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THINGS YOU LEARN, SKILLS YOU USE A hilariously entertaining account of adapting to life in a new country. |
THINGS YOU LEARN, SKILLS YOU USE
It is not that odd that I should end up here, and be happy in this village of around 1,500 people. It’s like stepping back in time some 40 years.
They say there are around 4,000 people here, but that is baloney. Three quarters of the men and boys over 18 work out of the village: in the
US, Merida, or Cancun, and are seldom if ever home. So let’s call it around 1,500 inhabitants, max 2,000. Damn metropolis compared to where
I started life, in a sawmill camp in eastern Oregon. That camp town still exists, but the sawmill doesn't. My young sister and I were raised in
this tiny town for my first 6 years. We left shortly before my 7th birthday to move to the “huge” town of John Day so I could attend school.
John Day had 1,555 people. I think they counted people’s grandmothers and cats and dogs too back then.
The sawmill camp had, besides the mill: our house, the office next door, a red cottage where my grandparents came to stay at times, the
repair shop across the mill lot, and an old trailer house where Jonah lived. They said Jonah was a sort of witch, had mystic powers they said.
I liked him. He once gave me a great big doll that I had forever. Next to him was a tiny house where Art and Golee lived. Golee made the
best pickles in the world, and I loved to go to her house, especially when there was a card game going on. Golee smoked and drank with the
best of them and I thought she was great. On the other side of the highway there were about 4 mill houses and the cookhouse. Alberta and
George lived in one of these houses and they were like second parents to me. Alberta taught me “manners”, consisting mostly of “ladies don’t
do that, Kristine”, she would say in her eastern Oregon twang, and how to use a chamber pot when it was too cold and dark to go to the
outhouse. OUR house had an inside bathroom.
Up in the town itself there was a saloon called The Watering Hole, a post office, the US Forest Service building, a grange hall where they had
dances and meetings, and 2 grocery stores with a gas pump out front of each, one across the road from the other. Stratons and DeMeyers.
I think it depended on which way you were going, where you’d stop. They were both the same. A one room, high ceilinged, if-you-can-find-it,
you-can-buy-it kind of store. Just like those here in the village. There was also a church, the white pointy-spire kind, where the Reverand
Pickthorne officiated. He used to flap around in a big black sort of rain coat affair, skinny as a scarecrow, and I thought he was the devil
himself. I sure didn't like him.
Our house was right by the log pond where they would dump the logs and some guys would jump on these floating logs and pole them towards
the moving meshed teeth log chute that ran into the pond. They used a barbed pole to do this, and once in the mouth of the chute the mesh
would catch the bark and drag the log into the sawmill to be sawn up into boards. It was here that I learned to swear so well. They had a
language all their own, especially when it was cold and one fell into the pond. You heard some great things then. It was better than pulling
the heads off my mothers’ flowers, which she didn't like at all. I got my mouth washed out with soap a lot though, learning those pond
monkey’s language. That’s what they were called, pond monkeys. Agile as heck, jumping from log to log. The men who built my house
down here would later bring that memory to mind, as they clamored around on their flimsy pole and 2x12 scaffolding, raising the concrete
block walls of my house. They swore beautifully too.
Since I was the only kid until my sister came along two years later, and a girl at that, I had to learn the rules of the world of men. There aren't
too many, but if you wanted to be where the action was, with the men, you had to learn these rules well:
A) You do not fidget. Men hate fidgeters;
B) You do not get hungry or thirsty, unless they say you can. If you don’t fidget, they forget about you anyway;
C) You never have to go to the bathroom. Men have different equipment and there usually isn't a bathroom anyway, at least not one
you’d want to use;
D) Always take some SMALL something to do or play with. It can’t make any noise or get in the way. A book is good. Men can talk for
a long time, and you might get bored;
E) And last, don’t NEVER whine. Men hate whiners ‘bout more than anything.
If you knew these rules, you could go in the office anytime you wanted. You could learn some great things there, but “you never told nobody
what you heard, NEVER”.
These rules have served me well down here. At church weddings, baptisms, school meetings, waiting in the bank, waiting in the hardware
store, waiting in government offices. Waiting. It’s the same.
