We were on the Puerto Caté San Cristóbal de Las Casas road, passing through the tiny village of Cruz Quemada, when I spotted this small chapel. Our road trip today is taking us right past Chamula which we visited yesterday, but our destination now is further north in the village of San Andrés Larráinzar, with a population of only 2,364 people. If you look over towards the left, you might notice that we are above the clouds.

After a little bit of rain a couple of days ago, the haze has cleared offering us a great view of the surrounding lands. If life wasn’t difficult enough in rural Mexico, we learned about unsavory characters who desire particular plots of land and frame the current occupants if they refuse to sell in an effort to pressure them to leave. Selling land is not a solution to anything for these indigenous people as what would the seller do after leaving lands their families have tended for decades or longer? So the bullies accuse the man of the house of some crime to entrap them in the legal system for years and pressure the women to sell in order to help their husbands or sons get out of prison. Land ownership is a difficult case to prove when documentation is thin or non-existent and so preying on the vulnerable is a lucrative business that only produces tragic results.

As though living on earnings of $5 to $13 pesos a day wasn’t a difficult enough existence, imagine losing your small plot of land on which you grow squash and potatoes to feed the family and your small decrepit buildings housing a kitchen, sleeping area, and shelter for your chickens were then all gone. There is no state aid for you, no small business administration, no bank loan: you are on your own. It could be argued that the rabbit eats the vegetables, the coyote eats the rabbit, the wolf kills the coyote, the bear devours the wolf, and so we have to recognize that we live in a dog-eat-dog world where there’s always a predator and always someone or something to prey on. But in the US, we have the luxury of living in a country of rules and order where believe it or not, we at least have a modicum of empathy for those on the margin, to some degree anyway.

Mystery surrounds us as I have no ability to learn what mountain range I’m looking at, what the valley is that stretches off to the left, and what the church or chapel is on the top of the hill to our right. Not that I need to know any of that, as I’m appreciative that our guides have a body of knowledge of the surroundings and that they’re sharing these out-of-the-way places with us. We don’t simply move through looking at the sights; we have a purpose, and we are likely going to find delight, treasures, and lifelong memories when we reach the destination in our itinerary.

We’ve reached San Andrés Larráinzar and the first of three families we’ll be spending time with today.

At least for another decade or so, you will not escape the ubiquitous backstrap loom that is everywhere here in the Chiapas Highlands, but after that? Will youngsters be able to avoid the allure of jeans and comfortable t-shirts as they eschew, wearing scratchy wool and suffering from the constant toil of hard work that they are barely compensated for, or will the young abandon the places and traditions that create the delightful reasons for our visit?

And now the treasures of untold wealth. In the United States, I buy the most non-descript, boring short-sleeved shirts of no particular character made from massive sheets of fabric, likely machine-woven in China. That fabric is sent to Bangladesh, where it is cut and assembled before being loaded onto a container ship to be sent to the store I’ll buy it from. Before reaching me, the cost to make that shirt was about $3.50, and then once I visit the store I’ll buy it from, the charge will be about $60, not due to shipping but because that’s the way capitalism works.

This is a close-up view of the dress that is pictured left of center in the photo above this one. It is not cheap at $18,000 pesos or $900 U.S., but it’s a handmade masterpiece of incredible complexity. In my estimation, the person who wove this required no less than 500 hours of work, meaning they are valuing their work, materials, and creativity at only $1.80 per hour. I’m writing this while back home in Phoenix, Arizona, and have to scratch my head asking if we’d missed an opportunity to own this work of art if even for a short while.

Well, this is peculiar; a man is at home. But it’s also an incredibly fortunate moment too. You see, there’s a pretty strong division of responsibility in households down here where men tend to the most physically demanding labor (usually outside the home) while women care for children, households, clothing, and some minor farming. Both sides contribute to the financial well-being of the family or at least strive to. Being on hand to witness for himself the respect and awe that arrives with us visitors armed with fists of cash must have the effect of convincing him of the value the women of his family are bringing not just to their own economic security but also how this impacts their small community.

The huipiles are seriously a canvas as the Maya are capable of dropping big art into their textiles.

Hello, little girl; where will your dreams take you?

Hello grandma, have your dreams brought you at least a little something from the hopes you had for your family?

What started out as just trying on a blusa led to one of the ladies bringing over a skirt for Caroline to try and then the belt. We left with everything but the belt. After verifying that wearing a belt Caroline picked up in Tenejapa last Thursday would be okay to pair with this ensemble, we asked the price of the pieces and gladly paid for them. While there’s a good dose of guilt in paying so little, we also know that collectively, we are helping sustain this family with our enthusiasm and generosity.

Do you see rebellion against fulfilling the role of caring for her little brother while the older women contend with those of us who might leave enough of our money to care for this family for the next year or beyond? This young girl, who I guess is maybe 11 years old, wears the rebozo that supports the young guy and ensures he’s close and loved while she meets her responsibilities. The baby boy has no reason to squirm or flail about while he’s held securely by someone so familiar. This is not a moment out of the ordinary where the players are unaccustomed to this routine, this is just a part of their lives.

I don’t have any idea what this lady will do with this weaving when it’s finished but I’d love to be around when it’s cut off the loom and is transformed into its next form. Its design can be seen ten photos above on its backstrap loom that she’s working on here in this photo.

Our visit is nearly over, but first, a group photo was in order.

What a beautiful day to be out in the highlands of Chiapas.

The whole time we’ve been in the San Cristóbal de Las Casas region of Chiapas and these surrounding areas, we’ve been in Zapatista country.

Zapatista mural on a school because indigenous rights are still being trampled by the dominant Mexican culture. While there’s been some progress for the people of the highlands, they are still the poorest and generally most undereducated people in Mexico. This primary school on the side of the road is in Oventic Village.

There’s a lot of information about the Zapatista movement out on the internet and in books, so this isn’t something I’m going to spend any more time on, but if you are interested, just search for Zapatista, and you’ll find a ton about it.

Our next stop is out here in the countryside.

The best I can do is guess what’s going on here, but my estimation is that part of her livelihood is derived from selling bread.

I’m pretty certain we are now in Tres Puentes, which is still a part of San Andrés Larráinzar, but this landscape is quite confusing to me. We are visiting the Jolob Home Decor weaving factory specializing in household textiles.

This is the one time we will see men weaving, though I think there’s a technical differentiation in that they do not operate backstrap looms but engage in the physical labor of operating a standing pedal loom where they must step on the treadles all day in order to complete their work.

It seems that the factory does short-run custom designs for companies around Mexico but also for international clients when they can snag a deal.

While I’m often looking at dressed looms at home, I never tire of seeing the multi-colored warps that are destined to become all manner of textiles.

This is a bobbin winder for winding weft thread on bobbins, which end up in the weaving shuttles. The contraption on the right is a swift. It holds the threads that are wound on the bobbins.

Here’s a two-shaft pedal loom working on a simple color scheme you might be able to make out under the white heddles, and then behind those on the right of the photo is the small space one of the men would stand all day to operate the loom.

Small consolation that at least these guys are working in fresh air up in the mountains as in the case of this setup, his back is to the window.

It could be a future towel, placemat, tablecloth, or something I’m failing to guess.

The boy is learning the ropes of helping the men in the factory. Should you believe this youngster would be better served by being in school, keep in mind that it costs a family money out of pocket every month to have their children attend a school to receive a formal education. Add to that, there must be a school nearby which often there is not one. So, the cycle of grinding poverty goes from one generation to the next, and then Americans wonder why, in another 5 or 6 years, the boy will make the 2,856km (1,800 miles) trek across Mexico to reach the Arizona border where he might earn more than $1 an hour with his near-total lack of education. Yet, he’s considered a threat to the jobs of Americans who’ve received a high school diploma.

No visit anywhere is complete before checking out the wares for sale. Caroline picked up some fabric.

Now I’m fully turned around and unsure of where we’re going exactly but I think it’s back through San Andrés Larráinzar proper.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably write it another dozen times this year, but I’m my own worst enemy, thinking I need all these photos to tell the story of where we’ve been with enough images to paint a clear picture of things.

If you build right up close to the street, you’ll have more space behind your house or shop to raise more stuff for sale.

I might have seen the sign into town identifying where we are passing through, or maybe I thought, this is obvious where we are as earlier in the day, we were driving in the other direction. But ten days later, while at home, I think I know that we are in San Andrés Larráinzar, but without Google or Bing Streetview, I wasn’t sure until I found someone else who posted an image of the church on the right at the top of the hill, it’s the Iglesia de Larráinzar. If I zoom into the full-size image I shot, I can see the similarities that verify that we are on the streets of San Andrés Larráinzar.

Are those the yellow arches of McDonald’s I see in the distance?

In rural Mexico, delivery services are not common, but young boys using tumplines to help carry the weight with their heads in addition to their backs appears to be a popular method of moving goods from one location to another. I’d wager that prior to seeing this word, most readers here didn’t know what a tumpline was; well, Caroline found this great article at The Atlantic that discusses them. (Spoiler alert: they have advantages over backpacks.)

