For the past five days we have been with Felice in the Sierra Tarahumara with the
Rarámuri (who are sometimes called the Tarahumara). Felice is a friend of ours who works with the Rarámuri. Her family visited this region a lot when she was little and that is how she formed her first connections with these people and place. Now she is an ethnobiologist—a person who studies traditional ecological knowledge, who works with Rarámuri communities. Last year, when we told her we would be traveling through
Felice met us in Creel on the evening of the 10th. The day before, we had done some exploring in 
and around Creel. After all the bicyclists left, it turned into a sleepy little town. We got our first introduction to the Rarámuri in Creel. The women and children are painfully shy, not acknowledging you if you say “Buenos Dias!” and barely talking if you ask them for directions. Around the zocalo (town square) there were Rarámuri women selling arts and crafts. Also selling their wares were the Rarámuri children, holding up a string of bracelets and asking “compra, compra, (buy, buy)”. They say this in a high pleading voice that would tug at the hardest heart. When you say “no gracias” their plea turns
to “un peso, un peso”. They beg without shame, because their situation is so desperate; at the worst they won’t get anything, and at the best they will have a peso or two. (However, I may be reading this all wrong because Felice told us that in their culture there’s no shame in asking for what you need and it’s almost like you’re doing the person a favor by asking directly. I don’t know if this applies to the people in town). Just so you know, one peso is equivalent to 10 cents. Just that little bit of money makes all the difference.
Now let me describe the appearance of the
Rarámuri. The men wear cowboy garb, hats, button-up shirt and pants—we didn’t see anyone wearing shorts. Modesty is a big part of the women’s dress. The women make all their own clothes. Women wear long colorful skirts, like the type that were in style in Vancouver a couple years ago—the ones that are very full and have lots of body. The shortest skirts were well below the knees. People wear many layers of skirts to build up the triangle effect (the most Felice counted was 8!). The blouses are often made of the same cloth as the skirt. But even when they’re not, they still match in an eye smarting
way; anywhere else the colors would clash. The blouse is very loose with the sleeves getting tighter at the elbows. There are no jackets; the warm layer is a long bright shawl. The shawl, or rebosa, can also be a sling, baby holder, or sash. 
The children wear smaller versions of what the adults wear—all in bright colors. We also saw a few men wearing the traditional white loin cloth. Shoes are made from pieces of old tire tied on to the foot with rope. If not these shoes, than none. The Rarámuri’s skin color is a deep and rich copper colour. It contrasts wonderfully to their bright clothes.
The people Felice had worked with live in a very remote valley. It is a two hour drive
from Creel on paved road, and then an hour drive into the valley on a dirt road that our car could barely do. It was only thanks to my Dad’s fantastic driving skills that we didn’t have to hike in. No one there has any cars. The mode of transportation is walking, bikes, or horses. Rarámuri farm for a living, not to make food to sell, but to eat. If a crop fails, then they starve in the winter. Most of the fields we saw were filled with dried corn stalks. The 
harvest was over, so the animals were allowed to graze wherever they pleased. Felice said that the main reason grazers were kept was so that they would fertilize the fields and for meet at festivals. But, they have had other effects too. The grazers eat all the plants on the hills and cliffs, which frees up the soil for erosion. This in turn gets rid of all the precious top soil necessary for the corn.
I don’t know how to describe just how remote we were in the Sierra Tarahumara. For those of you who have been on Lasqueti, the road to the valley is worse than “
In the winter, some Rarámuri move from their homes into south-facing caves on the cliff faces. These hold the warmth of the sun. We were told by our guide in Quarentas Casas that a couple of years ago there was a snowstorm and many Rarámuri got snowed into their caves. Since there was no way to escape out of the cave, many Rarámuri starved.
The Rarámuri live in many side canyons of t
he larger
Felice told us a story about hiking up and down valleys. In a valley farther a field than we walked to, a father had to send his six year old child to school. Twice a week he would see him off. The father was worried about his six year old walking by himself so he would hike up with the child to the first ridge and then watch as his child went down into a valley and then appear again on the next ridge. The father would watch until the kid was on the last ridge. 
