Scorched Earth

First day we arrived back at San Cosme, those were the words that Roberto (coyote Bob) used to describe what had happened on the other side of low-tide only pass, at his old camp.
He’d showed there outside Guadalupe's kitchen maybe half hour after we’d brought all our stuff to a halt. Saw his dog Shadow first, then him. This Roberto had been run out of his long time winter hideout, bluffed out, actually, by the invading gorilla, Trojillo; that big and dumb school teacher/false ejido member who’d tried so hard to get us kicked out of here, Mexico, last season.
During late summer, or maybe early fall, we’d received word from both our dentist partner Ernesto and our local business advisor (also Roberto) from Loreto...that PROCEDE, the official governmental entity specifically charged with establishing true terrain boundaries, had finally got down to investigating the absolute mess of the ejido’s grand parcelization scam. And what they’d discovered was just exactly as I’d described it in “Parcels,” which I wrote last year.
With all ejido San Jose De La Noria officials and those of ejido Santo Domingo, too, and with our rancho representative Chayo, this is what I got second hand:

From: Consultama [consultamaprodigy.net. mx]
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 8:24 PM
To: Caroline Brown
Subject: Message for DAVID SMITH.

Importance: High

Hola David:

I had been dealing with all kinds of problems with prodigy Internet service in Loreto, that regardless I was deling with a monstrous phone bill @ $300.00 dlls. monthly I still have to keep up with their miserable service. I sent you the Translation for the section TESTING two days ago, and hadn't heard back from you, did you get it?.

There has been lots of things happening in my life lattely, that I'm kind of lost.. sometimes, in particular with my participation in a Major Investment and project for the next few years, "DIRT HOUSES".... I do want to build my own house out of this materials ADOBES, but we'll talk about it later when you come back from the green.

Let me tell you that Chayo come by four days ago to let me know that he got some sheli offer by somebody @2000 of them, and he'll like to know if you are interested to buy them, are you?.. if so, you might have to sent him some money to buy them, he'll come by again late this week or early next one.

He also let me know that the INEGI and PROCEDE, held a meeting some two weeks ago, and according to his explanation there were all the involved people, except you obviously, and at this meeting the Ejido were ask to get ready to leave those invading parcels, before the PROCEDE starts releasing titles to the REAL ejido mernbers and parcels. That they could be sent to jail if you and your partners were to demand that in the future. Can you believe that they were suggested and actually ask to leave those illegitimate parcels by this officials, lets keep our fingers cross.

I'm sending also my account status, so you can figure out were we stand.

Tu amigo Roberto.

**********************************************

From: Ernesto Gonzalez [ernesto_gm@)hotmail com]
Sent; Thursday, September 13, 2001 8:24 AM
To: jaderbut Subject:
Re: From David

David and Marcia: The surprise is still in the air, I can not believe the hapennings in New York and Washington, something very well prepared to make the tragic results. In this moment you are enjoying the quietnest in your woods, a very safe and sure plase to be In Mexico we are waiting for the Economic results

Chayo told me about the INEGI-PROCEDE coments, Roberto make me the same talk, Gonzalez, the Subdelegado of Agua Verde came to see me, and talk about the same thing,representing the Ejido people, he told me about he wants to sign a paper with the INEGI-PROCEDE autorithies where they agree Carrizalito is our property he wanted to deal with me and you for some money ! l told him all the deals to make,we would make them in Tribunal Agrario and with our Lawyers, no more personal,group or private deals....... Hope you are fine and the calm comeback in the American people......... I have $20,000 m.n. in our figth account...... Ernesto

