Machines don't remember my name

 As I've already told anyone reading this blog, my pueblo near the ranch, is Mayan.  I guess most pueblos in Yucatan are too.  Mayan in Yucatan are the indigenous people.  Many things in life in the pueblos go on today as it has for a 100 years or more.  There are still some pueblos here that are not on a road, but far off the roads, have no electricity or running water, no schools, and life exists today for the inhabitants as it did 300 years ago.  

 

The pueblos offer many colorful traditions, that probably gringos would find "backward" or primitive.   It's fine with me.  I'm looking here for simple and peaceful, and Mayan living has helped to wean me off the steady-slow-IV-drip of consumerism I've lived with in the states for many, many years.

At my ranch, 3 km from the pueblo, I have 5 men from the pueblo who work for me clearing, planting, climbing trees, killing poisonous snakes, animal care, plant care, fence building and sometimes just helping me up off the ground when my 72 year-old bones are stuck or just pooped-out-exhausted (often ja ja).   They work 5.5 days per week and are great helpers.  They are all cheerful and very hardworking and pleasant to be around, and tolerable, but appreciative, of my incorrectly pronounced Mayan language skills.  2 of the 5 do not speak Spanish but only Mayan.  I have tried very hard to blend in with them as co-workers, rather than employer/employee, but it has generally not been an idea they can accept.  They see me as Don or Patron.  So fine. I have just decided to be as respectful to them as they are to me and share with them as I can.

One of the men is what you might call a foreman and he understands more English, than I do Mayan.  He and I have made great use of Google Translator and we manage to do ok in communication.  I show, or tell, him what I want to do, and he gets the men to come to the ranch to do what I need, and then he supervises them and works alongside of them.  If I needed 10 men one day, he would have 10 men show up.  There is no shortage of men wanting a day's work or more.  Most get hired by local hacienda or ranch owners, to just work a few days here and a few days there, and the concept of a full-time job is alien to many of them.  The typical rate is 250-300 pesos per day ($12.50 to $15.00 US Dollars).  I pay them the local labor rate, so I don't disrupt their own economy (nor alienate the other ranchers too much).  But in addition to their pay, I also share with them some of the fruits of their labor in melons and give them places to plant their own crops too.  I also let them carry off the wood that we clear because they can sell that in the pueblo rather than me just burning it.  The concepts of vacation, time-off, sick-leave, mental health days, rain-day, retirement, too hot outside, etc. are alien ideas in the pueblo.

Here is an interesting cultural observation from one day, after these men had only been helping me a few weeks.  I was talking with my foreman (my term for him, not his own) and asked him did he know where I could rent a retroexcavador (backhoe) and operator by the week, and a tipper (dump truck) to come and dig up some dirt and move it to different places on the ranch where I would want some new planting beds.  He said that, yes, he knew of someone with a machine and it would be about 4,500 pesos per day.  That is about 1/4 of what it would cost in the states.  A large urban area would be much more.   I thanked him and he began to slowly walk away.  After he'd gotten a dozen steps away, I saw him stop, and turn around very slowly to walk back to me.  He came back meekly and humbly with his hat in his hand. I wondered what on earth I'd said that apparently bothered him.

His said (in words to this effect) "Don MyrealName, have the men offended you in their work that you want to get this machine to come?"

I tried my best to explain to him that I was very happy with the present workers, but I could use the machine to dig some dirt at the back on the ranch that we could use for new planting beds that I wanted to build, and that the machine could dig up a lot of dirt in one day.

He listened quietly and said OK and started to walk away again.  And then, the same as before, he stopped and paused and turned to come back again, hat in hand and typing into Google his words.  In a very humble manner, he showed me the translation.  "Don Myrealname, it is your ranch and your money to spend.  But why are you interested in such an idea to spend that much money on a machine, when I can bring 15 or 20 more men with wheelbarrows and shovels?"

I had to pause and then I told him that it had not occurred to me to get more men to do the machine work.  He told me that he would bring as many men as I told him to bring, and I was saying the words backwards.  He said "The machine would come and do the man's work."  😢😢

And then he glared at me very sincerely and this diminutive, middle-aged, uneducated, Mayan man, gave this old gringo-immigrant man a lesson in life that I guess is one of the most valuable I've ever been taught.   

He told me that on Saturday when I paid everyone, the men are always grateful for me.  And when they get home their wives are grateful to me.  When their wives to go the store with their money, the store owner is grateful to me.  At dinner time, their children are grateful for me.  Then he paused and added that "when the big machine leaves on Saturday, the machine will not care about you at all and will never remember your name."

Point made.  Lesson learned.  I've discovered at this late stage in my life that technology is not quite, in every case, the advancement to civilization that I've believed it to be.  I share the Jesuit philosophy in empowering people to do for themselves if they can, and receive the fruits of their labor.  I see now that I've failed a myriad of times in my life by not always faithfully modeling the philosophy as well as I could, by valuing efficiency and technology over human capital.  I've learned my lesson.  

I have always believed and tried to adhere to the philosophy that I am my brother's keeper.  I've decided to invest the rest of my life into people over stuff, technology, or modernization.  I've witnessed since being here that many gringos are critical of the labor-intensive (and often times slower) ways things are done here.   I say, "leave it alone".  It works for the people here and to hell with the gringos who many still need immediate gratification and want their golden eggs from Willie Wonka, right now.  I don't need to make it my mission to speed them up.  I need to slow down.

Finally, paaaahhhhleeeeze, spare me any comparisons to this story and the USA with labor wages, or quiet-quitting, or American work ethics, etc.  I've been in commercial construction (and ranching) for many years and I'm fully aware of the need and usefulness of equipment in many cases.  I used 2 backhoes with jack hammers to do the rock-busting on my new road that it was literally not possible for my hombres to do.  There is a place for it.  But not at human expense.  This is just a life story about culture here in Yucatan and Mayan people and the thanksgiving and warm and fuzzies I have with them and learning from them.  It's a story about how much I love these people who have accepted me and welcomed me into their Mayan pueblo and made me the student and not the teacher.  I came here to be absorbed into their culture and not to turn Yucatan into a little Philadelphia or Los Angeles.  Either smile from the lesson, or just move on to another post.  But keep your negativity to yourself.