A recent event has provided the impetus for considerable soul-searching over actions and beliefs of Americans.
The event took place only last week, involving an eight-day experience in central Mexico.
This trip has convinced me that Americans generally, the “haves,” are anthropocentric enough to believe everyone should be just like us–and as soon as possible.
We toured with other Americans and were led by a Chihuahuan-born guide and took the famous train ride into Copper Canyon, an area inhabited by an indigenous group, the Tarahumara Indians.
In spite of the beauty and majestic scenery, I was at once charmed, moved and disturbed by the poverty of its inhabitants. Ironically we stayed in resort hotels that list $250 a night (considerably discounted because of the size of the group and the off-season rates), while touring homes (caves) inhabited by people whose gross annual income may not be $250. Because the “hosts” receive a modest stipend for allowing Americans to tour their homes, our visit is a part of their income.
Cañon de Cobre, hailed as four times larger than our Grand Canyon, is home to some 60,000 Tarahumara Indians, a reclusive group which has resisted western ways. Living as they did centuries ago, men work in the fields while women make woven goods, pine-needle baskets and woodwork. Many of the homes are caves.
The contrast between how we live and how the people we visited in the canyon live is startling. One of our trips took us through roads that only drivers of four-wheelers would attempt. By prior arrangement, we entered the home of a Tarahumara Indian whose handiwork was displayed on the cave floor. Obviously, several in the group wanted to know where the family–the parents and four toddlers–sleep, cook and congregate. As far as we could tell, the family sleeps in the open.
We learned that the drought that has plagued the western U.S. dried up a creek where they got their water. Now it is necessary to take a trek to town, water bottles in hand, about eight miles away. Devoid of motor vehicles, these strong but gentle people often walk many miles a day.
Our driver took us as far as a four-wheeled vehicle could, to a settlement surrounded by mushroom-like rocks. Instantly, about 20 boys, most under 5, appeared. Though the Tarahumaras have their own language, one Spanish word they know well is “peso.”
Wishing to instantly improve the lot of the Tarahumara, several tourists whipped out dollar bills (one dollar equals about 11 pesos). Alfredo, the guide, similarly was beset by children begging. He flatly told them he’d give them money only in exchange for goods. He gave us in the group the same admonition: “Don’t make beggars out of them.”
As difficult as it was at the time, I stopped giving money after I’d parted with about 15 singles. Alfredo told us that previous visitors to the area have been all too willing to give money to the youngsters, rendering it unnecessary for any of them to attempt to barter, to sell a woven basket or sash.
Although there surely was litter in the pre-Columbian Americas, Western influence has taken hold. The heretofore breath-taking Sierra Madres, filled with tall pine and ponderosa, are now dotted with plastic bags of the Wal-Mart variety, floating in the breeze.
Tarahumara women wear brightly colored dresses and head-bands. Men used to wear loincloths; now they dress more like cowboys, with blue jeans, long-sleeve shirts and western hats.
We visited a mission school located only eight miles away from town, as the crow flies, but nevertheless a 45-minute drive. Well into the trip, the driver noticed a mother and son toting empty water bottles. He communicated with them in Spanish and invited them to jump into the back of the pickup for a ride to the nearest highway. After several miles, the boy banged on the truck cab signalling that they wanted to get out and hitch a ride in a different direction. They jumped out of the pickup, never exchanged a word, never looked back, and went searching for another ride.
We asked Evan, our driver, why the couple had started their walk to town so late in the day. We reasoned that if it took two more hours to walk to town, it would be dark before they returned home. Evan explained that the pair probably had begun the trip as early at 7 a.m., as they lived perhaps 30 miles from where they got the first ride.
A tight-knit, reclusive culture, the Tarahumaras continue to exist, perhaps because of their refusal to become assimilated into Western culture. T.S. Eliot’s words, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” come to mind. Money is a convenient, impersonal way of handling issues. As Americans, we sometimes can’t help but feel that money, pure and simple, will help others to live the way we do, but is that the best of all possible worlds? — (The tour was sponsored by Elderhostel, guided by a Mexican resident, Alfredo Murrillo. It was designed for educational purposes and for sight-seeing and was not intended to effect changes or to provide succor to the residents of the canyon.)