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by Nancy V. Sont: nancy@superaje.com

As we passed the pottery shop alongside the road in San Felipe, Raul, our guide, said, "That's a good pottery shop, but the next one up here on the corner is very good. I got a huge butterfly for $35 pesos once."

Of course, being the penny pincher that I am, $4 Canadian sounded pretty good to me. I wanted to stop there on the way back from our tour of Angangueo, farther up in the mountains. It was practically dark when we returned.

Most of the pottery was unpainted. Two-foot wide butterflies leaned against a post, smaller ones hung from another. The smiling, bearded sun hung from the wall alongside a smaller sun, the moon and an Indian native woman. The owner wore a long white shirt that was very dirty from the red clay, soil San Felipe and the area was famous for.

After moving two clods of red clay that had rolled off the tall mound into the pathway, the potter led us into his workshop. He spoke to our guides in Spanish and showed us where he mixed the clay powder. The greenware all around was the color of my daughter's bright red hair. I bent down to touch a large round piece showing a butterfly encircled by Spanish writing, and found it was still quite damp.

Through the back doorway of the small floorless shop was a well-trodden open courtyard, somewhat like a barnyard. In the center was a white ring like the bottom five feet of a hand made silo. It wasn't anything like I'd known a kiln back home to be. It was about 8' across and made of adobe. On one side was an igloo-like entrance hole for the fire to be pushed in underneath.

I busily took photos. About 15' away, a man sat eating and watching us from a small table set with two plates. Behind the table was a three-sided wooden shack. The glow of a fire within revealed a woman bending over, cooking. Was this their home? This man who sold his pottery so cheaply lived in a shack with a dirt floor, his table outside? I was stunned.

I asked the man at the table if this was their home while the potter continued to explain his kiln to the guides. He said it was. I asked permission to take a photo of his home. He again agreed and I snapped a shot of him and another at the fire within the shelter beside him. Knowing, of course, that I'd violated their privacy in a measure, I took all the change I had and gave it to him in appreciation for the shots.

I wanted to spend some time with these people. I wanted to see how they lived, raised their children is such a small building, kept warm or clean, understand how he made a living with an outdoor kiln, the works. My heart went out to these people. Most of the other Mexicans I'd seen hadn't lived in the same conditions I didn't think.

Round faced, black hair and black-eyed children gathered around me as I returned to the front yard of the shop. They smiled broadly, reminding me of my own children. A taller girl stood between two younger ones. "Cuantos anos tienne?" I asked her. She was twelve, her brothers were 9, 7. They were all wearing perfectly clean, white shirts and suit pants while she wore a plaid red skirt and a white blouse and green vest. I was amazed that they could keep their school clothes so clean. I tried to make small talk with the children in my broken Spanish. Their mother came out and stood nearby smiling as we chatted. They seemed to be such a nice family. I wished I had something to give them, but all I had was a $100peso bill. I patted one boy on the head as he stood beside his father and asked him if he knew how to make pottery. He shook his head so I pretended shock and admonished him to watch his father so he could learn this wonderful skill! Smiles lighted the faces of both the parents and of the five children.

It was time to go. I bought what I thought I could reasonably carry home without breaking, and climbed reluctantly back into the van, giving the young girl a hug and wanting to share with her of my abundance.

To my delight, it took us only a few moments to reach the hotel Villa Monarcha where we were staying. All I could think about was returning back there to visit with that family. It was within the realm of possibility, I could walk there! I knew we wouldn't have time to do it as a group. It was now dark, but in the morning, before the van left for the next town, I'd go for a walk over there.

I wanted so much to connect with the Mexican people, the ones that lived differently from the way I did. All evening, all I could think about was that family whose children who had stood smiling at us as we looked around. It had been such a priceless experience. I was a gringo, a longhaired, strawberry blonde gringo. I stood out as different, but I had tried to speak Spanish with them. I had loved being in their company and they had accepted me, probably a bit curious about my world as well.

To the amazement of the rest of our group, none of whom wanted to accompany me to translate, I resolved to get up early and go interview the potter again. One fellow traveler told me how to ask permission to interview him. "?Me permite verle trabajar, por favor?" I wrote it down; sure I'd forget otherwise.

The next morning, I awoke at 5:10 and studied my Spanish verb book, writing down all the verbs I might need to use to ask the potter questions about his work. I wanted to ask all about their lives, but didn't think I could really be so invasive as that.

I went out to the road at 7 but found it was still too dark to go walking up the two-lane highway. Trucks, busses and cars were beginning to head to work. A few people stood alongside the road waiting for the country bus to arrive. Fearing a walk along such a busy road in a strange country, I returned to the hotel room to await the sunlight.

