kitchen, organizing her sisters around completing the chores around the house, she wishes to have time for reading and for drawing... I tell her that it isn't her responsibility to manage everything in the house and that she will become ill during the next fair in San Luis Potosi in August, as had occurred in Leon 1.5 years ago. But, she feels that if she doesn't do it, no one will... Her mother, Paz, is ill with Diabetes and continues putting too much sugar in her coffee and eating bread and pastas...
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| Paz with her sons Rafael and Benigno and grandson Alejandro over 3 years ago. She's lost a lot of weight since then and looks very tired, moreso than in this photograph. She actually has an anorectic appearance to her face now. |
Hormigas (Ants)
I grew up with a horrible concern about ants. I couldn't sit down in the grass without first checking thoroughly for ant holes in the ground. One ant would drive me crazy. When I was living in my apartment on Mercer Street in Somerville, NJ those four months after my mother kicked me out of the house in 1988, I remember awakening in the morning, with my face on the wood floor (I didn't have furniture). I didn't have curtains. So, the morning sun beat into the room, creating a glare on the varnished wood floors and reflecting of the white walls. At first my vision was blurred and gray. And then I noticed movement infront of me, like the vibrating of the light. I suddenly realized what it was, jumped up from the sheets on the floor, kicking them into a corner. My floor was covered with thousands of black ants, the type that bite! The kitchen was infested with the small soft ants that look for sugar. I had been dealing with those for weeks and ended up putting the little food I had in the refrigerator. But the refrigerator had a defrosting problem in the freezer that constantly filled up with ice and then suddenly shut down, drenching everything...
As I have mentioned in an earlier piece, I once told my PTSD specialist in Manhattan in 1997 that I had a phobia of ants because one day in 1974 or 1975 I was playing near a manhole cover between ours and our neighbors' lawns and the friend suddenly became covered with ants. She said that that couldn't have been, that it was unlikely and that I had dissociated, covering up what she believed was sexual abuse with the ant event. She explained that in all the child abuse literature, boys who light fires and cut themselves have a very high rate of having been sexually abused earlier on. I came across that information too during my investigations into behavior disorders such as ADD, PTSD, OCD, and Schizophrenia. But, I don't have a memory of having been sexually abused.
I didn't like working in construction because of the risk of coming across ant nests digging in the ground.
When Mónica and I visited her family in Puerto Rico 28 days in December and January 1997/98, I became aquainted with red fire ants. In Puerto Rico you must be incredibly aware of where you place your feet. The red fire ants are tiny. And they move extremely fast. Near where we parked our rental car at Mónica's father's house, there was a giant red fire ant nest... One day we drove around the island. Returning towards San Juan from Bayamon, a police officer stopped me for speeding. I didn't understand Spanish and Mónica played stupid and said that she didn't understand Spanish either. He asked me to step out of the car and tried speaking with me for a minute and then let us go without giving me a ticket. I stepped back into the car. But, before I could turn the ignition, I felt a horrible burning on my legs. I looked down and saw my legs covered with red fire ants. I had been standing on one of their nests while with the police officer! I brushed them off as quickly as possible and we searched the whole car for remaining ants that had fallen off my shoes or my shorts onto the floor or the driver's seat...
