Raw Cut | Rudi Krausmann | Travel Diary 8/9

From the church a rather elegant street but paved with cobblestones, passed boutiques, small galleries and restaurants, leads to the Zocalo. In Oaxaca it is beautifully situated and is the centre of social life. On three sides framed by outside Cafes, it branches out to another plaza where a church and the central post office stand opposite each other. A kiosk, the only one where one can obtain foreign newspapers, is placed in between. The Zocalo itself has trees, a garden with flowers and benches at the centre where everyone who cannot afford to sit in the Cafes can observe the everyday spectacle that takes place from morning till midnight. Under the shadow of the trees the shoe polishers have placed their chairs which look like thrones and where their position alone guarantees them a secure, above average income. While the tourists mainly occupy the seats on the terrace of the Cafes, Indians of all ages are selling hats, balloons, ponchos, baskets, wooden combs or even toothpicks. Suddenly I was thinking of the Zoco Chico in Tangier, a rectangular square in the Arab quarter, where the intellectuals and the mule drivers would sit side by side in the coffee houses sipping green tea. But there everyone was on guard, suspicion and tension pervaded the place. In Oaxaca the atmosphere was relaxed, tourists and locals were on easy terms. In the centre of the Zocalo was a podium where on weekends a brass band would play for general entertainment. This band had a big repertoire, and was capable of playing waltzers by Johann Strauss. It was understood of course that mainly the tourists were occupying the seats in the open air cafes and paid double the prize.
It did not take us long to find out what to do from Oaxaca. Most obvious was an excursion to Monte Alban, an archeological site 8 km outside of town. With temples, or rather the ruins of temples of an ancient civilisation, the Zapotecs and Mixtos, who had a highly developed culture 500-1000 years before the birth of Christ. To show to foreigners and to the Mexicans their own culture before the conquest was very much in vogue at the moment. It served two purposes. To reawaken the pride and interest of the Mexicans in their own 'real past' and bypass the humiliating years caused by the Spanish conquerors, while at the same time making hard currency from the tourists. Luckily the ruins of Monte Alban had the classical dimensions of the ancient Greeks and included tombs of some magnitude. Another question was how to get there? One could get a taxi and then hire a private guide. There was also a conducted tour in a VW-mini bus from the Hotel Presidente. A third possibility was to take the local bus early in the morning. The cheapest was to walk there and back, an option only some crazy German rucksack-tourist would take, something even the Indians would reject. The future members of the Fourth Reich only are capable of that, an American tourist told me. We decided to take the local bus, and had to walk at dawn across the town, into a suburb. Here we saw another side of Oaxaca, where old men sat on pavements staring at dirty puddles, where impoverished children were playing unattended. Like at the market, fresh meat was hung in the open, covered by flies. Some teenagers looked at us curiously, others with contempt. Even at this time, at seven o'clock in the morning, to walk in the sun would have been uncomfortable. The local bus was crowded mainly with Mexican tourists and the smell of sweat was penetrating. On the outskirts we saw very simple houses constructed of corrugated iron whose construction must have been done within a couple of hours. And further out, on the edge of the township hidden behind trees one could see mudhuts surrounded by chickens and goats. The rest of the landscape consisted of stones, dust and cactuses. When we finally walked around between the ruins of Monte Alban a Mexican boy of about 14 years approached us and said:
"Like fragmentos?" He was obviously hiding something in his fist.
"What kind of fragments?" I asked.
"Fragmentos of the gods."
"Show us."
"Secret," he whispered. And directed us towards the shadowy entrance of a tomb. When he opened his hand, I saw a broken piece of terra cotta showing the head of a tiger.
"Where did you get it from?"
"From earth, found by man working the land. Want buy?"
"How much?"
"Five thousand pesos." I offered him three. He asked for four. We agreed on three thousand and five hundred pesos. After all it was only a little over one American dollar. If the fragment was genuine, it would certainly have been worth it. When I had paid him, he took out from under his shirt a small figurine made of clay. This figurine did not look at all attractive, it looked like a pig standing on its hindlegs. The boy said it represented a god of the Zapotecs and he wanted 20,000 pesos for it. I offered 10,000 pesos and got it for twelve. As soon as this deal was fixed the boy disappeared. I stood there looking at this ugly figurine and wondered why I had bought it when a man well dressed and holding a sombrero in his hand whistled to me from the tomb. At first I thought he was a Mexican tourist. "Come back, I have something to show you," he said in a perfect, almost Oxford accent.
