CITY OF CUANAJO

MICHOACAN – CITY OF CUANAJO
By Travis M. Whitehead
CUANAJO – A trogon, its cherry red neck gleaming against a body of emerald green, crawls up the side of a cuadrado (picture frame), followed by a chattering monkey. Mickey Mouse, decked out in a blue jacket and red trousers, offers a rose to a demure Minnie Mouse carved into the headboard of a bed frame. A cross-eyed Dalmatian puppy stares from a colgante (wall-hanging), its blue ears flopping over its face as the canine waits to decorate some child’s room; the pup bursts from a doorway along the cobblestone streets of Cuanajo, one voice in a visual chorus of images protected by the imagination of innocence.

This little gem of a town west of Morelia – complete with a charming colonial church, a carnival of eye candy, and a mesmerizingly slow place – beckons visitors looking for a trip to another time, a place where nothing can disrupt the fantasies of youth. Like Superman leaping from a phone booth, blocks of wood enter the town’s workshops and reappear days later transformed into a circus of shapes and colors. Homes sheltered with terracotta roofs harbor the workshops where artisans spend long hours practicing their trade secrets to produce masterpieces of both form and function.

Each family has its own technique - an endless number of approaches to familiar motifs show themselves throughout the town, where residents have found a way to escape the monotony of daily life with a delightful chaos that has become their livelihood; through their systematic labor, they indulge the necessities of routine existence by endowing that routine with joyous escape.

To get there, take Highway 14 west toward Patzcuaro. Before getting to Patzcuaro, you’ll pass the turnoff for Tiripetio before observing signs directing you to head back in the opposite direction to find the road to Cuanajo.After making the turnoff, you’ll take a slow winding road a few miles to Cuanajo, passing first through Tupataro, another picturesque community with a colonial church and a handmade furniture tradition of its own.

Once in Cuanajo, take the twisting road up a hill and turn left to arrive at the plaza and the church. The dramatic power of the church is enhanced by its simple façade: a stone entrance adorned with scallop and leaf motifs set into a stucco face. One Sunday just a few minutes before noon, tiny microbial birds spun their webs of shrill tunes, cutting through the silence before someone in the tower spun a huge iron bell mounted in a tulip-shaped housing.

The bell coughed up a deep-throated gong that ricocheted over the tiny community, followed by the high-pitched sound of a second tocsin and the beating of an even lower chime. A slow trickle of people moved up the stone walkways toward the gaping mouth of the church through a courtyard manicured with pink roses and birds of paradise.

A man in khaki pants limped shakily toward the structure; a woman doubled over and shrouded in her blue-striped rebozo walked in tiny measured steps; a man in leather sandals creeped toward the church with a cane. A young man with a cell phone strapped to his belt approached with his wife and two children.

They came in groups or as solitary seekers of security in their quiet world, blessed with the sanctity of remem-brance and connection, their footsteps casting faint whispers on the stone steps. Perhaps those soft-thronged shadows of sound joined the lingering memories of their generations past, for this was an ageless community where the passage of years had crept by leaving tangible traces of itself in the crevices of every memory.

Before the altar, an image of Christ rose through a picture of sunlit clouds behind him, and festoons of green, pink and blue lace seemed to flower overhead. Before the Christ image stood vases of white lilies, gladioluses, and pink roses. White candles, with beads of wax like sweat frozen, flickered from glistening holders. On the left stood an image of Christ in a glass casket and carved wooden panels of calla lilies, sunflowers, and grapes boiling from vases in the Cuanajo style. On the right was an image of the Lady of Guadalupe.

Two teenage boys sat joking amongst themselves outside, as if postponing the inevitable; teenage girls in tight jeans and tennis shoes, sandals, and heels, still within the grasp of a humorous story, emptied the courtyard and flooded into the church. The parishioners sat now in quiet respect; they stood, a strumming guitar leading them into a song that flooded into the ceiling crisscrossed by panels of light blue and trimmed with gold flourishesand festooned with lace curtains before rolling into the churchyard and the plaza.