Here we are. This is home for the next family we are visiting today, though this has greater significance for me as we are not here just for textiles. This encounter will be far more personal to me.

A year ago, when we first considered joining this textile tour into Chiapas, we were supposed to add on an extra week that was to take us into Oaxaca so that after Caroline had her fill of the fiber arts, I would have the opportunity to indulge myself with culinary treats and maybe some cooking lessons in the state of Mexico famous for their moles. But, we were reluctant to commit to so much time in Mexico as this was our first time really getting into the depths of the country, and Caroline was just then jamming into Duolingo, so she’d have some confidence of being able to communicate with others should we find the need to deal with a situation in Spanish. We chickened out, and now that we’re here and having such a great time, sure, we’d love to have an extra week, but we are without regrets. With the intense immersion with things as they are, we’ll be happy to go home in a couple of days and bask in all of this.

Today is special because I’m being offered, as is the rest of the group, an incredible opportunity to join a bunch of ladies in their kitchen who’ve been toiling on our behalf to make us our mid-day meal. I’m not being given cooking lessons, but I am being honored with a lunch made by the hands and hard work of Mayan women I could have never imagined making food for me.

These are just some of the women who collected the veggies and other ingredients that we would feast on. Someone or maybe more than one person dispatched the chickens this morning who apparently lived good, long lives before finding their way into the pot on our behalf. I point out their long lives as, without a hint of complaint from me, those old chickens were as tough as any mutton I’ve enjoyed on the Navajo reservation over the years. In the US, we slaughter our chickens when they are 47 days old on average, with breasts as big as the entire chicken that has joined our pot; there was no succulent, tender white meat here, but tons of flavor. Some of us just learned what it means to take the chicken’s life after it served a greater purpose.

The lady holding the gourd is going to bring it and its contents to the table in a moment; it holds fresh tortillas. Also on our table are two types of salsa; I prefer the green chili with citrus as opposed to the smoky red chili; there are small bean and cheese quesadillas, though I’m not sure that’s what they are called, and then there are quartered citrus that we are calling orange-limes for now until we get confirmation.

Update: I’ve just been informed the citrus is called – Limón Mandarina.

The hosts do not join our meal; they wait on the sideline, ensuring that their guests have their fill. To my surprise, Norma is asking for seconds before anyone else, followed by me, Caroline, and Gabriela. The chicken soup was nothing short of incredible.

In this dark, smoky, open space dedicated to performing kitchen duties, we sit not only in the shadows but also in the shadow of their Mayan shrine. We, outsiders, have somehow warranted being invited into their hearth, the heart of their home, and are allowed to sample the efforts brought to us in their sharing. Without being able to speak Tzotzil, I can never express my gratitude for their kindness and for making the culinary experience part of this journey complete.

You might ask, where does this rank in my food adventures? Easily in the top five. You see, it’s easy to exchange money in an elegant restaurant in New York, San Francisco, or Frankfurt, but having someone share the work that went into raising the chickens, growing potatoes and squash, and grinding the corn for our tortillas while receiving so little in return for such a gesture is the richest and most personal meal I can ever hope to enjoy. Real work and heart made my lunch, not for profit but for the good of a family and the souls of those invited to join them.

I was lucky to have Norma and the matriarch in the Cocina when Norma went over to thank her. I interrupted them to get this photo, which will stand out as my favorite of our trip organizer for the millions of moments she’s helped facilitate, but especially this one that has allowed me to find nourishment in a Mayan home in so many ways beyond food.

In keeping with the woven textile theme of our visit to Chiapas, this kitchen is made in the wattle and daub style. I’ll explain wattle is a process of building the foundations of walls using wooden sticks that are woven together before daub (mud) is applied. This method of building has been used for at least 6,000 years and is obviously alive and well here in the highlands. As for the kids, they too are made in an old-fashioned manner that pre-dates any of our architectural construction methodologies, wink wink.

After feasting, shopping but first some formal introductions.

Not to be rude but I needed time to digest my experience and consider what I and the others were just offered. So while the rest of the group listened to whatever it was they were listening to, I wandered the grounds, checked out a disused metate growing moss in the weeds, and allowed my imagination the space to find meaning.

Funny thing about serendipity: I was the first in the sales area, and this was the huipil that caught my eye.

It turned out that it was also the one Caroline wanted to purchase. She is sitting next to the weaver who created it. She must be a free spirit in her own way because she was the only one wearing a blouse in the style of Chenalhó, a different municipality. All the other women (and Norma) wore huipiles in the Magdalena style, which is pink and red.

The struggle of the Zapatista movement is never very far away in the indigenous lands of Chiapas and Oaxaca.

Is anyone else picking up on the Chinese blue-and-white ceramic thing?

From my perspective, the drying corn makes for a great decoration, adding authenticity to the idea of rural life. If I’m not mistaken, this drying corn has a purpose beyond the cosmetic and I simply don’t understand the utility.

Is this more corn showing up on the loom?

Maybe you are recognizing that the shirt on the woman to the right resembles the blusas from the first family we met today in San Andres Larráinzar and that everyone else is wearing the pink and red ones like the ladies who cooked and hosted our lunch? We are still in the region around Magdalena Aldama, and most women adhere to the attire that is traditional to their municipality.

This stoic and greatly dignified lady came out of the house and stood on the periphery with her granddaughter snug on her back; never once did she move for a chair or change her expression. I felt that she examined us, not caring a moment for what might be purchased or what world we emerged from; we were simply a ripple in the fabric of reality that darts into the dream and is as quickly gone. Her lesson to the toddler is to hold your own and be patient; everything passes, and nothing needs to be said as we’ll be right here long after they are gone. I’ll gladly admit that this is my projection of a romanticized notion and could as easily be so far off base as to be nothing more than fantasy, but vibes are vibes, and this woman has brought that.

This was a custom-made huipil for our organizer Norma.

I can’t look into those deep, dark pools of this boy’s eyes and not sense his desire to know what universe I look into when I’m not peeking into his small corner of the world. Is it my guilt of extraordinary luxury that wants to see an incredible hunger for knowledge and experience within this little boy? Can curiosity and wishes for comfort really be seen in a face, or am I again projecting what I want to see upon someone?

Then, on the other hand, there is this boy. I assume him to be the brother of the other youngster. He doesn’t have a care yet; he just wants to play.

But this stare is the look of knowing what’s coming. She is to grow up in a man’s world where much of the burden of existence will fall on her shoulders. Obviously, she can’t really know that yet, but this is not the careless, distracted face of a child without challenges. If someone told me that grandma took her on journeys into other realms to commune with the jaguar, I wouldn’t doubt that she’s gathering a sense of reality I’m too fragile to understand. Again, this is all over-romanticized nonsense from my own biases that have elevated the Maya people into something beyond the circumstances of someone who simply needs a warm bed, a hot meal, and a chance of a promising future where education and opportunity will be part of her life.

Lucía Sántiz Hernández is featured in a giant volume titled Grandes Maestros del Arte Popular de Iberoamérica – Vol 3, but I cannot find it available anywhere. Lucía is the woman above wearing the red and white blusa.

Here on International Support Your Local Weaver Day 2022, Caroline has settled on this huipil.

As everyone else finishes their shopping, I’m out staring at the clouds, trying to find something that differentiates the skies of Chiapas from the skies I look at every day up north. I want to see a difference, but I’m coming up empty-eyed.

Ten feet below, there wasn’t a hint of cell/internet signal, but up on the roof, the connection to the electronic gods of commerce was smiling down on the humans trying to pull money from some invisible place in a faraway land and with a magic handshake place money in the account of people who have already grown to trust the world of bits and bytes as much as they do of atoms and molecules.

At breakfast, one of our traveling companions shared photos of a walk she had taken just prior to sitting down. Incredible views over the city were on offer, and we were enchanted, but she warned us there likely wasn’t enough time left to get it in this morning. With 45 minutes remaining before departing on another adventure within the adventure, Caroline and I thought if we hurried, we might make it to the church and hillside view. So, without a moment of dawdling, we bolted for the Iglesia de San Cristóbalito. Getting to the bottom of the hill only took about 8 or 9 minutes; now, we had to climb the 23 floors of steps up to the church, and we were already huffing and puffing.

The view grows more expansive with every step, but the air appears to thin up here at 7,218 feet above sea level.

Maybe going this high will be good enough? I just have to stop for another photo or so – this is my excuse, so I might catch my breath.

By this time, Caroline is asking if I’d like her to take the camera and snap some photos above. Just because I’m on the ground panting like a hyperventilating dog on a summer day doesn’t mean I’m not up for the challenge.

Only 30 steps remain, and then I can collapse and simply roll back to our hotel!

Score, the church doors are open! They were closed in the photos we saw earlier.

