We passed through many languages today, many cultures, past and present. We moved from the warm valley of Oaxaca to the high mountains, driving over the Sierra Madres, where it is cold and raining. We drove into the clouds.
We began the day in the sophisticated city of Oaxaca, the capital, where the day before we enjoyed the most delicious cup of coffee I have ever had. I, one who relishes cream and sugar, happily drank black coffee, prepared for me with the utmost care and timing. A city where the cuisine rivals any in the world, mixing chocolate with chiles, handmade tortillas from nixtamal (not from any old masa), where anyone on the street can tell you how to use the freshest herbs - like tepiche - to their best effect.
In this city, people speak Spanish, of course, but there is a strong presence of Zapotec. The ancient and enormous site of Monte Alban looks down on the town, reminding people that this land has been a city for over 3,000 years. Words from Zapotec are commonly heard, but so are words from the Aztec conquerors' language, Nahuatl. All the place names that end with "tlan" come from Nahuatl, meaning "place of." We drove through Nochixtlan, a community whose name comes from a story about a fight between two brothers in a field of cactus. Their blood spilled on the ground and cactus there, creating the red earth and also cochineal, the source of Spanish wealth in this area. Cochineal is the tiny insect that feeds on prickly pear cactus in this region, from which an intense red dye is made. Thousands of tons of these insects were exported from here, and the Spanish kept the origin of the dye a secret, claiming the bugs were actually seeds from a plant, to monopolize the trade.
The wealth from this trade convinced early Spaniards that their capital would be near Nochixtlan, so they set about building an enormous church in 1540 at nearby Yanhuitlan. They built this church on top of a pre-Columbian site, using the existing mound and stones to construct what was intended to be a cathedral. Plans changed, and the actual cathedral and capital are in the city of Oaxaca, and this would-be cathedral stands in a tiny town, surrounded by red hills and agricultural land.
In these early churches, we see a strong influence of the indigenous populations. Angels have Mixtec faces, sculptures retain the indigenous sense of proportion, and many of the churches in corporate features that speak to conversion. The church at Yanhuitlan was built by a system that sent 600 people to work for six weeks, to be replaced by another 600 until the cathedral was finished and all souls were transformed. They worked in the morning and learned about new gods in the afternoon.
Until conversion, people could not enter the sacred spaces, so outdoor areas were important. At our next stop of San Pedro Teposcolula, a tremendous "capilla abierta" was constructed to preach to the unbaptized.
After visiting the churches in the relative lowlands, we began to ascend into the Mixtec mountains. Another language, another heritage. We wound our way into pine forests, noting hand-written signs that implored people not to litter, not to hunt the coyotes and wolves, to respect the plants. We started to see Mixtec names on stores. Ox teams plowed fields, agaves bloomed, and corn grew in most available fields. We drove through the mostly Mixtec town of Tlaxiaco (more populous than Conway and at 8000 feet) until we arrived at the Triqui community of Chicahuaxtla, surrounded by clouds in the high mountains.
Triqui is in an entirely different language group. We had read about Triqui migrants in an ethnography for our class, called Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies. In that work, we had missed the presence of women. Imagine our joy at joining a family of women, all weaving on backstrap looms. Martina, the matriarch, is quite famous for her weaving. She and her daughters strapped us into their looms and proceeded to instruct us in completing their projects. They used Spanish with us, but switched into Triqui with each other. They wore their distinctive huipiles, red panels with a butterfly design across the chest, symbolizing womanhood, and colored ribbons floating from the collar.
After weaving they walked with us down to their church. Inside, the Virgin Mary wore their huipiles, as did other saints. Jesus wore their hair. The church was adorned with a kind of palm leaf down the center aisle, left over from a fiesta. For celebrations, they cover the floor with pine needles, to bring their environment inside. As our guide, Florencio asked, "Are they Catholic?" He answered with a a shrug.
For me, these women brought memories of the dozens of rural women I have spoken with around the world. Their most consistent piece of advice to us, to other women, is to get yourself some kind of work for money. Weave, sell donuts, raise fish, grow coffee - just work. Martina is widowed now, but she can depend on her weaving, as do her daughters. One of them told me that she had been going to a technical college but that she stopped. When I asked why, she smiled at her infant daughter in her arms. Weaving she can do at home, with family, and make enough to live.
We crossed many borders today - language, time, cultures, climates. We spoke with people whose lives are very different from our own. Yet I know that many of us felt at home, and could even imagine living there. And I felt a thread of connection from these Triqui women to others who I will never forget, in Costa Rica, Tanzania, Vietnam, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. We don't just cross borders, we are changed by them. Mexico is not just "Mexico," and neither is Oaxaca. We are all layered, complex, moving between worlds. We are as tied together as we are separated.
