The Signature Campaign

I can't claim it as an original idea. No! In a multiplicity of conversations with many Mexican people more er less indigenous to this general coastal area, between Loreto and Timbabichi, and all over up in the mountains that lay behind Rancho El Carrizalito, quite a few of those I held in conversation revolving around this rancho issue had stated that they'd sign something if ever the need arose.

The more I thought about things here the more obvious it became to me that a long list of people claiming some involvement at some past time with historical El Carrizalito might prove to be a valuable addition to our arsenal of proofs.

Perhaps a month before leaving last spring I brought the subject up with Ernesto, us again in his dental clinic. "Yes, David," he responds, "here in Mexico such things carry a lot of weight." He went on to tell me that individual statements were much better than just a multi-signed document. Ernesto reiterated the worthiness of the end result, but öhe couldn't picture how we could get there, the campaign needed being a lot of work.

I told him that I didn't see it as an impossible task, especially considering how interrelated into the total surrounding area our partners Alejo and Guadalupe were. I estimated they could collect perhaps several hundred statements, if they put their minds to it; got stimulated.

He didn't think so. He didn't have that much faith in their country attitudes. "They might work on it if you're here pushing them but the day that you leave they'll forget about it." I doubted that. Ernesto doesn't know Alejo and Guadalupe nearly as well as we do.

I entered into discussion with these two country partners once while inside their as yet uncompleted new restaurante kitchen. They regarded what I said seriously, considering the mission doable. Alejo first and then Guadalupe got excited when the thought of how many they knew from Ensenada Blanca, Ligui, Juncalito, and Loreto, and in Agua Verde and Timbabichi, too! And then too the áre was the sweep of this cowboys arm up and into these mountains. And then after I told them that Ernesto didn't think they could do it, a look of determined conviction just swept the project foreword.

Name, age, I.D. number, a short statement as to how they know El Carrizaltio, a signature. I bought a ream of blank typing paper, a handful of pens at a Papeleria in Loreto, maybe a week before we slipped off for the border. I never worried more about it.

Chayo, our all around head man and partner in the shell business, called me about mid martini time, sometime in July, maybe August? us in our cabin in the woods. The signatures, those signed statements, what did I want them to do with them?

"How many do you have?" I questioned.

He thought they amounted to something over a hundred. A lot of them. "Mucho!"

I told him to make copies, one set for Ernesto, one for our lawyer in Loreto, one for the Presidante de Loreto, etc. I asked him if they were still collecting and he answered "S Úi!" He also filled me in on just who wouldn't sign anything in regards to El Carrizalito, none of what he told me striking as great surprise.

Martin, Alejo and Guadalupe's defacto son-in-law, who lives right there at San Cosme, who regularly eats with the family, whose mother, Alejo's sister, was born on Carrizaltio, wouldn't sign. And, in Chayo's opinion, he'd prevented his common-law wife, Estar, who spent almost all her first five years playing with most of her siblings while their family lived on Carrizalito, from doing the same.

Alejo's two brothers, Manual and Jusavio, who'd been born and raised to adulthood on Carrizalito, who'd constructed the road into the rancho, wouldn't sign anything either. Like Martin, being ejdio members and followers of ejido chief Jorge Gutierrez was the common bond that almost all non-signers shared.

Smoking such people out being at least part of the strategy, I guess this signature campaign could be regarded as somewhat of a success.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com