Barbara Joan Schaffer

Barbara Joan Schaffer

CATEMACO: WITCHES, BABOONS, AND MEL GIBSON

The brujo (sorcerer, male witch) told me the cards never lie. The cards said I would have no money problems. The brujo was impressed. I guess he doesn’t see too many people with well-vested pension funds. He also saw no health issues, but health has never been a major concern. “What about love?” I asked. “What about the man who’s waiting for me in the other room?” He placed more cards in front of him. I see good cards and I see bad cards, he said. Again no surprise. Maybe I’d used up all the good cards with money and health. At least I wasn’t going to go broke or make myself sick while suffering the consequences of an on-again off-again affair. Then as if to give me consolation, almost as an afterthought, he said, ”I do see a new man in your future”. No news on how that will play out.

It was already dark, when we drove into Catemaco on our way back to Puerto Escondido from Veracruz. Catemaco is famous for its brujos, but we didn’t realize they would be so easy to find. Immediately upon entering the town a man on a motorcycle signaled us to stop. He presented us with his badge, as if he were a policeman, and told us he was an agent of the town’s office of tourism. He would help us to find a hotel and make any other arrangements we might require. And, by the way, would we like to see a brujo? Brujos only do consultations on two days of the week and as luck would have it today was one of them.

Take us to a witch, we said, and the man on the motorcycle led us to a storefront that might well have served as dentist’s office. The sign painted next to the door said “Brujo”. At this point our guide left us in the care of another citizen who would take us to a hotel and charter a boat for us to take a three-hour tour of the laguna the next morning. My companion, the citizen, and I then took seats in a well-lit, unadorned waiting room. After around five minutes I was ushered in to see Hector Betaza Dominguez, aka “El Cuervo” (The Crow). The room was so dark that I had trouble finding the chair in front of the table where The Crow was seated. As my pupils dilated I was able to make out that the walls were entirely covered with occult images such as six-pointed stars, stuffed birds and other animals, and plaster statues of saints. Already I felt I was getting my money’s worth; the consultation cost two hundred pesos, almost $20.00 U.S.

Hector, as he called himself, turned out to be a very well spoken, even urbane, good-looking man of around 40. He asked what had prompted me to consult him, and I said I was just curious to see a witch. He accepted that and proceeded to have me shuffle and cut a well-worn pack of Tarot cards. After the reading he asked me where I lived. When I told him Puerto Escondido, he lost his professional aloofness and asked if I knew so-and-so, a Canadian who lived there. I didn’t. I wound up giving him my phone number so he could look me up the next time he was in town.

Besides witches, Catemaco is famous for its monkeys. Thirty-two stump tailed macaques (commonly called baboons, although not true baboons) were brought from Thailand to an island in the laguna by the University of Veracruz in 1974 for behavioral research, and, for all I know, they may still be the object of study. (There’s a paper on the Internet about this colony’s matrilineal grooming patterns.) The monkeys, being no fools, have established themselves as a thriving tourist attraction. The primatologists are not happy about this. They would prefer that the two species (theirs and ours) remain separate, a condition not observed in their native Asian habitat where the macaques regularly pillage crops and even enter humble, rural dwellings. They too have discovered the benefits of agriculture.

We had given our guide a few pesos to buy bananas before we set out in the launch for the tour of the laguna. When we approached Monkey Island, the high point of the trip, we threw the bananas to the front of the boat where the monkeys scampered for their treats. Forewarned by the boatman, we clutched our possessions. The monkeys are known to steal. Seeing Thai monkeys in the wild, as it were, in rural Mexico is not unlike coming across, say, a colony of Welsh people in the Patagonian boonies or a Basque community in Bakersfield, California. In other words, they are inbred and somewhat out of synch with their environment, but they have also found a niche for themselves in which they more or less flourish.

I ask the boatman if any of the monkeys has ever escaped. He tells us that one or two of them once made it off the island to the coast. They were captured, but they couldn’t be brought back to the island again lest they tell their compatriots. Who knows what ecological havoc they could wreak if they colonized the countryside? Of course it would be nothing compared to what our primate family has already done; I wish the monkeys luck.

During our brief stay in Catemaco we were treated to yet another trans-national rarity; Mel Gibson was in the area to make a film about the Maya. We didn’t see Mel but we did have dinner at the hotel where some of his crew was staying. Outside of Mexico City, I’d never seen young Australians and Americans without suntans. But here they were in all their whiteness attached to their laptops which were plugged into new sockets in the restaurant’s columns. It was impossible to tell if they were editing videos, playing video games, or instant-messaging their friends or co-workers. What they were was intense and oblivious of their surroundings; they sprawled in their chairs in the manner of long-legged college students, only acknowledging their own existence and that of their peers, as if the restaurant - one of the best in town - was the office of an Internet start-up. What would happen if any of these exotic primates escaped? I wondered. Would they go native or would they infect the natives with their technology and single-mindedness? At the moment they were just another tourist attraction.

