Trip to Huichihuayan May 1, 1996

Chris S. Cholas

1609 W. Schunior St. #405 Edinburg, Texas 78539  USA

5/1/96

"The past is a growing problem,

and there's only going to be more of it."

-- Cullen Murphy

Dear ______,    Happy Eleventh Day of Ridván!

            Reading this letter is like seeing starlight -- what you see in the present was actually sent out in the past.  I'm finding that I can never keep up with present tense, even when I feel tense in the present.  It's soon past anyway, just like Mr. Murphy (not to be confused with Sergeant Murphy from Richard Scarry's children's books) has so wisely observed.   I study philosophy on Wednesday mornings, so the letters that I write on Wednesdays tend to reflect deep contemplation about subjects usually considered a major waste of time -- and, yes, we're back to time and tenses again. 

            The trip to Huichihuayan:  A doctor, a professor and a burned-out social worker travel in a pick-up truck by moonlight nine hours into the midst (mist) of Mexico to visit (after no sleep) humble families in the tropical sun.  The first test happens around midnight at Mexican customs in Matamoros, about ten minutes from where we started in Brownsville.  We get our tourist visas, but the officials need to see the owner's credit card before they can put the vehicle visa in the pick-up window.  Ah, credit card!  Where is that credit card?  It's missing; we go through the glove compartment, the driver's pockets, under the seats, in a bag of papers without luck.  We repeat the process, the official and his buddies standing around wondering what our scheme might be.  Well, probably we left said credit card back in Brownsville in the console of the other car.  We'll have to turn around and go back to Brownsville, but first to clear the Matamoros entry point.  Oops!  We get the red light, so we must pull over and have a different custom's official check out the truck and our goods.  A little delay, and off we go...across the bridge to the United States of America.  There is a line of cars in front of us.  O no! the driver notices that the US customs inspector is a woman who has given him big trouble in the past.  But there's yet time to change lanes and try a different inspector.  Only one problem -- all the other lanes are closed!  There is irreversible and conditional fate, and we decide that we probably have both kinds, especially the irreversible kind that generally accompanies all doom.  The line moves sluggishly slow, as the clock moves confidently onward.  We begin to think our goal of forming seven local Spiritual Assemblies in two and a half days may have to be reduced to five or six.  Fate. 

            Finally,  it's our turn to face the troublesome woman inspector... here goes!

But instead a friendly face leans towards the truck window and says, "Well, hello, doctor!" (It's a friend, not an adversarial agitator after all. But she looked like the inspector that gave problem before.) "Where are you coming from?"

            "Well, actually we're not coming, we're going!" the doctor explains, "But we forgot our credit card." 

            And the inspector asks about where we are going and the doctor replies that we're heading down to the Huasteca to visit friends, and the woman says, "O, a little break from the office?"

            The professor has been patiently waiting, enduring these delays in agony, and with an abruptness that cracks like thunder across the wind shield, announces that it's the Ridvan time for Bahá'ís, a time when we form our local Spiritual Assemblies!  This bold matter-of-fact statement perks up a keen interest in the woman, who is amazed that three busy people (she includes me in this-- out of ignorance I'm sure) would sacrifice a perfectly good weekend to do dedicated religious work.

            The line behind us lengthens -- we feel the headlights upon us.  Greetings and good luck and all that, and there we are.....back in Brownsville where we started.  The night is aging, but the day is yet young. 

            Back at the ranch, the professor has moved into the back of the pick-up in the camper bed; when all else fails, one can go to sleep.  The doctor mulls around looking for the elusive credit card.  The social worker ponders how he was talked into this trip anyway; wonders if there might yet be a way out before everything collapses from fatigue.  The night air smells of manure drifting from the front yard, an idea of the new gardener to make the lawn greener.  The lawn probably will be greener, and the neighbors may seem meaner....and, lo and behold! the doctor has found the credit card!

            "Don't say anything, but it was in my back pocket all of the time!" He says as he jumps back into the truck and we head out for the our rendezvous with the border once again.  We rationalize that this little delay of over an hour was for the benefit of the dramatic pronouncement to the US Customs agent of the intention of our trip into Mexico, even as we headed into Texas. 

            But now we're on the right track again, for awhile.  It's only about one in the morning when we return to the Matamoros Customs office where we are told that it will take only thirty minutes to process the papers for the sticker.  (After all, the cost of the sticker has to be justified by the amount of time it takes to prepare the papers before the sticker gets to be stuck on the window.  It's usually ten dollars per half an hour.  Once, I had to pay a forty dollar fee for a sticker in Mexico and I waited two hours.  This is a ten dollar sticker, so thirty minutes will do.) 

