We went to Oaxaca on vacation in 1987 and fell in love with it. Oaxaca is a small colonial town in southern Mexico, some 200 miles southeast of Mexico City. It is, I learned later, much like Yuen-Nan 雲南 , with multiple indigenous groups, mountainous terrain, diversified culture and cuisine. In the old Aztec days, the Oaxacans were called the "cloud people" because they lived in the mountain terrain surrounded by clouds, and because they were beautiful and mysterious as clouds.
We vacationed in Oaxaca whenever we could, and visited the tourist office every time we were there. And there we met Irma. She worked for the state tourist office as a low rank clerk. She was always friendly and helpful, eventually we became friends with her.
Irma was in her mid-20's at that time. After we became friends she told us her story. She fell in love and married when she was 18. Her marriage failed shortly after and Irma, pregnant, moved back to her parents' home. It was a simple house in a modest neighborhood two blocks from the city cemetery. Irma gave birth to a daughter and the two of them shared a small bedroom for the next 18 years.
Irma worked hard at her job and pushed her daughter to get a good education. Even though she loved her parents dearly, her dream was to have a home of her own, like all her friends did. Eventually, in 2002, she saved up enough money for the down payment and earned enough social security points to apply for a housing project loan.
She had two options for the home loan. One is to purchase an existing public housing unit. They are usually row houses, simple and very small. The other is to buy a piece of land, have your own design (under a certain budget), then hire someone to build it for you. The second one certainly sounds better but, as any one who has dealt with contractors would know, this could be difficult. Irma chose the second one.
In the spring of 2002, Irma took us out to see her piece of land. It was really in the middle of nowhere. It was outside of a small town called Huayapan, which is about 20 minutes by car from Oaxaca, or 40 minutes by bus. Huayapan is at the foot of the big mountains of Sierra Madre. Sadly to say, the farmlands in this area were poorly attended, as most of the young men left for big cities in northern Mexico or to the States, seeking better opportunities for their future.
Irma's plot was on the top of a gentle slope. There was a tree on the back of the property, some 40 feet from the street that was to be. Irma said she would keep the tree and plan the construction of the new house around it. And she wanted to plant another tree in front of the house-- A tree that would be covered with flowers throughout the year. Then, she would be greeted by the flowers when she returned home from work at the end of each day.
For the next five years, however, Irma had nothing but trouble. The state government misspelled her name and her loan application dragged on for a year and then was declined. After she fixed that problem, she had to go to the village and plead with the elders to allow her to apply for water and electricity, and she had to pay them to "consider her case". She waited and waited for the elders to approve her case so she could apply for water and electricity and then apply for construction permission and then apply for the loan to start building her house. The old men of the village treated her as an "outsider", even though she lived only 20 miles away. They just would not trust a young woman from the city.
During this entire time, Irma carried on her weekly visit to her future home on the weekend. When one of her friends could give her a ride in their car, she would go with them. Otherwise she would walk half a mile from her parents' house to the highway, get on the bus to Huayapan, and walk another 20 minutes to her property. She would get on the bus with people from villages from the Huayapan area. The village women returning home with their meager shopping from the city, and Irma with a bucket of water. She carried this bucket of water to water her young tree that someday, she hoped, would blossom. On a rainy weekend, she would still try to go visit her tree. She would not have to carry water with her, but she would have to walk through the mud. She laughed light heartedly, as she revered the scene of her struggling through the rain and mud.
In early 2006 several farmers in the village sold their land to developers. Construction was going on throughout the area, and the village elders finally OK'd her case and the government approved her loan application. The good news, however, was overshadowed by the "Riots of 2006" when Oaxaca went through a period of six months of social unrest. At one point the strikers set city buses on fire and occupied government buildings, including the one where the housing department was located. For six months there were no city police to be found throughout the entire downtown area. Often Irma could not get into the building of the loan office because the street was blocked or the building was taken over by the strikers. The situation continued from mid-June till early December when the new president of Mexico took firm actions to settle the chaos.
One good thing throughout all this was that Irma had a good friend who was an architect. He helped her with the design, supervised the construction, and kept everything within the tight budget.
In July of 2007, after 5 long and hard years, Irma's house was finally built and she invited us to see it.
We had lunch with her parents at their home, toasting mezcal 龍舌蘭酒 to this doubly happy event-- Irma's house was built, and the troubles of Oaxaca seemed to be over. Then we drove out in the misty rain to Huayapan. Turning off from the highway, we were in the country area. Then we turned onto a narrow road. I could hardly remember this from our first visit in 2002. There were so many new homes in the area now. Many of them were half finished-- a common sight in rural Mexico. People tried to build their homes but ran out of money, so they had to wait for a few more years to save enough money or wait for their relatives in the US to send money for them to finish the construction.
There, I almost missed it. So this is the tree, I said to myself. A short skinny tree with few leaves and no flowers, standing amongst the construction garbage that had not been cleared out yet. After five years and at least 200 buckets of water, here, the tree stood.
We toured the house-- or, the structure of the house. The construction was just finished but there was no decoration or furnishing. Irma's priest came out a few days ago to bless the house, and she would move in after the stove and refrigerator were installed in a few more days. The grey cement walls and a few hanging light bulbs made the rooms look dreary. The living room and dining room/kitchen were on the first floor. Two small bedrooms were on the second floor, one for Irma and one for her daughter who was in college in another city by now. Stepping out of Irma's bedroom, there was a rather large balcony. The new houses in this area and the city of Oaxaca were on the opposite direction of this balcony. Here, from her balcony, she saw only the Sierra Madre mountains.
It was a grey day with soft drizzles; low clouds hugging the mountains. The air was cold and damp. The place seemed remote and lonely. Irma worried about her job in tourism and her ability to pay the monthly loan. But she was a kind and graceful host. She thanked us for our moral support and our coming out on a bad day like this to visit her barely finished home.
There I was. Oaxaca, mountains, cloud people. A muddy street named Flor de Cacao with strayed dogs wandering around. An old tree in the back yard and a young tree standing hopefully by the front gate. Irma in her thin summer dress shivered in the cold rain.
She smiled.
She was happily home.
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