One of my other favourite places growing up, besides the office, was the mill itself. I loved to sit on the sawyers’ lap as he raced back and
forth sitting on a moving platform, gauging how many boards he could cut out of each log. Watching for hidden knots that could flip the log
up in the air, watching this huge saw make boards out of a tree. I loved the smell of the pine. I hated it years later when it would all go
mechanical. Push a button and the log would be calculated, flipped, and sawn, all by itself.
When we moved to the larger town, we all got horses. Just about everybody rode, at least on the hill where we lived. You were in 4-H, you
went to the rodeos, you rode in parades, you practiced “stake and barrel”, along with “thread the needle”, on horseback. You knew how to
ride bareback using just a hay rope for a bridle, or you weren't “in”. I have pictures of the 4 of us sisters, (we are 4 by now), lined up like
stair steps, in our “rodeo outfits”: jeans, boots, cowboy hats, pearl snap button cowboy shirts. DAD took us shopping at Farrells every year
at rodeo time. Pretty spiffy, we were. Not as good as the REAL cowgirls, a ‘course. They lived on ranches. We were just town girls so we
had to learn sewing and cooking, “manners”, junk like that. You also grew up learning to drive a stick shift, none of this automatic crap. First
it was the old Willy's jeep with the choke button on the floor, later the big Chevy pick-up, with 4 gears. You couldn't use the emergency brake
on a hill either. That was cheating, unless it was a REAL emergency. You killed the engine when Dad told you to, and started it again without
rolling back, or adios trying for your driver's license. Mother made you practice parking between barrels in the empty lot next to the house
until you could do it in your sleep. She gave you about a 5 inch tolerance on either end, 6 inches max from the imaginary curb, and it had to
be straight as an arrow. And you had to do it in one shot. Back in, pull forward. That’s it. None of this jockeying back and forth stuff. Try
doing that in a mammoth ’63 Buick station wagon! These skills would all serve me well down here, as I would later demonstrate to Santiago
on the San Francisco-like cobblestone streets of Zacatecas and Tlaxcala, in the interior part of the country. I know exactly how wide my car
is, and how powerful for passing buses on narrow winding roads that are the norm down here. And I have taught Santiago everything I know.
You can’t learn to drive on hairpin mountain roads on the mostly flat Yucatan Peninsula. This skill would come slowly to him as we travelled
up through Chiapas and Oaxaca, and down from around Mexico City through Orizaba to Catemaco - sinuous narrow mountain roads, cloud
laden, where he would learn about black ice too, almost too late. Not too much ice driving in the Yucatan!
All of which is why it was ridiculous for Papí, Santiago’s father, to worry incessantly about me driving alone between here and the next larger
village, a mere 15 K away. But then, he didn't know any of this about me. Women didn't drive here outside the cities, especially not a
standard stick shift, and not in this village. But I did. Even when I bought the pick-up truck, the men at the agency flipped coins to see who
would have the bad luck to go with the crazy Gringa while she test drove the truck, appalled to learn that Santiago didn't drive.
I have thought in later years that maybe the village has accepted me, kept me around, for entertainment purposes. I remember when I was
watching the men building the house, laboriously cutting the boards to make various concrete forms, with an old sawblade rigged through a
frame of bent steel re-bar. No one had a drill pistol either. On our next trip to Merida, I bought a drill, various sized bits, and a small skill saw,
all of which I knew how to use. I proceeded to plug in the saw and show them how much faster and easier it was to cut boards this way and
even cut various angles. Santiago’s father was horrified, certain I would cut my hand or arm off. Not with a father like mine, you wouldn't. He
owned a sawmill and got 4 girls, so he just taught us how to do all the “boy stuff” anyway. Run a chain saw, buck up wood, split kindling, work
outboard motors, use drill presses, work a two man cross cut saw, change flat tires. Now, give me a machete and I am completely helpless.
There I COULD cut my leg off, not like the girls here who wield them as handily as we would a chain saw. Depends on your training.
So over the years, I would continue to shock the people here, put nicely, with the things I could do. But nobody knew I could ride a horse.