Finally it came and I headed back. Realizing that I'd lost my camera case, I stopped at the main desk to ask for it. It took awhile to get my point across to them, but finally they understood. They'd not seen it.

The walk down the road was a singular experience. Mountains rose in the distance to my left, beyond the small buildings that dotted the roadside. To the right was a field bordered with a row of trees. A Spanish sign to my right made no sense to me, for all the Spanish I'd taken in school years ago.

I rounded a curve and crossed a hill, keeping well to the edge of the paved shoulder, out of reach, hopefully, of the vehicles speeding noisily down the road. I dared to imagine someone passing on the hill I was cresting. I could hear the vehicles over the hill and wondered if I should signal the cars on this side.

A man stood along the shoulder waiting for the old bus upon whose windshield the names of a few small villages were written.

A donkey stood along the road eating the yellowing grass, a rope extending through the bushes nearby. I crossed the road and getting out of the way of traffic, found myself on a dusty path alongside. Groups of teenagers leaned against a cement wall chatting while they waited for the school bus. A few chickens pecked at the red soil underfoot, scooting out of the way as I neared.

I stopped to take photos of all the buildings in the pueblo. The sign named it San Felipe. It looked like a tiny crossroad village, nothing more. The buildings that were homes were a far cry from even a cottage back home in Ontario. Never getting cold, it was obvious that it didn't matter if there were windows or even walls. Thin dogs barked noisily, scattering the chickens that scratched nearby. A rundown board fence hid most of the ground of the yard from view.

I paused to take in the scenery. The mountains in the distance across the grassy field were cloaked in fog that was wiping across the pastureland. Behind the wooden structures alongside me, another mountain rose up, deep green and inviting.

As people looked at me as I walked and took photos, I smiled and waved. At first they only stared at me, a blonde gringo in their little village early in the morning. Then they smiled and joined in waving at me, calling 'Buenos Dias!'. Beside them, a narrow dirt road led between two rows of low wooden shacks. I wanted to wander up the road, but my peculiarity in this spot made me stay along the roadside.

I wanted to hold onto this experience, find out more, see how they lived, but I was stymied by my own fears.

I passed the little pottery shop near the one I was heading toward. I'm not sure why, but I had no interest in stopping there or buying some of those well painted and glazed pieces.

As I arrived in front of the weathered wooden store whose front wall was obscured by a huge mound of red soil, I stopped. A wooden fence ran out from the building, enclosing the entire area that must have been their property.

Unpainted pottery pieces were displayed all around the small Front yard. The pickup truck that had supported half a dozen Leaning Mexican men the evening before was still there. A larger truck was parked nearby.

As I stood, wishing I could go in and make friends with these people, I saw the mother as she walked past the opening between a wooden fence and the shop. She was unkempt, obviously barely awake. It didn't take me long to figure out that she was on her way back from a visit to the outhouse. She looked at me curiously and disappeared.

I didn't know what to do. I was there too early. No one was up. Shall I just keep walking and come back later? I looked at my watch, aware that I was supposed to leave my luggage by my hotel room door for our drivers to pick up before breakfast. It was 7:30.

In a moment the father came out, wearing a jacket, looking sleepy and confused. I felt foolish. We had a quick exchange of remarks, it was too cold to be working, he related.

Remembering I had lost my camera case and that this was the last place I'd been the evening before, I used some of the words I'd learned from my verb book.

"Perdo me…" I held up my other camera case and showed him that I had lost another one. "vi lo?" I asked, wondering if I was asking if he'd seen it or not.

Catching on, he looked around with me and we wandered through his yard of wares, the shop and the kiln. Having been invited in, I felt a bit more comfortable with being there, though I was still quite unsure how to deal with the fact that my timing was way off. We walked around where he mixed the clay, around the greenware laying on the ground and out to the kiln behind. When I'd not found it, I turned to him and asked in my very broken Spanish if I could ask him about his work. I produced a folder of my articles, which showed my photo and said, "Estoy un escribador," hoping that meant that I was a writer. He nodded at seeing my photo.

"Puedo preguntarse de su trabajar?" Those weren't the words Stephen back at the hotel had told me to use, but it

I began asking questions, but as he answered me, he rattled on and on, leaving me clueless as to what he had said. Figuring I'd not get much out of the conversation, I took notes in Spanish, hoping that I'd be able to look up the meanings when I got back home to my dictionary.