We didn’t have time to spare, somehow, we’d made it up those hundreds of stairs in a quick 5 minutes, but now we have to hurry back.

Yes, Caroline, I know we need to keep moving, but I just need this one extra photo.

Okay, this one too. The murals and street art in San Cristobal are incredible.

And this one of Iglesia del Carmen because who knows when we’ll pass through this way again. Just a few minutes later, we were back at our hotel with 2 minutes to spare.

After the group collected, we took off for a short stroll down the street. We are paying a visit to La Antigua – Galería de Arte & Café.

After entering through the courtyard of the café, we find ourselves in a room filled with the artwork of Tex (pronounced Tesh) of the ArTex Centro Cultural Independiente with the Monkey Men making an appearance. Tomorrow, we’ll be visiting the nearby community of Chamula, and at least part of our time out that way is to meet with Tex (Andreas) and his team.

This is Alberto López Gómez, the owner/creator of K’uxul Pok here in San Cristóbal, whose shop shares space with the café and gallery. This is possibly the design he’s proudest of that was created by him and his two sisters and was inspired by their mother. The style of dress is known as a ceremonial huipil.

Now, this is going to get tricky; you see, what you are looking at are Mayan motifs that have meaning, and while I have a list and order of things, I can’t easily point out where one thing begins and the next ends.

I’m pretty sure that the bottom row is the “lord of the earth,” but where the corn blossoms and growing corn change is uncertain. And what about the small snakes my list says are there?

Alberto is from the village of Santa María Magdalena Aldama, north of San Cris. Moving south was a bit of a requirement as he bucked convention, choosing to work the loom instead of the fields which is the tradition of men in that area. His efforts have rewarded him with a trip to Japan to show his work, and while he was supposed to attend and speak at the New York Fashion Week, the pandemic may have derailed that.

Continuing the list of elements woven on the edges of this huipil where we left off with bats, corn blossoms, and growing corn, we arrive at small snakes, corn seeds, crosses, small stars, caterpillars, feathered snakes, mountains, snake track, lord of the universe, and snake track again.

Here, Gabriela helps Alberto show us another one of his ceremonial huipiles.

By the end of our trip next week and after seeing many a designer’s work, there’s no denying that Alberto is advancing the quality and visibility of Mayan textile craftsmanship.

This is our group sans me, and while we were all taken with Alberto’s work, I’d like to point out that the weavers working under the name Kolaval also have a presence in the shop and warranted Caroline buying one of their pieces too.

Caroline is wearing one of the huipiles she bought from Alberto López Gómez; there’s also a blue one coming back with us.

I’m really falling in love with the art of Tex and his Monkey Men.

It doesn’t happen often that I become so smitten with a contemporary artist but this motif that is so alien to me is also resonating in ways that are talking to me. I won’t look at the price as this trip is already pricey, and I’m sure paintings of this intensity are beyond my budget.

On the left is our fellow traveler Susie, who gave us the tip for this morning’s church visit; next is obviously Alberto, then our organizer Norma Schafer on his left, and guide Gabriela Fuentes.

Taller Leñateros is Mexico’s first and only Tzotzil Maya bookbinding workshop, and it’s where we are right now.

They make paper the traditional way using local plant fibers as well as incorporating recycled cardboard and paper.

After soaking the various materials, they are chopped and blended into a slurry to release their cellulose. A scoop of that is dumped into a fine mesh form that is the size of the desired sheet of paper. Some water will drip out, and more of it will be sponged up in order to leave the fibers behind. That is then turned out on a metal sheet.

The object on the plate sure looks a lot like paper. Our mini-workshop demonstration is being led by the owner of the shop, Javier Balderas. Papermaking has a long history here in Chiapas.

The storage room holds many beautiful sheets of handmade paper, often decorated with flowers and sometimes imprinted with baskets or other items, leaving interesting surface structures.

Here, we see a sheet of thicker paper impregnated with flowers and imprinted with a basket.

An example of a floral paper not using dyes or inks but using actual flowers.

Because I love Mayan art. By the way, did you notice that the guy on the left appears to be an amputee?

If Mayans of 2,000 years ago had motorcycles, this is exactly how I think the glyphs on temples and pyramids would have looked.

Synchronicity is everywhere; just yesterday, we were visiting Na Bolom, which is where café Jardín del Jaguar is located, and we had our first hot chocolate. Caroline bought a few things, including a tote bag with the Taller Leñateros logo on it, the one with the Mayan motorcyclist.

The formal side of our touring day is over, but that doesn’t mean we have to depart company from our most gracious of guides, namely Gaby. She’s volunteered to direct us to a nearby market where we hope to purchase some copal resin. Since we were in Mexico City, we’ve been curious about what this ancient incense smells like.

After a fairly short walk, we find ourselves entering the periphery of Mercado Castillo Tielemans. While we might have found it easily enough, we would have been hopelessly lost in the maze of vendors surrounding the main market. There are many different focal points in the market, such as wooden tools, clothing, food, candles, and incense. On the way to the second floor (the place for candles and incense), we also ran into another seller of ixtel net bags, which Caroline couldn’t resist. She bought her biggest bag so far.

To say there’s an abundance of fresh fruit in the little we’ve seen of Mexico would be an understatement; it’s everywhere. From street vendors selling fruit waters, our breakfast table, fruit, and veggie stands dotting streets and corners, to the markets where multiple vendors are offering all sorts of vibrantly colored fruits.

250g of copal = $200 pesos or about 9 ounces for $10 U.S. This should last us a while.

There are different grades of copal, and while I wish we could have taken a sample of each along with some candles, too, we are too aware of the limitations we are self-imposing on ourselves regarding how much stuff we want to drag back to the US.

Like other open-air meat markets I’ve visited in the past, you smell it before you reach it. Tamp down your disdain for uncommon smells; this is not the world you might know. Our own sterilized environments where all aromas aside from cooking foods and perfumes have been banished are often not the norm. I couldn’t find a sign of refrigeration on our walk down among those vendors, but I did find a lot of intriguing things I can only imagine what they might be like.

If keeping fresh fish at home is impossible, try a stack of dried and salted fish. There were other dried and salted products here that weren’t fish, but learning exactly what they were wasn’t something that was about to be easily known.

While this would never fly in the United States, many people in third-world countries have been eating meat left out during the day without refrigeration, and they are doing fine. To be honest, if I lived here, I’d have to be jumping over my own conditioning to arrive at the point that I could walk in here and buy half a kilo of that steak without at least a bit of hesitation.

These six very patient and well-behaved dogs are just chilling in the market, waiting for one of the meat sellers to throw them a scrap.

The day after our visit, a shooting took place here at the Mercado. From what I came to understand, the people who rent these stalls are trying to squeeze the vendors out so they can modernize the facility, such as adding refrigeration. The problem is that the small operators are afraid they’ll be priced out of here and lose their livelihood, and it was one of those men who pulled a gun on someone trying to persuade the guy that there’d be no new rental agreement. I supposed out of desperation; he felt so threatened that he needed to show the negotiator how serious things were for his future and his family’s financial security.

I find it amazing how many variations there are to form dough into bread, humorous even. Fluorescent icing makes these stand out, adding appeal to the buyers, while in America, a plastic bag with an attractive logo hiding the spongy loaf of whiteness holds the magic of what the market wants. Meanwhile, in Germany, they offer danger-bread loaded with sharp edges able to slice the interior of fragile mouths unaccustomed to bread that bites back. In France, the bread arrives pre-buttered, and in Japan, you’ll never have to bother with crusts. Sorry, but I can’t help myself; bread in Italy is boiled and covered in garlic and oil or a tomato sauce and eaten with a fork and spoon; they call it pasta.

If space exists, it is taken or moved into at the next opportunity, as the need to sell a little something every day is imperative. Average daily wages here are only $264 pesos, about $13 U.S. or $1.63 per hour. The power of tipping someone just $60 pesos or $3 can make an impact. Knowing this, I feel better about leaving the cleaning women at our hotel the $200 pesos a day we’ve been giving and have a greater appreciation for those who risk all to land in America with the hopes of finding any kind of work in order to be able to send even $20 a day back to Mexico where $400 pesos change lives.

Okay, after a solid week of being in Mexico with a mind fully blown by the magnitude of experiences, I need some downtime. So, to that end, we took the camera back to the room, dropped it off, and went out for dinner with no concern for documenting a thing or trying to process what we were seeing. Time to just chill out.

I wonder how many people might read my blog and wonder what I was going to get out of going to Chiapas for a fiber arts tour with my wife. I’m getting a lot more than one might imagine, as the immersion in culture and awareness are off my chart. Secondly, witnessing the changing role of women and how the international interest in traditional fiber arts is empowering them is incredibly inspiring. Then in no particular order, I’m enjoying the food of Mexico that is not what we call Mexican food in the United States. Next, but in no way last, the whirlwind of activity is creating thousands, if not millions, of impressions that will forever repaint the canvas of any ideas I might have had of Mexico prior to this visit. One thing is certain: Mexico is not its border towns or the impressions held north of this country.