That is too long a walk to do every morning, so the kid stays where the school is during the school week.
The 
actually grander. The
GCC (global climate change) also has an effect here. In Zuni, there was just the right amount of rain at the right time this year. Here, however, there was too much rain and the harvest wasn’t very good. It is not good to be going 
into winter with low stocks of food. When Rarámuri run out of food in the winter, they won’t be able to buy it because with no outside job, they have very little or no money.
Many of the children we saw have an upper respiratory infection. They have runny noses and deep coughs. The only bonus to them being so sick is that if they overcome the disease then their immune system is stronger for the battle when they are adults. Older people have very few teeth, and what they have is usually blackened. There are no tooth brushes there. The kids faces are encrusted with several days worth of dirt and for the sick ones, snot.
Let me tell you a story. There was once a Rarámuri family with a mother, father and four
children, two boys and two girls. Then the father fell sick, it was a sudden thing, healthy one day, in bed and delirious the next. He died only a couple days after falling ill; it came as a shock to the family. With no adult to bring in money, the oldest child, a boy of ten, left the valley to be a migrant farm laborer to bring in some money. Life was hard though with only a ten year old boy bringing in money, and life became too hard for the mother to bare. She killed herself, orphaning her children. The second son left to work; he was only eight. The two remaining sisters about 4 and 5 were adopted out of the community for a few days before their Aunt and Uncle took them back in to the community. The family hasn’t heard from the younger brother so they think he must be a street kid somewhere. We met these two sisters and played Frisbee with them. They haven’t given up; their eyes are filled with sparkle and they are always laughing or smiling.
Our last day in
Rarámuri country we played violin in the secondary school. We did our normal set, but with less fiddle tunes and more classical tunes. We did less fiddle tunes because the Rarámuri have violins and fiddle tunes as part of their culture. Their violins are quite rustic. It is the varnish on violins that make them sound good and Rarámuri violins don’t have any varnish. This was the only place we had played that the students had seen and heard violin before. But classical and Jazz music is completely different than the Rarámuri music. Also, I think that they liked seeing someone their age play violin. My dad played Oh Canada and I sang the words. Then they sang the Mexican Anthem, which is all about war. And they asked us questions about life in
The Rarámuri culture, especially for the women, is all about not calling attention to themselves. For instance, the women talk quietly and don’t meet peoples eyes. Shaking hands quite gently, not trying to break peoples’ hands. People put there hands together, as if they were about
to shake their hands, but they don’t grab the other persons hand, just gently squeeze with their thumbs.
So it stands to reason that clapping is not appropriate. It was quite unnerving to finish a song and be greeted with dead silence. I knew beforehand not to expect clapping, but it still surprised me not to be applauded. I knew they enjoyed the music because they weren’t talking among themselves, but there was no other way for me to gauge their feelings.
The school was one story, with a dirt floor. There was graffiti on the walls, but the school didn’t have enough money to buy paint to put over the graffiti. There is about 80 percent Rarámuri people in the school. After we were done performing I got a picture of me, Rosa Eva, and one of her friends.
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The 
lords grow their dope plants for marketing in the
There had been some gang violence in Creel, too. 
We were told that the Prime Minister of Mexico decided that he would get rid of the drug gangs. These gangs had divided up the Country into their own “drug territories”. So, when the President gave one group guns and money, he upset the balance and created a gang war where there hadn’t been any before. Last year there was some shootings. Thirteen people died, including one baby. Only a couple of the people were actually involved with the drug trafficking, the rest were just innocent people, in the wrong place at the wrong time. The people of Creel were quite upset. So, the government went out and arrested a few people. But the towns folk felt like the people arrested were just as scapegoats. We asked someone what had happened and she made shushing sounds and pointed to a security camera in front of the bank. She was afraid that the drug lords would be listening and get her if she talked about the massacre. Across the street from where we talked to her was a memorial commemorating the people who died. The poster was in Spanish and English. It said, “Welcome to Creel, welcome to Creel, land of encountered….with death, insecurity, impunity, and corruption, where justice does not exist. Massacred.”
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After Daddy and I finished playing the violin we all hopped in the car. Felice needed to
catch a
We didn’t stay in
