Eligia

Yesterday I arrived to Oasis and found the settlement empty. In the hall where I have most of my friends, and consequently spend most of my time, all the women and children were gone. Esperanza went shopping with Jiovanna, Cuka had taken Julissa to a park, Susannah and Marcela were gone, and I had run into Marta on the street taking her twin boys out for a stroll. The only woman I found yesterday when I arrived was Eligia, the indigenous governor's wife, washing clothes in a cement sink as four of her eight children played nearby.

When I first arrived to Oasis and presented myself to the governor, Chita warned me to be careful with Eligia because she was known to be jealous. I have never witnessed these episodes of possessiveness and jealousy that Chita has described to me, but I have had an extraordinarily hard time getting close to her. Her children are adorable; as I mentioned, she has eight, six of whom are girls. The oldest, Andrea, is fifteen and was recently sent to a Jesuit boarding school for rarámuris in the Sierra (a typical practice, and a very good one, since it puts young teens in a controlled and disciplined environment and takes them away from the drugs and gangs of the colonias in which they live). After Andrea, the next one is twelve, and the youngest is two. I have great relationships with all of them; they are so sweet, it is impossible not to love them.

It is clear that Eligia struggles and has to work hard every day taking care of so many young children. Maybe that is why she hasn't been so receptive toward me--I wouldn't waste my time with me either if I had so many clothes to wash, diapers to change, and mouths to feed. I think she is about 35 years old, but like so many other rarámuri women, she looks older. She is well-liked in the community and seems to possess a sarcastic sense of humor, which I sense from the tone she often uses when chatting with other women (I usually can't understand her, she speaks fast).

For a few seconds yesterday, I felt at a loss for what to do, since all the women I usually talk with were gone. But then I decided to sit on Eligia's front stoop and work on my new dress, which I am making for Jiovanna. Eligia looked up and smiled at me, the first time ever. Her kids came closer and watched me work for a minute, then went back to play. When Eligia finished the washing, she took out her sewing and sat on the ground a few feet away from me. We mostly sat in silence, but a few times she looked over to see how my sewing was coming along, and made some encouraging remarks. She speaks very little Spanish, which is another reason she has perhaps been hesitant to talk to me.

Without conversation, I got a little lost in my thoughts and started thinking about those things which usually occupy my mind when I'm not with the rarámuri or doing writing about them: graduate school applications, preparing a great writing sample, finding a job for after my Fulbright year is over, what I want to do this weekend, and lately, visiting the beach. I was pretty engrossed in these thoughts when I glanced up and saw that Eligia was stitching without looking at her work because she was watching me work. Her two-year-old daughter, Ines, had her head inside her mother's shirt sucking on a breast. Eligia was working on monitos, which her daughters would sell on the weekend. I thought then that I only have two months left to be with the rarámuri, and then I will move on to something new. I can only guess what goes through Eligia's mind when she is sitting quietly feeding her toddler and making dolls to sell, but I know her thoughts and her reality are a world away from my own. I decided to chat with her, so I started asking her questions about her children, and she answered them, smiling several times. Then she asked me about my family, and we spent the rest of the afternoon talking a little every few minutes as we sewed.