Our host Norma and my wife Caroline at the gift shop and cafe side of Museo Na Bolom, a.k.a., Casa del Jaguar. Our first stop of the day.

This was the home of Frans Blom and Gertrude “Trudi” Duby Blom here in San Cristóbal de las Casas. Frans was an archeologist, and his wife was a documentary photographer, journalist, anti-fascist activist, and environmental pioneer. Although they were Europeans (Frans from Denmark and Trudi from Switzerland), they shared a passion for the history and culture of the Maya in Chiapas and first met in the jungle of Chiapas in 1943, visiting the Lacandones. They bought this beautiful colonial house in 1950 and named it Casa Na Bolom. They used it as a base camp for expeditions, hosting visitors, exhibiting artifacts, and later on, growing trees to replenish the forests. Today, the spacious grounds and buildings not only house a museum but also a library, gardens, photography archive, cafe, and a number of rooms that can be rented. Frans passed away in 1963, and Trudi continued their work until her own passing in 1993.

Today, the museum is operated by a foundation that is supposed to carry the work forward of this husband-and-wife team whose ambition was to protect the Lacandon Maya and the rainforest of Chiapas.

Before cotton or wool can be used for weaving, they must first be carded, then spun, and then used to dress the backstrap loom.

Descendants of the original Maya people, the Lacandon were “discovered” by Frans Blom back in 1948. In this photo are respected elders of the Naha community Mateo Viejo on the left and Chan K’in Viejo on the right. Both men lived into their 90s. If you are curious about what happened to Mateo, he fell into boiling water as a child. Trudi, in particular, was awed by the Lacandon people, and  Chan K’in became a good friend.

The ubiquitous backstrap loom found all over the region and the primary reason we are here.

A fragment of the Lacandon women’s traditional dress and a rattle. A few days ago, I photographed a fragment of a similar dress in the exact same style, but down below, I’ll be sharing a full image of this dress made of bark.

Tobacco is a spiritual tool and item for celebrations.

The man in sunglasses is our guide through a few of the rooms of the museum, I believe he’s related to Danny Trejo.

We never actually visited this room, nor were we told the story behind the textiles hanging here. They remain mystery clothes.

Vessels for burning copal, a resin popular with the Maya.

While I can say the obvious that this is a vessel, I cannot offer anything else about it. Maybe your visit to Na Bolom can fill in some of these details I’m glossing over.

Items found in a tomb. There’s a small black-and-white photo in the background on the left showing how things looked before their removal.

Skulls found in a cave covered with heavy mineral deposits.

A beautiful serving plate, details of which escape both of us.

Images of Maya royalty, likely a king or something similar carved into rings because, back in the day, this was the easiest way to see your leader.

Trudi Duby Blom wore this dress when accepting an award for something or another. Isn’t that a horrible way to write about someone’s life? Well, try as I might to find the information about what she won an award or recognition for, I can’t find it. So how do I know she won something? It was in the documentary we watched at the museum. We saw a Swedish king holding a speech in her honor, but do you think I took notes? Heck no, we can find everything on the internet until we can’t. This is a shame because it sure sounds as if Trudi’s life would be movie-worthy. She was arrested by Nazis, escaped WW2 Europe to Mexico, hung out with Frida Kahlo and other intellectuals in Mexico City, photographed and wrote about female Zapatista soldiers, all before meeting and falling in love with Frans.

Moving through the courtyard, I photographed above, I passed these three who allowed me to snap a photo; not sure if the baby agreed or not. We are on our way to the rear of the complex.

What a beautiful facility that would have been an exceptional home.

A special room, not always visited by tourists, but we were able to have a peek as special guests.

Gertrude Duby took nearly 55,000 photos during her time in Mexico, offering the world an incredible look into the indigenous people of Chiapas before the penetrating cultural intrusion that arrived with television and tourism. We found out that there is an ongoing effort to digitize and archive the originals, and one can buy prints.

While the others were checking out the photos of Gertrude, I wandered through the garden, and out in a small old hut was this Mayan shrine.

This was the formal dining room of Gertrude and Frans, with plenty of room for more than a few guests. While impossible to really see in this photo, there’s a Picasso over the window towards the top right of the photo. Just outside this room is a cafe where we were served traditional hot chocolate with some fresh sweet rolls. I didn’t include that photo as, to be honest, it was too sweet and couldn’t hold up to the cup of exquisite hot chocolate we enjoyed later this day at Cacao Nativa.

Not only is this space a museum and cafe, but there are also rooms to rent to travelers, a restaurant, and a library.

And finally, a small chapel for those not looking for the Mayan shrine found above.

Roads, streets, and paths are the indicators here that we are on the move to another destination.

Over the course of time that we’ll spend in the Chiapas region, I’ll likely post dozens of images of textiles, but I need to remind myself that I should include some of the scenes of what things looked like traveling between one place and the other.

If you see many similarities between these streets, well, I’ll walk the streets of Europe and never tire of the changing scenery, so I keep taking more photos here as the diversity is gorgeous to my senses. This can also be said about our many visits to the Grand Canyon, where the view can remain relatively static as this giant canyon stretched out before us, but that hasn’t stopped us from returning, again and again, to see it yet one more time.

So, welcome to my Mexican version of Champs-Élysées, where the streets of the historic center of San Cristóbal are as enchanting as anywhere else I’ve ever been.

Drive-by photography is not the optimal way to document things, but it works.

At one corner of a church and former convent stands this tower I found attractive and, for some reason, out of place. The old convent is now the Museo del Ámbar or Museum of Amber, while the Catholic church still functions in that capacity; it is called Iglesia Justo Juez. A little later today, we’ll visit the church, but will be too late to visit the museum, something else to come back to should we ever be able to return to this corner of Mexico.

We still have a ways to go but not too far.

At the edge of San Cristóbal, we are paying a visit to Jolom Mayaetik, a women’s art cooperative. As for the name Jolom Mayaetik, it means “Women who weave” in Tzotzil, with the coop representing women across the Chiapas Highlands, a.k.a. Los Altos de Chiapas. For about the first hour of our visit, we learned about the program, fundraising, building this facility, and cultural changes that, while taking longer than hoped for, they are seeing progress.

Magdalena López López, a master weaver from a small village near San Andrés Larráinzar is the person who wove this incredibly astonishing work. It seems near-incomprehensible that someone dared create something that would take the average person addicted to modern-age distractions directly into madness.

The San Francisco airport back in 2017 featured an exhibit in cooperation with Jolom Mayaetik, and the centerpiece was this extraordinary seven or 8-meter-long backstrap woven sampler that featured as many motifs as Magdalena López López could collect.

As the piece is rolled out, if you have some understanding of how backstrap weaving is done, this over 20-foot-long textile demands respect and will put you in awe.

When you come to understand that each thread added to this requires over two minutes and that each line ranges from 1 color to maybe a dozen before that weft (the horizontal lines) has been woven onto the warp (the vertical lines) to complete that line, you can see how a single line of thread can take up to approximately 20 minutes to complete. On average, a textile is about 14 threads per centimeter or 35 threads per inch. Click here to watch Magdalena practice her craft.

Now do the math: 7 meters or 23 feet would require nearly 10,000 horizontal threads. If the average row needed 10 minutes of weaving, we’d be looking at about 1,700 hours of work, but nobody could do this type of intense design for eight straight hours per day. Maybe you have begun to understand how undervalued these handcrafted pieces of textiles are. Ask yourself, if you were earning $10 per hour to create something like this, how many people do you know that would pay you approximately $20,000 to adequately compensate you for your effort, and this doesn’t take into account the learning and mastery that had to be acquired in the first place. So, in my view, we are looking at a textile worth between $100,000 and $140,000.

Now look back up at the images I’ve included and try to recognize that you are not just looking at pretty patterns that happened by chance; you are looking at history, life, culture, religious symbolism, the cosmos, farming, animals, and processes that are not part of our routine. That knowledge is shared from the minds of the Mayan women who have this incredible repository of ancestral wisdom that flows out of the past and into our eyes; in this sense, we are looking at the work of craftspeople offering us a kind of magic.

Nothing of this gravity was lost on Caroline, whose eyes were not able to belie the fact that the flow of women’s knowledge was moving through her and dragging the essence of that out of her and weaving her into the work of Magdalena López López and all the women who preceded her.

Justice, resistance, liberty, and rights are being drawn from everything in life on the thread that connects all into the center, a balance of things where women hope to find equality with all of their fellow humans, not just other women.

The sign says, “Indigenous women against violence!”

No visit is complete without making offerings in the form of cash transactions.

So many choices and so many days left demand that we pace ourselves on buying everything.