The plaza was a rather simple affair, small and manicured with hedges around small gardens of roses and palm trees, with ficus trees providing shade for the iron benches along the walkways. Broad eaves of terracotta hung over sidewalks leading to small grocery stores and carved furniture establishments. Muebleria Ambakity Muebles Rusticos y Tallados sold a number of furniture items in varying styles, fashioned by members of the same family. A wardrobe depicted a man drowsing beneath sombreros next to a blazing fire, crafted in a tranquil floating effect with fluid lines. The headboard, with sunflowers painted the colors of solar flares against emerald green leaves and aqua blue stems, was done in the same style. However, a china cabinet with a rustic, earthy look bore images with a choppy, more energetic effect, revealing apples, pears, bananas and grapes that seemed to scramble nervously from a basket. A table and chairs struck a balance between the two styles, a graceful approach that evoked lively movement.

At Dona Ofe, Ofelia Prudencio Cabrera’s family sold fragments of their imagination that had crawled into their wooden pieces and received the ointment of paint giving to give them their final sparkle. A carved picture of a familiar maiden with her back turned showed her in a red pleated skirt facing a bundle of flowers in light shades of lavender, orange, red, and gold. This piece, like many of the painted works in the store (made up of several rooms) had more of a crackled appearance, unlike the spotted look of Angel Cuin’s work, which gives his work an entirely different impression.

The motif of the familiar maiden with her back turned and holding a bundle of flowers deserves special mention here. She appears often in drastically different guises, holding loads of flowers on trunks, headboards, tables, and other pieces of furniture. At Muebleria Ambakity Muebles Rusticos, she was seen on a headboard with her head turned slightly, but not enough to see her face. She wore a striped blue rebozo and red skirt, and the position of her arms, heavy with a load of flowers, evoked an impression of strength, as if she had born the burden for many years.

Elsewhere in town, Hector Paque had a servilleta depicting the maiden as a little girl, and a framed picture depicted her with brown hair and her feet showing beneath her black dress.
Next door, at Cruz Vega’s place of business, the maiden was carved into a very large picture in which she was in an open meadow. Her skin was much darker in this rendition, and she grasped the stems of a balloon-shaped bundle of calla lilies and sunflowers about three times her size while her feet poked out beneath her red dress.

Just up the street at El Pina Muebleria, there were even more renditions of the maiden with flowers; in one carved picture, she wore a bright red dress and had dirty blonde hair, quite a different treatment of the subject. In another she wore a brown dress that matched her hair, and she grasped a bulging bouquet of calla lilies. A blue shawl was draped across her white blouse, and a single lily lay on the ground at her side. Back at Prudencio’s shop, another picture in more earthy colors showed the same woman with flowers but much older because of her more sophisticated dress, a deep dark indigo top with shoulder pads before a bundle of sunflowers the colors of peeled mangos and glowing embers.

Robert Toy and his friend Joan James, both American expatriates living in Patzcuaro, were both enjoying their little shopping trip to Cuanajo.

“I think everybody who comes here initially wants to decorate the entire house like this,” said Toy, 67. “But eventually you settle down to one piece. If you walk around enough, every store has its style. It’s very subtle, but it’s very different. Some, I would consider gaudy, some very rustic, some are very high end.”

Walking down one of the streets will give you an idea of what he’s talking about. Peak inside a plain brick dwelling and you might see sunlight flooding the face of a sad moon, painted carvings of Pope John Paul II and the Virgin of Guadalupe, and a crib with the Three Little Pigs and the Gingerbread Man. A crouching Spiderman shoots a web from the confines of an unpainted headboard leaning against a wall.

On this Sunday morning, truckloads of lattice-backed chairs, stools, carved trunks, and corner shelves rumbled slowly down a road and out of town. A woman stirred potato chips in a hot skillet before bagging them for sale; a man with a deeply-pitted face hung out a doorway, his dugout eyes frowning against the sun.

At El Pina Muebleria, Winnie the Pooh got into a tussle with Tigger on a headboard, capturing the imagination of a little girl who scrambled down from her mother’s arms to explore the playground of images inside; an older boy climbed around two wooden Don Quixotes sitting on logs and poised as Augustin Rodin's "The Thinker". Here, however, the maiden finally showed her face on a trunk. It was in profile, but she cautiously surrendered a glimpse of her wonders: full cheeks with thin cherry lips and sharp glistening black eyes. The store also had tables carved with men leading horses through hillside villages where women with gourds gathered around fountains and a sun rose over church steeples and green hills.

In the village of Cuanajo, fragmented images from discarded memories find new life through the talented workmanship of the local artisans. A playful puppy, a squawking parrot, and baskets of fruit remind visitors of life’s vitality and the power of play. Man’s destiny to return to the timeless joys of life form the fabric of this community where the pace of life has made the daily instruction of this lesson possible.

JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ - PHOTO

Juana Alonso Hernandez makes huancipos at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair in April 2006 in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico.

VIDEO - JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ AND FAMILY

In this delightful video, Juana Alonso Hernandez, in a yellow skirt, and her daughter-in-law, Lydia, gather corn leaves to make corundas. Juana's son David, who learned English while living in Oregon, tends to his and Lydia's two young boys. Listen to the boys, Cesar and Lorenzo, chatting away in Purepecha, keeping the language alive. To read more about David, Lydia, and their two sons, keep an eye out for the complete book when it is published!

ARTISAN PROFILE - JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ
By Travis M. Whitehead
COCUCHO - The needle, beckoning the thread to follow its lead, sent shimmering bands of emerald and jungle green fluttering from the orange blossom in the guanengo, a white cotton blouse. A rush of color spread slowly across the garment, spilling from the dexterous hands of Juana Alonso Hernandez. Freshly-picked corn on the cob boiled over an open fire in the wooden kitchen area behind her; several of her recently-fired clay Cocuchas lay on the ground beneath the muddy sky. They waited with mute resignation for Juana to scrub them down in preparation for the upcoming Day of the Dead Crafts Fair and Competition in Patzcuaro in late October and early November.

"I was playing with munecas," said Juana, 69, explaining how she learned needlepoint while endowing a piece of cloth with some colorful stitchwork. "I learned to make the blouses and the aprons. I taught myself. My aunt made dresses. When I started making them, she gave me little pieces. I just get the ideas from my memory. I do pajaritos, grecas (geometric keywork), and flowers. Flowers are the most difficult. I have won 15 awards. I make servilletas, and shirts for men. I like both Cocuchas and needlepoint, but I prefer doing Cocuchas."

This versatile artisan, who also raises fighting roosters, is usually associated with her Cocuchas, which have also won numerous awards; she's a common sight at crafts fairs, sitting next to her pots, laughing with her fellow Cocucho artisans and making huancipos, the round corn leaf wreaths on which the pots are placed.

I had wanted to visit Juana ever since I met her at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair and Competition in Uruapan in 2006. She charmed me with her acceptance of my questions and was completely at ease with my camera. I loved her refreshing spontaneity, her genuine warmth, and the consuming smile that easily overtook a stormy and vibrant face textured by the many roads she'd traveled.

Juana's husband, Juan, had been an industrious maker of trojes, a traditional wooden shelter, before dying 35 years earlier from liver ailments caused by excessive drinking; 12 years ago she lost a son, Salvador, in Oregon. He'd traveled there for work with his two brothers, David and Guadalupe, and one evening he stepped away from the dinner table for a moment and fell, hitting his head. He died later at the hospital. At about the same time, Juana's daughter Maria had been struck by lightning in Cocucho while washing clothes and died instantly, leaving four young children to be raised by relatives. I discerned later these tragedies had provided the well-spring for her powerful sense of joy, a contagious vitality that inspired me.

On my first visit to her home in Cocucho, her intense, gleaming black eyes, complemented by an enchanting smile, greeted me at the door. She motioned for me to follow her across the yard; she moved like a cat past sand drying in the sun for use in the clay, her mud-caked feet gripping the concrete that spread through the living quarters of 12 relatives, including a son, two daughters-in-law, numerous grandchildren and even a cherub-faced great-granddaughter named Maria del Carmen.

This was the power plant of Juana's industry, the multi-chambered heart that fired a vibrant pulse into her work. The laughter of her grandchildren at play - chattering in Purepecha, racing down the alleways, dodging wet Cocuchas and her cranky fighting roosters, or jumping into the matriarch's arms - invigorated what might otherwise become an exhausted soul with the exuberance of youth. That energy continually awakened her with a renewed vitality and flowed into her Cocuchas, her needlepoint, her laughter, love, and joy.

We stepped into her kitchen, a sanctuary of exhilarating simplicity made of wood and a steeply-pitched roof. Her skirt of burnt gold waved around her slightly bowed legs as she stepped through the open doorway into a darkened room where cheese and blue corn tortillas sizzled on a comal over a fogon built into the concrete floor; a bowl of churipu simmered on sticks of wood jutting from the side of the fogon over glowing coals. Bunches of corn leaves hung like thick untamed hair from a low smoke-stained beam against a wall, blue corn tortillas lay in a woven reed basket. Bowls decorated with animated floral designs sat on shelves with glasses and clay pots. A metate leaned against a wall. Her daughter-in-law, Prudenciana, sat next to her and popped open a large bottle of Pepsi and poured herself a glass.

