CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY human emotion of the religion move me. This culture is Indian and oppressed yet full of immense human dignity. The faith the ordinary people bring to the religion almost makes it true. All of us will suffer in life, poor and wealthy alike. Suffering elevates the spirit, tests the spiritual quality of the individual. Does this miserable lump of shit have a soul? You’ll find out. I wrote on a brown paper sack these spontaneous words: THE WORLD IS LARGER THAN YOURSELF. YOU ARE A LARGE PERSON, BUT THE WORLD IS MUCH LARGER. LEARN SOME HUMILITY. RESPECT THE SANCTITY OF THE LIVES OF OTHERS. I felt this throughout Mexico. These people, despite their poverty and lack of scientific education, seem more human and emotionally responsive than most Americans. There is a mystery to life, and they accept it. Get drunk or go to church. The Mummies I was disappointed with the mummies! I thought they’d be in catacombs, underground, as in Rome. There'd be a sense of the earth, mustiness. No. They aren’t very old, either, maybe a 100 years. Limestone and water pickled their bodies and black clothing. They are set up in glass display cases in a long concrete building. Desiccated contorted bodies, with tortured or vacant expressions, propped up. Matter-of-factly, a tourist guide talks scientifically about each one or group, pausing to describe them. Fifty mummies, a hundred jostling tourists, mainly Mexican. I panicked, looked at some, and walked out. Death is just too obvious. Dried desiccated genitals. Nothing there, human! Why waste your time? Mexico Is A Train Ride The homeward bound train was like a mechanical snake, in jointed sections, on the winding track. Where each car joined, you could get fresh air or dust. Oh the vendors! The home-cooked food. At night, in the Culiacan station, city of gangsters and brown heroin, a city of sinister reputation, I bought perfect food for fifty cents. A hot tamale in corn husk, and a cup of delicious black coffee, sweetened with raw sugar. Mexico is like a train ride. Its history, the society, the people and where they are going. That’s what I told some students on the train ride back. The Mexicans have to keep it going, or they will crash. On the Mexican trains, I saw some of the most spiritual faces I have ever seen. Indian faces full of sun and earth, from the campo. Farmers beside the tracks. With cattle and machetes. On horseback. Mystical faces. Filled with hardship, death, and life, their dark eyes stared into the light and landscape imperviously. I don’t know whether the recently discovered enormous reserves of oil will save Mexico from economic and social disaster. Perhaps Raul should stay here and take part in the quickening future. Half of the population is under 15 years old. It’s expected to double in several decades. The inflation has to be controlled. Portillo is trying. Possibly there is great hope for the countless impoverished and underemployed. Outside the industrial city of Hermosillo, I recall a giant cactus strung with Christmas tree lights. Mexicans must not imitate, so much as they seem to be doing, the consumer lifestyle of Americans. Near the border, I saw white balloon bread, candy and sugary soda pop, TV antennas, and rundown cars. Factories pouring out soot and poisonous smoke. For me, Samoa es el puro Mexico, and always will be. Mexico is an agricultural society. That’s the heartland of it and the backbone of it and the belly. Farmers out in the flat campo, under the beating down sun, raise corn and cattle and kids, brown-skinned boys and girls who in turn will become farmers and fathers and mothers. If there’s enough land to go around, if they take care of the land, they might make it. Oh, I know there are fishing villages and tourist towns along the coast, teeming cities and colonial architectural splendors, but if you want to see the real Mexico, you must go to a farm town. I will never forget the ignorant cowboys, drunk and singing beside the Sinaloa River. One of them forces a drink of brandy through the jaws of his rearing pony. El P res iden te and Ja il I always have trouble in Mexicali. On Christmas day of 1975, I got sunstroke. This time I wandered down a side street. All I wanted to do was cross the border. This macho, blue- uniformed Mexican stopped me and asked, "Where are you going?" Was he a federale? He said he wanted to look through my suitcase. I let him, I was tired. I had a pint of El Presidente brandy for Steve. He said it couldn’t be taken through the border crossing. He stuck it in his belt, and looked disinterested. What was I supposed to do? Fight him? I knew he was lying. It seemed a small price to pay to get to el otro lado. Many-a young Mexican has died, been beaten, paid exo rb ita n t money to "coyotes,” suffered days of privation in the desert, littered his bones or spilled blood for the ironic privilege. After my visit, Raul returned to Portland. For a time, he lived in the streets or with other Mexicans. He never learned English and couldn't get a decent job. Recently he was staying with a Chicana woman. They had an argument, so he hopped a freight for Utah and maybe Mexico. As you read this, he is in jail in Rawlins, Wyoming. I don’t know the charges. I send him hard candy and cartons of cigarettes. a T f l hammered dulcimers ♦ a recorders flutes ♦ guitars ♦ mandolins ♦ banjos * fiddles ♦ whistles piccolos ♦ unusual folk instruments of many varieties tonal Celtic and other folk musics. ARTICHOKE MUSIC 11-6 • monday-saturday • 722 northwest 21st • 248-0356 wholesalers of local and organically grown produce hours: Mon.-Fri. 6am-2pm 1030 S.E. 10th Avenue Portland, OR 97214 Phone 234-2118
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