Norma’s been carrying one of these bags every day and has been extolling its value, comfort, and durability…it was inevitable that Caroline would have to have one. Add to the equation that Caroline was certain that these are created with the same or similar process that she practices at home in Arizona called sprang, which is a twisting/braiding method for creating materials with a lot of stretching ability.

The plan is not to return to the hotel but to stop on the way there to have a late lunch. Our driver cannot wait around, so those who want to eat here will have to walk back, needing about 15 minutes, or take a taxi.

Our lunch stop at Kokono restaurant. Owner and chef Claudia Sántiz has been recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the 50 most influential chefs in Mexico.

I told you that we’d make it back here to the Iglesia Justo Juez.

Never entered a church I didn’t like, though I should admit I’m not inclined to enter America’s churches housed in strip malls where a secondhand store once was, and now bunches of folding chairs are set up in front of the area where used old shoes once stood.

Yep, more streets.

But don’t think that was the end of the day with us walking into the sunset; we have an appointment down the road with an 81-year-old humanitarian. Tomorrow, he’ll be 82, but we’re not visiting him for his birthday; we’re visiting to learn about his work.

Maybe you are picking up on the idea that I’m enchanted with the lighting here on the late-day streets of San Cris?

If the fence were just a little bit straighter, I’d be convinced that these were two different stacked photos. The building in the background is the Cathedral de San Cristóbal de las Casas that’s been closed for five years due to the 2017 earthquake I mentioned earlier in my posts.

We’ve arrived at 38 Guadalupe Victoria with only the number 38 identifying where we are. In just a few minutes, we will begin a visit with Don Sergio Castro. First, he must finish by tending to a man with a wound, an indigenous man who is reluctant to visit a Mexican clinic, as the indigenous people of these lands know firsthand the bias against them. I should point out that the indigenous population is at a disadvantage in hospitals and clinics as they often speak only Tzotzil, Tzeltal, or Maya, all of which Don Sergio is fluent in.

The official name of this museum stop on our journey is Museo de Trajes Regionales de Sergio Castro. A great introduction to this man’s work is found in a short 5-minute video that we found seriously touching. You can watch it here.

While waiting for Don Sergio to finish treating the wound, we were welcomed into the room where our tour would begin.

The room is lined with the various traditional clothes of the people he tends to while out visiting villages in the nearby areas. Just yesterday we were in the village of Tenejapa, both of these huipiles are from that area.

The traditional clothing of San Juan Chamula, which we’ll be visiting in two days.

Had we been able to book the previous trip into the region with Norma, we would have been able to visit the Tenejapa carnival with that group, instead, we’ll have to be satisfied seeing this example of carnival dress.

While we are seeing a lot of pieces of clothing from the Pantelho people, we’ll not be visiting their village.

Somehow, I almost missed this detail Caroline asked me to focus on: the backstrap looms hanging behind the display of clothes.

Hey Caroline, what ethnic subgroup does this design represent? [I wish I knew! Some of the styles and motifs are becoming familiar by now, but I’m not sure about this one. Caroline]

Don Sergio has joined us by now and has been talking about the area where the various indigenous people hail from, what language they use, and the clothes used by men and women. In this photo, we see the man’s outfit on the left and the woman’s hammered bark outfit on the right, these are the traditional clothes of the Lacandon area who still speak Maya. The Lacandon are some of the people that would be considered the closest to the ancient ways of long ago. You might recognize the bark dress as similar to the one we saw in the textile museum a couple of days ago. As a reminder, the large circles represent the sun and moon, and the red dots are the stars.

Most days see Don Sergio traveling out of San Cris to one of the nearby communities to help people there with burns and open wounds that require some level of treatment so they don’t become life-threatening injuries. As he won’t accept payment, the grateful families gift him articles from their culture he can display in his museum. Then, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. daily he accepts walk-ins, tours begin after seeing his last patient.

We are ushered into a backroom for a slide presentation. Lucky for us, Don Sergio was able to acquire a new bulb for his ancient slide projector.

With the lights dimmed, the old familiar sound of the slide projector’s fan and mechanism for changing slides rattling along, we are treated to Don Sergio playing DJ too as he switched between cassettes featuring various sounds that accompany particular slides while he offers narration about what we’re seeing. In this instance, we are looking at the Monkey Men of Chamula. These are the ceremonial dancers of the carnival.

Why this is the Tutti-Frutti section of the museum remains a mystery to us. You should consider yourself lucky to be looking at all the tchotchkes because behind me on the wall are a couple of images that each feature about 15 images of people he’s treated, some of whom had suffered major burns that were horrific to see. Burns are common in the villages since cooking mainly happens with open fires.

This is the area where indigenous patients are able to find some care for burns and ailments that Don Sergio is able to offer assistance for and for free! When a medical situation doesn’t allow for help here at the clinic, he pays for the taxi to bring the person to a hospital with him, accompanying the family to help pave the way for a better experience for the reluctant patient.

Don Sergio Castro with Caroline Wise after we were able to make a nice donation to this man’s work of helping heal others. I should point out that he never charges a patient, ever. Sadly, the very large space he rents at a cost of about $12,000 pesos ($600) a month has some risks due to American and French appetites for property here in San Cristóbal de las Casas who’d pay a lot more for this sumptuous property. Fortunately, when this issue comes up, there are enough people in the region who demand he be allowed to stay. He’s not looking at being kicked out any time soon, but he can never know when the hammer of greed will strike him down and out.

Oh, how nice, a night market held in Plaza de la Paz which is the square in front of the cathedral. Adjacent to us at Plaza 31 de Marzo is the sound of live music where people are dancing. We’ll visit that soon enough, but we have something else on our agenda.

Here we are before dinner, having pre-dinner refreshments and hanging out with Gabriela (our translator and local guide) along with Ted and his wife Priscilla at Cacao Nativa. While I do love the sweet Belgian hot chocolate found at the Grand Canyon National Park, nothing really compares to this hot chocolate here in San Cristóbal. You are offered local cacao at strengths of 33%, 50%, 72%, 80%, and 100%; the last one we’ve heard is very bitter, even a bit sour. The classic way to drink this is with hot water, though they offer cow and almond milk as alternatives. The cup that is brought to you, while a little bit sweet, is definitely not the stuff sold north of the Mexican border. Just one sip, and we are sold on the need for these in the United States, though I think it would be a hard sale to Americans hooked on the caffeine flowing out of their coffee beans.

While we were sitting there chatting, a loud ruckus came up outside; it was a wedding procession with its own marching band.

With our minds blown regarding the amazing hot chocolate, the enchantment of watching the wedding party glide by, and appetites that were growing, we forgot all about going over to watch the band, even for a minute, and instead headed to Sarajevo Café Jardin on the recommendation of Gaby who was joining us.

She offered the most enthusiastic words espousing love for the ceviche de hongos or mushroom ceviche. While we’ve enjoyed our fair share of the popular cold seafood version of this that originates from Peru, there was something that sounded unappealing about the dish. Mind you, I love mushrooms, but cold raw mushrooms in lime juice weren’t striking my tastebud fantasies. OMFG was I wrong, a million times wrong. I didn’t need any of the other dishes we ordered; I could eat mushroom ceviche until mushrooms were growing out of my ears.

It’s apparent that this vacation is going to produce a sleep deficit, and although it’s late when we get into our hotel, and I can start tackling processing photos and taking notes if I’m lucky, we are in too early as outside our room we can hear the fireworks from what sounds like the Plaza 31 de Marzo. Do we throw our shoes back on and walk back up over the hill? No way, it’s going on 11:00 p.m., and our alarm is set for 6:00 a.m. We need our rest to face the million impressions we’ll gather tomorrow.

We are on the road to Tenejapa, Mexico, or are we on yet another road into ourselves?

There’s a lot of beauty out here and much to explore, but an infinite amount of time is one thing we will not find while we drive through small towns along the way to places that are part of our life adventure.

This day will stand out as one of the most difficult to convey the magnitude of the experience we moved through. On one hand, it started like any other day: one moves into exploring their world on vacation, but as time went on, things went into depths that culminated in an emotional morass, leaving me unable to fully comprehend how I was taken so effectively into the corners of myself.

The idea of a starting point is futile as it’s the continuum of me that was entwined with something extraordinary in the environment and culture that I became a part of today. The linear narrative is relatively easy when waking is followed by eating, is followed by going, is followed by experience. But this day isn’t a string; it’s a braiding, an entanglement, a weaving. We are the parts of the loom. The land, people, and culture are the warp, and we are the weft.

Now, my work is to help my reader share in our journey without me simply saying we went here, bought that, saw those things. Yet here, in the first minutes after our return in the late day, I feel that my thoughts and emotions are so jumbled that I can’t really tease out why I believe I can or should attempt to write about any of this; it was that deeply personal. Of course, this was complicated by the fact that on the second day among the indigenous people of the Chiapas region, we have moved away from an international city and into something that requires some reflection.