This is not horse country like some parts of the peninsula .
Every year in April, the “corrida” begins here in the village. These are the local bullfights. Funny, corny ones, not the least bit formal nor
professional. It’s a 5 day diversion from everyday life, with almost mandatory attendance by everyone. “Pack up the babies and grab the
old ladies, and everyone goes,” as Neil Diamond sings. The corrida begins with building the corral ring itself. This is built by a group of
men, as association, with each man being responsible for building, and charging admittance for, his section. Since brother Max is one of
the “socios",(associates), we have ring side seats. Over the course of 2 to 3 days, each man, (and his brothers and friends), will go out
into the hills and cut poles to build their section, the whole thing being a beehive of male activity and beer, a hodge podge of poles, planks
for the chair seating section, thatch roofing -at least part of the arena anyway- coming together section by section to form an arena of sorts.
The low rent district, the cheap seats, are the ground level, separated from the actual bull and horse riders by a lattice work of thin poles.
Not much protection there, part of the thrill. The second level is reached by climbing a pole ladder, (don’t be wearing a skirt here!), at the
back of each guy's section, where you will find crammed together tiny chairs to sit on, and a front part where you sit, legs dangling down into
the arena itself. You need to be able to pull your legs up quickly, if you choose this area. You are at about horn level. The “vaqueros”, the
cowboys, come from the surrounding area, and so do the bulls, who mostly stand around wondering how they got into this mess anyhow. I
have yet to see more than a few actually charge anything, but there is always the hope it will happen. The “toreadors”, (I am being generous
with the term here), mostly stand around nervously flapping a piece of red cloth at the bull and run like hell for the nearest wool shield to hide
behind at the slightest movement of the poor bewildered beastie bull.
The corrida begins about 4 in the afternoon and lasts, amidst the dirt and the dust and intense April heat, until 7PM. It can start earlier, and
it can go longer. Towards the end, after some 50,000 caguamas, (quart sized bottles), of beer have been drunk, someone is sure to jump,
(or fall), into the ring to prove how brave he is. Mostly though, it’s the cowboys show. There are way too many of them crowded into the
small ring, flinging their lassos, trying to rope the bulls horns and drag it out of the ring when the people get bored of watching it stand
around. Any eastern Oregon small town rodeo is more exciting than this, but the crowd loves it anyway. The horses are mostly small and
uninteresting to me, but occasionally you see a real beaut. A Wow of a horse. Big, powerful, prancing and snorting around, and then I wake
up and take interest. Which is what got me into trouble some years ago.
The horse was tremendous, especially for a horse down here. He moved beautifully and took perfect commands, and looked like he could
do a lot more than the rider was asking of him. Big brute of a cowboy too, using way too much power over what the horse needed. I had a
horse a little like that once. Big quarter horse, stubborn as a mule, needed a spade bit, trained cow cutting horse, could sit down on a dime.
Just sat on his haunches, boom. If you weren't prepared for it, you’d go zinging off into space, right over his head. My father didn't want me
to have that horse, but I finally convinced him I could handle it. My sister was the horse rider, not I. I loved that horse. “Ichabod Dictamiker
Mortifer Ignacious”, I named him. Big Strawberry Roan. My mother called him “Icky”. He wasn't a very pretty horse, but the one here was,
and it was a roan too.
The corrida was winding up and I had sent the girls on ahead home with Grandma Carmen. I was waiting for Santiago, but he was off with
his buddies gossiping; everyone comes home for the corrida, so I decided to leave. At that time, the corrida was still held in the village
plaza, 5 blocks from our house. As I set off walking, the big roan came out of the arena and I said to the rider without thinking, “Nice horse”,
in Spanish. The vaquero, thinking I was just another tourist, said something insulting in Mayan, which I chose to ignore and began to walk
on. Suddenly the vaquero is being verbally accosted by several voices, belonging to…my family. Brother Max’s voice is unmistakable.
It has a quality and timbre that you can hear for blocks, let alone yards. Max has overheard this insult. Max is my great buddy. We ironed
out our differences years ago, and I have just been insulted. I turn around and there is a phalanx of about 7 men, family and friends, all
well tanked up and determined to defend my honor. I tell them, "really, it’s no problem, I’m headed home". Not good enough. I am
detained, Santiago is sought, the owner of the horse is dragged out of the cantina... NOW what have I done?
