Every single day Julissa and her two best friends, Giovana and Lorena, ask me to take them to the "Half Moon," a little park about two blocks from Oasis that has two slides and a ramp for skateboarding. I take them almost every day for about thirty minutes. They get to play, and it gives me a chance to catch up on my field notes.

I have gotten to know these three little girls very well. They follow me everywhere I go, and to be honest, I am happy to have their conversation and company. They're very useful resources too, like Julissa explaining about the guasoliki yesterday. Julissa, who turned nine last week, is the oldest of the three. She suffered from tuberculosis about three years ago. Thankfully, she appears to be healthy as can be now, although I'm sure there are after effects that I don't know about. She's energetic and happy and also very considerate and sensitive. Giovana is lady-like in her appearance and actions, articulate beyond her five years, and extremely funny. Her mom is strict and extremely vigilant of her daughter, and it shows; Giovana is the most obedient of the three. Lorena is also five, but hasn't started school yet. She understands Spanish perfectly but has trouble speaking it. Lorena is the one I have to keep a close eye on, not because she is intentionally naughty, but because she is fearless. I'm especially careful when we walk across a bridge that has bars wide enough for Lorena to fall through--I wouldn't put it past her to throw herself into the arroyo in pursuit of a stray soccer ball or something shiny. The fact that the three mothers trust me to take their young daughters out of Oasis is a huge honor because it is a sign that they trust me.

It's fun to watch the girls play in the park because, first of all, it's nice to see them having a good time, but it's also interesting to observe how they play. Rarámuri children have some different games from other children, which I will describe in a later post. The girls enjoy the excursion, and I'm glad the mothers allow them just enough freedom to go with someone trustworthy and not on their own. There are always nasty men sitting in the park watching little girls play. Crossing the street is dangerous, since cars tend to take the curves too fast. And we also pass kids and teenagers, rarámuri and non-rarámuri, getting high from paint thinner on the streets. They manage to get away with it on the open street because they put the thinner in a coke bottle, then stick it into the sleeve of their oversized sweatshirt which all the druggies wear. This way they can walk around putting the concealed bottle up to their noses. Most of them are just kids and young teenagers and I feel they are unlikely to rob anyone right around Oasis; ironically, there are a lot of patrol cars that circle this neighborhood all day. Overall, the neighborhood around Oasis is safe during the day, but not safe enough to let young children walk to the park by themselves (some mothers disagree, but I wouldn't let my five-year-old or even ten-year-old walk to the park by themselves even in the safest neighborhood in America). This is where my ideas of parenting tend to conflict with some of the Oasis mothers', and I have to be careful not to be too critical and judgmental, because many of the moms allow their kids to roam freely around the neighborhood. Well, perhaps it's not fair to say they all "allow" their kids--every case is different. Either way, I'm definitely attached to these three little girls now and feel protective of them.

Normally the three of them are well-behaved and we have a nice time at the park. But today some devil was in Lorena. She called Julissa "pendeja" (and supposedly she doesn't speak a lot of Spanish!) after Julissa playfully pushed her. She didn't say it maliciously--it was clear to me she was just repeating a word she hears other kids say when they're rough-housing. So I admonished her, but not too harshly. Lorena seemed to understand that she shouldn't say that word anymore, and the three continued to play, although I noticed Julissa was more serious. After a while, Julissa lay down on one side of the skateboard ramp and covered her face. She wasn't sobbing, and she wouldn't answer me when I asked her what was wrong, so I just sat by her and didn't say anything. It took over an hour to convince her to lift her head and tell me what was wrong. She was still hurt by Lorena's insult, so I called Lorena over and had Giovana explain to her in rarámuri what was wrong. Finally, Lorena apologized properly and Julissa felt better. I was frustrated and annoyed about having spent so much time taking care of this conflict, but I gave them five more minutes to play before heading back to Oasis.

Within two minutes, Lorena picked up five pesos that Julissa had dropped and refused to give them back when Julissa asked for them. Julissa tried to pry the money out of Lorena's hands, and Lorena bit her, hard. Both started wailing at the top of their voices, and passers-by were smiling at me trying to calm two little girls. I managed to get them back to Oasis, but Lorena was still crying when we walked through the entrance. As usual, there was a group of women sitting by the entrance sewing. All of them looked up to see which child was crying, and when they saw me holding Lorena's hand, I swear all of them grinned at the same time.