******************************************

Of course I was elated with the news that all parcel holders were being told to abandon their claims. The only two parcels where anyone had initiated any occupational sway were those of Martin's there at San Cosme and hard-headed Saul’s at coyote Bob’s old place.
Me thinking that this message had to have gotten to the big ears and through Trojillo’s thick skull, I asked Roberto right off if he was back in his old spot. I was hopeful, ya know. He laughed a sad laugh, shook his hung head in the negative. “Ha!” he shout out, “Scorched earth is all that’s left over there.” He went on to tell me that not only had almost all the vegetation been hacked down but that, too, Saul was in the process of digging a well.
Humm...I set to thinking that maybe I’d been communicated flawed information?
We laid over at the arroyo mouth there on Playa San Cosme for a day, that the amount of time it takes us to reshuffle our load, get all essential things over to our camp on the rancho, El Carrizalito. During that lay over I got ample chance to discuss this “abandon parcels” message. Alejo was not around, neither was Chayo. Martin and Guadalupe were there, though, so I ran this information past them.
Martin, while acknowledging that PROCEDE had been there and done some work in the area, acted unknowing in regards to any ordered abandonment. Invested as he is now with his new cement block casa setting on his parcel, I wasn’t at all surprised at his playing things dumb. But the messages I’d gotten had gone from Chayo to Roberto and Ernesto, Chayo being our eyes and ears. Martin and Chayo live literally within stone throw from one another. They regularly eat together there in Guadalupe's kitchen. I’m sure Chayo had run all he had past the whole family there. Guadalupe, always not wanting to comment on things she doesn’t know for sure, only stated that, vaguely, she’d heard hints of that, but she expressed nothing for sure.
Alejo, who came to greet us that first morning there in that arroyo mouth, filled in more detail. Yes, PROCEDE had been there, working their survey instruments. Yes they’d put the points of our rancho right where our big white markers already are, agreed with the central placement of Carrizalito, exactly. Yes he’d understood that they’d declared all those 92 parcels invalid. He wasn’t on scene the day of PROCEDE’s confrontation with the ejido, but he understood that those from San Jose De La Noria had parted upset, them refusing to sign PROCEDE’s survey results. As far as any ordered abandonment went, he just wasn’t sure.
When we do make our low-tide move off towards the rancho, soon as we got around that pass sufficiently to look over to where coyote Bob, for years, had done a good job of staying mostly hidden, we’re met with the sight of an almost completely denuded small arroyo, low depression.... From green trees and bushes to essentially exposed bare rocks! Pulling through the gate that Saul has constructed, proceeding further, both Marcia and I sat near speechless then as we moved through the destruction of an eco zone that for a long time we’d been protectors of. “Can you believe what that fool is doing here?” Marcia uttered in stunned amazement. I had a hard time just moving to and through to his gate on other side of that narrow parcel, my stomach beginning to cramp.
I needed to talk directly to Chayo. The second morning after settling back into our camp here on El Carrizalito,I set off on rancho road, fast walking, headed from San Cosme. It was a Monday and Chayo was expected home by then. About halfway there I met him, walking, coming my way. After hand shakes and the usual “long time no see” rhetoric, we proceed in my chosen direction, him filling in detail all along the way.
In full fashion he described the blow by blow of PROCEDE’s workings here. His oldest brother is the ejido commissioner, Cresencio. (I’ve tried to paint him in fully with “The New Ejdio Chief”). Cresencio and the other Ejido San Jose De La Noria officials present kept trying to wave their incredibly flawed “Plano Definitivo” in the PROCEDE engineers’ faces. But those engineers were having none of it. On the plan that they’d brought with them, Carrizalito was in its correct location. Those from the ejido were “jumpin’ up and down” mad.
This same ejido also received a total thumbs down on their extension of their northern boundary line, which that phony engineer and Francisco Savin had orchestrated in order to accommodate all their 92 parcels. The neighboring Ejido, Santo Domingo, had finally awoken to this encroachment. That’s why they sent representatives to this major confab. Not only did they reject completely Francisco’s fancy foot work, but they put their south boundary even further in that direction than it truly belongs. This affecting even more of those fictitious parcels. They drew their line at a beach called Datalito. “Not one meter south, nor one meter north,” that’s how Chayo described their attitudes.
And definitely the PROCEDE people had told the San Jose De La Noria faction that “all” 92 parcels were invalid, no exceptions. And they told the ejido that they would not issue legitimate parcels to any ejido member until all parcels occupied were vacated. And then that they were only going to issue new parcels to “titled” ejido members.
