Fulbright Year in Chihuahua City, Mexico: Día del Niño

Día del Niño, or Childrens' Day, falls on April 30th of each year in Mexico. Every year, the Coordinadora Estatal de la Tarahumara and the teachers at the settlement's small elementary school decide on a treat for the rarámuri children. This year, the Coordinadora funded a bus to take the rarámuri children and a few mothers to Aldama, a town thirty minutes away famous for its public swimming pools, a zoo which hosts three tigers and a black panther, and drug traffickers. The teachers contributed 100 pesos each (a little less than $10) to buy meat, potatoes, chile, and tortillas to make a "discada," Chihuahua's version of a cookout using a large iron disk over an open fire rather than a grill to cook the meat. In my eyes, it was a generous gift for each teacher to contribute any amount of money to their students, considering that they are not very well paid and have children of their own to take care of. The school's director was also kind enough to let me come along, so on April 30th I showed at Oasis at 7:30 AM to catch the bus with about 60 schoolchildren and 5 mothers to Aldama.

The bus was crammed with children sitting four to a seat (I carried one in my lap), but the energy was very high. For most of these children, this would be their first trip to a zoo. The Coordinadora and the teachers provided the bus and the food, and they subsidized the zoo entrance tickets, giving them to the rarámuri for 30 pesos (a little less than $3) rather than 65 pesos. Still, only half the rarámuri children had been given money by their parents to enter the zoo. While most people would agree that 30 pesos is an excellent price for a day at the zoo, most of the rarámuri cannot afford to spend even this amount on luxuries. 12 pesos is a bag of beans that feeds a family of about five one meal. Tortillas for the day are another 6 to 12 pesos (which is why most women opt to make them by hand each morning--it saves money). Cheese, meat, and anything which must be refrigerated are rare treats, since these items usually cost more and most of the rarámuri do not own refrigerators. Most rarámuri families earn just enough to give their children the most basic food, and paying 30 pesos on a zoo excursion would have been an irresponsible decision.

When we arrived to Aldama, those children who had paid lined up to go into the zoo. Several rarámuri women asked me if I was going to go, and I decided not to go into the zoo when I learned none of the women were going in. Julissa was very excited to go to the zoo; Jiovanna's mother did not give her money. I felt a strong desire to give Jiovanna 30 pesos to go into the zoo, but I held back because I didn't want to show such obvious favoritism in front of the other kids and mothers. Those of us who didn't enter the zoo were bussed to a forested area with a natural stream. The kids were told that the water was clean and that they could swim if they wanted. Disappointment about not entering the zoo was soon forgotten climbing trees and wading in the stream. Some women and I gathered sticks to make a fire while two others settled down to slice potatoes and onions for the discada.

Once the meat--a combination of chorizo, hot dog, and ground beef--was frying, I decided to accompany one of the teachers to buy tortillas and sodas. We drove through the town looking for a tortillería and along the way I got to see the town. The plaza in the main square with a few trees and the old, small church. The spring wind creating a tornado of dust in the plaza, and pollen drifting through the air. On a windy day in spring you can feel dust in your teeth all day long throughout the Chihuahuan desert. The gray mountains, part of the Sierra Madre Occidental line that turns into the Rockies in the United States, forming a protective wall around the town. The mountains throughout the Chihuahuan desert keep tornadoes from devastating the towns and cities throughout this region. They break up the landscape, adding irregularities that rise too high for any tornado to pass over them. Millions of years ago, these mountains were underwater, part of a vast ocean. If you go hiking today in these mountains or in the open desert between Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua City or between Chihuahua City and Aldama, you can find fossils of seashells that at a glance look like ordinary desert rocks. I used to find them in the desert around my house when I was a little girl, before housing developments filled in the desert, once the ocean, with one and two-story stucco homes with refrigerated air.

Planting and cattle-raising are the main economic activities of the town of Aldama today. Mining caused the town to boom over fifty years ago, until most of the precious metals were extracted from the land and the town's inhabitants had to look for other ways to live. Today, Aldama is infamous throughout the state of Chihuahua for being home to drug traffickers, but only the stereotypical ones: the ones with cowboy boots and hats, and ostentatious silver belt buckles and pick-up trucks. In the capital of the state, they say the richest drug lords dress with more class, buying their polo shirts and Versace sunglasses in the United States. They arrive to the nicest clubs and sometimes close them down for the night to host a private party, but if not, they satisfy themselves with spending at least $1,000 in bottles of liquor. But Aldama is still a traditional farming town, an unsophisticated pueblito. The teacher found a small tortillería in the center of the town, and afterwards, we walked over to a family-owned convenience store to buy several 3L bottles of soda.

When we returned, the children were eagerly awaiting the tortillas so they could eat. There was plenty of food, and the teachers invited me to as many tacos as I wanted. I had two. The combination of meats, potatoes and chile is delicious, but very oily. After we had finished eating, the bus arrived with the second bath of hungry kids just coming from the zoo. They finished off the meat while they told those who had not entered about the two tiger cubs who wrestled in their cage, the peacocks and the way they extend their feathers like beautiful Chinese fans, the playful monkeys and getting sprayed with water while on a kiddie train. Julissa was thrilled with the trip and told her mother all about the animals in rarámuri, stopping every few sentences to make sure I understood and to translate what I didn't understand.

We returned to Oasis by 3 PM, exhausted, full and happy. The Coordinadora had donated several piñatas for the kids, but the teachers decided to break them the next day during recess. Overall, the event was a huge success, although it is still hard to think that half the kids did not get to enjoy the zoo for only 30 pesos.