Life is Measured in More than Years: Marcelino and Concepción

Green Card

 Marcelino and I are the same age, in years anyway. But life is measured in more than years. Life's experiences are a much more accurate measure. I am the privileged gringo who has gone to college, found a satisfying job in public education, and retired with an adequate pension to live comfortably and travel extensively in my "golden years". My two children have had the same opportunities that I had, and our family is a tightly knit unit that gets together often and participates in each other's lives. We have financial stability and our basic needs are well met. Relatively speaking, we have good lives and promising futures.

Remembering 

Marcelino's life, and his wife's, Concepción, have been down a much more rugged path, with far fewer opportunities and no retirement pension in their "golden years". Their lives have been rich in many ways, but they have faced many hardships and experienced more than their share of suffering and sadness. The seventy-seven years that Marcelino has lived are very different than the seventy-seven that I have lived. 

In the mid seventies he got a work visa to go to the States and ended up there for a few years working in construction and, most rewardingly, as a baker. When he returned to Oaxaca, he brought his new profession with him. He married his wife, Concepción, and they had two children, and they became the town "panaderos" (bakers). Three times a week they fired up their wood-fired clay oven and made sweet breads which they sold door to door in the pueblo.

Concepción

The pueblo of Tanivet, like many pueblos in Mexico, is inhabited primarily by women. As soon as they are old enough (late teens or early twenties), the men migrate to the States to work, just as Marcelino did. This was the case with Concepción and Marcelino's son. But unlike Marcelino, their son did not come back. Since he did not have papers, he could not return stateside if he left. During the time that I knew them, Marcelino and Concepción suffered much due to the absence of their son. They had no chance of getting a visa to the US with their job as itinerant bakers, nor could they ever afford it. Their son mentioned several times he was going to try to get back home, but it never happened. After many years, Marcelino and Concepción lost hope of ever seeing their son and grandson. 

The separation of family members is a source of much pain and sadness. That imaginary line that separates the US from Mexico, also separates loved ones, parents from children, husbands from wives. Most Americans can cross "la Linea" without much problem. We are welcomed in Mexico and no visa is necessary. But for many good people like Marcelino and Concepción, crossing over is almost impossible or it is very dangerous and expensive. So many people live without the opportunity to see their spouses, children and grandchildren. And this is the big difference between my seventy-seven years of life and Marcelino's. Pain and sadness wear heavily on a person.

Tanivet is an hour and a half from where I live. I have not gone back to see my friends there for a while, but I hope to do so soon. It would be such a joy to find Marcelino and Concepción reunited with their son and his family and enjoying life together in their "golden years". I have that opportunity, why not them?

The Mysterious World of Don Antonio Hernández

Don Antonio was a man shrouded in mystery and magical secrets. I met him in the early 1970's in Velez, Santander, Colombia. He was in his early fifties and I was in my mid twenties. I was staying with my friend, Butch, who was a Peace Corps volunteer that I had served with in the West Indies a few years earlier. Butch lived in the hills outside of Velez and Antonio lived in a small adobe house right next to him. There were no neighbors anywhere near us. When Butch went into town in the early evening to give his English classes, Antonio and I spent a few hours together trying to communicate. My Spanish was almost non-existent at that time, but Antonio was convinced that I would understand him if he spoke louder. I am sure that our nightly conversations often echoed through the countryside. Antonio could neither read or write, but he had an innate talent for working with animals, and besides doing odd jobs in the campo, he also acted as a self-taught vet. He was the one people called upon when they had a sick cow or goat, and Antonio would brew up concoctions to cure them. 

The town of Velez was half an hour walk away, and to get there we had to cross a grassy field surrounded by barbed wire. We would sneak though an opening and walk the fifty yards to another opening nearer to the pueblo. Every now and then there would be a cow grazing there. We called her Vaca Brava (mean cow) because often, for no reason, she would decide to charge us and we had to run for our life and dodge under the barb wire fence before she got to us. Antonio found this to be very comical and belly laughed when we came back home with a Vaca Brava escape story. Vaca Brava was one of his patients that he never cured. He figured she had some kind of brain tumor that caused her to flip out like she did sometimes. He was probably right. Luckily she never caught me, but she came very close more than once. 

 One night Antonio came to me with a book of magical incantations he had gotten from a brujo in town. It was very special to him and something that no one else was to know about. He wanted to memorize them as he believed they would help protect him. He had lived through la Violencia, a very violent time in Colombian history, and he was very marked by it. I could read Spanish quite well since it is a very phonetic language. The incantations were a mixture of religious figures from Catholicism and deities from different ancient mythologies. This became part of our nightly sessions as he tried to commit them to memory. He was dedicated and determined in his endeavor. I wish there had been an incantation that would have protected me from Vaca Brava!

Every morning, Antonio and I had coffee in his rickety adobe kitchen, coffee that came from the bushes alongside his house. Once in a while a chunk of the mud roof would fall, narrowly missing one of us. This was occasion for another series of belly laughs from Antonio. He seemed to be fascinated by close calls. When my Spanish had improved some, Antonio decided we should exchange dreams at breakfast. He said they were very important and we should heed what they told us. Trying to describe my dreams proved to be an excellent way to improve my Spanish because I always wanted to hear what Antonio had to say about them. He was very insightful and I respected what he had to say, even if I did not understand him fully.

I was in Velez for Christmas that year, and Antonio and I found ourselves alone as Butch had gone off somewhere with his Colombian girlfriend. Antonio decided to make it special, so he took some of the little money that he had and bought a couple pieces of beef to roast over the fire. He also bought a couple bottles of chicha, an alcoholic home brew made of fermented corn. I went with him to get it and saw chickens running through the hollowed out logs where the chicha was kept. I knew there were going to be some sick days ahead for me, as Antonio bought two bottles of it. I could not refuse his hospitality, but I did pay for it dearly with a case of amoebic dysentery that knocked me for a loop and took a long to get rid of. But it was a very memorable Christmas with a very special friend.

I took the above photograph over fifty years ago and it is still as clear and crisp as the day I processed it. When I look at it, I can see him lift his slingshot to down one of the small bird that he hunted and ate frequently. Very small birds, but they were part of his self-sufficient life style. We were two people from very different worlds who were able to enjoy and learn from each other. I was privileged to have had a glimpse into the mysterious world of Don Antonio Hernández. His portrait is on the wall of my house in Corvallis, a fond reminder of days gone by and adventures lived.