"Why did you hit the child and make her cry?" Paula asked. Everyone tittered.

"Of course I didn't hit her." I released Lore and she ran off to find her mom. I sat down with the women and explained what had happened. Their smiles were amused. They probably saw this event as further proof that I am a strange specimen of woman--after all, what rarámuri woman reaches the age of 24 without having at least one child of her own? It's almost unheard of.

"Children are a lot of work," I said after a while, once the conversation had already moved on.

"It's probably best that you never marry, or have kids," Paula said. The women smiled into their sewing. Instead of feeling ridiculous, like I usually feel when the women tease me, I said, "no, I want kids. I think the work is worth it."

By now Julissa and Lore were friends again, and they were playing house under an old wooden table with Giovana. When I said goodbye a while later and prepared to go home, Julissa opened her arms, as if she was asking me a question. I opened mine too, and for the first time the girls ran at me and hugged me. We were just beyond the entrance of Oasis. I glanced over at the group of women, who kept glancing up from their sewing to look at us. I saw some of them nudge women sitting next to them, who also looked up at us. They watched us, whispering and smiling.

Guasoliki, ice cream, and grocery shopping

When I turned the corner today to go to Oasis, a group of rarámuri children were playing with an old, torn-up couch that somebody dropped off in front of the settlement. They had the couch in the middle of the street and were hitting each other with the cushions, screaming with laughter. I stood by and watched them play. Julissa was among the group, but when she saw me she left the game and came over to talk to me instead. We were chatting about school when her mother came out of the settlement, a stuffed rebozo tied around her back, which is always a signal that a rarámuri woman is going somewhere. She said hello to me, then exchanged some words with Julissa in rarámuri. Julissa turned to me and said "we are going to pick guasoliki, want to come?"

I looked at Cuka for affirmation and when she nodded I said, "yes, I want to go." I had no idea where we were going or what guasoliki was (at this point I'm not even sure if I'm spelling it correctly, I haven't researched it yet), but it sounded harmless enough, so I said yes without hesitating. Another woman named Gloria and her five-year-old firecracker of a daughter, Lorena, were also going.

I have a tight friendship with Julissa but her mom can be hard to read. Sometimes she is talkative and friendly, other times she is silent and barely acknowledges my presence. I was happy that today she was feeling friendly--she spent a long time describing a huge dam on the outskirts of Chihuahua, where she likes to go in the summer to cook meat over an open fire and enjoy the water. She says it is also a great place to sell crafts and candy, since chabochi families also go when the weather gets hot. She asked me if I wanted to go one day, and I said I absolutely did, and she asked when. I told her whenever she wanted, and she seemed to like that answer. She explained the bus route to me and assured me it wasn't very complicated, and I replied that we should go as soon as it got warm enough.

We talked as we walked up a steep hill, then turned right and began to descend into another neighborhood. After thirty minutes of walking, we finally came to a small freeway, which thankfully wasn't crowded, because we had to cross it. Once we got to the other side, I realized there was an arroyo. I panicked for a second, because I was pretty sure we were going to descend it to look for guasoliki. Sometimes I think the rarámuri women climb into arroyos just to pretend they are scaling canyons in the Sierra, they do it so often. I have already had my share of falls descending arroyos, and have gained the reputation of being none too agile, which is not untrue, so I was not looking forward to this scale. To give myself some credit, it didn't occur to me for a minute to not follow them wherever they were going.

I followed Cuka, Gloria and the girls as they looked for the easiest path to descend. Much to my surprise, I was happy to see the path we were going to take a few feet ahead of us: it was an easy descent, a wide trail that someone had made. My attention turned away from worrying about the climb to what I saw at the bottom of the arroyo. No trash, a lot of brush. There was plenty of murky water bubbling noisily over rocks. Cuka said the water came from the dam. A stench reached my nose as we began the descent, and I said "I bet that water is filthy." "I don't think so," Cuka replied, and I felt a little sorry for her for having such low standards.

