The death toll started today shortly after mass let out. We always hear mass in our house, not because we necessarily want to, but because we live so close to the church and they blare mass from speakers strung up above their massive wooden doors, apparently in an effort to remind the whole town of their sins and make us all feel bad for not being present in the church. So every Sunday around 10:50, as mass is wrapping up, we'll be sitting around in our kitchen and we'll hear the loud tuneless chanting of "Padre Nuestro ..." So today was no different except that about a half hour later we heard the first deep gongs of the low sonorous chiming of the church bell that marks death in the village - the death toll. The whole town stops and perks up its ears like a dog on a full moon listening to a freight train passing in the night. The same question always crosses everyone's mind - who was it? Who died? Was it someone I knew? What did they die of? But today as soon as Nikis heard it he knew who it was- the guy on the corner from the Frontera mini-super market. Word had had it that a few days ago he'd had a sudden stroke or aneurysm or something and was in a coma, so it had to be him that died. And sure enough, the store was all closed up with long faced people congregating outside. The guy was only about 35 years old. But here's the deal - he was wrapped up in a classic Third World scandal and the pressure got to be so much that his brain just exploded I think. And I have to wonder if there wasn't a little karma involved.
A few years ago this guy was the Treasurer for the town water. Basically this is one of the big jobs in local politics, to be in charge of the village water tower. Its really simple - you collect money from everyone in the village for their water "bill," about 15 bucks a year, then you in turn pay the power bill to the electric company so that the town water pump keeps working. Well, here's where the dead guy got typically third worldy on it - he collected everyone's money but instead of paying the power bill, he kept all the money. He kept upwards of 60,000 dollars, a huge fortune here in podunk Mexico. And the power bill never got paid, so the village is in huge debt to the power company, who threatens on a regular basis to turn off the power. In fact we have gone without water for weeks at a time since the current dudes in charge of the water turn it off trying to force everyone else to cough up extra money to pay the debt. Living without water really sucks - it makes you constipated because what are you going to wash down the shit with? You can't wash a dish, so you eat off of styrofoam plates, but you can't cook with styrofoam, so the crusty pots stack up in the sink and the food on them gets more and more petrified. Your hair gets greasy, your hands get sticky, your clothes get stinky - so worship water - its the most important substance in the world - take gooood care of it. So anyway, turning off the water punished us all but didn't get the bill paid. So they've been trying to get this guy to pay up and pay up and meanwhile he transferred all his property to his family members so nobody could go after it. People have reamed him in the town meetings saying if this was any other village we'd lynch you. But he still never paid up, having spent the 60,000 long ago. So the guys currently in office sued him. And well, he couldn't take the heat and just up and died. The whole town is over on the corner right now for his wake. I think they're there in part just to make sure he's really dead, that he didn't just run away and stage his funeral. But yeah, he's dead all right. Having your body laid out on the kitchen table is a pretty sure sign that you're dead. The sad low sound of women singing the rosary is carried on the breeze all night, filtering into my living room next to the sounds of dogs barking and a siren out on the highway. So now I wonder who is going to pay the water debt. I better start filling my tubs and jugs with water to get me through the next dry spell.
Its ironic, because just a few days ago, we had the Aztec dancers over at the Dreaming House for a ceremony, and the whole ceremony was to celebrate the dry things and ultimately to plea for water, that the rains come now and end the dry season, bringing water to nourish life after the long dry spell. We danced the pattern of the snake and stomped our earnest feet on the ground in prayer and spun around and called to the moon. We honored Tlaloc, the ancient god of water, asking for rain, and here we are now cowering before him, praying to him to make the damn town water tower pump water into our homes.
A few years ago this guy was the Treasurer for the town water. Basically this is one of the big jobs in local politics, to be in charge of the village water tower. Its really simple - you collect money from everyone in the village for their water "bill," about 15 bucks a year, then you in turn pay the power bill to the electric company so that the town water pump keeps working. Well, here's where the dead guy got typically third worldy on it - he collected everyone's money but instead of paying the power bill, he kept all the money. He kept upwards of 60,000 dollars, a huge fortune here in podunk Mexico. And the power bill never got paid, so the village is in huge debt to the power company, who threatens on a regular basis to turn off the power. In fact we have gone without water for weeks at a time since the current dudes in charge of the water turn it off trying to force everyone else to cough up extra money to pay the debt. Living without water really sucks - it makes you constipated because what are you going to wash down the shit with? You can't wash a dish, so you eat off of styrofoam plates, but you can't cook with styrofoam, so the crusty pots stack up in the sink and the food on them gets more and more petrified. Your hair gets greasy, your hands get sticky, your clothes get stinky - so worship water - its the most important substance in the world - take gooood care of it. So anyway, turning off the water punished us all but didn't get the bill paid. So they've been trying to get this guy to pay up and pay up and meanwhile he transferred all his property to his family members so nobody could go after it. People have reamed him in the town meetings saying if this was any other village we'd lynch you. But he still never paid up, having spent the 60,000 long ago. So the guys currently in office sued him. And well, he couldn't take the heat and just up and died. The whole town is over on the corner right now for his wake. I think they're there in part just to make sure he's really dead, that he didn't just run away and stage his funeral. But yeah, he's dead all right. Having your body laid out on the kitchen table is a pretty sure sign that you're dead. The sad low sound of women singing the rosary is carried on the breeze all night, filtering into my living room next to the sounds of dogs barking and a siren out on the highway. So now I wonder who is going to pay the water debt. I better start filling my tubs and jugs with water to get me through the next dry spell.
Its ironic, because just a few days ago, we had the Aztec dancers over at the Dreaming House for a ceremony, and the whole ceremony was to celebrate the dry things and ultimately to plea for water, that the rains come now and end the dry season, bringing water to nourish life after the long dry spell. We danced the pattern of the snake and stomped our earnest feet on the ground in prayer and spun around and called to the moon. We honored Tlaloc, the ancient god of water, asking for rain, and here we are now cowering before him, praying to him to make the damn town water tower pump water into our homes.
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