Every once in a while you run into a really stubborn guy, this was one of those times, the town leader was not there and I was directed to his brothers house. There were actually two brothers living there and I began my explanation of the project and showed them the pictures and went over the "electronic book" ( web site) and talked indigenous politics, spoke my 5 words of Nahuatl and generally attempted to move into he picture taking phase. I saw his wife and sister in-law change into her nicer blouse and she was combing her hair. However this guy just would let it happen. Finally I suggested that we just take a picture of the blouse and the skirt without anybody in it. Just hold them up and that would be good enough for me. Well, the other brother was very exasperated with this whole thing and said that I should follow him. We ended up around the corner in his courtyard, where his wife was just waiting to participate. We took a number of shots but she was very stiff. Finally, her husband said something to her in Nahuatl and she relaxed and we got some good shots. The skirt here is very different than the other surrounding towns and is the belt.
In the second picture the mountain in the background is their sacred mountain, they didn’t say so in so many words, but made sure she posed in front of it and that I also took a photos of it, they just call it the Mountain of San Juan but it is special for sure.
This town was severely affected by the massive floods in 1999 and the bridge to the next town was rebuilt after the old one was destroyed. On my first trip in 2001 I had to cross the stream bed because the bridge was still being built.
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