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.
