Family relationships in Mexico are sometimes hard to figure out especially in very extended families. Usually one doesn’t speak of half brothers or sisters; it’s usually the whole thing. If one is a very distant relative they are more likely called primo or cousin. This confuses the foreigner as the blood relationships blur.
Clearly the Mexican can make the distinction but chooses not too. The bigger and closer the family the better. This is probably changing as Mexico becomes more modern and that is too bad…I sort of like it that way.
I have no direct blood relatives here in Mexico but plenty of relatives nonetheless. If Angelica has an uncle he is my uncle too. It may seem odd to some that I call a short, Indian woman aunt but I do it because it is customary and proper as well as nice…and it makes me feel more at home.
‘This is my aunt,’ I will say. The gringo will look at me like I’m either a throwback or nuts…the Mexican accepts the relationship without question. As the extended Mexican family becomes more geographically remote, this is certain to change as well. But I sure hope it doesn’t happen to me until the river fog creeps into my hut…
My battle with batteries is on. There is no power here and I’m not sure how long the laptop will go…I’ll keep my notes the old fashioned way -- on pieces of paper and guard them with my life. I don’t want one thought, observation or ‘pearl’ to escape if I can help it. I keep them in my front shirt pocket with my pen and guard them as much as I guard my wallet…ha. Value is relative, no?
It’s drizzling outside so I have to come inside with my laptop. It’s smoky inside and dark except for a kerosene lamp. I think back on the days as I was learning Spanish and how I can associate the kerosene and wood smoke with Spanish. On this trip I’ve seen that De Bono’s theories on association aren’t just with words: sounds, smells and music have to be just as powerful if not more so.
Timo is opening up more after several days and our conversations become more frank and direct. Just like in the old days…we speak of ejidos, the drug trade, farming, women, children and anything we can think of. At one point he says; let me tell you my story…I always like to hear other’s stories. Not so much to compare mine, which I admit at times I do, but also to get a deeper insight into why people are the way they are. Maybe in several more decades I’ll have some answers for you…ha!
Timo left home when he was 12. His father drank heavily and made him work. His father took whatever money Timo made and went to the cantinas. Timo had no shoes and only one pair of pants…and as he remarks somewhat wistfully, obviously not a good father role model. Kids are impressionable and that lack of role model was to come back on Timo at various stages in his life.
One morning at 2:00 he got up and left. He walked all night and all the next day across the Sierra down into the valley. Late that evening on the path a farmer passed and asked him what he was doing so far away from the towns and ranches. Timo replied he was looking for work and the farmer took him home. The farmer’s wife gave him a good hot meal of beans and enchiladas and Timo said it was the best meal he ever had in his life. He had not eaten for two days.
Timo could not read and write but he was a farm boy and knew how to work the fields and tend animals. The farmer had a dozen head of cattle and told Timo he would give him work caring for the cattle. Timo agreed. For his first week’s salary he got a pair of shoes and a hat. The second week a shirt and pair of pants. Timo was in heaven…he had never owned a pair of shoes. After completing his wardrobe the farmer gave Timo five pesos a week in pay…plus his room and board. The farmer said he would also send him to school and Timo began to think of him as a father. Timo shakes his head and wonders how things would have been different had he stayed. ‘I would have gone to school, learned to read and my life would have been different. But that was not my destiny. We each have our destiny, you too, right gringo?’
Another farmer saw him one day and asked him how much he was making. Timo told the farmer five pesos a week and the farmer laughed at him. ‘He’s taking advantage of you’ the other farmer said, ‘I’ll give you 15 pesos a week.’ Timo was stunned. He never thought things could get better than with his new family. He had given no thought to how much he was making but quickly decided to go for more money…call it upward mobility, greed or whatever.
And so he went out into the world, working throughout Mexico in places like Chiapas, Tabasco and Oaxaca. I didn’t know it before but Timo is a multilingual…he speaks several Indian dialects. He would learn the dialects from his co-workers in the fields and ranches. I told him I admired him as I’m not brave enough to learn even one Indian language though I want to learn Maya when we go to our place in Quintana Roo. He laughed and started saying phrases to me in different languages. I laughed back. Everything is relative in this world and it is from folks like Timo that I learned that being presumptuous is being foolish…be wary because those you think are simple may in fact know more than you! Ha!
At 20 he found a woman and settled into an ejido. It was the first in a long series of women before he finally settled down with Juana. I joked with him that he was more like an old Mormon or an Arab with a harem…he laughed and tears ran down his cheeks. ‘You always say the funniest things’ he laughed.
But with money in his pocket he was able to buy a pistol, a knife and frequent the cantinas. And with that he got closer to the raw edge of life and death.
Many of my friends died violent deaths he said. But somehow Timo managed to escape that fate. One of his friends raped a farmer’s wife and the farmer took him out into the field and shot him in the head. Why would my friend do such a stupid thing? Timo asks. He was so young and could have lived so many more years…
I asked him how he was able gain his insight and wisdom without being able to read and with such a horrible father role model. And why many of his friends could not. I kept my eyes open and my mouth shut, he replied. I could see the way the world worked and the difference in good and evil. I saw it with my own eyes. My friends that were bad usually died an early and violent death. I learned by their example.
There it was. He was able to tell me in his own words something I had been wondering about for many years…why some of us turn out so well and others so evil. And why some of us gain insight into life and others not…
I lay awake at night thinking about his story and about good versus evil. About children and role models and the subsequent behaviors they exhibit as adults. About patterns of culture and how they are repeated through the generations…
And I fall asleep thinking what a lucky person I am to have known people like Timo at various stages in my life. Like John Steinbeck once said, the affected rich miss all the little gems of life because they refuse to associate with folks like Timo.
Not me. Folks like Timo have made me a rich man. If I die pesoless it will not matter. My story will be richer and deeper than most, thanks to my many amigos like Timo.
Jack D. Deal
