40%

4/05

We'd pulled out of the rancho early, working our way over low-tide-only pass, pulled up to the Restaurante San Cosme area, Marcia killing the engine, pickup pointing up at the Agua Verde road. Pretty much...we're on our twice-monthly resupply mission: Cd. Constitucion. We always stop to check at Alejo's place to see if they've items in immediate need, which, now days, mostly they don't; gives us time for a quick chat, too. Us livin' over on the rancho, we don't get much chance to do that, like when we were livin', for all those years, right there in San Cosme, Alejo's backyard..

I've got a quick side mission, also: A talk with a guy named Martin, an American, whom was staying, like camped out, in Justo's small cement-block casa. For weeks already Chayo had been keeping me advised about this guys activities there, him urging me to go have a talk with this gentleman...which I'd been trying to work into my schedule. I'd even walked to San Cosme early one morning about a week before just to accomplish that. But, struck out, him not there. Did though leave a couple of my most recent web page stories with Maria, Chayo's wife, to be delivered upon this Martin's return.

Had very little info. about this Martin fella as I walked the short distance from our pickup to Justo's tiny casa. He drove a Humve. He didn't speak any Spanish, numerous times I'd been assured of that. There was some connectivity between him and the investor; Robi. Whether er not he was an investor himself, or a prospective investor...seemed up fer grabs. I was told he was big and dark and there was open speculation as to ethnic origins, which nobody thought was Mexican. As I approach this dwelling I hear noise of things hard being clanked together inside and I think, "Good. Finally. I'm makin' hard contact."

Just like I would when approaching any camp here I holler out advance notice of my approach. Noises continued inside and I'm not really sure if I caught an acknowledgement...but I proceeded to wide-open doorway. Yes. There he is, rearranging some stout fishing poles, and he's aware of me. I go forward with introduction, me offering my hand, which he accepts with good firm return shake.

He's a good-looking specimen, brown skinned and perhaps Polynesian. He appears to be in A-1 physical condition, the kind a guy you wouldn't want to piss off. Maybe he's 50. I asked him if he'd gotten my short stories, was aware of my web site? Instantly I sensed a change of mood as he put the pieces together.

Right away he sets inta tellin' me how well educated he is, and how stuff that I'm writing doesn't fool him one bit. He insinuated that I was playing fast and loose with the truth, 40% of what I was saying being erroneous by intent. He couldn't be fooled by junk like that. He went on to tell me what a big credibility problem I was creating by this type of false information.

Whew!

Forty percent off!?

For a moment I was taken aback, me not being able to come up with anything that I'd penned that was in error or designed to mislead.

"Forty percent?" I uttered back in form of surprised disbelief.

"Yeah," he comes back, "you've got fully 40% of your facts wrong. Nobody's going to believe what you say with that against you."

I waxed pensive, me uttering that I couldn't mentally bring up anything that was in error. I went forward and stated that I'd gladly set down with him or Robi, or anyone else, and if they pointed out any factually false data, I gladly do a rewrite, and make a public apology to boot.

"What about the part about drug money being used for Robi's project?" he counters with. By now he's obviously becoming aggressively defensive.

"I never wrote that drug money was involved," I gave back. "In fact, I said that, counter to the rumor-mill gossip floating throughout the coastal community, I doubted ("remained unconvinced") that such was the case. I tried to continue further but he cut me short, him stating that once drug money was even mentioned, it automatically raised the level of speculations.

"Look," says I, "I wrote that story in a reportorial fashion, and I'm....

He doesn't let the explanation go further. I'm wrong. My facts aren't worth a plug nickel, not in his well-educated opinion. My intent was to hang that drug money rap on this whole thing, that's what seemed clear to him.

He asks why any of what Robi is doing is any concern of mine. I tell him that I've been researching local property disputes for a long time, how the ejido with, help of the Reforma Agraria, has been attempting to steal other's land.

"Steal!" he came back. "I don't like your use of the word steal!"

Ok. I let it pass. But think as hard I might, I doubt if I could come up with more apt depiction.

"Look," he says, "I've been around. I'm not stupid!" He sets inta tellin' me that he admires Robi for what he's doing and the way he's going about it. If Robi didn't do this project, somebody else would. He suggests that instead of working against Robi, maybe I should find ways to work together. Of course, with Robi's objectives, that would be quite impossible. I didn't bother to go into discussion of why I and a large and growing number of others, didn't see development as the inevitable and only option for this magnificent area.