"What?" I replied and walked back to the entrance of the tomb. "An exquisite figurine made of jade." He waved indicating that I should return into the tomb. I had no intention and stayed at the entrance looking out for M who had moved on and was climbing some steps in the distance. The man comes closer and started to unwrap the figurine. I could see it represented a young girl. It looked well preserved and was exactly what I wanted.
"Where did you get it from?" I said to the man. He shook his head and replied: "I can't tell you." I assumed it was stolen and asked for the price. "300,000 pesos" If it was genuine it would have been cheap. He put it into my hand and said: "This young lady is very old, more than three thousand years." As I turned the figurine around between my hands I noticed some cracks in it, which made it even more desirable. But I could not believe that it was a genuine antique. Only to challenge him I offered 200,000 pesos.
"You can have it for 250,000 pesos in cash," the man replied and wrapped it up again. "I would not have this amount on me," I replied and stepped out into the sun.
"I come back with you to the hotel, do you stay at the Presidente?" "No, no!" I said, suddenly becoming suspicious, perhaps because he thought I could afford to stay in the Hotel Presidente. He followed me for a while, reducing the prize to 200,000 pesos, but I was determined not to buy. This time I had been lucky, at the museum of Monte Alban I was told everything sold in that manner is fake, and in the vicinity there was a factory producing nothing else than fakes for tourists. The genuine pieces were in the museum and could only be purchased with government approval.
Sitting in the museum cafe, we discussed what we had seen. We regretted not having hired a guide. At least we had an archeological record contained in a small booklet. It read:
'By 1200 AD city states or kingdoms, each composed of a few thousand people existed throughout Oaxaca Leaders lived in palaces constructed of stone. Craftsmen produced exquisite polychrome pottery. High status individuals obtained ornaments and tools of gold, silver and copper through exchange and the histories of elite families were recorded in pictographs in finely painted screen foldbooks.
In 1519 the Spanish conquerors arrived in what is now Mexico. Within a few years they subjugated most of Mexico's indigenous groups and introduced new economic, social and religious systems, Technically the pre-hispanic era had ended. Yet in Oaxaca native languages, customs and beliefs have persisted and are present today.'
I put on the table what I had purchased. A 'fragment of the god' and the little clay figurine which looked like a pig. M started to laugh. "Where did you buy this rubbish?" I pointed towards the ruins of Monte Alban. "It's all fake, were you aware of that?" "Mas o meño," I replied and we left it at that.
When I woke up in the Hotel Santo Tomas I felt happy without any reason. But the reason of course was Oaxaca. It is one of those towns -- there are not many left in this world, I could mention Venice and Salzburg perhaps -- which delights you on every corner by its beauty, diversity and vitality. Here, I thought, one could live without doing anything. Even the tourists relax after a few days. And fit into the scene as if they had been here from time immemorial. When I got up in the morning I made myself a cup of coffee -- M usually slept in -- and sat on the terrace. When I was in the mood I may jot down a few lines in my notebook, but it did not matter. Here, I felt nothing mattered, what a delightful feeling. The Indian boy was always around with a mop and a bucket of water cleaning the floor. Yet doing this monotonous job he was always cheerful. Every morning we had our ritual. I offered him an American cigarette and he dished up some Spanish words in return. It usually went like this:
"Buenas dias" He replied: "Buenas dias." I would say: "Come estas?" He would first grin and say: "Bien" Then I would try to tease him and say: "Que haces?" to which he always replied: "Lavoro, et usted?" I said: "Niente" and he laughed loudly. Then we repeated the same questions and answers in English. I told him I wanted him to learn a new English word every day, and for each new word he remembered he got a cigarette. He did not really care I think as he was inclined to forget some words he already knew. Therefore we did not really get very far but had always fun doing our morning ritual. Sometimes I wondered what he thought of the foreigners or 'gringos', who always had money and him who worked ten hours a day never had any. Did he think this unjustly or accepted the world as it is? I would have liked to discuss with him the Mexican revolution but our vocabulary was too limited.