While in Mexico, I fell in-love with ants. In Mexico there are as many varieties of ants as you can imagine. There are large red fire ants. But they are easy to spot and avoid. The only ones I kill are the black ones found all over the world, the army ants, that bite you and have hard bodies, like the ones that were in my apartment on Mercer Street. Why would I suddenly fall in-love with ants? When a country has so many types of ants, you learn that many of them aren't a threat to your "health" nor do they want to be near you. Some are absolutely beautiful. Some only come out at night. Some only eat tree leaves. The most beautiful ants are the ones used in the animated film Ants. If you thought the main female character was sexy. SHE WAS SEXY. Here they are called Tamaleras. For the most part they only come out at night. Travel alone or in small groups, wandering rapidly and haphazardly looking for cockaroaches or spiders... There are the Tapeguas that are black and travel in giant groups that sweep into your house and devour all they find in their path and are gone in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, I have never seen them. The Arieras are the leaf cutters and often are seen in parade, a line that crosses the sidewalk from a tree to their hole. They look like pitbull terriers with their large heads. I try my hardest not to step on their line, since I feel that horribly tragic. The ant I find must endearing is a very small and soft one. I first noticed them on the floor of our bedroom in Xalapa in 2003. It was the third room we had rented in 5 months. We had our pizza/pastry kitchen with a door open to the street at the same location, La Salamandra, where Cesar, the former director of Theater at the University of Veracruz had his crafts workshops, a nice property with a large garden that he had inhereted from his grandfather. What was most curious about these ants is that when I killed one by accident and the other noticed that his partner in exploration had "fallen" he went into a panic, circled the fallen ant many times, frequently checking to see if the other ant was truly dead, and then went in search for the others, who quickly arrived and also seemed very concerned. This activity revealed a hightened intelligence, heightened sensitivity. Yet, because they have no "armor", they are very easily frightened. When I want to know what is the risk of a group of small ants I have suddenly encountered, I blow on them softly to see their response. If they are these riskfree ants, they scatter in a panic upon being blown upon...
The mother of all ants, is the Chicatana, found on Margarita's family's ranch. The nearest significant town is Huatusco. Its local baseball team is called, The Chicataneras of Huatusco. What are Chicataneras? They are people who cultivate Chicatanas. You may ask, "why would anyone cultivate ants?" For eating them SILLY! Isn't that obvious? Of course not. But, chicatanas are a delicacy here in this very isolated region of Mexico. Chicatanas come out at night after the summer rains begin in June. Last year Margarita and I returned to the ranch from who knows where and we noticed a lot of people congregated along the road, some with flashlights. We also noticed good deal of bull frogs, with their giant eyes waiting for something in the middle or the side of the roads. All these people and bull frogs are Chicataneras. Many people eat the chicatanas alive, like popcorn. But most popular is toasting them and grinding them with chile and garlic and who knows what else for Salsa of Chicatana. I don't eat it, because I detest the aroma. To me, it smells like athletes foot or dirty bellybutton or how I smelled after my 6 day Pre College Trip (hike through the northeastern Berkshires) in August 1992. Yesterday, I surprised my in-laws by buying them a cup of Chicatanas. I don't know how many grams that cup weighed. But it cost about $4 dollars for less than a small bag of potato chips. Margarita and I were in Huatusco buying a new and high quality cell phone and food for (hopefully) a week... For the past 2 weeks I had been passing the Chicatanera selling her Chicatanas infront of the local market and I had exclaimed to myself that I was a fool for not taking a photo of her wash barrel full of Chicatanas. I was certain that the season had ended. But, to my fortune, there she was! I told Margarita to ask her permission to photograph her Chicatanas and she told us that the Veracruz Public Television station had just interviewed her, which was confirmed by my brother-in-law Alejandro who saw her on T.V. the prior evening. It would have been rude to take the photos without buying something. So I bought a cup of Chicatanas and two bags of mangos. We've encountered Chicatanas in other regions of Mexico; Tehuacan, Puebla, August 2007 and San Juan del Rio, Queretaro, June 2008. But, no one eats them outside of Huatusco, Veracruz. Supposedly they taste like Queso Manchego (Manchego Cheese). The idea doesn't entice me.
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| Erica 17, One of Margarita's non-identicle twin sisters Margarita took the photos while I was writing this. |
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Hi. I'm Ross, the author of the poems, the artist behind the paintings and drawings, the man sharing his crazy and difficult experience with you. If you appreciate what you read and see on my blog, and the ideas; if you are enjoying the writings and the poems, the artwork, please say hi or something. Don't be afraid to be alive and real.
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