A lot of tangents in a preamble to writing about a wedding

A week and a half ago I went to a wedding with L in the community she is doing research in. I had gone with her the Thursday before (May 11th) because it was the anniversary of Zapata’s death (as well that of a home-grown Zapata-like figure from Gelavia—although there was some confusion about that from people around town) and there was to be a fiesta in the town that many of the people she works with were involved in through the cargo system. L invited me to go along with her because a) she’s awesome and wanted to introduce me to the community and b) URO (the hated governor) was supposed to give a speech and she knew that I am interested in the politics around how he is and is not received within rural communities (there’s rumors that he’s even pissed off his rich neighbors now since he usually takes his helicopter around for fear of driving within the city and it lands in the park across from his house or in the road). Because a) Zapata is a big deal down here (Zapatistas didn’t get their name from nowhere) and b) his agrarian reform emphasis has so much potency in the context of the on-going social turmoil, there was a big city-wide march scheduled that morning between the IEEPO (which I think has to do with education—it’s hard not to feel too dumb for not knowing what all the different governmental (federal and state) and non-governmental orgs in the city are already) and the Zocalo. The problem is that the IEEPO is on the other side from where the collectivos leave and so we decided to head out early. Plus, L had been blocked on her way home on Monday by a blockade in the highway protesting the government’s (state government?) lack of follow through on a promise to provide laminated roofing materials and other necessary products (increasingly necessary as we head into the rainy season).

(hipster Zapatista poster, check out the converse and skinny jeans!)


On the way to the collectivo “stand” (or the bit of road next to the baseball stadium where the collectivos stop to busk for passengers) we stopped in the bus terminal for the bathroom (L is a keen finder of the best bathrooms while out and about). The bus terminal some may remember was the site of a lot of the civil actions I witnessed in 2006 because it is the hub of all inter (intra?) city transport. It has changed a lot since I was here last—pivoted 90 degrees so that it no longer fronts Ninos Heros (as the Pan-American Highway is called when it is a “city street”), brightened up with a big airy atrium etc and when I asked about it… yep, part of UROs “improvements” to the city infrastructure that have seemingly aided only his cronies and tourists. Waiting for L I was struck by the number of billboards fronting the station which were clearly aimed at attracting a more American crowd as they were in both English and Spanish—but the best part is how bad the English translations were! I know that I should not expect perfect English translations and the US is full of Spanish malapropisms, but these were beyond bad. So I have a new fun side-project—documenting these odd phrases (of course I didn’t whip out my camera in time so here’s a small re-creation: instead of “5 blocks from the central Zocalo, it was 5 stables from the central socle” and instead of “we pay the taxi fare” it was “we pay the driver’s transport.”

So we get to Gelavia (which involves taking the colletivo to the appropriate “crucero”—or big concrete bridge over the highway at each village (and which I have never seen anyone actually use)—and then getting another collectivo into the center of town) and it was swarming with security. We couldn’t actually get into the center as traffic was diverted and soldiers with automatic rifles stood on street corners across from the little town square in front of the municipal buildings. Within the sq people were setting up folding chairs under big tents and we asked people when everything would start they said, 1, 2, “a little later.” So we headed up the road to see various people as L is accustomed to do. I had met some of the people she’s been working with when they came into the city for various things so she brought me around to see them and we’d chat, they’d offer us food and then we’d head on to the next house, etc.

It’s interesting to see the way that class and wealth manifest themselves in these rural villages and there are clear signs that migration has been a big influence in the community (which is partially why L is doing research here) and on the built environment. For example, all the households we visited might more correctly be termed “compounds” as you enter through a gate (of varying degrees of ornate-ness and opacity—from a chainlink fence with rotiron gates to a high brick wall with big detailed wood and metal gates—incidentally, the gate seems to be the one of the first things you build in a new compound (along with a well) as many empty plots are framed by a brick portal opening and chainlink) into a central courtyard that encompasses a well, several housing units, a big outdoor sink and cooking area, and space for car(s) and/ or livestock. Class stratification seems to manifest itself in things like, is the courtyard paved or dirt, are there second stories, are all the buildings made out of brick or cinderblocks or are some open structures topped with corregated metal, are the livestock contained in a separate area of the courtyard or are there no distinctions made between the spaces, and what kind of bathroom is there (indoor flush, outhouse or none)? L says that she’s finding that issues of migration and modernity coalesce around bathrooms and people’s reaction to her request to use their’s, especially when they don’t have an indoor flush one—when we went to the wedding (coming up) the father would unlock the “nice” bathroom door for the two of us when we asked where the bathroom was but I think I saw others traipsing to what I assume was an outhouse at the back of the compound.

We spent a good while chatting with Señor Fabien who is the patriarch of the main family L is tight with. And this is classic in terms of what I was trying to convey with the way that migration and money is so visible in built terms. We enter SF’s compound where he lives (I think) in the front in a long room and there’s a more traditional house in the back where his two nephews live (living room, kitchen etc.), separated by a long dirt yard, with his prized bulls tethered in the middle (bulls are a semi-fungible form of investment here and are ever present, SF was amused that we were both a little afraid of them… and in contrast to the bulls I’ve seen in States which require lots of barricading (or so the bull pen I used to play in implies), they’re pretty placid and I can’t tell the difference between them and the oxen... although they are um, intact).