He said that he lit the kiln, called an 'horno' once a week, every Viernes (Friday). He and his father had built the horno of adobe. This one was five years old. He expected it to last the usual eight years. On a grillwork on the bottom of the kiln right above the fire was a layer of broken pottery pieces. He would place 60 pieces of greenware on it, then cover it with more broken pottery. He kept a hot fire, about 900 degrees, under it for eight hours, using a whole truckload of wood. When found the pottery doesn't break on a humid day.

He then showed me how he took a clump of red dirt and dropped it into a machine that ground it up into powder. A heap of powered clay rose in front on the machine. He then took a bucket full of it over to the flat worktable surface and made a ring of the clay over two feet wide, then added water in the center. The water he needed for making the clay was down the road at a common tap. He didn't have any running water in his shop or home.

A small potter's wheel stood nearby. Upon these he made large bowls, pots and urns. Dozens of white molds leaned here and there against his plastic covered stack of cement block sized ready-to-use clay. He took some clay, pushed into a small mermaid mold and pulled it carefully out for me to photograph. Each piece usually stayed in the mold for 20 minutes before he took it out. It would then take up to eight days for the pieces to dry, depending on their size and thickness. he molds he had and told me how long the different size articles needed to sit before they were dry. Some needed a day, others needed a week. Nearby were urns of several sizes, a mermaid and many shapes and sizes of butterflies, souvenirs of the nearby monarch butterfly sanctuary.

The most he'd sell in a day was about $200 pesos worth of pottery, or $20 USD.

His name was Hermando Gonzales of San Felipe, Michoacán, Mexico. After I finished taking photos, his twelve year old daughter appeared. She had come out when I was looking for my camera case, wearing an old dress, her hair disheveled. Now she appeared again, looking spotless in her red plaid skirt, white blouse and green vest. Her hair was pulled smartly back from her clean face. After a quick exchange with her father, she was ready to go to school. Hermando gave her a $10 peso bill and away she went to wait for the bus with the other young teens her own age.

Having asked all the questions, I could think of at the time, but wishing I could think of other ones, I bought as many of the pottery pieces that I could possibly carry home, trying to use up all my $100 pesos. It was only about $10US, but I knew I had to somehow thank him for his time and the answers I had gotten, although I had no idea just how I would use it.

Mostly I had just wanted to be able to view his life and the way they lived in the part of Mexico's culture that I'd heard so much about. He was definitely a hard-working man. I wondered if his poverty would have been alleviated, by simply raising his prices. Perhaps he could have made more money if he had just asked for it. The other places nearby were asking more and I supposed, living better, although I didn't know for sure.

Although I wrapped the fragile, unglazed pottery pieces up, the large, partially burned looking butterfly broke before we finished our travels within Mexico. Of the six more 8"X4" butterflies I'd bought, two broke by the time I got home to Canada. The large face of an Indian woman chipped on the edge. Fortunately, I reached home with three painted butterflies, a large bearded sun, a smaller sun, and the sun and moon in an embrace. All together, I had eight pieces I could put up on my wall, and the good feeling of having helped him out in some small way.

As I began to write about the experience, I decided that if I sold an article or photos about them, I would send him the money. I had to share of my enormous wealth with him somehow and couldn't bare to think of myself making money at his expense.

To get there:
From Toluca in Estado de Mexico, travel west on Mex. 15 across into Michoacán, through Zitacaro to San Felipe, about 200km on winding mountain roads. The shop is at the junction to Ocampo to the north on the way to El Rosario, the monarch butterfly sanctuary.

From Morelia airport in Michoacán take the cuota, Mex.55, a divided highway to Maravatio, then head south on 15 until the pueblo of San Felipe. The shop is at the turnoff north to Ocampo on Hwy 15.

For a guide, I used Operadora Monarca, Raul Ambriz Chavez, Guia Touristico, Cell phone (43) 18-45-08. email: monarca6@mich1.telmex.net.mx

Hotel Villa Monarcha is located nearby. Single or double, $80.50 US winter rates. Excellent cuisine, exercise room, villas, bar, pool. Reservations: (01-715) 353-46, email: villamonarca@zitacuaro.podernet.com.mx URL: www.villamonarca.com.mx Km. 103.5 Carretera Toluca-Morelia. H. Zitacuaro, Mich C. P. 61500

NVS Editorial Services
Nancy V. Sont.: nancy@superaje.com

Nancy V. Sont is a professional freelance journalist, photographer, and gear reviewer. She write articles that are well researched, well documented and accurate. Her writings range from destinations for outdoorsmen to vacation spots to environmental issues to animal tracking to survival how-to to weekly columns.

Visit Nancy V. Sont web site: http://www.travelwriters.com/nancyvsont or click here!

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