This degenerates rapidly to: “She can’t ride this horse!” the vaquero says. “I didn't ask to”, I reply, “I just said that it was a beautiful horse!”
“Well you couldn't ride it!” “I didn't ASK to ride it!”, I say. Santiago intervenes, as old vaquero and I trade glares, and start talking to the
owner in rapid Mayan, which I can’t follow. People HAD been streaming out of the arena, going home. Now some are drawn back, there’s
some excitement here. Santiago finally turns and asks me in English, “You can ride this big horse?” He has only seen me ride once, in
Belize, a trail ride which he barely survived. Horse rider, he is not. I reply, “Yes, I can ride that horse, but what’s the point?” He says, “the
owner says if I sign a paper saying I not kill him if you dead, you can ride.” Oh great. I sigh and start to explain once again that I didn't ask
to ride the horse, when I see Max and Antonio’s faces. This has become a challenge. It looks like family honor is at stake here, through
my witless comment. “Alright, I’ll ride the horse.” “You sure you can?”, he asks. "Yes".
By now, this horse is wired. And he looks like one of those horses who would just love to take a chomp out of your rear as you mount. As
the cowboy flings me the reins, I notice the spade roller bit and wish myself a little bit of luck here, tighten up the right rein so the horse can’t
take a chunk of my buns while I make a speedy mount. This is a big horse. Gotta be 16 hands, which means his back is slightly over my
head standing on the ground. Someone yells, “You can’t ride like that “, meaning I have no jeans, boots, nor chaps. I have on Bermudas
and huarache sandals, thin leather soles, no heel. They are right, my feet could slip straight through the stirrup, smooth leather on smooth
leather. I kick off the huaraches and pitch them to Santiago - better to go barefoot. The owner tells me I am limited to the corral/arena only.
Fine by me. So we enter. People are now streaming back in. My little nephew is calling, “Tia, Tia! Tia’s going to ride!”, wild with excitement.
The horse is responding well, but he is hyper and nervous, as am I, so we just canter around, checking to see which commands - foot, rein,
and voice - he responds to. He changes leads beautifully, switching easily from one leg leading to the other. Stops perfectly, like I thought.
Sits right down on his butt. This is what you need when you have roped a calf and are scrambling off to flip it and tie it’s feet. The horse
needs to keep that rope taut, and may have to back up to do so. I vaguely wonder who trained this horse. By now, horse and I have
forgotten the crowd and are having fun. We do some old parade, 4-H stuf f- sidestepping, prancing. I wonder if he will back up? He does.
I shorten the reins and put them around this huge Chiapan style pommel - big as a dinner plate - and signal to back up, put my hands
behind my back, while the horse backs up across the arena. The kids go nuts. This is better than the circus! We better do a finale and
end this. This horse wants to run and so do I, so we get as far out of the arena as possible and I get ready, lean suddenly forward, jab him
with my bare heels, and he springs forward like a loaded juggernaut, going like thunder for the other side of the corral. Just as it looks as if
we will crash through the other side, I pull back hard on the reins, and he sits on a dime. What a great horse! We canter slowly back across
the arena, and drop to a walk. I dismount, hand the reins to the owner and say, “Gracias, muy amable”. Thanks, that was nice of you, and
walk towards home. It will be a block later that I remember my sandals.
I don’t know how much money was won off that little scene, but the family was certainly happy. The owner of the horse will come the next
year to ask Santiago if I am going to ride again, they have a horse that I CAN’T ride this time. A real mean one. Turns out I’m meaner. We
will ride for over an hour and a half through the dirt streets of the village, flying like the wind, not restricted to the arena this time. They will
catch me at the end, leg swung over the saddle horn, drinking a coke, reins on the ground, the horse standing perfectly still, my small
nephew perched on front for a short ride. Such a mean horse. But that is the last time I will ride down here. Enough is enough. The family
honor was avenged. The village has been entertained. Another skill from my childhood has paid off.
