Patricio's Gift

I met Patricio on a bus descending the sidewinding single-lane dirt road into Creel in Spring 2001. “Is it safe?” I asked in Spanish, gesturing to the burnt out shell of a van in an overgrown gully below. The middle-aged violin craftsman smiled with all the daring of a mischievous five year old tempting fate. He’d known many travelers who visited the Barranca del Cobre – runners, bicyclists, backpackers, college students like me – but his sudden offer to visit his family was entirely sincere. My two friends and I planned to stay at La Posada de Creel, a hostel popular among backpackers, so we made the astoundingly wise decision not to pack sleeping bags. After a glance at my map and grabbing an emergency space blanket, I disembarked with Patricio and waved good-bye to my friends. Ashley and Matt agreed to meet up at the hostel in the morning.

Matt snapped a photo of us just before the bus left: weathered dark skinned Patricio, his frame slight and sinewy, eyes astoundingly bright, and me with my fair skin, towering awkwardly over my host, a backpack slung over my shoulder and a bewildered expression on my face. Patricio and I chatted as we approached the river. There were no telephone lines, no signs of habitation, no people, and no cell reception. He asked me to wait for him by a bridge while he gathered some things. Minutes would bleed into hours, and my mind drifted like the slow-flowing river of my complicated relationship with my father and his fast-paced world built on a foundation of lies and casual abuse. At last, with daylight burning, I saw Patricio moving upriver along the rocky bank toward me. Only later would I learn that while I waited for Patricio, he’d run over to his neighbors on the other side of the mountain to trade for some meat and cheese so he’d have something to feed me. As a warm amber glow passed over the Barranca del Cobre, I recalled what little I knew about Patricio’s people, the Tarahumara natives.

In 1993, a 57 year-old Tarahumara man won the Leadville 100-mile race wearing sandals. I’d read about their extraordinary feats of running in a book by Christopher McDougall, and how they grew up playing a “ball” game with a bit of stone, kicking it back and forth for miles. What I didn’t know was that Patricio’s people called themselves Raramuri, and that malnutrition, poverty, sexual abuse, and alcoholism were commonplace. I didn’t know that the average life expectancy, which later was revealed in a 2011 World Health Organization report, was only 45 years old – 30 years less than Mexico's 75-year average life expectancy.

The hike to Patricio’s mountainside home was up a steep scree field. Despite my love affair with mountain climbing, the ascent left me winded and pausing for breath at each switchback, much to the amusement of Patricio’s young son. Thankfully, the boy distracted me from my struggle with the very stone ball game I’d heard about. We never exchanged names, though we must have exchanged the stone ball hundreds of times. Focusing on keeping the ball moving up the trail kept my mind off the physical demands of keeping pace with Patricio at 7,500 feet above sea level. His wife greeted me, then kept inside their home to tend to their dinner and children. Their house was little more than a 10-foot by 10-foot mud-brick structure with scavenged wood rafters partially covered by a corrugated aluminum roof and a tattered tarp. I played with the children a little longer, taking advantage of the last bit of sunlight before they were called inside. Patricio handed me a blanket and showed me where I would sleep for the night, just outside the family’s home. I was grateful for Matt’s emergency space blanket which would help me endure the near freezing Sierra at night.

It was our conversation that night which I’d never forget. Patricio shared some stories before stopping and asking me what it was like coming from my home in Colorado to the Barranca del Cobre. Somehow, during a moment of quiet as we looked across the canyon, he had the insight to ask about my father and wanted to know if I was happy. As best I could explain in Spanish, I described how being with him and sharing that moment in the quiet hours after sunset while the rocks were still warm and touched by the faintest red glow gave me peace. Seeing the world this way – through his eyes – was deeply fulfilling. I didn’t have the Spanish to explain that this – a moment of quiet connection – was what I’d wished for with my father, but I would never have. Patricio nodded, his eyes speaking a language older than words. He remained quiet a moment longer before wishing me “buenas noches.”

Patricio went to work early, so I left a small gift with his son: some pesos and American dollars, my multi-tool, and the emergency space blanket. Yet as I down-hiked in the morning, I couldn’t help but feel that Patricio left me with the greater gift. By the time I reached the town of Creel, I wasn’t the same person I’d been the day before. “You’re alive!” Ashley and Matt joked. They were right. I was alive.