            Thirty minutes later, the sticker is actually being stuck to the inside of the windshield -- the official ponders where to put it for awhile, where it might possibly block some of the driver's view, and with a pat and a rub, it's almost permanent.  Yeah, we can go now, but, of course, we have to pass through the other port of entry gate, and yes, you guessed it, the red light comes on again, so we are directed to the side where the same officer as last time comes over to see what we might possibly be hauling into Mexico at this hour of the night. 

            In all the above pamphlets were liberally distributed, maybe as much a consolation to our tired hearts as it is for the good of the Cause.  And off we go, and off we are, because as we make our way through the Matamoros boulevards in the dead of night (whatever that implies in your mind, dear reader), the doctor suddenly, still driving with one hand on the steering wheel, shuffles through all the papers again -- the glove compartment, the wallet, the pockets and the bag.  The passport.  Where's the passport?

It must be.....back at the customs office.  And before you can get ten winks and nod off into an age of uncertainly, we are back to the bridge; the professor asleep in the back.

And yes, the passport was still on the counter in the office. 

            Do I need to write more?  Or has this appetizer served to fill your curiosity about our adventures into the Huasteca in the Name of God?  We are not even out of Matamoros yet, and so much has happened.  Maybe you can sleep on it, and more of these exciting episodes, which are completely unobliterated fact and unabridged truth (in other words, I'm not making any of this up, cross my heart and hope to cry), will perhaps be recorded for your reading enjoyment.  Maybe.

            Warm, very warm regards and guards, too,  The sun was hot when they were guarding and reguarding, because sometimes they guarded; and sometimes they guarded again in the sun, so warm reguards, as always,

your-not-quite-the-same-since-I-came-back-from-this-last-teaching-trip-friend,  chris

Part II:  The Border Boys Reach Huichihuayan

"De pamphlets, dear friends, are blowin' in de wind,

yes, de pamphlets are blowin' in de wind."

--Windsor Easterly, song-writer and great pretender, West Indies

            I suspect that you have been sitting spellbound from reading the intense adventures of our friends, who in the first segment of their journey, found themselves aimlessly wandering through the streets of Matamoros in the dead of night, half asleep and wondering (at least the one time social worker type was wondering as those types often do) where in middle of Tamaulipas can one find a good cup of coffee at 2 in the morning. 

            Well, maybe you are not spellbound, maybe you just suffer from fainting spells, or maybe you're spillbound instead.  My older sister was like that in her childhood; no matter what, that girl was bound to spill her milk at every meal.  She liked milk, but she still was bound to spill it.  That's what I mean by "spillbound".  Of course, her milk spills traumatized me, because often I, being very small, didn't have the speed to move away from the table before that rushing, white river crossed the table and flowed into my lap.   Even to this day, I seldom drink milk. 

            But on that night, as we finally had Matamoros and Brownsville behind us for the time being, the social worker realized that he might need some caffeine to stay awake.  He needed to stay awake, because the doctor and the professor had decided to take turns driving, and when they weren't driving they would take turns sleeping in the camper in back, but both were so tired that staying awake while they were driving became, shall I say, very challenging.  Somehow the doctor and professor had decided that someone, namely the social worker, who didn't share the driving duties, needed to stay awake in order to keep whoever was driving awake.  Hence, the need for coffee, strong coffee, but in the struggle to free themselves from the inertia of the border, they had departed Matamoros without stopping to refill their coffee mugs! 

            So on that bleak, narrow, pot-holed highway that stretched across the Tamaulipas night, the social worker's first task was to keep the doctor, who, by the way, always drives eighty miles an hour, rain, sleep or shine, awake. 

            There were many things to talk about, of course, like past teaching stories that began with warmly-enhanced statements like, "I remember the time when some of us walked seven hours in the jungles of the Yahoo mountains looking for wild Yahoo's, who never knew a non-Yahoo who didn't get really sick by the second day in Yahoo country.  But we prayed, and we didn't get sick on the second day.  In fact, we made it back to the city of Disenchangotango five days later, before we all came down with endless cases of amebic dysentery."  Exciting stuff! 

            As the journey dragged into the tired night, the doctor and social worker continued such story-telling, even after they had drained their repertoire of such soul-stirring tales.  So they had to begin sharing other people stories that they had heard, such as, "I heard a story one time about some Bahá'ís living somewhere near the Yahoo Mountains, and they walked something like seventeen hours before getting captured by wild Yahoo's who made them eat their food, which consisted of imported Spam from Denmark." 