The girls skipped ahead of us, plugging their noses. They disappeared around a bend and I could hear screams and laughter. As I rounded the bend, the half-decayed carcass of a dog lay on the side of the path. I saw part of a set of ribs exposed where there wasn't black and white fur still stuck to the body. There was some blood, or flesh; I don't know what I saw, but I saw some red before I averted my eyes. The stench was incredible. "Mmm, smells like meat," Cuka said, and Gloria started laughing.

When we got to the bottom of the arroyo, the stench had disappeared. There was freeway on both sides of the arroyo, but the cars were far above us. Being at the bottom of the arroyo felt a little like wilderness (to me; I doubt the rarámuri would second that opinion).

"We are going to cross the stream to go pick the guasoliki. You can stay here?" Cuka began brushing dirt off a rock for me to sit. "Thank you, thank you," I said, and helped her brush off the dirt. The women and Lorena began making their way toward the stream, while Julissa sat down next to me.

"You're not going to go with them?" I asked her.

"Nah," she said. "I'll stay here with you."

I never have to worry about annoying Julissa with too many questions, or about looking ridiculous if I ask about something that is obvious to the rarámuri. So I decided to clear up my confusion. "What is guasoliki?"

"Do you see those green plants growing by the water, on the other side?" I nodded. They looked kind of like yerba buena, which my mom plants at home. Lush green, abundant and healthy-looking. "That is guasoliki."

"And what do you do with it?"

"We eat it, we boil it and eat it with salt."

"Like a soup?"

"Yes."

I could tell it was muddy all around the stream because the women had to lift their feet high each time they took a step. They walked into the stream and got the hems of their skirts wet, and their plastic sandals and feet up to their ankles were muddy. After a minute, Julissa couldn't simply watch anymore, and she joined Lorena in picking guasoliki from this side of the stream. I hated sitting on a rock that Cuka had cleaned off for me, and wanted badly to join them; but unfortunately I picked today to wear a nice pair of flats rather than the grimy tennis shoes I usually have. I couldn't bring myself to ruin them. I briefly considered going barefoot, but I decided against it. There were some beer bottles lying around, which implied to me that people use the arroyo for a variety of activities that do not include picking guasoliki. Ever since I found a syringe outside Oasis a few weeks ago, I cringe every time I see children playing barefoot. I wasn't about to go barefoot myself.

So I sat on a rock and watched as Cuka and Gloria spent half an hour bent over tugging guasoliki out by the roots and filling three plastic bagfuls of it. Julissa and Lorena worked hard too, in between splashing each other. Lorena was delighted every time she picked a particularly large specimen of guasoliki; she always turned to show it to me. "Look at that!" I would say and she would laugh. When the girls got tired, they began exploring the arroyo and found some other treasures: an old tire, a bundle of wire that Julissa said was perfect for making ariwetas. At one point, Gloria took off her sandals and left them on the muddy shore of the stream, but the mud slid them back into the water and the current carried one shoe away. A fifteen minute search ensued, and for a while I sat alone on my rock, a little uncomfortable, as everyone went downstream to look for the shoe. But they never found it, so Gloria had to walk home barefoot.

On our way home I asked Cuka and Gloria how long the guasoliki would last them. Splitting up evenly what they had gathered, they both said it would last about a week. They asked me if I had ever eaten it, and I said I hadn't. "I add carrots and onion to it sometimes," Gloria said.

When we got back to the neighborhood, I took the girls to play at the park. We bought homemade ice cream at a local shop: an enormous scoop on a big cone for less than a dollar. We sat on a skateboarding ramp and ate it, Lorena wriggling the entire time because she wanted to run around while she ate, but I told her she would drop the cone if she did that. Later, we met up with Cuka and walked to the grocery store together, where Cuka bought an enormous bagful of potatoes and jalapeños. Again, we discussed what we like to eat. We also looked at baby clothes and Cuka took me to the beauty section to ask me what some creams were for.