Kristine,
Flycatcher Inn, Santa Elena,
15 minutes southeast of Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico
It is not that odd that I should end up here, and be happy in this village of around 1,500 people. It’s like stepping back in time some 40 years.
They say there are around 4,000 people here, but that is baloney. Three quarters of the men and boys over 18 work out of the village: in the
US, Merida, or Cancun, and are seldom if ever home. So let’s call it around 1,500 inhabitants, max 2,000. Damn metropolis compared to where
I started life, in a sawmill camp in eastern Oregon. That camp town still exists, but the sawmill doesn't. My young sister and I were raised in
this tiny town for my first 6 years. We left shortly before my 7th birthday to move to the “huge” town of John Day so I could attend school.
John Day had 1,555 people. I think they counted people’s grandmothers and cats and dogs too back then.
The sawmill camp had, besides the mill: our house, the office next door, a red cottage where my grandparents came to stay at times, the
repair shop across the mill lot, and an old trailer house where Jonah lived. They said Jonah was a sort of witch, had mystic powers they said.
I liked him. He once gave me a great big doll that I had forever. Next to him was a tiny house where Art and Golee lived. Golee made the
best pickles in the world, and I loved to go to her house, especially when there was a card game going on. Golee smoked and drank with the
best of them and I thought she was great. On the other side of the highway there were about 4 mill houses and the cookhouse. Alberta and
George lived in one of these houses and they were like second parents to me. Alberta taught me “manners”, consisting mostly of “ladies don’t
do that, Kristine”, she would say in her eastern Oregon twang, and how to use a chamber pot when it was too cold and dark to go to the
outhouse. OUR house had an inside bathroom.
Up in the town itself there was a saloon called The Watering Hole, a post office, the US Forest Service building, a grange hall where they had
dances and meetings, and 2 grocery stores with a gas pump out front of each, one across the road from the other. Stratons and DeMeyers.
I think it depended on which way you were going, where you’d stop. They were both the same. A one room, high ceilinged, if-you-can-find-it,
you-can-buy-it kind of store. Just like those here in the village. There was also a church, the white pointy-spire kind, where the Reverand
Pickthorne officiated. He used to flap around in a big black sort of rain coat affair, skinny as a scarecrow, and I thought he was the devil
himself. I sure didn't like him.
Our house was right by the log pond where they would dump the logs and some guys would jump on these floating logs and pole them towards
the moving meshed teeth log chute that ran into the pond. They used a barbed pole to do this, and once in the mouth of the chute the mesh
would catch the bark and drag the log into the sawmill to be sawn up into boards. It was here that I learned to swear so well. They had a
language all their own, especially when it was cold and one fell into the pond. You heard some great things then. It was better than pulling
the heads off my mothers’ flowers, which she didn't like at all. I got my mouth washed out with soap a lot though, learning those pond
monkey’s language. That’s what they were called, pond monkeys. Agile as heck, jumping from log to log. The men who built my house
down here would later bring that memory to mind, as they clamored around on their flimsy pole and 2x12 scaffolding, raising the concrete
block walls of my house. They swore beautifully too.
Since I was the only kid until my sister came along two years later, and a girl at that, I had to learn the rules of the world of men. There aren't
too many, but if you wanted to be where the action was, with the men, you had to learn these rules well:
A) You do not fidget. Men hate fidgeters;
B) You do not get hungry or thirsty, unless they say you can. If you don’t fidget, they forget about you anyway;
C) You never have to go to the bathroom. Men have different equipment and there usually isn't a bathroom anyway, at least not one
you’d want to use;
D) Always take some SMALL something to do or play with. It can’t make any noise or get in the way. A book is good. Men can talk for
a long time, and you might get bored;
E) And last, don’t NEVER whine. Men hate whiners ‘bout more than anything.
If you knew these rules, you could go in the office anytime you wanted. You could learn some great things there, but “you never told nobody
what you heard, NEVER”.
These rules have served me well down here. At church weddings, baptisms, school meetings, waiting in the bank, waiting in the hardware
store, waiting in government offices. Waiting. It’s the same.