"She made those two Cocuchas," said Juana, pointing at two tall pots standing beneath a tarp just beyond the door. "My granddaughter made the two smaller ones."

The smoke rising from the fogon spit frustrated whispers into the room, wrestling with my senses, alerting me that another doorway had cracked open to awaken some spent and atrophied perception, like a fallen sundial awakened to the reemergence of time's meticulous crawl. Juana sat on the floor, her vise-like hands placing cheese and quelites (a local plant used as a salad green) and red salsa on a blue tortilla.

I enjoyed generous chunks of cheese with quelites wrapped in tortillas, eagerly partaking of a rapturous cultural experience; the light flavor of the cheese, crouching within the earthy relish of the blue tortilla and paired with the capricious crunch of the quelites offered a scrumptious culinary excursion as I absorbed the wealth of sensations approaching me from every direction. Juana chatted with Prudenciana in Purepecha, finishing up her meal and then sitting on a wooden stump (doubling as a chair in the kitchen) for a nice long smoke from an unfiltered cigarette.

"I like Alas," she said, referring to the brand. "I don't like Del Prado. They aren't strong enough for me. Alas are strong enough."

We finished eating and Juana gave me a tour of her place. We walked past bags of barro against a brick wall and a group of children sitting on some stone steps, a closed geography book laying nearby. I trailed behind her down a narrow alleyway and into her work area where two bare wet Cocuchas stood and a third sat covered by an apron and a black and blue rebozo. She'd worked on this project for a week.

"It's waiting to dry," she said. "Probably tomorrow I will add some more. I worked on it some yesterday."

Her fighting roosters fidgeted in their cages. She took up the fighting rooster trade after she married at age 14. Her husband, 22, had a couple of roosters.

"That's how I learned," she said. "He got a lot of money for that."

I had come to Cocucho to meet not only with Juana but with Elena Reyes Remigio, whose family makes beautiful needlepoint. I'd told Elena I would stop by her home at about 11 a.m. and I was already late, so I decided I neededto see her quickly. Juana said she would be home for awhile but then she would have to go tend her corn field. I figured I could finish up at Elena's in time to return before she left.

I stayed at Elena's place longer than expected, visiting with her grandmother through the afternoon, and by the time I returned, Juana had left. However, her family filled the yard with an industrious energy that enthralled me through the afternoon.

Prudenciana had already rubbed down a wet olla with a purple scrub pad; now she used shredded plastic the color of Easter grass to smooth out the boisterous lip, her gray skirt dancing around her slender, powerful legs as she worked. Her daughter, Jovita, with ecstatic magenta flowers falling across her black blouse, worked on her own piece next to her. Maria Dolores, Prudenciana's other daughter, sifted black sand on a sheet of plastic before moving to the kitchen where she began splitting and grinding anise on a metate for atole.

Music bounced from a radio inside a troje where a young woman folded clothes. It swung around ears of corn hangingon a rafter over clusters of pots gathered around the wooden porch and the huancipos laying beneath piles of cardboard. One of Juana's fighting roosters strutted about the yard, golden plumes falling down its rippling neck over russet and turquoise plumes, kaleidoscopic emerald tail feathers showering past his back.

Prudenciana carried some wood into the kitchen to indulge the fire's impetuous appetite, then spread some sand over a tarp, tossed in some clay, poured more sand and splashed water on the mixture before stepping into the medley and kneading it all together with her nimble feet; she suddenly appeared juxtaposed with the classic scene of Lucille Ball stomping through a vat of grapes. Prudenciana's feet and toes squish-squish-squished through the mixture, authoritatively insisting the sand and clay submit to her demands. They slowly, hesitantly gave in to the pressure and fused their talents. The artisan's diligent labor burned the mixture's complexion into the deep roasted reddish color distinctive of Cocucha clay.