One morning I set off alone in the direction to the Zocalo but then decided to make a detour into a side street not at all visited by tourists. Here one could see single men standing behind windows protected by iron bars, smoking and brooding. They looked as if they had imprisoned themselves in their own habitat, caught in the labyrinth of silence. They seemed to show no interest in what was happening in the streets but were fully preoccupied with themselves. Here nobody tried to sell anything and not even the dogs were barking. When I finally arrived at the Zocalo I came to sit beside a table with young German tourists. They were discussing prices and cheap hotels. Suddenly one tall blond girl stood up and shouted 'Scheiße' at her companions and a second time into the plaza. Then she ran away throwing over an Indian boy holding a bunch of balloons. Her group was discussing what to do next. "Sie ist verrückt, aber hat das Geld." (She is crazy but has the dough.) After they had left, I tried to read the Spanish newspaper (novedades) I had bought at the kiosk. The government was in trouble. There was high inflation, 30-40 percent and as a consequence the purchasing power of the worker had decreased in the last ten years to 50 percent. Yet life expectancy had doubled since 1910. In spite the revolutionary party still being in power, the economic and social problems were enormous. President Salinas was in trouble. Only the arts flourished, with Ruffino Tamayo having an exhibition in Moscow causing a sensation. As I looked up into the blue sky a wrinkled old man wearing a dirty torn sombrero and his clothes held together with plastic strings was humming a popular Mexican song into my ear, as if he were transmitting a secret. Then he stretched his open hand in front of my face. There was no way out except dropping a coin. He walks on from table to table doing the same thing. Nearly everyone drops a coin, and within 15 minutes he must have collected a reasonable amount of money. Before he leaves, he stops at the corner and chats with the ice cream vendor.
"Who is this humming bird?" I asked the waiter.
"He is one of the richest men of Oaxaca."
One morning after breakfast we started talking to two American girls who stayed in the same hotel with a child. Catherine, the mother of the child was vivacious, flirtatious and a chatterbox. When she talked she always had her eye on her little boy of two years, who looked sickly and still fell over when walking. Rowena, her friend, was tall and shy, she rarely talked and seemed to prefer to live in her own world. These two women had driven down from Alaska in a Volkswagen Campervan.
"We come here because we love it," Catherine said, "we work in the North and enjoy ourselves in the South. Viva la Mexico." Then she rushed off and fetched her child. Catherine had been in Mexico every winter in the last ten years and her little boy was even born here. For Rowena it was her first visit. Catherine told us that her son, Pedro, already owned some land in Oaxaca. "Is he half Mexican?" I asked. That was not the case, but the father, an American, lives in Mexico permanently. But you can only own land when you are born here. As a result the little Pedro was a landowner. Little Pedro had again escaped her and was running down the stairs. She told him to come back but he did not move. "Why don't you let him do for once what he wants to do?" Rowena said. "Like all men, I don't trust him." Catherine replied. That reply was followed with a little hysterical laugh. When I asked her later what she was doing in Alaska she said that she was cleaning the fish. I am sure she was taking me for a ride.
Next morning we set off together to Teotitandeyan, a weaving village about 40 km from Oaxaca, in Catherine's campervan. Little Pedro started crying when we hit the first hole in the asphalt road. Catherine put a dummy in his mouth. "I would like to know why he cries all the time?" she complained. "He is driving me crazy."
"Why don't you let him cry?" Rowena said.
"What do you mean?"
"If you let him cry, he will eventually stop by himself and perhaps never cry again.
"Rubbish," Catherine said and increased the speed.
From the road one could occasionally see a cart with a donkey or a man on a horse shadowed by a huge sombrero moving slowly between cactuses. We arrived in Teotitandean wrapped in a cloud of dust. The village houses had serapes hanging in front to attract customers. The atmosphere was relaxed and quiet except for the occasional motor bike or a horse galloping through on the dirt road. The children waved us into their houses where their parents or elder brothers and sisters were working on their looms. If one stayed long enough and showed interest in their weaving they offered a fruit drink. The designs of the carpets had mostly preconquest motives not unlike the decorations on the walls of temples. But one house already used contemporary designs. A wallhanging by Rubino Tamayo, a semi abstract of two Indian children, was one that M. became interested in. The weaver, Isaacs Garcias, an old man wearing rather worn out shoes, stood proudly in front of it. His initials had been woven into the artifact. When I asked him how much he wanted for it, he said: "Doscientos Dollares americanos." I offered him 150 dollars. But Isaacs Garcias only turned around and walked into the house. "Where are you going?" I asked. "Trabajar," he replied. He seemed not to be interested in bargaining.
