When i learned what mexico was all about

1.1. Of when I learned what Mexico was all about
by Lizette Rolland
November 1997
I was driving a 4x4, 1976 Van Ford. My group had just climbed one of the largest 'cerros' in a remote part of the Sierra Norte of Puebla, and I was driving the support vehicle. When I got to the top, I saw a few local men chatting outside what appeared to be some kind of a store. They all had an expression offun in their eyes, laughing among themselves every time they even looked at us. I knew what this kind of look ment, because it happens every time and everywhere in Mexico. To their eyes, we were a group of crazy nothing-else-to-do masochists who liked to suffer in the hills, fall down ostentatiously in the downhills, waste time and get dirty on mountain bikes for no good reason at all.
Every timesomeone from a small town sees us, has always the amazed, the "you-are-crazy" or the "you-are-stupid" kind of comment. I am still trying to understand why. Why is it so difficult for them to see our reasons to come to their places, take pictures like mads and just relax, in our very particular ways? One of my answers is that they simply don't belong to our culture. They have no reason tounderstand why we do things and how we do them. To feel what they probably feel towards us, I try to imagine I am one of them. I try to imagine I live with them and I try to think what I think they are supposed to think. I repeat that I only try, because so far I haven't been able to do much more... I realized that, even tough we live in the same country, we are thousands of miles apart. The differencebetween us is that, at least historically, we have never shown respect to them, and they have never treated us rudely.
A few moments later, one of them approached the van and asked me where we came from. He was carrying a wooden 'huacal' loaded with avocados that hanged with an ixtle 'mecate' from his head, a pepsi bottle filled with 'pulque' in one hand and a machete in the other one. He wasreally a tiny man, I guess no more than 1.40m. tall. The smile on his face was so clear and his eyes showed so much warmth I could tell he wasn't like the others. This man was a true indigena.
- We come from The City of Mexico" I said.
- Aaah........ and what you do?
- We just like to travel on our bikes and get to know different places, like this" I told him, ...you have no idea of how much we likethis place of yours. In the big cities, we live in such a rush that we must give time to ourselves doing things like this, or go nuts.
- Aaah........ He stood there, under his straw hat, as if meditating what I had just told him. Then, looking at the swarm of bikes lying in the middle of the road, he wanted to know what was our destiny.
- Zacapoaxtla, and then Cuetzalan.
- I'm going toOmetepec. Can you take me in the car, from here, 2 hours.
This man's attitude somewhat surprised me. He simply had nothing to say about us, non of the comments I'm so used to. Thinking about it, he just accepted us, no judgment, no "you are crazy and I know the true", no "right or wrong". He just took us as we were.
He got into the Van. He put his huacal in the back part of the van and kept hispulque with him. He sat on the co-pilot's seat, with his hat on and his feet hanging.
- My name is Don Miguel Vázquez Lucas, at your service.
- Mine is Lizette Rolland, a pleasure to meet you. Where are you coming from?
- I come from that hill" he said, pointing at a very steep hill to our left, "that I go there every day 'a patita' to pick up wood and look after my corn field... I go thereeveryday, doesn't matter the day, and I work all day eating my tortillas with avocado and drinking my pulque. I need no more than my tacos and pulque.
- For a change, would you like to try this granola bar (ironic, isn't it)? This is what we eat when we travel on our bikes. It is suppossed do be special for exercise... do you know what kind of trees are these?
He started telling me what kind of...