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 Travel & Outdoors | October 2006 
Mexican Border Town of Boquillas Gets Breath of Lif
 John MacCormack - San Antonio Express-News
| | Since the Americans stopped coming, two-thirds of Boquillas' population has vanished. | 
| | From hippies in Terlingua to middle-class folks in Alpine to park officials, many Texans have come to their aid, raising funds and donating goods. |
Boquillas Del Carmen, Mexico — Manufactured in 1907, when Teddy Roosevelt was in the White House and Porfirio Diaz ruled Mexico, the foot-powered Singer sewing machine had been in the Chavez family for generations. However, no one could remember when it last worked.
"It belonged to my mother-in-law, but she left it behind 13 years ago when she got sick and moved to Muzquiz," Maria de la Luz Chavez said.
In a stout adobe house roofed with carrizo cane, Chavez and three women from Terlingua pondered the mysteries of the lifeless metal dinosaur.
"It's amazing it can sit so long and still run," seamstress Zoey Sexton marveled as she began probing the Singer's dusty innards just before it began knocking out a tight line of stitches to a clickity-clackity beat.
For Chavez, much depended on its resurrection. Since the May 2002 closure of a border crossing here used by tourists from nearby Big Bend National Park, she has lived off a small store in her home.
Since the Americans stopped coming, two-thirds of Boquillas' population has vanished. Of the 100 or so who remain, only a few firefighters who battle blazes around the American West have a reliable income.
For the rest, stranded here on the northern tip of Mexico, life is precarious. A mere five-minute boat ride from the United States, Boquillas is seven hours by bus from Melchor Muzquiz, the nearest city in Mexico.
Although abruptly isolated by the border closure, the people here were not abandoned. From hippies in Terlingua to middle-class folks in Alpine to park officials, many Texans have come to their aid, raising funds and donating goods.
Shipments of food, medicine and clothing were followed by the gift of a solar-powered pump for the municipal water system.
Most recently, an export project was begun. However, the only legal way to get goods back to the park is through Muzquiz to Del Rio, a 600-mile trip.
Still, with a working sewing machine, no matter how primitive, Chavez could join the dozen other Boquillas women who have begun making quilts. Their first sale will come in Alpine on Nov. 10 and 11.
"It's a really good thing. Here, we don't have any other way to make money. Everyone is ready to work, to progress," Chavez said.
The first American to bring back Boquillas artisans' copper figures and painted walking sticks was Danielle Gallo, a former Terlingua resident who taught English to Boquillas school kids the year after the border closed.
"I started out buying a handful of (copper) scorpions and going around to bars taking money off drunk people," Gallo said.
Afterward, she would wade into the river shallows and toss the money back to the Mexican craftsmen.
"If no one was going over there, we'd meet in the Boquillas Canyon where the river is shallow. You're legal if you're standing in the river bed, even if it's just an inch and a half of water," Gallo said.
Since that haphazard start, a nonprofit corporation was formed and 16 Big Bend retailers now sell Boquillas curios. Soon, goods will be sold over a Web site — www.fronterasunlimited.org.
But getting supplies and equipment into Boquillas legally also remains a challenge.
"We've brought over two hand-crank sewing machines and five treadles, all by canoe from the park through the rapids," said Cynta de Narvaez, a river guide from Terlingua.
At best, the quilts and curio sales will provide a modest income, compared with the tourist economy Boquillas long enjoyed. Linked more closely to the United States than Mexico, the old mining town thrived during the decades when Americans crossed over, paying $2 for a short boat ride.
According to the park, which encouraged the trips, between 30,000 and 40,000 visitors came annually to Boquillas, taking good memories of Mexico back home and leaving hard cash behind.
Some came to hike in the steep mountains of the Sierra del Carmen, others to booze it up at the Park Bar or dine at Jose Falcon's restaurant. Still others would spend a few days at The Buzzard's Roost, a rustic bed and breakfast overlooking the Rio Grande.
In turn, the Mexicans from Boquillas freely visited the park store on the U.S. side, spending their tourist dollars on meat, groceries and gasoline, and relying on access to the U.S. side for mail, telephone service and emergency medical aid.
And in what now seems a quaint, even naive affirmation of international goodwill, the park once hosted an annual "Good Neighbors Day." Each October, hundreds of residents from the small Mexican and Texas border towns joined in a celebration of their social and cultural bonds.