The gray skirt flipping around her legs reflected the pesky afternoon clouds that threatened to spoil the afternoon. Undaunted, she squatted next to the mixture and kneaded the hot-tinted dough by hand. Jessica, one of Juana's granddaughters (not Prudenciana's child) joined her, breaking off tiny bits of the substance with her elfin hands, leaning her vivacious body toward the clay as she worked. After a few minutes, however, she became bored and trotted off, seeking some new adventure in the maze of trails and stone walls spreading through her extended family's home.

Suddenly, big raindrops crashed into the tarp, sending doltish wallops of metallic sound into the air. Jovita, whohad been washing clothes, hung them on a line over the covered porch of the troje to dry. The day was drawing to a close; Juana still had not returned, but I knew I would be back to experience more of the laughter and persistent energy abounding in this family.

JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ - PHOTOS

Juana inscribes colorful flowers into her guanengo.

Juana, right, and her daughter-in-law Prudenciana shuck corn.

JUANA'S GRITO

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - JUANA'S GRITO By Travis M. Whitehead

A tragic incident occurred in Morelia the night of Sept. 15, 2008, during the Mexican Independence Day celebration. Assailants threwtwo grenades into crowds of families celebrating the event, killing eight people and injuring more than 100.

A large section of Avenida Madero through the historical downtown area had been blocked off for the festivities, and the grenades exploded at opposite ends of the celebration. This may have been done to create a stampede, which fortunately didn't happen.

One of the grenades exploded in Plaza Melchor Ocampo on the east side of the Cathedral of Morelia and directly in front of the balcony where Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy gave the grito. "Viva la Independencia!" he shouted. "Viva Hidalgo! Viva Morelos! Viva Michoacan!" to which the crowd responded "Viva!" after each phrase. The grenade ripped into the crowd at the very moment the grito took place; another was tossed several blocks away in front of Templo La Merced.

I had planned to stand at the location in front of the balcony for the grito, but I later changed my mind and went about two blocks up the street to Sanborn's where I browsed the book section and became very engrossed in a National Geographic article about the 43,000-year-old remains of some red-headed Neanderthals. The remains were discovered in a Spanish cave where they had been cannibalized; scientists were able to retrieve enough DNA to learn that, not only did they possibly have red hair, they may also have had the capacity for speech. The article captivated me so much I didn't want to put it down, and I finally stepped outside about five minutes before the grito at 11 p.m., which I watched on a screen across the street from Sanborns.

Possibly because of all the revelry and shouting and exploding fireworks I didn't hear anything, and I didn't notice any panic or other disturbance. I did see some ambulances as I was leaving but I didn't think anything of it because ambulances are a common occurrence at events like this as a precautionary measure. I didn't even know there had been an actual attack until the next day. The whole city was furious and deeply saddened. This had never happened before in Morelia, an elegant Spanish colonial city, and she had lost her innocence.

The coffee shops, restaurants, dining tables, and living rooms around the city were rife with rumors and allegations, but many people seemed to feel the narco-traffickers were retaliating against the government for its crackdown. One friend suggested a separate group bent simply on creating disorder. A couple of days later, the U.S.government handed down indictments against several hundred members of a major drug cartel, and news sources suggested the narco-traffickers would retaliate against U.S. for this move.

The gravity of what had happened didn't occur to me right away, and I remained firm in my resolve to continue with my project. However, as I drove alone into western Michoacan the following Thursday to finish up some interviews in the village of Cocucho, I wondered if I was being foolish, if I were heading toward my own death, if I should just pack up and head home. I drove along the rural roads wondering if a cluster of cars would appear from nowhere, cut me off, and take me hostage in retaliation for the US indictments, but I safely arrived in Paracho without incident.

The next morning I drove along more isolated rural roads to Cocucho, again with no problem, and I spent the afternoon with Juana. I had planned to meet with her son David to help me translate an interview with his mother. Although my Spanish had improved during the past few months, people in the rural areas sometimes use speech patterns and pronunciations with which I was as yet unfamiliar.

I had already been to Cocucho a couple of times and had only a few questions I needed answered, and by this time I had become so unnerved by the grenade attacks that I wanted merely to finish the interview and rush back to Morelia. When I arrived in Cocucho, however, I discovered David had left to cut wood for his cook fires and would not return until much later in the afternoon. This change in plans provided me with a wonderful opportunity to spend more time with Juana, a glorious serendipity.