Chayo was also sure that Saul understood what had happened, but was determined to force his way, regardless.
As we walked we talked about problems that this apish man had caused just a month or so before we’d arrived. Anticipating a mid to late December arrival of Dahveed, me, he locked both of his gates. That’s the only rational Chayo could tie to his actions. This school teacher (what he could possibly teach, I can’t imagine) lives in far off Cd Insurgentes. That’s where he’d held the key.
What he was trying to accomplish was infuriating me into cutting his locks. This he would have been able to run to the Loreto authorities with, finally him having something hard on Dahveed...something his attacks haven’t accomplished yet.
This gate locking had caused nothing but problems for those at San Cosme. Both Chayo and Alejo had gone to make complaints at the Municipal Palace in Loreto. By phone, Saul had been contacted by officialdom. He’d said he’d come and open the road but to an extreme he’d procrastinated. Chayo, infuriated by his run around and making complaints for the third time, was finally told by the Presidente De Municipal to just go ahead and cut the fence. Coming back to San Cosme with that degree of an ok, this was something he took to gleefully. The fat man had a fit when he discovered Chayo’s handy work but there was zero he could do. There’s no way that he could legally bar that historic route.
A side effect of this gate locking game was that Chayo now has a new and large pila in his San Cosme yard. Upon our arrival, us still coming down the hill, we were surprised to see this water tank there by his and Maria’s small trailer shack. On this walk there I’m told that the state government had given him funds to construct this, along with enough hose to reach a source of water. His plan was to construct this pila at the straw-bale casa that’s nearing completion over on El Carrizalito. With water from the spring there he’d have been able to fill it, start fruit trees in the yard, put in a garden.
With those gates locked he couldn’t get the sacks of cement over to the rancho. There was a dead line on his pilas construction, some officials that would come to see if he had used monies given for intended purpose. In a sweat he’d built there in his San Cosme yard. Because the well there is saline, that’s what his pila lays full of. Useless, except for breeding mosquitos. The officials who came to inspect were happy with it though. Chayo was carrying considerable anger with him as we walked through that scorch-earth zone.
I had to take some pictures. I’d promised Guadalupe and her Aunt Maria( the mid wife who’d delivered her in a cave in Agua Verde), Big Maria, a ride over to Chayo and Maria’s new casa. This aunt Maria, who lived many years at Carrizalito, birthed several of her own children there, hadn't been over to the rancho in a long, long time. She’d wanted to walk but really she couldn’t. The arroyo with the spring water in pools and running down it, she really wanted to revisit that.
It was a Saturday. I saw Saul’s red Cherokee parked by his demolition crews’ camp, well away from where I was passing. On the way back through, me with these two ladies, I halted where Saul could see me...and very deliberately went about shooting a series of photos of his eco disaster. Long wind rows of downed vegetation had already been put to the torch. Still other huge piles lay waiting for the gas and a match. The perpetuator of this insane act, his massive girth, stood out vividly at that far-off workers’ camp, him in an authoritative pose with his legs spread and his hands on his bulging hips. It was a long shot but I flashed at that ugly sight, too.
I asked Big Maria if where that was happening was part of Historic Carrizalito. “Si!” she came back loudly. Always the people had respected that as El Carrizalito. From the stone fence high up in the saddle behind us, where the high-tide trail goes through, to way north past the other side of Playa Datalito, was all the same rancho, El Carrizalito.
We took a nice slow walk which the ladies seemed to thoroughly enjoy, even though Big Maria couldn’t make it up arroyo Carrizalito to where Ojo De Auga de Carrizalito’s water collected in last down-stream pool. Guadalupe got that far but she wouldn’t chance the steep climb up the canyon wall that takes one above a large boulder obstruction, past which was a stair step of standing pools and flowing rivulets. They both thought Chayo and Maria’s new straw-bale casa was real neat.
On foot, Chayo showed up at our camp’s back gate, next mid morning. After greetings, “Trouble with Trojillo,” is what he excitedly tells me. Knowing I’m in the rancho with vehicle, he’s locked the first of his gates I’d need to pass through, should I want out. Chayo said my picture taking had enraged this beast, and now he was exclaiming that I was in his trap! What are you to do with a guy who just wants to cause trouble?