            "Hey, wait a minute!"  replied the other, "I think that was my story, but I can't remember for sure if it was my story or a story that someone from Disenchangotango had told me about when a former member of the National Education Committee had gone to the Yahoos to teach children classes."

            This type of stimulating conversation kept the driver at least on the road with one eye open for the first two hours of the journey, (his passenger was able to listen at times and to continue talking with both eyes closed as if he had actually heard everything the driver had said) when up ahead, lo and behold, a 24 hour restaurant!  Coffee!  Yes!  Food! Yes!  Prayers do get answers!  Sometimes anyway!

            "Let's wake up the professor and get something to eat!" 

            The professor sat up in the camper as they opened up the hatch, and announced.  "I don't want to eat! You guys eat, I'll sleep!"  He fell back onto the sleeping bag, while the other two tried to determine where the door to the restaurant might be hidden.  They found it placed discretely between two windows and a sign that said "¡Abierto!"

            So, the tale moved along, and I know you're an anxious reader, and would like to know the whole outcome of this journey into the sleep of night, but I suggest for the time being you curb your anxiety with the prayer to refresh and gladden your spirit, and soon, hopefully, more details of de tales will be coming forth.  Maybe fifth or sixth.

            In the meantime, maybe you can call to mind some of your most famous, dramatically-enhanced teaching stories and have them ready in case you need them somewhere between the Moldova-Ukraine border near the village of Yahoovy.

                        Much love, your friend, who always tells the truth like it is, even if it isn't always exactly up to the last minute details which have possibly been obscured by the passage of time, which, as we emphasized in our first segment with Mr. Murphy's profound prophecy:  "The past is a growing problem, and there's only going to be more of it."

Part III:   Those Border Boys Still Hope to Make it to Huichihuayan with Stops in

Gluttony (but don't tell anyone!)

            William Shakespeare once wrote: 

             Hark, hark! 

                 Bow-wow. 

            The watch-dogs bark!

                Bow-wow.

            Hark, hark!  I hear

            The strain of strutting chanticleer

            Cry, "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"

            Now that has very little to do with our saga, except for two things:  1) Even a famous writer like William Shakespeare wrote some fairly stupid lines, and 2) "Bow-wow" and "Cock-a-doodle-doo" are two of the most common sounds that Hark, hark! (Bark, bark!) as you ride through Mexican towns and villages. 

            Meanwhile, back on the highway somewhere between the turn off to Soto la Marina and Cd. Victoria, things were beginning to blend together.  The clock, embedded into the dashboard read 3:25 or was that 8:52 or 5:33.  The social worker attempted to locate a clear radio station on the radio, as the doctor blinked his eyes on and off like hazard lights.  Drat!, there was not a single clearly-defined radio station in that part of Tamaulipas at whatever hour that was.  Only blended stations:

            First:  "Yo te quiero mucho. Pero Tu no me quieres por nada, y no puedo vivir un día mas sin....

            Second: "And Paul (more like Paaaaaauuuuullll!), seeing the doubters before hiiiimmmmm! told the Corinthians (those stubborn Greeks!) 'For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shaaaalllllll prepare himself to the battle?'

            First:  "Ay, ay, ay, ay!  Mis lagrimas son mi grita, pero tu no oyes mi amor bonita...

            Second: "And agaaaaiiiin in 1 Corinthians, Paaaaauuuuullll saaaaiiiid: "Behooooolllld, I sheeeeewwww you a mystery; We shaaaallllll not aaaaalllll sleep, but we shaaaallll aaaaaalllll be changed."

            The doctor interjected, "Maybe we should say some more prayers!"  But by this time the yellow line marking the middle of the highway kept changing sides of the pick-up.  

            "Are we swerving, or is the yellow line just moving back and forth across the road?"  the social worker inquired calmly, his hands firmly gripping the dashboard in front of him.

            "Maybe both," the doctor replied, and they realized it was time to pull over and change drivers.   The professor was awakened and summoned to drive.  He woke up hungry and the other two informed him that they had stopped to eat an hour back.  The professor asked why they hadn't bothered to wake him up to eat. 

            "We tried!" they answered together.  

            "I don't remember you trying!"  the professor retorted skeptically.

            Perhaps other significant things happened along the way; the drivers changed again and the social worker ended up in the back as dawn turned into day and the sun turned the camper into a pizza oven, but other than that the ride was uneventful. 

            The social worker thought to himself, "Somehow I'm always at the wrong place at the wrong time....is this a conspiracy?"  But social workers often have paranoia complexes even when they are being plotted against, so it was nothing to be concerned about. 

Gluttony in Tamales.

