A Good Set-Down Visit

Finally, after close to a month of bein' desirous of such, Raul Quijano and me get a chance at long and leisurely chat. He showed up at our place here in need of extra work, somethin' he's got plenty of, but here there's work that pays.

I'd passed his son Juan on the Agua Verde road, him headed down and me goin' up, about a week before. He was driving a small blue pickup loaded down with white sacks of animal feed. The drought, hard times for everyone with livestock, that's mostly what we talked of. I told him that if he and his dad showed up I had some projects they could work on. I'd just got a good grip on prototypes involving inlayed shell work and I was sure that he and his dad would have very few problems catching on.

So here's Raul in response to that. And I'm glad as hell ta see him come walking into camp, him with a grin and an outstretched hand and our two dogs still givin' him hell.

Naturally we fall into discussing the drought related problems right off. Tough, tough times, that were costing them a small fortune for supplemental food 'cause there sure wasn't nothin' left for cows and horses to eat out there in any part of surrounding desert ($3,500 pesos a week is what he claimed this was costing them).

Their luck was that he held the subdelagado-for-El Paso position, somethin' that paid $2,250 pesos every 15 days. Also, they'd sold all their fat yearlings, about 100 head, before things really dried out. Maybe the price wasn't the best, he stated, but it amounted ta a lot of money that they're sure glad they'd had, but now that was almost gone. Alejo, here at San Cosme, could have done the same but he gambled on more rain. Poor Alejo, we both lamented. Now he was losin' animals left and right and really up against a rock.

While he's examining works I've got in mine, I congratulate he and total Quijano family for the Palo Blanco victory. "Si. Si," that was truly good, but he wasn't optimistic that things would change very rapidly. Yes they'd won at the highest possible level, but who know what could come next. He reminded me that we were right there in Mexico.

We talked for quite a while about Robi and what we both thought to be his quite ridiculous project. He thought the ejido people had been incredibly illogical in believing in Robi's grand promises. He tells me that now that he's the subdelagado for El Paso, he'd had the chance to express the concerns of the cattle-biased mountain existence. Maybe he represents 15 to 20 families whose stock, when there's something to eat, are free ranged along the Agua Verde road: All those living down the ranch Viejo arroyo to and through El Paso, all of them related. A paved road was something all of them were totally against. And, too, they had the areas Cattle Mens' Association behind them. (Robi simply has no clue as to those he'd be directly affecting.)

Once a month all the subdelagados have a long set-down talk with the Presidente De Municipal De Loreto. Chayo's one of these too. They all get to freely express their views on what's goin' on in their area and it was during one of these that both Raul and Chayo sounded off against what Robi was doing to both federal tide zone and the adjacent arroyo...this most likely precipitating the seven car caravan of PROFEPAS' visit.

As I'm arranging the sack of equipment, glue, sanding belts, diamond dremel tools, I had to ask him one more time about something I already knew the answer for. "And this Robi guy...he's never attempted to talk with any of you Quijanos?"

"Si!" That was absolutely correct. Not one time. We both had to chuckle at just how dumb we thought that was.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com