One of my other favourite places growing up, besides the office, was the mill itself. I loved to sit on the sawyers’ lap as he raced back and
forth sitting on a moving platform, gauging how many boards he could cut out of each log. Watching for hidden knots that could flip the log
up in the air, watching this huge saw make boards out of a tree. I loved the smell of the pine. I hated it years later when it would all go
mechanical. Push a button and the log would be calculated, flipped, and sawn, all by itself.
When we moved to the larger town, we all got horses. Just about everybody rode, at least on the hill where we lived. You were in 4-H, you
went to the rodeos, you rode in parades, you practiced “stake and barrel”, along with “thread the needle”, on horseback. You knew how to
ride bareback using just a hay rope for a bridle, or you weren't “in”. I have pictures of the 4 of us sisters, (we are 4 by now), lined up like
stair steps, in our “rodeo outfits”: jeans, boots, cowboy hats, pearl snap button cowboy shirts. DAD took us shopping at Farrells every year
at rodeo time. Pretty spiffy, we were. Not as good as the REAL cowgirls, a ‘course. They lived on ranches. We were just town girls so we
had to learn sewing and cooking, “manners”, junk like that. You also grew up learning to drive a stick shift, none of this automatic crap. First
it was the old Willy's jeep with the choke button on the floor, later the big Chevy pick-up, with 4 gears. You couldn't use the emergency brake
on a hill either. That was cheating, unless it was a REAL emergency. You killed the engine when Dad told you to, and started it again without
rolling back, or adios trying for your driver's license. Mother made you practice parking between barrels in the empty lot next to the house
until you could do it in your sleep. She gave you about a 5 inch tolerance on either end, 6 inches max from the imaginary curb, and it had to
be straight as an arrow. And you had to do it in one shot. Back in, pull forward. That’s it. None of this jockeying back and forth stuff. Try
doing that in a mammoth ’63 Buick station wagon! These skills would all serve me well down here, as I would later demonstrate to Santiago
on the San Francisco-like cobblestone streets of Zacatecas and Tlaxcala, in the interior part of the country. I know exactly how wide my car
is, and how powerful for passing buses on narrow winding roads that are the norm down here. And I have taught Santiago everything I know.
You can’t learn to drive on hairpin mountain roads on the mostly flat Yucatan Peninsula. This skill would come slowly to him as we travelled
up through Chiapas and Oaxaca, and down from around Mexico City through Orizaba to Catemaco - sinuous narrow mountain roads, cloud
laden, where he would learn about black ice too, almost too late. Not too much ice driving in the Yucatan!
All of which is why it was ridiculous for Papí, Santiago’s father, to worry incessantly about me driving alone between here and the next larger
village, a mere 15 K away. But then, he didn't know any of this about me. Women didn't drive here outside the cities, especially not a
standard stick shift, and not in this village. But I did. Even when I bought the pick-up truck, the men at the agency flipped coins to see who
would have the bad luck to go with the crazy Gringa while she test drove the truck, appalled to learn that Santiago didn't drive.
I have thought in later years that maybe the village has accepted me, kept me around, for entertainment purposes. I remember when I was
watching the men building the house, laboriously cutting the boards to make various concrete forms, with an old sawblade rigged through a
frame of bent steel re-bar. No one had a drill pistol either. On our next trip to Merida, I bought a drill, various sized bits, and a small skill saw,
all of which I knew how to use. I proceeded to plug in the saw and show them how much faster and easier it was to cut boards this way and
even cut various angles. Santiago’s father was horrified, certain I would cut my hand or arm off. Not with a father like mine, you wouldn't. He
owned a sawmill and got 4 girls, so he just taught us how to do all the “boy stuff” anyway. Run a chain saw, buck up wood, split kindling, work
outboard motors, use drill presses, work a two man cross cut saw, change flat tires. Now, give me a machete and I am completely helpless.
There I COULD cut my leg off, not like the girls here who wield them as handily as we would a chain saw. Depends on your training.
So over the years, I would continue to shock the people here, put nicely, with the things I could do. But nobody knew I could ride a horse.
This is not horse country like some parts of the peninsula .