(here's a "herd" (?) of bulls being herded along the main road by a pickup truck... we gave way to them)


When he invited us in to talk, we sat inside the half-completed 2-story house that another nephew (?) and his wife are building on the property while they work in the US. The house has a shell but no interior work so we sat on plastic chairs while the adjoining room was used to store alfalfa. Then his daughter Chela (she’s a wonderful welcoming person) invited us over for breakfast at her house, which we got to by walking down the road and cutting through her sister’s compound (which has a manicured patch of grass inside a small picket fence in front of the house). It was so nice and yet still an adjustment as she brought out bowls of café de olla (yes I had some (a tiny bit) of coffee after more than a year without) and pan and then eggs with some kind of sausage and tortillas. It was great but all uncovered food was covered in flies so I learned (yay monkey see, monkey do anthropology) to cover my plate with a tortilla. And it was so lovely and yet this in some ways awfully uncomfortable experience in which I was incredibly conscious of my own discomfort at the swarm of flies (which were a product of the environment rather than any hygienic concerns as Chela wipes down the table with a bleach solution as do most women) and my own unpredictable nausea issues.

After chatting with them for a while (and they thought that the fiesta started around 11 or maybe 1, but had no interest in going and indeed thought that the governor wouldn’t even show up—something echoed by everyone we talked to and in fact what happened), we headed to Ernestina’s house because her niece had called out to us earlier that she was expecting us. Ernestina’s 76, and her husband who’s 65 has bad knees so rides his burro into the campo, and she’s crazy. She says that she doesn’t speak Spanish, only Zapoteco, but she totally does (she’s just missing a lot of teeth so I have a hard time understanding her… something they warn you about in terms of linguistic informants pre-fieldwork). She’s a total bundle of energy and we were supposed to walk her to the fiesta, which she was involved in preparing, but after taking forever to be ready (this is after chiding L for always being late), she told us that we were first going to go to the casa de cultura to pick up her Opportunidades money. And when we ask about the fiesta, she says brusquely “it’s over already, it started at 11” (oy!) but will arrive (?) at the casa de cultura.

So we get to this new semi-isolated low building set around a courtyard—two tall gringas and this small Zapotec woman. Elderly women are lined up tightly along the building making use of the meager shade (have I mentioned how hot it is here? everyone was remarking on it). L and I weren’t sure where to go to not be in other women’s way but Ernestina tromped up to the entry to the courtyard and beckoned imperiously at us to follow her. More women (some with kids, mostly elderly but not all) sat, stood and squatted along the shaded interior hallways, waiting with some selling juices and small things to others. Eventually a woman in what I think of as the Oaxacan equivalent of a mid-level pantsuit (coordinating polyester shirt and pants) appeared and announced that the Opportunidades person was stuck in Magdelena (two towns further along) and everyone would just have to wait… and while they did so it was very very important that women not throw trash on the ground or leave anything (it was a total moment of governmentality as women waited for their federal benefits). Ernestina decided that this was ridiculous and told us that we were going to her nieces, just on the other side of the adjoining lot, and off we traipsed. Both L and I wanted to take a picture of the mass of elderly women spilling out and around this official building surrounded by a barbed-wire topped chain link fence, but there wasn’t really either an opportunity to ask women if it would be appropriate (and based on previous experiences, I’m sure they would have been fine if we let them fix their hair and pose) or to ask Ernestina to wait so that we could shoot from across the field (also something that feels a little ethically suspect).

After sitting and drinking some flavored water (so yummy, try it at home, take fruit, cut up a little and add with lots of water to blender… or boil dried fruit plus a little sugar) and chatting for another spell, we finally made it to L’s last stop, a young couple (I just found out she’s 17 and he’s 21) with a 4 month old baby (he’s SF’s grandson) who wanted L to take pictures of them with the baby. It turns out that Erica gave birth in the hospital in Tlacolula, which she said is because you can’t do it in the clinic but her doctor is part of the hospital so she got prenatal care in the village and then traveled to the hospital, but when I tried to ask her more questions she was visibly uncomfortable. Arturo (her soon to be husband) spent 5 (?) years in LA and I later chatted with him about that. He was cracking up that his bulls were afraid of L and I when we walked by them to the outhouse, they drew back and hid! By the time we were leaving, all signs of the fiesta and the security were gone and there seemed to be a tractor expo in its place. And then, our feet totally filthy and covered in dust (people in Gelavia claim that the rain always passes them by even when it rains just ½ mile away), we left and L had a drunk guy paw her in the collectivo as he asked about why we were here—lovely! The next day when L returned, both Chela and Ernestina told her to bring me to the wedding and asked why she hadn’t brought be to the baptism the weekend before.