Adam and I made the pilgrimage again to Chimayo this year.
Thursday April 5. We began walking around 6 PM. Starting at the same place we always have. Its a back road off from the freeway near a casino. It leads from pavement to an old dirt road. It looks old and feels old. Our path begins in a small village called Pojoaque.
People have lived here for a few centuries I guess. Part of the Spanish inhabitation of this part of the world in the 1600s. Walking due north we set a pace, brisk but not too strong. As we walk on this dirt road, dry but with deep spring rain ruts still leaving their mark, the modest, yet stylish houses on either side seem to close in. But its a comfortable closeness.
There are fences lining the road most made of 4 foot high lodge pole sticks, bark still attached.
The tall trees on each side are leafless just barely having gotten spring buds. Their long upward limbs reaching to the now paling, gray blue, soon to be, evening sky. As we walk a little dust rises up from the road. It smells of earth and it feels cool.
Just now around us there are sounds of water gurgling and an occasional dog bark in the distance. I look for a creek. We find a concrete lined irrigation ditch hidden in the bushes to our left. Filled and flowing with spring run off, quicksilver flashes of water that seem alive with purpose. The water wants to get somewhere. Its going to quench a thirst and water some crops.
I recall reading about the mayordomos, or majordomos, of this area. They are the ditch managers. The ditch riders. The ditch bosses. Overseeing who gets what water when. They are elected officials. They have meetings and workshops. A simple job. Its a big deal. Since around 1598 there has been water management for this high desert landscape. It is said this style of irrigation and water wrangling began in Spain where it was taught to them during an Arab occupation. Wow.
In Phoenix our canals, and the few remaining irrigation ditches around the city, were supposedly vestiges left by the Hohokam Indians. Whoever came up with the idea had it right. It gets the water where it needs to go. In hot summers when I was a kid we swam in the ditches, canals and flumes around the Valley.
There is a grayness to this landscape we walk. The result of failing daylight and winter hangover. Yet almost as soon the road rises it begins to fall and we walk down towards a creek where we are blessed by emerald green patches of spring grasses and sprouts.
Some of the people from the homes on the road have placed bottles of water and boxes of oranges on small tables by their fence boundaries. A gift to the pilgrims. The walkers. I am always heartened by this show of hospitality to strangers. It is so simple and yet I find myself touched by it.
Now we come to an open area, its where the creek crosses the road and flows west. Water flows across a concrete pad imbedded with metal drain gridwork. The road goes down and then back up to meet the main road that runs east and west just ahead of us. It is on that road we will begin to walk in earnest.
NEXT: THANK GOD FOR SHOES
People have lived here for a few centuries I guess. Part of the Spanish inhabitation of this part of the world in the 1600s. Walking due north we set a pace, brisk but not too strong. As we walk on this dirt road, dry but with deep spring rain ruts still leaving their mark, the modest, yet stylish houses on either side seem to close in. But its a comfortable closeness.
There are fences lining the road most made of 4 foot high lodge pole sticks, bark still attached.
The tall trees on each side are leafless just barely having gotten spring buds. Their long upward limbs reaching to the now paling, gray blue, soon to be, evening sky. As we walk a little dust rises up from the road. It smells of earth and it feels cool.
Just now around us there are sounds of water gurgling and an occasional dog bark in the distance. I look for a creek. We find a concrete lined irrigation ditch hidden in the bushes to our left. Filled and flowing with spring run off, quicksilver flashes of water that seem alive with purpose. The water wants to get somewhere. Its going to quench a thirst and water some crops.
I recall reading about the mayordomos, or majordomos, of this area. They are the ditch managers. The ditch riders. The ditch bosses. Overseeing who gets what water when. They are elected officials. They have meetings and workshops. A simple job. Its a big deal. Since around 1598 there has been water management for this high desert landscape. It is said this style of irrigation and water wrangling began in Spain where it was taught to them during an Arab occupation. Wow.
In Phoenix our canals, and the few remaining irrigation ditches around the city, were supposedly vestiges left by the Hohokam Indians. Whoever came up with the idea had it right. It gets the water where it needs to go. In hot summers when I was a kid we swam in the ditches, canals and flumes around the Valley.
There is a grayness to this landscape we walk. The result of failing daylight and winter hangover. Yet almost as soon the road rises it begins to fall and we walk down towards a creek where we are blessed by emerald green patches of spring grasses and sprouts.
Some of the people from the homes on the road have placed bottles of water and boxes of oranges on small tables by their fence boundaries. A gift to the pilgrims. The walkers. I am always heartened by this show of hospitality to strangers. It is so simple and yet I find myself touched by it.
Now we come to an open area, its where the creek crosses the road and flows west. Water flows across a concrete pad imbedded with metal drain gridwork. The road goes down and then back up to meet the main road that runs east and west just ahead of us. It is on that road we will begin to walk in earnest.
NEXT: THANK GOD FOR SHOES
-Jeff Falk
Looking forward to the next installment.
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