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=> Adelita

Adelita

Posted by Farid (Moderator) - Friday, November 28 2003, 14:10:41 (EST)
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She was a heroine of the Mexican Revolution...sort of a "Winged Victory" with thick, flying black hair. I'm afraid I don't know much more of her story...or even if she was an actual person or the personification of Women's contributions to the Revolution. She's a Mexican heroine. Let's leave it at that.

I met her a week ago. She's a single mother of Native stock, about 45 years old...it's hard to tell. She has seven children, the youngest, a little girl of two...the eldest, a boy, picking your fruits in California and sending what he can spare from his earning to his mother. There are four boys in all and three girls. The eldest girl is married and gone away. The next girl is around 14, big for her age and the littlest one. Three young sons, the eldest of them around eleven...another one of nine maybe and the youngest boy, perhaps seven, I met today as he returned from school across the corn field. I don't know all their names yet...one boy is Fernando, the other is Marco...don't know the girl's names yet. The mother I choose to call Adelita because she's a heroine to me...a real live, scruffy one.

The family lives on a two acre plot owned by Adelita's brother who's married and lives in the States. The family scratches out a subsistence living, growing all the food they eat. Their one room house with cardboard lean-to sits atop a small hill that juts out to where the river below just touches its slope in the rainy season when it swells to a torrent and you can't cross to the houses on the other side. There's some water in it now and will be all winter...just a bit but enough. Fortunately there's electricity in the village of about forty families scattered around the hills and valleys...and soon potable water will be brought to each rancho. For now Adelita has a well below the hill...a cistern of river water easy to reach at that level. But the water has to be hauled up the hill and they don't have any sort of plumbing of course, just a large plastic tub in the yard they wash in. Clothes are everywhere drying on barbed wire lines...keeps them from blowing away...the barbs. On wash day, which is probably every day, the dirt and animal filled yard looks like a tipsy yacht flying all sorts of colors from all kinds of masts. They have liqued propane tanks, the kind you have to exchange for full ones...so there's gas to cook with. I didn't see a stove top or burner but I'm sure there's one under the cardboard lean-to where the family sort of lives, when they aren't in the one room sleeping.

The boys go to school but only till about the eighth grade. There's no high school anywhere near there. The eldest daughter is finished with her schooling and like her older sister will marry the first guy to get her pregnant. It's a farming village on the bend of the river. Rather attractive setting really. As you turn off the highway onto the dirt road and travel about half a kilometer you see a valley in front of you opening between two fairly close hilltops. In the distance, about another kilometer, the church steeple rises above everything else. The hills are covered in mesquite and cactus and there are neat looking tilled fields all around There are a couple of stores, the front parlors of the larger houses along the main street, if that's what it is. I went into the largest one today to get a bottle of Coke for the children...there were a few withered vegetables they don't grow, like oranges and cabbages, potatoes and small onions. A few racks of shelves had some canned goods and of course a cooler with soda pop...no beer that I could see. The entire stock wasn't worth more than fifty bucks.

The boys will finish with their schooling in a few years and either head to El Norte as their older brother did...maybe even live with him at first...or they'll stay in the village and fight the soil. There are a few peach orchards that may or may not produce a crop...everyone is hopeful. Today in the yard of Adelita's house there were fresh picked beans drying on a cloth spread in the dirt...and also corn shrivelling in the hot sun for the three pigs. She used to have three cows as well but someone stole them. A woman alone with five youngsters to raise is sort of at the mercy of everybody...starting with God and ending right back at his doorstep, with everyone else along the way delivering a good slap to her face as well.

Besides the pigs sunning themselves behind the house, there's a goat...two burros, several chickens, three woebegone dogs and a very dead looking kitten that's still walking. The days must be a constant round of washing, cooking and cleaning...and all of it on dirt floors with dirt blowing everywhere. And yet each boy I met looked as neat as you could expect and shook my hand and greeted me...the girl was shy and wouldn't meet my gaze. Adelita herself is a tough looking woman...wears jeans no less...the hell with dresses...this woman has serious work to do...the most heroic of all...she has to raise human beans with not much help from anywhere and a whole lot of obstacles thrown her way. But at least there isn't war...that's a blessing.

And what of her husband? He's been absent from this account so far because he's been absent from their lives...after getting Adelita pregnant one last time. After that he went to work in the States and picked up a girlfriend he brought back with him. In the meanwhile Adelita had been given a nine thousand peso loan by the government, about $850 then. She was living in another village at the time where she owned a very small plot of land. With the money she was able to build a small..a very small, house for her children. How she expected to pay the loan back is anyone's guess...maybe she had prospects in that village.