The day revolved entirely around food: searching for and picking food, buying a treat at the park, and buying some essentials at the grocery store. I left them after the grocery store to take the bus home. I am always going to wear my grimy tennis shoes from now on--I don't want to exile myself from any more activities because of my shoes.

Awkward interview

I got to Oasis around 1 PM today, which is late for me, but it didn't matter because most of the rarámuri had headed downtown that morning anyway. Apart from attending races in other parts of the city, another important weekend activity is going shopping downtown or heading to different parts of the city to either seek alms or sell crafts. When I walked into the settlement, a woman named Cuka and her nine-year-old daughter Julissa, who I am very close to, were on their way out to sell crafts. Cuka showed me her plastic bagful of little dolls she had made, brown heads sticking out of flower-print dresses just like the ones the real rarámuri women wear. I kind of wanted to go with her to watch her sell, but I thought that if people saw me with her they would be less likely to buy, so I left it alone. I was sorry to see Julissa go, though; she is my favorite companion at Oasis.

Immediately after I entered, I noticed a well-dressed mestizo ("chabochi" is the rarámuri word for mestizo) family enter the settlement. It was a father in khakis, a mother with perfect makeup, and two middle-school age girls carrying notebooks and recorders. It was clear they were newcomers--they were staring at everything, like tourists. I don't remember exactly what I was doing when they walked in--I think I was just standing somewhere, not doing anything--but I got to watch as the father approached a rarámuri woman on her way to do her washing and say "Excuse me, my daughters are doing a project for school about the tarahumaras. Can they interview you?" I didn't catch what the woman said, but she went on her way, so she clearly didn't comply.

They started asking around for Carolina, the governor's sister. Lorena, a rarámuri woman, pointed towards Carolina's house, which is at the back of the settlement. The tourists stared where she pointed, but didn't move. They were clearly uncomfortable with the idea of poking around the settlement without having specific directions. They turned to me next.

"Do you know where Carolina lives?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure if she's here today, she may have gone out." I gave them her house number, and looking more confident, they went to look for Carolina. I went about my business, and eventually came across Sara, who was sitting on the stairs enjoying the sun, so I joined her.

After a few minutes, Paula, an excellent runner and middle-aged mother of 5 (I think), walked by with a bundle of dresses in her arms. She had just walked past us when the visiting family assaulted her.

"Excuse me, we are doing a project for school, can my daughters interview you?"

"Por que?" (Why?) Paula asked. I looked at Sara; she grinned at me.

Paula relented, and Sara and I continued chatting. Suddenly, one of the teenage girls: "Do you believe in God?" I started giggling, and Sara had to cover her mouth to stifle her laughter. I don't even know what Paula answered, I was too focused on hiding my amusement. Sara and I tried to carry on a chat, but we kept hearing snippets of the interview that made us laugh. Some of them were the following: "We are trying to understand the religion of the Tarahumaras, can you tell us what you believe in?" "Can I take a picture of you next to the clothesline?" "How old were you when you had your first baby?" "So what do the Tarahumaras do for work?"

They finally released Paula after ten excruciating minutes of interrogation. The girls wandered around, snapped a few more pictures, then left. After I got to thinking about it, I felt very unsettled by what I had witnessed. I asked Sara what she thought of people coming in and doing interviews like this one, and she said "I don't like them." I asked her if I was like them, and she said no. I asked why, and she said because I spend a lot of time there and I don't annoy them with too many questions (I have to disagree with her there; I think I did annoy a couple people with too many questions, early on).

I gained some interesting insights from observing that interaction. First, I realzed how far I have come in integrating myself into the Oasis community and gaining the rarámuri trust since September. By now, I still have my awkward moments, but there are definite signs that the women like me and trust me: they ask me to place bets on races, mothers give their young children permission to go with me to the park and the grocery store up the street, and just today, a new mother asked me to hold her one-week-old daughter, the first time someone has asked me to hold a baby for her. Gaining their trust has taken many hours, cost me great effort and patience. Reporters and students who come to Oasis and expect the rarámuri to open up about their lives are sadly misguided, and it's a shame, because most end up walking out with the impression that the rarámuri are a very closed society. That is exactly what the mother of the students said to me, in a whisper: "they are a very closed people."