I can’t show you my heart, have you feel my tears, or walk into my senses. My photos pale in comparison to the instant of reality as it was experienced, and they disappoint, although maybe in the time to come, when we glance back in remembrance of what we may have forgotten, these captured impressions will reignite a spark of what was brought into our beings today. Mind you, I cannot obviously speak for Caroline, but I do believe our synchronicity has often tied our experiences into something very similar and that through these missives, I’m able to bring her back along with me.

Today we often moved separately, walking with others from our group, which probably was due to my wandering away from everyone so I could filter out the American experience and be in the center of the Mayan universe. I don’t mean to imply I can know it as any Mayan can, but from my cultural perspective, I was jettisoned into the profound, which was as immense as the Grand Canyon and as far away from my normal as taking off to visit the Orion constellation.

Though there may have been some physical distance at times, we are always together, and if I leave this corner of Chiapas with nothing else, it might be that the Maya are still together, still here, just like Caroline and I with our personal relationship. Their culture evolves too, but love is flowing in their faces, in the smiles for their children, in glances that show uncertainty about us outsiders, and the order of need to exist together.

I’m struck that after 7,000 years of growing oranges, they still look exactly like oranges, and yet each of us humans wants to take pride in our uniqueness. While controversial, I don’t really believe we are so unique. Just as some oranges are sweeter or sourer, some humans are wiser, and others are happy in a simple existence. The problem for me are those camouflaging as something sweeter than they are when their bitterness or hostility shines through to those who are observant.

This photo of a wife, a wife named Caroline, my wife, is that of a nerd who is geeking out right now on a bag she’s now the owner of. She can relate to it because her knowledge allows her an insight into the process used to make it, which she believes is something akin to sprang. Caroline knows sprang because she learned the basics about this form of braiding in a workshop and is still trying to learn more from books or the Internet (as a matter of fact, there is a half-finished scarf sitting on her sprang frame at home). In her face, I can see the genuine happiness of a person who is sweet and full of gratitude for the creator of the bag that is now in her possession. Caroline is a sweet orange, not a sour lemon. Speaking of plants, these traditional carrying net bags are made out of ixtle (agave) fibers, which are spun into strings. The bags used to be carried over the head with a leather strap or tumpline (sometimes sold separately), but that is rare nowadays when you mainly see them slung over shoulders.

Trying to get photos of the people of Tenejapa is not easy as they’d prefer that nobody takes their photo, though I’ve seen friends and family taking snaps of each other. So, I have to be quick and try to take photos in a direction that doesn’t appear like I’m focusing on any one person, but there are a thousand faces I’d love to study. The inhabitants of this village speak Tzeltal as their native language, but I’m fairly sure that many likely speak Spanish, too; then again, I really know little.

While many people walking by are in jeans and flannel shirts, there are also many people wearing variations of Mayan traditional clothing. Here we are still in the marketplace where Caroline picked up one of these belts, and if conformity of American business dress wasn’t so rigid, I’m sure she would have picked up a dozen other pieces here.

The smoke from fires dot the landscape, often used for clearing land for farming, though some plumes are from kitchens using open wood fires for cooking, or in other cases, someone is burning waste. The haze lingers in the valleys and in front of the mountains.

A Mayordomo, the man in the red shorts, black fleece, red and white sash, and cowboy hat, is, in a sense, the local policeman. He is the man in charge, and we saw many of them wandering through the market. I asked one for a photo, he declined, just as I was told they probably would. These officials don’t carry weapons, but their comportment lets you know not to take their authority lightly.

Only calm babies and infants need apply to ride a rebozo wrapped over their mom’s shoulder. The rebozo is really nothing more than a shawl with dimensions of about 6 feet long and 2 feet wide. Mayan children seem quite content and not very fussy while they are snuggled up to mom’s chest or quietly sleeping wrapped up on her back. Looking for what I could share about this ubiquitous textile article we are seeing again and again, I learned how they can be very helpful during pregnancy and childbirth; click here to read the article I read.

Every man in Tenejapa must contribute at least one year of community service; as a Mayordomo, you have greater responsibilities, and the lead guy will carry a stick to show his position. It seems like we were told that the top guy is also provided with a temporary home to fulfill his duties. When his term is over, I thought I heard it was three years; he vacates the house and returns to the family home.

Slow down, we have. Leaving town proper, we are going out into the Tenejapa municipality for our next visit.

Almost there.

We’ve arrived; time for a Coke.

Just kidding, we are visiting world-class master pom-pom maker Feliciano Méndez Intzin. He’s on the right, while his wife, Concha, is on the left. We are about to get a lesson in pom-pom making, which you’ll see in a second,

First, we were introduced to the rest of the family, ending with the newest addition to the family, her name is Ximena. I think it was with at least a little bit of irony that we were told that this baby girl may never need to walk on the earth below her feet.

On to the pom-poms. These are some of the newest additions to the traditions of a people who are flexible enough to adopt flourishes and flair that may not date back thousands or even hundreds of years, but they look good, so why not go with it?

Hanging from the hat, this adornment adds another layer of regalness to an already commanding traditional attire.

We have all gathered in the family’s workshop, where they come together in an effort to make the pom-pom that apparently has become an important addition to their income. These chords you’ll see in the photo above are what the pom-poms hang from and are another handcrafted part of the decoration.

Concha’s work is seen here as she knits a soft exterior over a stronger rope core until she’s produced lengths of chord, as seen just above this.

As not all people want such vibrantly colored pom-pom and would prefer more earth-toned subtle hues, the family also dyes their materials using all-natural dyes derived from indigenous plants.

The proverbial bug sitting snug in the rug, except this, is beautiful little Ximena with her pink fleece wrapped up in grandma’s rebozo.

First the lessons and demonstration of craft and then onto shopping.

We have absolutely no need for pom-poms, but that doesn’t mean we have no desire to support the continuing efforts of people who are extending unique colors and additions to the dynamic changes that are nearly always moving through societies. As Caroline points out, while she has no idea what we’ll do with these when they get home to Arizona, they feel nice and well; that’s good enough.

While the shopping continues, I head out to explore the front yard and details streetside, aside from the little grocery and Coca-Cola stand we parked near.

The warm, partly tropical climate makes for a lush environment, and when the sun comes back out, I have seconds to capture some of these images.

We are on our way back into Tenejapa proper.

While not relating specifically to textiles, this side room of the next business we visited had an aesthetic I found appealing.

This is the Cooperativa Mujeres en Lucha or Cooperative of Mujeres and Lucha in Tenejapa. Coops play in incredibly important role for women in the region as they cannot all afford storefronts nor hope that the random traveler might pass their door and know to stop in.

Meet our tour organizer, Norma Schafer. She’s an incredibly enthusiastic and passionate woman whose sense of sharing and personal insight will continue to unfold and impress me over the course of this lesson in humility.

And now a photo of our smiling interpreter/guide without a mask, Gabriela Fuentes. We all encouraged her to buy this shawl, telling her how nice it looked on her, but maybe she’s playing it smart by collecting photos of herself wearing all of these exquisite clothes, looking glamorous and beautiful while saving her money for other important things.

On the road to Romerillo, I passed a guy checking out his social media, or whatever it was he was doing with his smartphone.

In Romerillo, the traditional clothes of men include these woven, felted, and brushed white tunics. After returning to Arizona, Caroline informed me that the people of Tenejapa have their own traditional attire and customs as compared to the people here in Romerillo, who are part of the Chamula tradition.

We have stopped here in town to have lunch among the dead in the local Mayan cemetery. Just as this entire trip is a series of firsts, so is eating in a graveyard. Should you find it peculiar, we are not the only ones who have done this in the past, as evidence is seen next to crosses where bottles of coke or oranges have been left for the departed.

The white cross is from an infant, the cross behind it, barely visible, is another infant, the three blue crosses are from young to middle-aged adults, and the black cross in the back is from an elderly person. The remains of the deceased are never removed from a grave; a room is made for the next person from the same family that is being interred.

Twenty-three crosses represent the 23 surrounding villages that are allowed to bury their dead here. The particular tree called the Chiapas pine growing here is becoming ever rarer, and while important to funerary rights in the area, it may not always be around to fulfill that tradition.

This is Alejandro who has met us at the cemetery and will guide us to his family home up in the hills.

Just beyond the family running across the street is Alejandro on his motorcycle leading the way.

To the best of my ability to identify features on satellite images, I believe this is the Iglesia San Sebastián Martír (Church of Saint Sebastian the Martyr) that was passed on the way that would take us up a dirt road into the woods.

Moving into the woods, I just promised.

Yep, in the forest.

Our path took us to the right, where we were about to meet Alejandro’s family in the unpronounceable village of Chilimjoveltic.

It is very uncommon for the Mayan people of this area to allow themselves to be photographed, outside tourism is still very new to them. They fully understand that those from the world beyond their towns have the means and wealth to come visit poor, simple people for some strange reason. This is just their life; it is not theater. The incredible honor to be allowed into their existence, even if for only an hour or two, is something that has touched me in such a way that even writing this right here the next day stings my eyes and makes my cheeks flush with how wonderful the gift is they offered us. This is Alejandro’s mother on her way to greet us with a hug; her name is Maruch.