            Somewhere they stopped in what was now tropical surroundings.  The professor and doctor got out of the pick-up talking about food.  The social worker called out from the oven,

            "Hey, what about me?" 

            He heard one of the other two whisper, "O, almost forgot!"

            They unlocked the truck bed gate and slowly the social worker emerged dehydrated, his face gaunt and drawn, but still alive. 

            Now you are probably looking at your map of Mexico wondering where in Tamaulipas is Tamales, but I should tell you that Tamales is not the name of a town, and besides that we were no longer in Tamaulipas, but in the state of San Luis Potosí.  When I wrote "Gluttony in Tamales," it was intended as a literary foreshadowing about these gringos, who are at least twice as big as the small-sized indigenous people politely sitting on the benches by the bus stop, and who can devour a vendor's entire supply of food, in this case home-made tamales wrapped in banana leaves, within fifteen minutes, while the small-sized, curious indigenous people politely stare.  The vendor's happy, of course, because what might have been a long day in the tropical heat has been shortened by about five hours, thanks to the gluttonous gringos.  Now do you understand my meaning in "Gluttony in Tamales."  It's a literary device, not a geographical name.  Well, it could be a name, but I don't think it is.  Like Tabasco is the name of a state in Mexico and it's the name of a hot sauce -- Tabasco sauce.  Or Cayenne is the name of a city in French Guiana, and it's the name of pepper.  Or Ginger is a name of a friend of mine, and it's also the name of a spice.  But I never heard of a place called "Tamales", and I have no friends by that name (that I know of), though I might know someone called "Tom Alí", which would sound like Tamale if you said the names together real fast. If I saw him in a restaurant, I might called out,

            "Tom Alí? Please come here!" 

            The waitress might give me a surprised look and answer, "You want a tamale, you can get one yourself.  This is a self-help counter!"

            "No, excuse me, Ms!" I might reply, "I mean my friend, Tom Alí."

            "Listen buster," the waitress might yell, "I've had people come in here with their crystals and their pet rocks, but this is the first time someone was dumb enough to have a friend tamale."

            "But, it's true! He's sitting over there by his friend Hugh Moore."

            "That's not funny!"  she might retort, "And I have no sense of humor today, so I think you should go eat someplace else."

            "But, please," I might plead,  "I can introduce you to them...." and so on. 

            When people have names like that, you have to wonder what their parents were thinking about on the birthday:  "How about naming the kid, Tom Alí?"   "Hey that's a nice blend between my grandfather's American name with a Bahá'í name.  I like it!" 

            With all this discussion about names, perhaps you have forgotten the story, which continues despite us.....

            In defense of the poor social worker, I should mention that he only ate half as many tamales as the professor or the doctor, but he drank twice as much juice, guzzling them, while the politely-staring indigenous people occasionally swallowed and glanced from side to side to one another, whispering short, choppy phrases in their native tongue followed by smiles and choppy chuckles. 

           

Three is a Crowd

            After several more minutes, but what seemed like hours, and a stop at a fruit stand for more food, the social worker humbly suggested that maybe he needed to sit up front for awhile, so if the doctor or professor cared to rest in the back, he was ready to change places.  Knowing how hot the back was by looking at the signs of heat stroke written all over the social worker's face, the other two suggested they try to sit together in the truck cab, even though the stick shift took up most of the room.  This they did, arriving in Huichihuayan with their shirts sleeves stuck together.   

A Home Away From Home

            By strange providence our border boys reached Huichihuayan remembering an offer by one of their merchant friends in the town that a house would be available for them to stay in during their next visit.  Indeed, there was such a house, a lovely house, complete with beds, hammock, indoor plumbing and a place to take a bucket bath. and a resident tarantula which hid in a closet until nightfall.  

            They thought about bathing before visiting, but the professor glanced at the clock on the wall (which was actually incorrect) and emphatically pressed them to do some visiting first.  After all, to form six or seven local Spiritual Assemblies in one weekend required using every moment wisely.  The other two felt that bathing might have been a wise use of time, but they were out numbered. 

            The late afternoon and evening visits went quite well.  When one of the three spoke, the other two had a quick chance to doze off for a few moments, until the one speaking would nudge them with, "¿Verdad?"  to which they would automatically respond, "Si, ¿como no?"  and everyone in the family where they were visiting would smile and ask them if they wanted to rest.  

            "¡O no! Estamos bien.  Muchas gracias."

            When they finally reached their home away from home late that night, they discovered that the water was turned off.  They didn't mind, two of them literally fell onto the beds, while the doctor snoozed in the hammock.  The social worker kept seeing a yellow line swerving back and forth in his mind.