I state that for a long time already I'd been trying to share extended conversation with Robi, but to no avail.

I told him how I'd thought that Robi was unaware, initially, and I had been trying to warn him away from what I perceived as a very risky investment strategy, especially with the Palo Blanco issue still unresolved; and considering he seemed runnin' hand-in-glove with Jorge, the power crazed ejido chief. The same reasoning applied to him, if he was a potential investor. I just want potential investors to be aware of all the many problems that they could be biting into.

He assures me that he was not a potential investor, just sympathetic to Robi's cause. He was retired, and planned to stay that way.

He outright warned me that no go would come from my continued attacks. He implied that all the people in the area were mad at me, and questioned if I still had friends. I looked up into surrounding mountains, mentally gazed all the places I knew where people knew me. I assured him that, yes, I had plenty of friends in the area...and that's a big area.

He reiterated his warning about my continued harassing of Robi's efforts. He states that I'm getting a lot of big people in the government and the ejido higher ups mad at me.

This I didn't bother to respond to, me already using up more time there than I'd planned on. "Whew!" On the way up the mountain Marcia and I laughed a bit about that one. I've been writing about the horrifically in error Plano Definitivo for San Jose De LaNoria for...maybe 12 years right by then, the LaPaz establishment well aware of this. I've had the ejido brass aggressively angry and attacking me in every mode or fashion they could churn up for at least the last three ejido chiefs terms. The third, Gutierrez, a gent that had been telling all how he was gonna hang me from a tree, drive me from Carrizalito, run me out of Mexico, is running out of time, and has been thoroughly discredited and striped essentially of all his powers. If the ejido higher ups and the establishment in LaPaz weren't upset with me...I'd be thinking I was doing something very wrong.

I made reference to Punta Banda, my belief that Robi's possibly heading things in that direction. I look over my shoulder at Punta San Cosme...to the construction site which I'm certain infringes upon disputed ground.

"Oh no!" he comes out with. He tells me how he's researched Punta Banda, and to him there's absolutely no similarity.

Well, I'd researched Punta Banda, too. And to me the similarities were glaringly obvious: An ejido claimed ownership of someone else's property, a real estate developer jumping in bed with the head of the Reforma Agraria; who gladly, for money, had all the documents drawn up, stamped, sealed, signed. But the legal owners stayed with the fight, all the way to the final decision, which went in their favor. It sure looked like a similar situation to me....

Again he refers to his high degree of education and how he's a great believer in lawyers, and the governmental agencies that agree with Robi's assessment of things...and are helping him along.

Right then was not the time to express my experiential opinion about Mexican lawyers and the governmental agencies involved. I'd written volumes addressing such things already. I seriously doubted if it would do any good to point out that the Reforma Agraria and the lawyers "were" the problem. For money you can get whatever kind of opinion or papers you want in LaPaz. Been there, seen it first hand. As an aside, "The Reforma Agraria has redistributed the surface area of Mexico three times over" this quote thanks to Enrique Hamilton, a well known and highly respected historical/ sociology author from LaPaz.

Martin again brings up what great things Robi is doing for all in the area. Just what had I done for these poor people right there at San Cosme? he accusingly asks.

Whew! I'm blown away, almost, by this guy's total lack of knowledge of the history of Alejo's family there at San Cosme. For a moment I thought about going through an extended history lesson, but I felt my temper rising.

This gentleman simply hadn't a clue about things he felt free to expound upon. He honestly believes that Robi had stumbled into these poor, needy people, and essentially lifted their station to where they stood today. Ha!

I started to piece together a litany of Alejo and family's rise from the absolute dirt poorest people in the whole area, their 10' X 10' windowless shack, Alejo the

laughing-stock champion drunk; their rise to being the absolutely best-off family in the greater surrounding area. Just in the briefest of terms did I enter into this and he starts insinuating that I must have had hidden profit motives. In fact he asks me why we'd do it if we didn't. Oh, believe me, we'd profited through the experience, but it wasn't in any way something we could stuff in our pockets.

"We didn't need to make a profit off what we'd done. We'd just done it because we could," I gave back.

He wasn't buyin' this, this was easy to see. He starts asking me what I'd done in the past that would put me in position to be able to afford something like I was claiming. To an extraordinary degree I simplified things. I told him that I once manufactured fur garments.

Ah ha! He had me! How could someone who'd made money like that even claim to have environmental leanings? He's askin'.

Again, I kept it simple. "That was a long time ago, and people can change," was all I offered. For a moment that seemed to satisfy him.