Give love, receive love.

This is Maruch’s sister, Mikaela.

Another member of the group today asked me here at this family’s home what was likely a rhetorical question but it did make me think about why such a thing would be said. The question was, “Why do you think people are buying stuff so rapaciously?”

When I woke up the next day, I found this question at the front of my mind, and what I came up with was that when people feel that an experience or sharing is giving them everything and more, the sympathetic human response is to share your own good fortune with the other person. So, in the context of this adventure into the fibercraft world of southern Mexico, there are many of us who feel that immersion into novel experiences is more valuable to us than the cost of entry, and so we need to give back. When a person who obviously has little to nothing invites you to share their food, it’s difficult to accept their generosity, and that triggers our desire to somehow give back to them. In the photo are Loxa and her daughter Edna.

If a sociopath is involved, they might think they deserve your last crumbs and that, due to their apparent status over those around them, they are simply collecting what is due. If a narcissist is present and is not allowed to be the center of attention, they may act like a petulant, spoiled child and want to take their toys away until the other child begs them to stay.

This then brought me back to Teotihuacán and the history of human sacrifice there and here among the pre-Columbian Maya. If your culture understands that God gives you life and afterward takes it back into its kingdom, then offering some of those lives early could be a way of showing appreciation for the good fortune the society has been experiencing. In a culture that has nothing of power or substance to offer gods, what then is more precious to give than life?

We in this age who have deep empathy and recognition of what is afforded us when others who are less fortunate share must find a way to honor our hosts/gods. Here in modernity, the non-violent way of making this sacrifice is to give money, gratitude, and smiles. Showing humility, graciousness, and offering yourself, family, home, drink, and song when that is all you own deserves respect and maybe some kind of offering from the visitor. From those of us who have the obvious means to take ourselves around the world who walk into a culture where paying for education, finding healthcare, or even traveling 50 miles is something afforded to a tiny minority, we who arrive to witness this must give something in exchange for hosting us.

Again, this is what I see in those pre-Columbian cultures who desire to give to the gods what the gods gave to humans: their lives offered prior to growing old as a form of exchange to say thanks. So, the reason we buy “so rapaciously” is that we recognize the honor we have received of peeking into the daily lives of people just trying to survive while we entertain ourselves at their expense. What possibly could we offer them of any value for enriching our lives than to try within our means to enrich theirs in some small way?

The young man above is Edgar, son of Loxa, and the maker of this bag that says, “Peace” and “I Love You.” This is the very first piece of fibercraft that I bought specifically for me on this journey. I was honored to offer this young man a little something for sharing something from him with me, a man he doesn’t know and can never know.

Mikaela is seen here spinning wool into yarn…

…while Loxa is combing fleece so it can be spun.

Raw fleece that is destined to be carded, spun, and finally woven on a backstrap loom that will become an article of clothing.

Maruch working the widest backstrap loom Caroline has ever seen.

Notice the string behind Maruch’s back; this is how tension is added to the loom to keep everything taught enough to create patterns.

Edna is learning early what the adults around her are doing.

From the sunflower family of plants comes Ch’ate’, as we’ve seen it named the following day at the Na Bolom museum, but after some serious digging, we’ve come to believe this is known in the west as Ageratina ligustrina, also known as privet-leaved snakeroot. This plant is boiled in an iron pot to produce natural black dye.

Caroline might be so lucky to have the opportunity 2 or 3 times a winter to wear something this heavy. That’s Loxa again, and she’s the weaver who made this heavy-duty huipil.

After the demonstrations and shopping, we were invited into a larger room where we were gathered around a table for the group’s first taste of pox, pronounced posh, a strong liquor made from sugar cane and corn. After the ladies set everyone up with a chair and a small glass, Alejandro and Edgar took up a place across from us.

The final heartstring snaps as the beat of the guitar, drum, and voice sends me outside, with emotions no longer able to be contained within me.

Gazing out on the Mayan landscape from my seat on a log here in Chilimjoveltic, I see in the haze a place of great intimacy for those who have known these lands for thousands of years. I cannot see what they know, nor can I hear what they’ve heard. The song I can still hear from nearby only hints at incomprehensible knowledge and customs as I sit here alone and weep.

Pox is a distilled corn spirit for ceremonial use and special occasions; this is one of those moments…

…and then minutes later the world returns to silence until the cycle starts all over again.

So, we arrived in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, last night but I’ve not explained why we are here. Almost exactly a year ago, I reached out to Norma Schafer via her Oaxaca Cultural Navigator website, asking about tours she has on offer that take travelers into the world of indigenous Mexican textiles. Sadly, her Chiapas tour for February 2022 was already sold out, but she did inform me that due to strong interest, she was considering adding a second trip. We were on the waiting list. A month later, I received an email notifying a number of people that she was opening that second trip that would begin on March 8, 2022. We sent in our deposit.

From Norma’s website, she described the trip as, “My aim is to give you an unparalleled and in-depth travel experience to participate and delve deeply into indigenous culture, folk art, and celebrations.” All of this centers around the textiles and artists who are keeping these ancient crafts alive into the 21st century. That’s why we are down here 2,300 miles south of San Diego, California, and just 90 miles from the Guatemalan border. We are entering the world of the Maya.

Breakfast starts the day just off the courtyard of our lodging here in San Cris, as it’s affectionately referred to. During this first meal of the day, we met the other ten people who were part of our group: the translator and presenter Gabriela Yasmin Fuentes, and trip organizer, Norma Schafer. Gabriela was on presentation duties, introducing historical background information about the structure of Mayan society and the clothes of pre-Hispanic cultures in the region.

This was also the first moment the subject of authenticity versus inauthenticity through the lens of colonialism is brought up, and what our expectations might be regarding potential biases about how we may want to have the people we are going to meet fit in an ideal box of our own mythologies that is not congruent with reality. It’s emphasized that change is at work down here, just as it is in the various corners of America we just arrived from.

After a short pause to finish getting ready for the day, we ventured up the road on our way to the Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya.

Along the way, we get our first glimpse of the layout of San Cristóbal and have to appreciate the weather as we are promised rain at any time.

Streets are narrow, buildings old, sidewalks almost non-existent in their narrowness, and curbs that can break ankles from their towering heights if you are not careful. When I took this photo, it was because of the architecture; only later did I realize that this is a Burger King, and no, we never ate there.

We’ve arrived at the beautiful old Santo Domingo Church (Iglesia de Santo Domingo de Guzmán) with its baroque facade from the 17th century. The attached ex-convent building is where today the textile museum and Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya are housed. Unfortunately, the church is temporarily closed; we saw workers repairing the roof damaged in the 2017 earthquake. The Santo Domingo Market, with its busy stalls, surrounds the church and museum.

The beautifully restored courtyard of the convent.

Today is our lucky day as the ladies were able to book us a behind-the-scenes tour of the restoration area and classrooms that the administration of the museum is actively trying their best to fund in an environment where raising money is no easy task.

Maybe the only way to bring about the attitudinal change required to take greater pride in the cultural heritage of a people is to foster that concern among children. Get them involved with art and teach them where this history comes from and the importance of maintaining the skills of their mothers and grandmothers lest they are quickly extinguished. Someday, if those who could have been teachers have all passed, there will be no heritage rising out of the past, and those things that lend character beyond a bland global media-driven domination will sink into obscurity.

But aren’t these your own bourgeois pollyannaish and likely unrealistic wishes, John? Cynicism says yes, and maybe my older age too, but just as Greta Thunberg inspired a vast swath of young people to consider their future in which survival can no longer be certain, I can hope for someone else to find the force of a voice that will be able to move a generation away from cultural oblivion brought on by conformist banality and face these extinction events with the vigor previous generations lacked the strength for.

This is Gabriela, and while I can apologize to her for posting this masked, almost anonymous photo, Caroline loves her shirt, so I’m including this as a reminder to my wife of what it looked like.

This is a rolled-up backstrap loom and is the tool for how most everything in this area stretching down to Guatemala gets woven. Every article of indigenous clothing you see here today was created on one of these, and I’ll include a better image of one further below.

Meet Alejandra Mora Velasco, the director of the textile side of the museum and a very impassioned woman trying her best to represent the inclusion of cultures regarding all the people of this southern region of Mexico and build a world-class museum that can play a key role in cultural preservation while safeguarding these tiny pieces of history at risk of disappearance.

Culture, artifacts, and knowledge of our society tie us to our past and allow us to create futures that hold a semblance of familiarity. Here in Mexico at this time, art and the customs that are represented in museums are not viewed so much as treasures but as places that attract the bourgeoisie while the needs of the proletariat remain neglected. So, funding for the museum from the state or federal government is mostly neglected as they have more pressing issues to deal with, such as migration from the south or the tensions created by people leaving Mexico for the United States, inflaming a large part of the U.S. population.