I sat Chayo down in our palapa/work shop. Marcia got us coffee. I told Chayo that we planned on going to Cd. Constitucion the next morning. We were going, with Ernesto, to move our LaPaz lawyers into offensive action. Then, on Tuesday, it was our plan to meet with our advisor, Roberto, and start action with a lawyer from that Loreto direction. The plan was to lay down a legal cross fire.
Chayo was up towards participation in this game. He agreed to meet us in Loreto to add his legitimate complaints to ours. Since it had been my strategy to take our pickup over to San Cosme that late morning, get it to the other side of low-tide pass which wouldn’t be passable early next day, he agreed to move it for me. I instructed him that if Saul gave him problems, he was to leave the truck locked at that gate, then go to Agua Verde and tell the new mayor. Then we’d play things from there. In fact, we both agreed that even if Saul didn’t cause him problems he should go and report the incident to the mayor anyway, get something on record, see where the local authority stood.
Chayo never came back that day with further bad news. We walked out Monday morning early, us taking high-tide pass route that carried us up above the devastated parcel with that well project clearly visible. I can’t say that it didn’t again upset me.
A huddle of male Mexicans were hunkered deep in their coats, there in loose knot outside Guadalupe’s kitchen. Alejo and two of his nearly grown sons were three of them, three others I only slightly recognized as we came, heated up some, walking in. I was feeling great after such A.M. exercise, feisty.
Conversation was almost immediately entered into and very quickly Alejo asked me where we were going, what was on our agenda.
In front of all, Martin, Chayo and his cousin Celso had moved to that cluster by then, I told Alejo exactly what I had in mind. We were going to iniated legal actions against El Gordo. LaPaz, Loreto, from both directions. It was illegal to chop down that vegetation, we were going to correct authorities about that. It is illegal to dig a well here without a federal well permit, something I was sure cone-head didn’t possess, that gate locking had been a illegal harassment also.
I asked Chayo if he’d gone to the mayor. He assured me he had. “Is he willing to sign demandas with us,” I questioned. “Si,” he responded. The mayor was with us. Naturally this pleased me.
While Marcia started the truck, made things ready for travel, I ranted on about that phony ejido member’s moves on his nonexistent parcel. The only place that it existed was between his widely spaced big ears. I stated I was going to work at changing even that!
“Chayo! Tuesday morning in Loreto, right?”
“Si!”
Knowing full well that the three gents I hardly recognized were Saul’s work force, I bid all good day and up the hill we went.
We arrive at Ernesto’s dental office late morning, a time he’s most likely in. We’re told by receptionist that he’s been in Vera Cruz, but was expected back on a late afternoon bus. O.K. We had plenty of things to try and accomplish there in Constitucion, easily we could burn up that much of the day.
At 4:30 we chance a cruise by his house and spot his red pickup parked out front. I didn’t want to jump him right after he got back from such a trip, but my desire to go on the attack just wouldn’t wait. He hadn’t been home 15 minutes when we came with our problems through his door.
He looked hassled, tired, but glad to see us. Not wanting to take up more of his time than I absolutely had to, I shot out what our mission was, what I wanted our LaPaz lawyers to jump into initiating. A “stop order,” an injunction against that eco idiot, that’s what I wanted them to investigate the possibility of. I was still acting like an American. Remember...we’d just gotten back here.
Once he got reorganized, he’d get right on this. He assured me of this. “You know the law works very,very slowly here, don’t you David?” Ha! How could I not understand that one.
It was coming dark when, passing on an offer to stay at his house for the night, we moved north towards Loreto. Marcia driving, not me. I’m still laid up with sciatic nerve problem. We don’t like driving the Baja road at night. Marcia’s never done it before. Nerve-racking. Scary. I can guarantee ya that!
Loreto, as far as tourists were concerned, was dead: 9/11 effect. Easily we bargained down the price of hotel room. Coffeed and breakfasted we’re at Roberto’s office just as he’s opening the front door. After first-time-for-this-season greetings, I ask him if he’s ready to go to work. And he was because, like the rest of town, his business was dead, too.
I run all we’ve got by him. The past season we’d devised a plan as to how to go on attack against that same antagonist. We’d never initiated action because the ejido, in LaPaz, had struck first, demanding us in front of the State Tribunal Agraria, the court that tries to settle land disputes. We’d been forced into a long period of playing strictly defense. Now, finally, that would change.
Roberto grasped the picture quickly. He almost always does. A lawyer who we’d discussed strategy with last year, a Sr. Yee, was now free to work for us, Roberto tells me. He’d been employed in the Municipal Palace and we’d have then been a conflict of interest. But he resigned and went into private practice. We’d contact him, take what we had and start from there. It’s up to Roberto to set things up for later that day. We go off and try to accomplish other things there in that morgue-like town.