But then the father of her seven children returned from the States with his girlfriend and turned Adelita and his children, including his one year old infant, out of their home. He and his lady moved in and Adelita and his children went homeless until her brother found out and told her she could live on his land, where they are now. She scraped together enough, with help from her eldest boy, to build another, much smaller room..that's all you can really call it. The lean-to came later so there'd be a place to cook and wash. The husband then sued Adelita for divorce claiming she'd been adulterous and that way was able to gain custody of the children. But that was just his way of avoiding child support payments and he left them with Adelita.

She went to the nerest city and hired herself a lawyer who promised her everyting and took all the extra money her son was able to earn in the States...and he delivered nothing. Her greatest fear was that the government would seize whatever she had, perhaps her children too because of the loan that was now way overdue. An official or two had made the trek out to the rancho to sort of encourage her and might indeed have tried to scare her a bit...wouldn't take much. It worked and she spent money none of them could afford for nothing.

I first heard her story from my lawyer to whom Adelita had been refered. As a woman herself, the lawyer sympathized of course and had the case not been filed in the other city, would have settled whatever legal work remained to be done for no charge. But the Law wasn't her problem...the government knew there was no way to squeeze blood or money out of Adelita. Her eldest son still sent what he could spare but sooner or later he'd want to marry and chances are his wife would resent the burden his family's needs placed on them. There is a constant frown of worry above Adelitas brow. Even when she smiles briefly you can see it there.

I said I wanted to help Adelita and her children...what could I do? First I had to see her and she and her older daughter took the bus into San Miguel so we could meet at my Lawyer's office. before that we tossed around ideas about what would be best. Perhaps another store, run from her shack...it wouldn't take much of an investment...but then with only forty families and most of them growing what they need and unable to really afford much in the way of chips and soda pop...how realistic was it? Neither of us wanted to just give them money but set her up someow so she could support her family herself. At the first meeting the lawyer discussed with Adelita the options...not many and encouraged her to go back home and look about her to see if there was some way she could find to earn any income. I was presented to her as someone who wanted to help and as matter-of-factly as she took her husband's ill treatment, she accepted my offer and said "gracias". One male, God, started with her...then another man, her father, took over, after which came a husband and now me. Just what was my interest where the other men had used and abandoned her? She must wonder...but will take whatever comes in any way it comes for as long as it comes.

I drove them back to their village. It isn't much of a village. What could be the center of it, around the church, is a dirt road that ends at one house...and has about five lining it. One of the houses is still being built. There are weeds growing out the empty windows...its owner is in the States earning enough to finish it. Those guys you see crowding around for work in parking lots and street corners up north...that's them. Sons and fathers keeping a wary eye out for Immigration...willing to do anything to make some money to return home. Don't think they like it up there with you. There were a few like that working at the foundry in Monterey, till they were all deported because they might go from picking grapes or welding sculpture to Terrorism ,just like that...without warning. How much pain and suffering Gringo foolishness lets loose in the world...takes your breath away and they think they're saving it. They are in a sense...saving it for them.

I remember when I was commissioned by Robert Mondavi to make a portrait of him for his nintieth birthday how he would talk on the phone in his office or with visitors and the many well-wishers who stopped in to congratulate him...how he would lean back in his chair and talk about the "Napa Lifestyle" he wanted to encourage everyone to try. Even seemed slightly amazed that more people didn't want swimming pools and late brunches with expensive wine etc...like the rest of us had a choice and just didn't know any better. He made it sound like the easiest, most natural thing in the world to be rich and comfortable...while outside his office window the Mexicans sweated under the sun, without medical benefits and at the least amount of wages so Mondavi could aford his own "enviable lifestyle", hoping to earn enough to beat it back home.

I considered putting my two horses on her land, and my four dogs and my eleven cats and my two rabbits...the fish can stay with me when I move to town. I felt the perfect idiot spending more on these dumb beasts than this family had to live on. There was probably more nutritional variety in the fancy dog and cat food I was buying than in their own diet. But that wasn't the main reason...I'd have paid them to look after the animals. Truth be told I was afraid my pampered dogs would soon get to looking as miserable as their own...same with the cats and I know I couldn't let my daughter see tham like that...so it would be off to the Vets every few weeks. And if her cows were stolen..horses were even more desirable.