Every year in April, the “corrida” begins here in the village. These are the local bullfights. Funny, corny ones, not the least bit formal nor
professional. It’s a 5 day diversion from everyday life, with almost mandatory attendance by everyone. “Pack up the babies and grab the
old ladies, and everyone goes,” as Neil Diamond sings. The corrida begins with building the corral ring itself. This is built by a group of
men, as association, with each man being responsible for building, and charging admittance for, his section. Since brother Max is one of
the “socios",(associates), we have ring side seats. Over the course of 2 to 3 days, each man, (and his brothers and friends), will go out
into the hills and cut poles to build their section, the whole thing being a beehive of male activity and beer, a hodge podge of poles, planks
for the chair seating section, thatch roofing -at least part of the arena anyway- coming together section by section to form an arena of sorts.
The low rent district, the cheap seats, are the ground level, separated from the actual bull and horse riders by a lattice work of thin poles.
Not much protection there, part of the thrill. The second level is reached by climbing a pole ladder, (don’t be wearing a skirt here!), at the
back of each guy's section, where you will find crammed together tiny chairs to sit on, and a front part where you sit, legs dangling down into
the arena itself. You need to be able to pull your legs up quickly, if you choose this area. You are at about horn level. The “vaqueros”, the
cowboys, come from the surrounding area, and so do the bulls, who mostly stand around wondering how they got into this mess anyhow. I
have yet to see more than a few actually charge anything, but there is always the hope it will happen. The “toreadors”, (I am being generous
with the term here), mostly stand around nervously flapping a piece of red cloth at the bull and run like hell for the nearest wool shield to hide
behind at the slightest movement of the poor bewildered beastie bull.
The corrida begins about 4 in the afternoon and lasts, amidst the dirt and the dust and intense April heat, until 7PM. It can start earlier, and
it can go longer. Towards the end, after some 50,000 caguamas, (quart sized bottles), of beer have been drunk, someone is sure to jump,
(or fall), into the ring to prove how brave he is. Mostly though, it’s the cowboys show. There are way too many of them crowded into the
small ring, flinging their lassos, trying to rope the bulls horns and drag it out of the ring when the people get bored of watching it stand
around. Any eastern Oregon small town rodeo is more exciting than this, but the crowd loves it anyway. The horses are mostly small and
uninteresting to me, but occasionally you see a real beaut. A Wow of a horse. Big, powerful, prancing and snorting around, and then I wake
up and take interest. Which is what got me into trouble some years ago.
The horse was tremendous, especially for a horse down here. He moved beautifully and took perfect commands, and looked like he could
do a lot more than the rider was asking of him. Big brute of a cowboy too, using way too much power over what the horse needed. I had a
horse a little like that once. Big quarter horse, stubborn as a mule, needed a spade bit, trained cow cutting horse, could sit down on a dime.
Just sat on his haunches, boom. If you weren't prepared for it, you’d go zinging off into space, right over his head. My father didn't want me
to have that horse, but I finally convinced him I could handle it. My sister was the horse rider, not I. I loved that horse. “Ichabod Dictamiker
Mortifer Ignacious”, I named him. Big Strawberry Roan. My mother called him “Icky”. He wasn't a very pretty horse, but the one here was,
and it was a roan too.
The corrida was winding up and I had sent the girls on ahead home with Grandma Carmen. I was waiting for Santiago, but he was off with
his buddies gossiping; everyone comes home for the corrida, so I decided to leave. At that time, the corrida was still held in the village
plaza, 5 blocks from our house. As I set off walking, the big roan came out of the arena and I said to the rider without thinking, “Nice horse”,
in Spanish. The vaquero, thinking I was just another tourist, said something insulting in Mayan, which I chose to ignore and began to walk
on. Suddenly the vaquero is being verbally accosted by several voices, belonging to…my family. Brother Max’s voice is unmistakable.
It has a quality and timbre that you can hear for blocks, let alone yards. Max has overheard this insult. Max is my great buddy. We ironed
out our differences years ago, and I have just been insulted. I turn around and there is a phalanx of about 7 men, family and friends, all
well tanked up and determined to defend my honor. I tell them, "really, it’s no problem, I’m headed home". Not good enough. I am
detained, Santiago is sought, the owner of the horse is dragged out of the cantina... NOW what have I done?