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Barbara Joan Schaffer

A COCKFIGHT IN THE BARRA DE COLOTEPEC

Two fighting gamecocks embracing in the air, their feathers ruffled and erect, appear to be one mythical bird of outstanding beauty or the archetype for a kung-fu movie.

Cockfights are one of the features of Mexican holiday celebrations, and I attended my first one in May at the fiesta in the Barra de Colotepec. It was better and worse than I had expected. I’d seen cockfights in films where they’d seemed rather sinister and tawdry events, but I had Mexican friends in the States who were perfectly nice people who had raised gamecocks. So was it family fun or a macho guy thing? Cruelty to animals or animals having fun? And would I experience an adrenaline rush by betting on a rooster?

The palenque (cockfight arena) was a patch of dirt circled by portable wooden barriers just the right height and width to set a plate or a bottle of beer on if you were sitting on a folding chair in the front row, as my party and I were. The venue was a farm on the riverside. A cow was grazing under a tree, the river flowed gently and the mosquitoes were everywhere frolicking happily. Admission was 70 pesos. We got there way too early, around 5:30, but we did get great seats and were able to buy some really good barbequed stew for 30 pesos. We watched as the cocks were taken out of their traveling cartons and put in their cages.

My first surprise was how beautiful the cocks were: the colorful plumage was to die for. They looked nothing like barnyard roosters. I know these animals have been bred for generations for their aggressiveness, not something you want to see in a hen house, and maybe their feathers, which male birds display for females, reflected their pugnacity.

Of course, no bird in the wild could ever be as well fed or groomed as these were. If they are good they may live to fight three or even four times, after which they are put out to stud.

Around 8 p.m. the weigh-in began. A veterinarian weighs each cock, tags a number to its leg and puts on the spurs. There are three weight groups and cocks only fight inside their category. Ten breeders were represented. Each was given a number. The number and the name of the ranch were written on a large sheet of paper and each of these papers was posted around the ring. Then there was a drawing to determine which cocks within each weight category would fight with which. It was also announced that if any breeder lost both fights in the first two rounds he would be disqualified from participating in the final two rounds. I don’t know if this rule was to limit the number of fights or if it’s to assure that the breeders didn’t save their best birds for last.

When the first fight was finally announced, the two cocks were brought out by their trainers on opposite sides of the ring. They were held lovingly and then allowed to strut so we could see their gait. Then they were picked up and confronted with a teaser or prep cock which the referee brought around to show the spectators how aggressive they were.

Now it was time to place a bet. We had thought the wagers would be 200 pesos, but the minimum on the first fight was 400 pesos - too rich for our blood. The man in charge of collecting the bets did not disappoint. He was straight out of the movies I’d seen: thin, middle-aged, wasted, bored, but still devilishly handsome. When we told him we’d pass on this fight he went into a rap right out of B. Traven about life being short, too short not to take a chance. It was not very convincing, but it was nice to hear. Pedro, the lone Mexican in our party of four and the only one who knew anything about cockfights, urged us to bet on green - the cock was experienced, the breeder and trainer well known, but even so we demurred. Green won.

Betting is very simple; each cock in each fight is designated as either green or red. You just bet on the color. The problem is that each bet has to be matched; there are no odds. Following Pedro’s advice we decided to bet on green in the second round, but no one was betting on red and our bet wasn’t taken. Or, better said, whenever someone bet on red, the green bet was given to someone else. We were being punished for not having bet before.

Meanwhile the palenque had filled up. There were at least 100 people, families with children, groups of teenage girls, some with boyfriends, boys and men of all ages. It became unbearably hot; everyone was wiping their brows.

Pedro had explained that experienced cocks were a safer bet than novices. After each fight, the birds, if they survived, were stitched up and nursed back to health with the help of specialist veterinarians. So he counseled us to bet on the veteran in the third round, who happened to be green again. But they weren’t accepting any bets on green. “On the other hand,” Pedro said, “Red looks good. I like the way he keeps his feet together when he jumps in the air.” So John, a surfer from Colorado, and I each put up 200 pesos and bet on Red.

It was a long drawn-out combat, all on the ground, and it was obvious early on that Red had no chance. Every once in a while the fight would stop, the trainers would smooth their bird’s feathers and then it would start again. There was a count, and Red stayed down. But still the fight was not over. Red’s owner would not admit defeat. The cocks were put in the chalked-off circle in the middle of the ring. Green didn’t have much fight left in him either, but he did manage to knock Red down again for another count. The crowd was subdued; people don’t cheer on the competitors in cockfights as they do in boxing matches or horse races. This time Red’s head was on the ground for the count of ten. The bet collector came around and picked up the four hundred pesos which had been sitting on the barrier in front of us all the while. He didn’t say a word. We left soon after; we had no more money to bet and it was very, very hot.

