Within 10
minutes of arriving in the community I’d call home for the next two weeks, my
first research site, I was told of the kid in the neighboring community who had
his hand macheted off in a drunken argument and the brawl turned machete melee
in this town. Luckily, I was informed,
they were just alcoholic drug-addicted day laborers from a different town. And it wasn’t until a couple days later when
I heard of the “machetazos” in 4 other nearby towns that same Sunday. I had been here a handful of times before,
running support for an environmental education program operated by the
university. But this was my first time
alone.
The trip out had
been fine. Took a bus for 5 hours to a
small town, with La Bestia running right through the heart of it, decided I
didn’t want to wait 4 hours for the next bus and then walk 8 km to my
destination so I decided to take a taxi.
So here I am, in Ramonal, Tabasco.
Approximately 4 km from the Guatemalan border. An old transit point for migrants, drugs and
those escaping the law. Really the
middle of nowhere. Home to about 400
people and surrounded by farms, forest and swampland.
I sleep in a
hammock in the town’s event center.
There’s a spigot with a bucket that I use to shower. The fan does a pretty decent job of keeping
the mosquitos away. That and I coat
myself in repellent before bed. Heavy
DEET. None of that lemon eucalyptus
hippie nonsense. I have a sweet
arrangement with some of the old ladies around town. They give me food, some really tremendously
tasty food. I spend roughly $6.50 for
three meals a day.
I had trouble
sleeping the last couple nights. I think
it was a combination of nervousness and excitement. Nervous in the sense that I was about to
embed myself in communities far removed from society. Areas without a police presence, or any State
or Federal government interference for that matter. Places were rapists are lynched by
townspeople and the sharp end of a machete ends far too many arguments. Towns where there is little to do aside from
working the fields, encouraging many to hit the sauce for days on end or make
babies at will.
Excitement in
the sense that this is why I spent the better part of a year enveloped by the
Fulbright application process. I spent
my first month in Villahermosa visiting projects, meeting with academic folks,
developing relationships with these communities and now the time had finally
come to study the impact of aquaculture in rural communities. My dream since college had finally come
true.
That, and I was
also really stoked to peace out of Villahermosa. It’s got pretty much zero going for it. It’s one of those cities where
seemingly every other building is a car parts store or copy place. The nightlife is limited to handful of blocks
with mediocre vibes. True, it has a
nature reserve, a mammoth lagoon and forest in the middle of the city with
herons, monkeys and crocodiles, but all the city’s runoff drains in to it. Heck, many houses and restaurants around the
lagoon even dump untreated sewage into it.
The result is a fetid, neon ooze green water with dead fish floating
everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised to
find Splinter and the rest of the gang living there.
But hey, I can’t
complain. Living here gives me access to
rural communities with aquaculture and I’m collaborating with some big players
in fish farming. Also, I realized that
getting to DF from Villa is pretty much like SF to Vegas and so I plan to take
full advantage of the proximity when I need to let the demons out.
You see, I love
my work and it’s always been my dream to work to combat rural poverty and food
insecurity. I love being in secluded
areas, surrounded by nature, taking things real nice n slow.
But there’s also
another side of me. A raucous, selfishly
reckless, boozing, weed smoking molly raving maniac that needs to be let out of
his cage from time to time and fed a hearty dosage of fiesta. You feel me?
So for the first time since leaving SF, and although Villa is not the
most happening place, I feel like I have that with the proximity and
accessibility to DF and other sweet places in Mexico. The further I dig into our southern neighbor,
the more I find myself falling in love.