Chayo! He hadn't shown yet. I definitely want him along when we sat down with that lawyer. The morning was moving by and I was concerned as to his whereabouts. We’re at the Pemex station when he comes pullin’ up. Actually, I was across the street putting a roll of film in for 1 hour development. I was told that the fasted I could expect prints was 5 P.M., maybe, with luck, 4:30. These were my photos of that eco destruction. When I came back to truck at station there Chayo’s little red carro was. He’d already checked in with Roberto. He understood we all were to be at that office at 1:00 P.M. His cousin Celso was with him. And they were hungry. They had no money between them. He asked about a loan. Ha! Rounding up riding stock for Alejo that early morning is what he claimed had made him late.
We re-rendezvous at Roberto’s at appointed hour, only to be told that lawyer has been impossible to contact. We reset the stage for 3 P.M. We find ourselves trying to kill time there in that nothing-happening berg, somethin’ not all that easy to accomplish. At next appointed hour we’re told we have a 5 P.M. appointment with Sr. Yee. Off we go to kill off more of that precious commodity.
At ten to 5:00 I’m at the one hour photo place. Nope, not done yet, but if I’d come back in an hour...rats! I wanted photos in hand at the meeting. We race off to Roberto's and arrive just as Chayo comes wheeling in. He jumps in Roberto’s truck and we follow. I’t’s not that far away. Prompt, us gringos, them two Mexicans, at this lawyer’s new office.
As yet there was no need for receptionist. Us the only clientele, Sr. Yee leads us into his inner office. He bid us all set down in comfortable chairs in front of his uncluttered desk. I elected to remain standing, my pinched sciatic nerve really givin’ me hell. Fresh paint permeated that indoor air.
Roberto let me initiate discussion. He never interrupted till near the end of my dissertation, so I’m figuring I’ve done pretty well. He filled in some details and Chayo freely broke in if he felt we two had missed something essential. Roberto, because he’s been translating these stories for me for a while by now, really has a good grasp of the situation. I was quite comfortable with what we got across, and was pleased with Sr. Yee’s thoughtful responses.
He’s not too tall, and sorta built like a blocky bull dog. His bronze colored complexion, dark hair and thin mustache certainly have him looking quite Mexican. He approached things with a serious, professional manner. I felt pretty comfortable that we didn’t appear to be dealing with a fancy Dan or big bull shitter.
Yes the cutting of vegetation was illegal. There were fines that could be levied for the infraction. He knew just who to report this to, “PROFEPA”: the forestry, fish and wildlife, general environmental agency. Those photos that were in developmental stage, he thought with those we could get the ball rolling.
And there was no question that to dig a well one needed a federal well permit. He’d check with that agency to see if one had been obtained. Both he and Roberto agreed that in all likelihood he couldn’t have one because before one can be issued, the applicant has to absolutely prove land ownership. Something we were sure Saul couldn’t do because his parcel was phony to begin with, it never having been legitimized nor has there been an attempt to register any of those parcels at the state office of the “Registrar Agraria,” where all deeds need to be registered.
Roberto assured Sr. Yee that between him and our partner Ernesto and our LaPaz lawyers, he was quite able to iniate contacts and handle small details. That’s right where we wanted him.
Sr. Yee asked for Trojillo’s full name, which none of us knew right then, we’ve since found that it’s Gonzalez: Saul Trojillo Gonzalez. “Saul Trojillo X”, Roberto laughed; something that Chayo seemed to like the ring of quite a lot.
Giving Sr. Yee what we knew of his address, Insurgentes was all we could come up with. Chayo knew where he lived but he didn’t know street name. Roberto threw in that he was a school teacher, and then he laughed at the irony of a school system that is trying to shape young Mexican minds towards respect for the environment (save the trees), and this clown actually being a teacher attached to it.
Roberto brought the revelant fact that those from the agencies that we wanted to move into an attack, because of drastic budget cuts, might claim that they had no gas money to go and investigate. Yee found this a quite accurate point.
“How much is needed?” I questioned, us fully expecting to have to put green down as retainer. Roberto and Yee talk it over and between Ôem, came up with $1,000 pesos. $110. U.S. Gladly Marcia handed over that kind of loot.
We all shook hands again with Yee. Then we happily filed out, us to head back to our desert camp here. Chayo to spend night there in town, us to relay message to Maria that he’d be home next morning. In the dark again, out of town and south we went. Low-tide-pass was yet dry when we finally wheeled out across it.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com