So today, when I went back there to meet the three or four locals she said she'd assemble who'd build the corral...I told her I'd changed my mind...and she took it in the same manner...like nothing surprises her either way.

The lawyer had told Adelita to come back in two weeks or whenever she was ready with some ideas...maybe check the other stores in town to see what she could offer. We wanted to get an idea of how motivated she was on her own...some indication that she'd be up to handling even the smallest kind of business when she'd been cooking and washing since she was five. When I went today I took everything I have here that I can do without. Luckily among the stuff were lots of warm sweaters and jackets. I loaded all my pots and pans...plastic containers...bottles of shampoo and conditioner...all the canned goods I had, plus bags of rice and pasta. I even had several toys left over and you should have seen the boys faces when they openned that box. Buzz Lightyear and Batman dolls and other action heros..even a scale model of a motorcycle. Also took mirrors and shoes that were almost new...house slippers, cutlery, mugs, a whole set of dishes...things like that. Probably the most useful of all was a burner that attaches to an LP gas tank for heat. What she couldn't use she could trade or give away. Before leaving her with the bottle of coke for the children I gave her some money. I know it doesn't solve problems...but it sure can help at the moment and her life is made up of moments...there's really no future.

Looking around the village a little closer today I realized a store was a poor idea...unless we can lease her a small plot closer in to town. It still bears looking into...but with all those children to care for and the animals and the farming...seems to me the woman is already working about as hard as a person can...even if she doesen't make any money at it. To add that much of a burden onto the rest of her load may be killing her with kindness. besides...what about the children? But the idea is still there...we'll see.

I'm going to add things from time to time about Adelita and her children. One thing I'd like to get done is build her a better and a larger house. All they need are two rooms for sleeping, one for the males and another for the women. A common room with a kitchen out back and maybe a working toilet and shower. The good thing is that the river bed is filled with some of the best insulating and building material ever...the stones. Gringos send trucks out to the river during the dry season to gather them up for walls and even cute houses. All they'd have to do is collect enough and transport them up the hill. They can use my trailer to do it. Some bags of cememt...a few windows and a door or two and they have a real home to live in. The men in the vilage all know how to build and probably would be happy for the work. Couldn't cost much. Trouble is her ex-husband could come back and claim the children just for as lng as it took him to seize the house in order to care for his darlings. And the land belongs to Adelita's brother and while he may not thorw her out, he might die and his wife's family decide they'd like it.

Whatever is done for her can't be done in her name. Either the land has to be purchased or leased indeifinitely and whatever she gets from me has to have my name all over it...just so I can prove the bastard stole from me...and not his children. I can have him thrown in jail, his children can't.

Would I do the same for Iraq? No. Not even for the Muslims of Iraq. I've lost all interest in "returning" to Assyria. I have no desire to help people that others are getting ready to clobber again and again. Narsai can have his feasts...his miserable attempts to ease his own conscience and those of the rest of those weeping people who stood silently by and sent billions to kill the parents whose children they now want to educate. Fuck them all.

Only one person of any note or within the halls of power and a Black woman at that, had the decency and courage to speak out against the impending slaughter of Iraqis...US Representative Barbara Lee of Oakland, California... another heroine of mine. Not a single motherfucking, or motherkilling, Assyrian...especially not Anna Eshoo...said or did a damn thing. If I was to help the people of Iraq I'd begin by speaking out...to try to avert the creation of orphans for Narsai to educate. No natural disaster struck Iraq...Iraq was not a poor country. It was hit by the United States and if we aren't even going to talk about that and the need to stop hitting them first of all...then I say Narsai is as glad as he can be that Iraq was clobbered...look at all its done for him. He can play games with the rest of you all he wants to...like Jackie does...but I KNOW these sons of bitches and this one bitch backwards and forwards.

Assyria is a state of mind with me. We're beyond borders. Everywhere a wheel is in use...from the Concorde to a pottery shop...you'll find Assyria. Every time a rocket blasts for Space...Babylonians from BetNahrain are there. Where there's Law and the IDEA of Law...you'll find one of our greatest kings. Our people ranged the known earth...Ours were kings of "The Four Corners" of the world. Not a one of them had so a narrow a focus as to keep himself within those blessed rivers..but took the treasure, the knowledge, the culture of Assyria out to share. And it was appreciated and copied...from the tile work of Islam to medicine and pharmacology...to architecture and fabric design. You name it and wherever in the world today it's being used or manufactured...there's someone from BetNahrain standing in back of it. They didn't limit themselves...why should I.

When you save a single life...you save the universe entire.

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