5. May 2009 - Back to the drawing board

This blind gentleman, sitting on the steps to the parking-lot at the Todos Santos Mission church, impressed me with his quiet dignity.


This little fellow seemed the epitome of COOL.
I loved his aviator glasses. He was jumping exuberantly around the Pescadero fair ground, punching the air with his outstretched arm, maybe anticipating a treat of barbecued corn on the cob.

This young woman and her child belong to a community of almost nomadic fieldworkers hailing mostly from the poorer states of southern Mexico. They move to Todos Santos to enable them to earn a 'living wage' to feed their families.
Here they live in the vegetable fields surrounding the oasis - without a permanent home to call their own. They live and sleep under tarps, or with luck - under palapa roofs. Little pit toilets are a few yards away. The fields can be miles from the pueblo, the town. There are no schools for the children, no health services - don't even think of electricity or running water. They harvest beans, squash, cilantro, peppers, tomatoes - whatever abundant crop happens to be ripe. The daily wage is said to be 60 pesos, which is about six Dollars Canadian. Sometimes a working couple has a few youngsters in tow (some of them also help in the fields). They feed and clothe the whole family from that meagre wage, or at least try to.
When in town, they keep pretty much to themselves, buying some staples at the local stores, then carrying the purchases back to their field-camps, miles of lugging. Some beg.
Whole families make this shopping pilgrimage of several miles. Sometimes they are lucky and get a ride from a passer-by with space in a pick up truck-bed.
They are always squeaky clean...
One can sometimes see the families bathe in the spring fed canals of the oasis, again usually quite distant from their camps.
The kids love those shady 'swimming holes' amongst the palm trees and reeds...they splash, and laugh and chase each other. Probably have as much or more fun than more privileged kids in an in-ground pool with filtered water.
The women wash clothes - by hand of course - in the canals, or in buckets back at the camp. Laundry dries on lines strung between palm trees or fence posts.