But that carefree era ended abruptly more than four years ago, when the handful of "informal" border crossings in West Texas, including Boquillas, was closed off in a response to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Once a mere technicality, the international border quickly became a legally impenetrable reality. And although the park and others protested, the border has stayed shut.
Like his predecessor, John King, as superintendent of the park from May 2003 until June 2006, tried to persuade federal officials to reopen the crossing. The most he could accomplish was hiring Mexican villagers to control salt cedar on the river.
"There just wasn't a whole lot of interest in doing anything with the border crossings until things normalized, until the terrorist incursion threat was minimized," said King, now retired.
Even now, those who remain in Boquillas can scarcely believe what happened.
"The people are sad, insulted. Some still hope they'll open the border, but I don't have any hope," said Marcelino Sanchez, who has stuck it out with his wife and five children, living behind Jose Falcon's old store. "We used to have 200 Americans a day here — people came from everywhere."
Like others here, he scoffed at the notion of an Islamic terrorist braving the harsh overland trip from Muzquiz, or a menacing stranger passing unnoticed through Boquillas.
Gas and butane are hauled in from Muzquiz, and solar panels provide the only electricity.
Eggs, milk and fresh vegetables, for those in Boquillas who can afford them, arrive once a week via traveling salesmen.
During a recent visit to Boquillas, about the only food available, even for paying guests, was tortillas and beans.
And although the state government now keeps a doctor and a teacher in town, outside contacts are few.
When Coahuila Gov. Humberto Moreira stopped by last month in a rare visit, he promised to try to bring electricity and to reopen the border, but few took him seriously.
About the only person unchanged is the well-known local figure Eliseo Valdez, who made a living cadging greenbacks from tourists wanting to capture his stunning image on film.
The tiny bearded man with a badly deformed right arm has the spectral weathered look of an Old Testament prophet just back from the desert wilderness. Bare-chested and to dark chocolate, he waits outside the Park Bar for strangers with cameras.
From the beginning of the crisis, the park has supported efforts to help Boquillas, in part to discourage Mexicans from sneaking across the border to sell goods. Chance encounters in the riverside cane leave some park visitors shaken.
"About half the people who go down Boquillas Canyon look at the Mexicans coming over as a unique cultural experience. The other half are freaked-out and offended because of their concerns about national security," Chief Ranger Mark Spier. said.
Spier praised de Narvaez, the Terlingua river guide.
"Cynta's group is doing a good thing. Anything we can do to give these people an honest and legal way to make a living that doesn't impact the park is a good thing," he said.
Boquillas goods are sold at the park visitor centers and other facilities.
"We're shoveling sand against the tide of homeland security, so I'm not optimistic those border crossings will ever open again, but we're all trying to help the people across the river," said Mike Boren, director of the Big Bend Natural History Association, which operates the visitor centers.
Boquillas craftsmen are paid $4 each for decorated walking sticks made of the desert plant sotol. In the Big Bend, they are sold to shopkeepers for a few dollars more, and they retail for between $12 and $18.95. The markup on the woven copper scorpions, roadrunners and hummingbirds is similar.
Last week, de Narvaez and two other American women spent three days in Boquillas, fixing vintage sewing machines, holding quilting sessions and gathering a load of merchandise for export.
"I have only enough money to buy only four quilts from each woman. I pay them $20 now and the rest when the quilt is sold," de Narvaez said.
She expects the quilts to bring between $50 and $200 at the upcoming sale.
After the quilt tops are hauled 600 miles back to the Big Bend, they are finished with batting and backing by women's organizations in Alpine that charge $35 per quilt for the service.
Part of last week's mission was to teach the women how to finish their quilts, so they can make a larger profit. Wendy Weckesser, a quilter from Terlingua, conducted several training sessions.
"I brought some finished quilts over, and we sat down yesterday afternoon, put a quilt in a frame and went through the whole process," she said.
De Narvaez said the goal is to help the Mexicans become self-sufficient.
"We believe in giving fishing poles rather than giving fish," she said. "The sooner they can support their own business, including getting the goods back to the United States border, the happier we'll be."
On Oct. 10, the three women loaded up 41 quilt tops, 114 walking sticks and 298 copper figures on the public bus that comes once a week.
At the bus station in Muzquiz, the goods were transferred to an SUV that would haul them to Ciudad Acuña, then through U.S. Customs in Del Rio and west to the Big Bend. The entire trip would take 40 hours.
"What we noticed this time is there was less desperation and competition among the women. They had calmed down. They have faith we will come back," de Narvaez said.
jmaccormack@express-news.net |
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