The Taco Times: Clearing boulders the size of volkswagens

The backbone of Oaxacan indigenous communities is the tequio – collective work into which everyone puts their shoulders. The tradition is as old as the hills; barn raising comes from similar roots. The collective work days happen with some regularity and in many cases, participation is mandatory or you can begin to lose community privileges – land and water for instance. We held tequios in the community in which we lived, Fraccionamiento Casa del Sol, to prune trees, and clean up brush and garbage. Tacos and beer followed.

I was out visiting a Zapotec community in the Sierra Juarez with the organization, the Union of Communities of the Sierra Juarez (UNOSJO), a partner of both Grassroots International and American Jewish World Service. We travelled past Ixtlan, the birthplace of Mexico’s indigenous president in the 1860’s Benito Juarez (“respect for other peoples’ rights is equivalent to peace”) and home to a zipline that the kids love. I was travelling to a small village where UNOSJO’s agroecology promoter was working with local farmers to convert from chemical to organic practices. On these steep slopes, soil conservation is essential. We discovered the road blocked by enormous boulders due to mudslides from heavy rains. Leaving the car, we walked a mile or so the village, where folks were already gathered to truck their coffee and grains up to town for market day. When we told them about the mudslide, they threw shovels and picks into the municipal truck, under their baskets of produce.

You would have thought you’d need dynamite to break up boulders the size of Volkswagen beetles. But with sledge hammers and picks, they pulverized the things and among 20 or us, we hauled the rocks over the road’s edge, cartwheeling down a steep slope. The young people were brute force but one elderly fellow split the rocks with precision – one of his sledgehammer strokes counted for 10 of the young bucks.

It was a privilege to participate in this collective endeavor, full of laughter and friendly goading. The road block was not a look at your watch and sigh affair, gotta get to the market, but an occasion to celebrate community spirit and overcome an obstacle that everyone faced together. Certainly that sort of collectivity is the backbone of any community transformation, including making the transition from conventional to organic agriculture. Que viva el tequio!