This degenerates rapidly to: “She can’t ride this horse!” the vaquero says. “I didn't ask to”, I reply, “I just said that it was a beautiful horse!”
“Well you couldn't ride it!” “I didn't ASK to ride it!”, I say. Santiago intervenes, as old vaquero and I trade glares, and start talking to the
owner in rapid Mayan, which I can’t follow. People HAD been streaming out of the arena, going home. Now some are drawn back, there’s
some excitement here. Santiago finally turns and asks me in English, “You can ride this big horse?” He has only seen me ride once, in
Belize, a trail ride which he barely survived. Horse rider, he is not. I reply, “Yes, I can ride that horse, but what’s the point?” He says, “the
owner says if I sign a paper saying I not kill him if you dead, you can ride.” Oh great. I sigh and start to explain once again that I didn't ask
to ride the horse, when I see Max and Antonio’s faces. This has become a challenge. It looks like family honor is at stake here, through
my witless comment. “Alright, I’ll ride the horse.” “You sure you can?”, he asks. "Yes".
By now, this horse is wired. And he looks like one of those horses who would just love to take a chomp out of your rear as you mount. As
the cowboy flings me the reins, I notice the spade roller bit and wish myself a little bit of luck here, tighten up the right rein so the horse can’t
take a chunk of my buns while I make a speedy mount. This is a big horse. Gotta be 16 hands, which means his back is slightly over my
head standing on the ground. Someone yells, “You can’t ride like that “, meaning I have no jeans, boots, nor chaps. I have on Bermudas
and huarache sandals, thin leather soles, no heel. They are right, my feet could slip straight through the stirrup, smooth leather on smooth
leather. I kick off the huaraches and pitch them to Santiago - better to go barefoot. The owner tells me I am limited to the corral/arena only.
Fine by me. So we enter. People are now streaming back in. My little nephew is calling, “Tia, Tia! Tia’s going to ride!”, wild with excitement.
The horse is responding well, but he is hyper and nervous, as am I, so we just canter around, checking to see which commands - foot, rein,
and voice - he responds to. He changes leads beautifully, switching easily from one leg leading to the other. Stops perfectly, like I thought.
Sits right down on his butt. This is what you need when you have roped a calf and are scrambling off to flip it and tie it’s feet. The horse
needs to keep that rope taut, and may have to back up to do so. I vaguely wonder who trained this horse. By now, horse and I have
forgotten the crowd and are having fun. We do some old parade, 4-H stuf f- sidestepping, prancing. I wonder if he will back up? He does.
I shorten the reins and put them around this huge Chiapan style pommel - big as a dinner plate - and signal to back up, put my hands
behind my back, while the horse backs up across the arena. The kids go nuts. This is better than the circus! We better do a finale and
end this. This horse wants to run and so do I, so we get as far out of the arena as possible and I get ready, lean suddenly forward, jab him
with my bare heels, and he springs forward like a loaded juggernaut, going like thunder for the other side of the corral. Just as it looks as if
we will crash through the other side, I pull back hard on the reins, and he sits on a dime. What a great horse! We canter slowly back across
the arena, and drop to a walk. I dismount, hand the reins to the owner and say, “Gracias, muy amable”. Thanks, that was nice of you, and
walk towards home. It will be a block later that I remember my sandals.
I don’t know how much money was won off that little scene, but the family was certainly happy. The owner of the horse will come the next
year to ask Santiago if I am going to ride again, they have a horse that I CAN’T ride this time. A real mean one. Turns out I’m meaner. We
will ride for over an hour and a half through the dirt streets of the village, flying like the wind, not restricted to the arena this time. They will
catch me at the end, leg swung over the saddle horn, drinking a coke, reins on the ground, the horse standing perfectly still, my small
nephew perched on front for a short ride. Such a mean horse. But that is the last time I will ride down here. Enough is enough. The family
honor was avenged. The village has been entertained. Another skill from my childhood has paid off.
Kristine,
Flycatcher Inn, Santa Elena,
15 minutes southeast of Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico
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