Juana had just fired some of her clay pots when I arrived at her door, and she now sat on a stool outside her cooking area working on some needlepoint. She said when she and her family heard about the attacks in Morelia, they and other residents of Cocucho met at Templo de San Bartolomeo up the street and said prayers for us. I found this solidarity for the Morelianos, the victims, and their families deeply touching. Morelia herself had become very much a part of me, and I felt powerfully moved by Juana's endearments toward us.

After she had worked on her needlepoint for awhile, she and her two daughters-in-law, Gloria and Prudenciana, got in my car and we went out to a corn field collectively owned by the three of them just off the road to Paracho. They bailed out with their burlap bags and went into the field to pick corn. I stayed with my car and absorbed the sunshine; rich purple blossoms, known locally as San Miguel, and more popularly called mirasoles, lined the dirt roads winding through the corn fields. Mesmerizing sunlight poured across the low hills bounding away in every directions, lifting my spirits.

However, I realized as I stood there that I was in the middle of nowhere. I wondered if someone would suddenly appear and kidnap me to make a political statement. As this thought intruded into the sunny afternoon, two trucks full of people ambled down the road. The drivers and passengers gave me a passing glance, then continued down the road before stopping. The occupants climbed out and went into the field to pick corn.

Juana momentarily appeared with three corn stalks for me to chew. These are a very popular local favorite, dreadfully fibrous but refreshingly sweet. On one of the corn plants, she had also found a mushroom-like growth called cuacaduchi that she collected for use in a stew. They are apparently good for lung health and are very tasty.

She returned to the field, and a young man with two smaller boys appeared from their plot of corn a few minutes later with loads of the juicy ears. They moved past me down the road and out of sight. Soon, Juana and her daughters-in-law returned to the car with loads of corn and arm fulls of San Miguel flowers, plus corn leaves for making corundas, a type of tamale.

We returned to Juana's home where she peeled several ears of corn, called tirhiapu in the Purepecha language, and put them in a pot of water to boil over the fogon, the cooking area built into the middle of the concrete floor inside the wooden cooking shelter. She sat down outside and peeled more corn ears, and soon some other relatives brought me a plate of five ears of corn to eat with salsa, salt, and some delicious local cheese. The corn, being freshly picked, was delicious. I tried stopping at the fourth one but Juana insisted on my consuming them all, so I was quite stuffed with her gracious hospitality.

Once she finished peeling the ears of corn, Prudenciana sat with us and they began shucking corn to make huchepos, another type of tamale. I asked if I could try to shuck some corn and they smiled and said of course, and they gave me a few tips to get me started. At the same time I asked for a few more Purepecha words to add to my vocabulary. I learned that the Purepecha word for shucking corn is Piiyuuni (phonetic spelling), and the leaves of the corn are called xarakata.

David finally returned to town about 5 p.m., announcing his presence with several blasts of his horn as he passed his mother's house on the way home. I drove to his house. He was exhausted. After a three-day round of festive drinking in celebration of Mexican Independence Day, he'd spent a whole day cutting wood, and huge blocks sat now in the back of his truck. He pulled one out and reduced it to thin shreds with an ax, then stoked the fire in the cooking area where his wife Lydia prepared beans and eggs and blue corn tortillas. It was a delicious meal, and I would have liked seconds, but I was already stuffed from the corn on the cob I'd devoured at Juana's house.

Rain crashed into the roof as we engaged in small talk and finished the meal, the chilly air warmed by the fire and our own laughter as I turned down some scary-looking chiles, explaining once again that "I still don't have enough callouses on my tongue." The rain slacked off and we went to his mother's house where I finally got the interview I needed.

I asked her where she found the energy and the time to make Cocuchas, do needlepoint, raise fighting roosters, tend her own corn field, make huancipos, prepare meals, Whew! Where does she get it?

"I get it from Jesus," she replied. "Jesus helps me."

Spending the day with Juana and her family reinvigorated my own faith in Michoacan, Morelia, the artisans, and my project. She had indeed performed her own grito, a cry for independence from fear, from alienation, from thedesecration of optimism. The day with Juana reminded me that the violent criminal element in Michoacan is sharply outnumbered by the peaceful citizens of the state. True, the small number of violent criminals can do a great deal of damage, but there was no need to be afraid of every person I met, because the dangerous ones were few and far between. Most people there were busy making clay pots, doing needlepoint, cutting wood, preparing meals, laughing and living and loving their relatives, friends, and strangers. Throwing grenades was the last thing on their minds.

Festival in San Jose de Gracia