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Field of Dreams; Fields of Reality
Field of Dreams: Chiapas 1999
It’s January 1999 and our merry band of nine women are two hours
into the drive toward Naja in the Chiapas jungle when the two-way
radio breaks into Tzotzil Maya. Roberto Mendez Mendez, driver
of one of our two combis, answers the call, laughter in his clipped
words. He pulls the combi over into the muddy verge and turns to the
women, eyes twinkling.
“No tienes ir al baño?”
Pained expressions grade quickly into relief, then dissolve into con-
cern. Of course we have to go to the bathroom, but the weeds are tall;
the trees are distant. Roberto and Pepe have already walked ahead;
they stand facing away from the combis—you can see their backs,
hands reaching forward at waist level.
I make a sweeping gesture, indicating the field. “This is it, ladies.”
The women of the Chiapas Project step out gingerly, one by one, shed-
ding a few inhibitions as they go. Had we forgotten to practice pee-
ing in the woods while still in Oneonta?
Back into the combis. We round the crest of a hill, and the milpas
move in to swallow us, tall fields of summer-green grasses and sun-
flowers reaching into the open windows. In the distance, the color
changes subtly, becoming a clump of rumbling avocado, moving and
groaning just ahead. El Ejército Mexicano, the Mexican army, stuck
in the mud, at a place without a bridge.
Here we go, search time, just as we expected. I grab my pouch, tak-
ing out my visa, my smile, and my explanation. The combis come to
a stop in front of three open humvees filled with military. The first is
on our side of the cut, stopped, men spilling out to run back toward
the muddy gash that is the bridge to be. The second is mired in undu-
lating red ochre ooze, up to its monster truck wheels, going nowhere.
The mass of green men head down to put their weight behind it, the
motor groans, and it lumbers slowly over wide boards. It’s difficult for
the men to push and still keep the barrels of their automatics out of
the muck. They shift the guns from side to shoulder and over the back
and then Roberto is out of the combi, taking in the situation. I wonder
if our drivers should even be here on a road into the selva. They are
