12/19/13

 

As you see my font has grown fatter and bigger. I hope that doesn’t bother you. Quite a few of my friends and family are in a similar position to mine; our eyes are not as sharp as they once were. Cute, maybe, acute, no.

 

I had a fun time today; of course all my times are pretty fun. For some time I have been trying to get the attention of the road department for this area. The roads in this subdivision are private and taken care by the association of neighbours, but the paved roads one drives on to get here are BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) 125 and 122. Both were once paved. Both have deteriorated badly, 122 is quite worse than 125, there must be around forty big holes within five miles. Ed, you and I drive this often. My good friends visiting in the past year, Lou, Michael and Rob have all transited on both.

Some of the potholes are quite big and dangerous. Some are so close to each other that one feels like travelling on a mountainous serpentine road. There is no excuse for this, just plain laziness of those in charge.

I went to Pinehill and stopped at the road department place just outside town. Today, there was someone there! The gentleman told me that I needed to go and talk to Anna Pino in Mountain View; supposedly that is where the office of roads department of the local BIA operates. Anna Pino was absent, the lady at the desk said she might be back at five today, she had gone to a meeting somewhere. I asked: ‘a meeting about the state of the roads?’ I just got a taciturn dirty look. ‘Something else’ she said. She did write down my name and inquiry. She also told me that there was ‘no road department no more’ since the last road operator retired some years ago...(?) She said they hoped the Zuni road department people might come to do repairs. 

The Zuni and Navajo don’t get along to well. It seems...: The Navajo came South, many centuries ago and slaughtered the Zuni, way before the Spanish came through and slaughtered anyone they encountered which was before the Anglos (Mormons and others) came and did it again. Human nature at what it does best. There are certain inherent chips on a bunch of diverse shoulders. Collaboration is not apparent. Even within the different Navajo entities there are jealousies.

The good about my little inquisitive excursion to the now defunct road department was that I was able to make the noncommittal lady at the desk smile and enjoy the end of our meeting. Visiting the office was a gentleman with an acoustic guitar. The bloke told me his name which, as usual, I did not retain. He was sitting in a chair looking ready to play. He was curious about my accent, imagine that! I told him. He immediately started playing: Viva Jujuy, viva la Quiaca, viva mi amada, vivan los cerros pintarrajeados de mi quebrada. Of course I sang with him. So the last few minutes in that office were happy ones. The guitarist said he had visited Argentina with a Native American folkloric group in the seventies. He himself is part Ute, Shoshone and something else.

Will BIA (principally) 122 ever get fixed? I doubt it. But imagine my elation running into someone playing music from our corner of the continent. Not every day.