At the time of growing up, I did not have any idea
whether things were good or not. It was a typical life for a vast majority of
us children in this small town of Mixtepec .
As any other indigenous culture, we hardly had any nice clothes to wear. I
remembered wearing a set of pants what was cut out like a short. It probably
was my older brother’s pants and when they grew up on it, it became material
for the younger siblings. These semi-pants hardly covered my knees. I cannot
recall how long it last it, but it was a long time. It must have been the only
pants I had because I remembered wearing it every single day. This was when I
started school. My most vivid memory was going to school with this unique style
pants. Since it did not pass my knee cup, it was the easiest way to cross the
river. I had no shoes or huaraches, I just when into the water like nothing. My
brothers had to stop for a moment and then fold their pants and merged into the
current. I was already waiting on the other side when they just step into the
water. For whatever reason, this adventure of always been the first one to pass
to the other side, made me feel proud. I was happy with whatever I had. Furthermore,
I enjoyed those days when my brothers, friends and I went to swim into the
river. We would spend hours swimming and making panales on the sand. We may have
been the only ones with this childish entertainment behavior.
My next memory in line is the one
having to race with each other on the top of the hill near the house. We will
gather there during the day when our cattle, chicken and other domestic animals
were pasturing. I believe we did this racing almost every day. It did not
matter who won yesterday, today was another day and that was the important
thing in our minds. I think neither one of us had anything to wear on our
feet. We were barefoot but this was not an issue because we did not know that
on other societies, people actually had things to wear. Our feet were numb or
used to, whatever sounds better, for having to walk everyday and everywhere
barefoot. Even those gravels did not bother us. We will feel them under our
feet, but it was just a small piece of larger rocks. Racing was fun and having
not shoes did not stop us.
However, there was a memory not so
memorable. There were occasions that my barefoot feet would find a rock on the uneven trails. Sometimes, one or two toenails could come out of its
location. We would cry for either a short time or maybe the whole day. I
remembered my parents tied my toes with this leftover string from the
firecracker making us believed that it was for good luck and it will protect
our toes from tipping over a rock.