A second insight, which is still developing in my mind, is about how little the rarámuri and the mestizo population know of each other. They live in the same city, they see each other every day, but interaction rarely goes beyond mestizos buying a rarámuri craft or giving a rarámuri a gift. It reminds me of why I was inspired to do this project in the first place. I grew up seeing the rarámuri on my weekend visits to Juarez, but I knew virtually nothing about them until I started developing this project. As a child, when I questioned the adults around me for more information about the rarámuri I saw in Juarez, I was always disappointed by how little they knew. The interaction I saw today is another affirmation that rarámuri-mestizo interactions are very strained, which is oversimplistic but concise.

More interesting events, but I will stop here. As I was going up the street to catch my bus, I walked by the KFC. I saw Julissa standing in the drive-thru holding a bundle of dolls up to a car window, in the middle of working a sale. I waved at her and she waved back at me, shyly. I wondered if she was embarrassed. Then, she called to me, "Are you coming tomorrow?" "Yes!" I responded. She grinned, and I waved to her and her mom, who was sitting nearby, before I walked away.

A race in the desert

During the weekends, the Oasis women usually race against women from other settlements. Sometimes women from other settlements will come to Oasis to race, and sometimes the Oasis women will load up in a pick-up truck or take a bus to another settlement. These races are rarely planned ahead--I've often seen women from other settlements arrive to challenge someone from Oasis, and that same day the race takes place.

When I walked into Oasis this past Sunday, I found the women getting ready to go to another settlement to race. To my surprise, they invited me to go and I immediately accepted the invitation. I had no qualms when I thought we would be traveling by bus, but when I learned that someone's husband was going to drive everyone over in his pick-up truck, I definitely had second thoughts. I've seen the way the women pile onto the back of the trucks, and being my mother's daughter, I thought about the truck flipping over in an accident. Apart from the dangers, riding squashed in the back of a pick-up truck is something that is pretty out of my comfort zone. And to be quite honest, the thought of passers-by doing double takes when they saw me riding in the back of a pick-up with rarámuri women also made me uncomfortable and hesitant about going. However, I decided to go for it, and I'm so glad I did! Traveling to another part of the city with the rarámuri was an excellent bonding, as well as educational, experience. And the ride was fun--everyone was making jokes and it was a warm day. I avoided looking at other cars so I wouldn't have to notice if people were looking at me.

We ended up on the outskirts of the city, in some colonia of which I don't remember the name, but it was a bunch of one-room cinderblock homes cramped together in a patch of open desert. I could see immediately that this would be a great place to run--plenty of open space, dirt roads with little traffic. Separate from the bustle of the city, but not so isolated that there weren't other people around, or stores to buy refreshments.

We were in the desert for nine hours that day. So many interesting moments occurred, but I will cut directly to the reason we came. That day I witnessed the most impressive race I have seen to date. It was the kind of marathon I have read about in ethnographies about the rarámuri. Two women, age 18, ran eight laps, each lap measuring about 1 1/2 miles at my best estimate. As I described in a previous entry, it is common practice for non-competitors to accompany the runner they are supporting for at least one lap. The Oasis runner was Lorena, who has a baby just a few months old. Sevearl of her friends ran the entire race with her, and for the first time, I joined in on the running too! Normally, I would be proud to say I finished one mile-and-a-half lap, but when I compare it to what other women accomplished, I have to say I'm ashamed of my physical weakness. The rarámuri women told me I need to do more running. Running with them was a rich experience in several ways. First, it absolutely improved my standing in the rarámuri eyes, and several women have become much friendlier with me since I actively participated in a very important social event for the women. Second, I got to feel what it was like to run the way they do in a group, shouting encouraging words to the competitor, and fighting off the urge to quit. On top of that, running in a desert setting was beautiful and challenging. Challenging for me, because the rarámuri women know this stretch of land very well, since they race here often. I think knowing the terrain makes a difference in how well one competes, although some articles I have read describe the rarámuri as the most agile runners even in unfamiliar territory. I feel I am glossing over the experience in this entry, but I am working on a longer piece now based just on this day.