"I must have this wallhanging," said M, "you should have offered him more."
"We come back later."
As we walked through the village it was Pedro, Catherine's son, who became the centre of attention. The villagers enjoyed just looking at him and invited him to play with their children. Finally a boy of about ten, barefooted, literally dragged us into a courtyard. There a very dignified elderly weaver was working on a huge tapestry. But for this work no longer the gods of the past gave the inspiration but the commission of a cigarette company to weave an advertisement. The tapestry was going to hang in the showroom of the factory, and its photographic image, with a French text, was going to be reproduced in the 'Journal Scientifique.' The commission, worth 5,000 American dollars was the highest a weaver had ever received in this village and enabled the recipient and his family to live comfortably for a year. It was enough to make him feel like a god, and to be treated with respect by everyone. While I leaned over trying to decipher the French text woven into the tapestry -- it praised the cigarette paper as the best in the world -- the 'master weaver' rolled himself a cigarette using of course the cigarette paper, he was weaving the advertisement for. A post-modern happening perhaps?
After a simple lunch in a tavern M purchased the Tamayo wallhanging from Isaacs Garcia for the price I had offered, 150 American dollars and Rowena had bought a classical Mexican carpet in black and white for half the price. On the return journey we made a stopover at an archeological site, called Yagu. It was situated behind rocks on top of a volcanic hill with a magnificent view over the valley. Among these barely visible ruins I felt more at home than in any modern city.
"Perhaps we should put our tents up here?"
"To do what?"
"To start life from the scratch again."
"I wish we could," said Rowena.
Instead, we left the site producing a cloud of dust from the mini bus as we drove off, later stopping on the way at a Mezcal tasting. It included a guided tour of this tiny factory, which only employed six people, four men and two women. The juice of the kernel of the cactus was pressed out by a stone wheel, still turned by an old horse. The fermented juice produced Mezcal, which we drank in the bar next door. Unfortunately it tasted hardly better than methylated spirits.
"Mezcal, not tequila, is the true drink of Mexico," said the barmaid.
"Why?"
"It's so pure, you can't mix it."
So we drank it purely and ended up with a headache.
In Oaxaca I can easily spend a few days without doing anything. Just walking in the streets and looking at life. In the evening it is pleasant to sit in an outside cafe at the Zocalo. It is not unusual that an American tourist will tell you everything there is to do in Oaxaca, to watch the folkdances at the Hotel Alban or to visit the excellent prehistoric museum curated by Ruffino Tamayo, for example, but mostly he or she will tell his or her life story. An elderly American had told us that he had come to retire in Mexico because he had a heart bypass with fifty-five.
"That was the signal to stop making money," he said.
"And why did you choose Mexico?"
"Because it is cheap and the young people still respect the old folks. But you have to watch out what you are doing here. I was at the point of buying a house near Mexico City close to a lake. Luckily I did not sign the contract because the whole damn lake was polluted. All I can say about Mexico is that at least, contrary to the States, you can still retire here in peace and have your shoes polished for less than a dollar."
Then the American mentioned all the countries he had visited in the last ten years, quite a lot, as he had been travelling continuously around the world. While he talked, a whole universe en miniature was passing in front of him, but he did not notice a damned thing. Finally he explained in detail his superannuation and insurance policies. He was one of these people who was always mentally absent from the place he was physically present. As we left, he gave us his last advice:
"Go to Quickly, it's only five minutes from here, they make the best Hamburgers in town."
Instead, we went to an exhibition of paintings by Laura Hernandez Rodriguez which consisted mainly of self-portraits. But in her self-portraits flowers and weeds were growing out of her eyes, ears, and mouth which gave them a surreal touch. In some of her other paintings she had painted herself copulating with dark sinister looking figures, perhaps devils. The sombre colours of her pictures created an atmosphere in stark contrast to everyday life. Her work aroused strong erotic feelings, alternating between desire and repulsion for the flesh. Somehow the artist intended to bring back the untamed forces of Mexico, forces which modern technological society had only covered superficially, but not buried. Ironically, the prices for these paintings were given in US dollars, ranging between one and seven thousand. The 30 years old artist from Oaxaca must have intended to sell them to tourists, and only a few were sold.

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