In the background are chickadee grass and moss, which are just two of the plant materials used as natural dyes for coloring fiber, an important part of making handcrafted textiles.

Some of the pieces in the collection are no longer in perfect condition as they had been used for their utility and were not part of some wealthy aristocrat able to maintain things to a high order. Between 1972 and 1979, the anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi collected 793 textiles, and with the help of American cultural preservationist Walter F. “Chip” Morris Jr., a trust was set up to protect these important works of the Chiapas region.

After our behind-the-scenes tour, we entered the main gallery of the collection, where we were introduced to master weaver Eustaquia (not 100% sure of that name), who was on hand to answer questions. Not being a fiber/textile artist myself, I was more interested in photographing all the beautiful things than asking questions.

The cosmic flow moves through Mayan garments as they play an important role in tribal and personal identity. The tunic on the left is of Lacandon origin, representing the sun, moon, and stars. Lacandon is located in the deep jungle near the Guatemalan border and these traditional tunics were made out of pounded bark or papel amate. The ceremonial huipil on the right looks like it is from Magdalena Aldama. Merriam-Webster defines a huipil as – a straight slipover one-piece garment that is made by folding a rectangle of material end to end, sewing up the straight sides but leaving openings near the folded top for the arms, and cutting a slit or a square in the center of the fold to furnish an opening for the head, is often decorated with embroidery and is worn as a blouse or dress.

Little did I know on this first day that we’d soon meet the woman who created this impressive huipil. This is a wedding huipil from Zinacantan, the only place to incorporate feathers and rabbit fur, thanks to a historic link to the Aztec empire. It looks as if this particular huipil utilizes threads dyed with natural dyes.

Sure, a part of me wants to share details about these textiles that I might have scooped up from placards that may have accompanied the pieces, but I didn’t photograph those, and that’s if they even existed, a detail I overlooked. You see, if I had been wandering the landscape of this region 50 years ago with the sole intention of experiencing what was to be seen and I wasn’t an anthropologist or a cultural preservationist, which I’m obviously not, I would have been content to just take it all in.

So I’m simply moving through the exhibit and accepting at face value that these textiles are representative of the people in this corner of Mexico. Maybe as the days play out we’ll learn more of the motifs when we are visiting the villages noted in our itinerary.

Not an expert yet but I do know that this, too, is a huipil and that the colorful work that adorns the backstrap woven fabric is embroidered.

The panels that come off backstrap looms can be used for various things, such as shawls, bags, blouses, skirts, wedding dresses, men’s clothes, ponchos, and likely other things I’m not coming up with as I write this.

Because backstrap looms are only so wide, the fabric is woven in panels and then stitched together. Look closely, and you’ll see the stitches right down the middle. In this case, the weaver was able to “hide” the seam; in many cases, the seams are embraced and adorned with colorful randa embroidery patterns.

The seam is obviously much easier to see in this piece.

I’m thinking I should just remove this image as I have nothing to say about it but removing a single photo just doesn’t seem that it’ll make all that big an impact on this idea that I write to each photo I post.

Yep, I’d wear this one.

Might be nice if I can challenge Caroline to find us a chart to decipher Mayan imagery in textiles so we could share some of the meaning found in these clothes. This huipil is woven in the Pantelho style. The motifs are added during the weaving process with supplementary wefts.

Our tour of the museum is coming to an end; time for some shopping.

We are in an old chapel, which is now the museum shop called Sna Jolobil. The name means “The House of the Weaver,” and they are operating as a cooperative of more than 800 members from 30 different indigenous communities. In terms of quality, everything in this store is top-notch.

While this was the first piece I saw that I liked, Caroline had different ideas.

She spotted this “Blusa” (blouse) and felt the color better suited her, so this will stand in Caroline’s history as the first article of regional handmade clothing she purchased here in the Chiapas town of San Cristóbal. It is made with linen fabric, something she loves to wear, and was quickly followed by a similar blusa of white cotton with more colorful embroidery.

For the next 30 minutes, we’ll be wandering around the open-air Santo Domingo Market in front of the museum.

We’ve not even been in San Cris for 24 hours yet, and I’m skeptical of buying clothes in the open market after seeing the quality in Sna Jolobil. How can one tell what’s handmade and what’s factory-made? I’m sure good weavers can tell the difference, but I’m a bit naive; I’d guess that the cheaper stuff is, the poorer the quality and the likelihood that it wasn’t handwoven or hand-embroidered.

Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Caridad (Church of Our Lady of Charity) is nearly hidden by the market.

Something interesting, nearly profound, is occurring to me as we have now spent some days in Mexico City and are walking around San Cris: children as young as two and three here and maybe about six in Mexico City are allowed a free range of play but the really amazing aspect is the lack of whining from children wanting attention, not wanting to do something, or just being loud and obnoxious as they learn from their parents that’s not the way the world works. When we do see mothers with their children, they are not anxious or threatening towards those kids; they are quite calm and are not using high-pitched cooing baby voices. I wish I could find some insight into why so many mothers in the United States use the approach of hysterics, snapping, threats, infantile speech, and intimidation. The funny thing about the situation here in the state of Chiapas is that the average person only has about 6.5 years of education compared to the average American with 12.

There’s no way we’ll see each vendor selling things in this market as it’s dense, super dense. Our 30 minutes of racing around the place are almost over.

Growing older and cynical is a bit of a curse. Thirty years ago, I might have been compelled to buy one of everything for sale here to add to our collection of knick-knacks that remind us of where we’ve been, but now all I see is cheap junk that doesn’t really reflect much of anything in the culture. Instead, it’s programmatic stuff designed to appeal to certain aesthetic sensibilities of tourists who find a kind of authenticity in the place they’re visiting due to certain motifs that hint at particular icons and symbols people want to believe embody the character of the environment and local population. Silly old man.

Oh, that one looks nice.

Nice enough to buy, sold to the German woman. The fabric with the woven-in motifs is from Venustiano Carranza, but the “rococo” embroidery on the yoke and sleeves was added in Amatenango. As we will see over and over, each municipality or region has specialized motifs and techniques that are quite recognizable.

Lunch was had at a hybrid coop of fiber store and restaurant called Belil Sabores de Chiapas Restaurante. Our meal was included as part of our program and included local flavors to make things easy we had been given entree choices ahead of time. We started with a glass of guanabana juice, which in the U.S. is known as soursop of the custard apple family. Next up was a bowl of green soup that I couldn’t get the specifics on, followed by our entrees. Mine was the chicken mole, and Caroline had vegetarian chalupas with beets, along with plantain, bean, and cheese croquettes.

Our host, Norma, roused a nearby business owner, Benjamin, at his shop called Casa Textile, who opened up for our group. After introducing himself and explaining his work of bringing women a venue to sell their wares both from his shop but also increasingly on the internet, he told of some of the cultural difficulties and the changing landscape of meeting fashion demands not only in Mexico but for people outside the country too. The pieces shown in the photo above are still backstrap woven but use rayon threads, which introduce a lovely shine and drape, allowing marketing to customers who may not be interested in “folksy” attire.

Telling us that nearly everything was for sale in his shop, Caroline surprised Benjamin with her request to purchase a backstrap weaving sword. Seemingly perplexed but maybe impressed too that a weaving tool from Guatemala would be that meaningful for her, he told Caroline to just take it; for free!

— Note: the sword made it intact back into America through customs without issue.

Before leaving Casa Textile, we tipped Benjamin for his gift, and Caroline bought a red, white, and black Pantelho cowl. This dressed backstrap weaving loom hangs at the entrance of the shop.

The day is not quite over as we make our way back across town to another shop featuring woven textiles from the area.

If you noticed some of the details on yesterday’s first photo in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, the inference was me giving a nod to International Women’s Day there on March 8th. Well, this graffiti Viva La Vulva, meaning Long Live The Vulva, could be considered a reference to that statue in the photo; maybe you should have a second look.

I want this little shopping mall called Esquina San Agustín in Phoenix and have to ask, why can’t we have such nice things?

An alcohol-free mojito topped with coffee from Amor Negro Café. I should point out that we were not here to admire the architecture, design, or coffee concoctions (although Caroline and I shared a cup of simple Americano because, at this point of the day, a little energy boost was needed) but were visiting El Camino de Los Altos a coop store that features more high-end textiles. I might have featured a photo of their shop, but the lady working there was adamant that no photos were allowed. There is also a Carmen Rion store here, which features a high fashion and modern take with the occasional indigenous or traditional influence.

Caroline and I had dinner at Casa Lum restaurant, a recommendation by Norma. The food was excellent. I had lechon (suckling pig), and Caroline had a shrimp dish, but in retrospect, it didn’t really matter because food is currently playing second fiddle to the cultural immersion that is saturating our senses. Tomorrow, we will head out on our first road trip into the countryside, and I have no idea what to expect; what a great place to be.