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Barbara Joan Schaffer

OAXACA: THE TEACHERS IN AUGUST

October 29, 2006

The five-and-a-half-month occupation of the historic center of Oaxaca by teachers and various groups demanding the resignation of the governor ended today when thousands of federal police in full body armor, carrying assault rifles, marched in phalanxes supported by helicopters, tanks and water cannons to regain control of the access roads to the city and finally retake the Zócalo (the town square). Earlier in the week the teachers had voted to go back to work thus ending a strike begun in mid-May, leaving the anti-government movement in the hands of a popular front organization called APPO (Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People).

I spent a week in Oaxaca at the end of August, and on September 1, I saw the Fifth Megamarch of SNTE, sección 22 (the Oaxacan branch of the National Union of Education Workers) and APPO. The photos on this page were taken between August 27 and September 1.

I don't pretend to understand what I observed. The occupation of the historic center of Oaxaca has been compared to the Paris Commune of 1871. But in this case the communards were a mixture of middle class professionals, students, workers, peasants and indigenous political groups. Buses and police cars were commandeered to make barricades, radio stations were taken over, government buildings closed, there was graffiti painted on the cathedral, and tourism came to a grinding halt depriving that sector of millions of dollars in lost revenues. On August 29, Standards and Poor lowered Oaxaca's bond rating because of the anticipated tax shortfall.

Think of pictures of the soldiers in the trenches during World War I. Think of hours, days of boredom punctuated by sporadic activity. By the end of August the teachers had been camping out in the Zócalo for three and a half-months. The women worked on their embroidery, the men played cards. People talked on their mobile phones.

When I arrived on Saturday August 26 the Zócalo seemed abandoned. There were banners everywhere, but very few people. The adjoining streets were also largely deserted. Sunday was the same. Had I not stayed longer I would have assumed the protests were over. Monday, however, was business as usual for the occupying army. Hundreds of APPO people filled the Zócalo, the public health workers sitting under their plastic tarp, the Communists under theirs and so on. Some of the side streets were assigned to the teachers, others to APPO, but all were filled with protesters calmly going about their business of just being there.

As a veteran of many protest marches and rallies, I had expected more of a circus. At the very least people handing out fliers, singing, speeches. What I found were schoolteachers and health workers, people who are temperamentally conservative, people with a lot of self-control.

I would walk up to an encampment, introduce myself as a retired American teacher, and ask permission to take pictures. Then I would try to engage them in conversation about the protests. I was hoping that I might be directed to an information center. There was none and most of the teachers although polite were understandably not interested in talking to me; I might well have been a spy.

By virtue of getting lost walking back to my hotel, a mile from the Zócalo, I encountered a group of teachers sitting on a traffic island under the shade of large tree. The street was barricaded by a municipal bus. (I use the term teachers loosely, because the teachers' union includes administrators and support staff.) These protesters were a friendly group and were happy to answer my questions. I met with them over the course of three days.

My first question was how they justified closing the schools and depriving the children of an education. They told me of the misery of rural Oaxaca, children coming to school hungry, the lack of school supplies, the arcane system by which parents have to pay tuition at schools that are supposed to be free. (There are scholarships for poor families. Think of how community colleges are run in the States.) They said that as the most organized sector of the community they felt they had the moral responsibility to fight for the interests of the poor. Truly, the teachers do represent the poor in that middle class families send their children to private schools.

On the second day they invited me to lunch at the Finance Ministry, which the teachers and APPO had closed down. The building was locked, but the parking lot had been turned into a mess hall. We stood on line, cafeteria style, took a paper plate, and were served chicken with beans, tortillas and tamarind juice. That day's food had been donated. Other days the teachers paid. After lunch we used the facilities - a row of toilets that were outside the ministry building. It was just like being in school.

The Oaxacan teachers union took its present shape in 1980 when it managed to wrest the organization from its old guard leadership which the teachers considered corrupt and undemocratic. It was a difficult struggle and in the end the Oaxaca branch of the National Union of Education Workers was the most radical in the country. I marveled at the level of organization and discipline that the occupation revealed and required, and I was told that it was the result of 26 years of protests. It has become a yearly ritual in Oaxaca for the teachers to go on strike in May and camp out in the Zócalo and for the government to reach an agreement before the school year begins in August. This year, however, the government did not play by the rules. First the governor refused to meet with the union. Then in the early morning of June 14, he sent the police into the Zócalo. The protesters were tear gassed on the ground as helicopters flew overhead. From that moment the teachers' demands for salary increases changed to the demand that the governor, Ulises Ruíz Ortíz, resign. A few days later APPO was formed as an independent organization in support of the teachers.

Ruíz Ortíz belongs to the PRI, the party that ruled Mexico for 70 years but is now in third place in national politics. The leftist PRD party swept the state of Oaxaca in 2006, wresting most national assembly seats and a senatorship from the PRI. The governor was elected in 2004 by a very narrow margin. His opponent, who was elected to senate in 2006, had the backing of both the PRD and the right-wing PAN (the party of President Fox).

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