He jumps me about the shell business then. He knows that I'm paying almost nothing to poor Mexicans and making a killing in the States.

"Ha!" I earnestly chuckled. "To this point I've made nothing in the shell business." The surprise of what came as honest answer caught him somewhat flatfooted, his info. running completely counter to that. I started in on an explanation as to how we'd schooled lots of others in how to work shell and again he comes on like we're making all kinds of loot off our poor workers.

What do ya do with someone whose already got all the answers? "The people that we've trained are free agents," I attempted. "We encourage them to go out and seek their own markets for their works, specifically so they're not dependent on us. We're not dependent on them nor they on us. And that's the way we'd like to keep it." He simply, because his information base was so incredibly shallow, had no idea how many peoples' situations we'd been able to elevate just by what they'd learned from us.

This gents got me hot enough that I was aware that we'd best break contact. As I'm parting he's still toutin' all that Robi was doin' for these lovely people. "And he's going to build them a hospital!" Martin blurts out. "Seein' is believing," I give as reply.

And then he's back on subject of me supposedly having false words come out of Alejo and families collective mouth. "You won't get any of them to agree with you on that one," he hurls out there.

"They may not say it to you, but they talk differently to me." I flipped back ta that one.

And if you do ask them the right questions, like I did with Alejo, Guadalupe, Julio, and Chayo, under thatch of restaurante, when I sat down with them to discuss Robi's translations as opposed to what I'd actually written....

The conversation flowed like this: I explained that the story I'd written that had these investors so upset (Marina San Cosme or Another Punta Banda?), was done in a reportorial fashion. I guaranteed them that I never mentioned the family or anyone in it as part of my information base. But, I followed this up by saying that they were all very aware and participating in the rumors flying about, concerning the investor and Gutierrez. And as I look around at each of them, they all had to agree; and at this point Alejo blurted out that, "Yes, that was true! But you didn't have to say it."

Robi, with his threats of lawyers from LaPaz descending upon them for things that they'd supposedly said, had really spooked 'em. The day that that happened, by cell phone, Chayo called us in the woods, him stating what had come down. He wasn't very shook up, in fact he laughed about it. But he handed phone over to Alejo who sounded frantic, him convinced that some how I'd drug him and his family inta this fight, and they were sure to suffer from it.

Then there was Robi's further intimidation with his translations (which I would really love ta see). And, according to my close associate Ken, Robi's brow beating and aggressive handling of that discussion, Ken and Sarah, Guadalupe, Alejo, Chayo and Maria with Robi, had all family members there pushed back so deeply into their natural defenses in front of authority figures, that they were like completely different from people he loves and thought he knew. Their lack of defense in regards to things concerning me, absolutely floored him. He and Sarah were so upset they contemplated packin' up and leaving. And later, after he'd cooled some, Ken gave Alejo plenty of hard talk regarding this.

"And water," Martin shouts out as I'm pullin' away. "Robi brought in water. That's basic. Why wasn't that done before?"

The stories I could write about our involvement in getting, keeping Alejo and family supplied with water. Lots of times we'd hauled his one blue barrel all the way up and out to highway, to small ranchos that still had water in their wells. We got him his second, and then third barrel.

We, when the restaurante was just completed, put the first of three sets of four-wheels under a just reformed drunk, this greatly facilitating his fresh water gathering activities.

Martin doesn't know that the water that comes down the hose that Robi bought, from Ojo de Agua De San Cosme, hadn't flown for over two decades. Just in the last several years, exceptionally wet years, has it begun to again. Like I said, I knew well the history of the place.

And when it did start flowing, Martín (Alejo's nephew) got a grant from the government to dam the flow. And if his dam had passed inspection (money out for work done), which it didn't, he'd have been eligible for a great length of hose. And then this nephew Martín, because his self-supposed right to that spring's water, didn't want anyone else to profit by it.... (Too, it must be noted here that Robi sucked up a lot of that small spring's flow in construction of those erections.)

As I relayed, little by little as we bumped up the Agua Verde road, how conversation had unfolded, Marcia and me, we had ourselves some good laughs.

Forty percent off.

What had we done for the family and others in the area?

The big bucks were shakin' outta the shell biz.

We both came to the obvious conclusion: Just as Chayo had speculated, Martin's sole information base was Robi. I even checked the next day again about his lack of Spanish. No question about it, he doesn't understand er speak it. Too bad. If he did he might not be so...so far of with his facts.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com