Marathons and the rarámuri

It's 7 a.m. I'm writing this on Marathon Day. It's probably the only marathon I'll ever do, and I'll be walking. Not like the real marathoners--the ones who run 200 miles and think nothing of it.

Oh, perhaps you thought a marathoner was someone who ran 26 miles in a few hours. These folks are the also rans.  The Rarámuri of the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico put ordinary marathoners to shame.

According to Wikipedia, the Tarahumara word for themselves, Rarámuri, may mean "runners on foot" or "those who run fast."  And it is to the Tarahumara, a people who live on the edge of civilization, that I dedicate my walk today. I don't stand in awe of people merely fit to run. I stand in awe of the Tarahumara, whose civilization, according to Wikipedia, is on the brink of collapsing. I encourage you to spend a few minutes going to Wikipedia to read about them.

I heard about the Tarahumara 30-40 years ago when a friend went deep into the Copper Canyon to witness them. Mexico's Copper Canyon is four times the volume of the Grand Canyon and hundreds of feet deeper. In 2008 I rode the Copper Canyon railway from El Fuerto along the West Coast of Mexico to Chihuahua State, stopping at the canyon's edge. Greeting us at the doorway of our train car were natives selling baskets. And what wonderful baskets they were! Seven years later you can still catch a slight smell of the grass they were woven from. A friend of mine who was a Canadian First Nations Tsimshian basket goddess who has her work in the Smithsonian thought they should be worth a great deal more than the pittance I paid for them -- $10-15 per basket.

These are people who live under the roughest of conditions. Walking along one scary edge of the canyon I noticed some sticks pointing up from a defile in the rock. It was a ladder, perhaps 25-40 feet high. (I was afraid to peek over the edge, and there was no way I was going to measure it. Children with babies slung in a fabric wrapped around their backs climb those ladders to bring their goods for the tourists, and the toddlers run along the edge of the canyon walls, freaking out the tourists who lurch to grab them -- needlessly. The Tarahumara are born to that land.

If you Google Tarahumara running, you can find information about their amazing running ability, And you can read how they stayed in the Copper Canyon's recesses to avoid the Spanish. And how the drug trade is threatening them -- just as it is affecting us tourists. The tour company I relied on for the Copper Canyon rail trip is no longer in business because of the risks involved in traveling the route.

I've said almost enough. I have a Marathon to walk, and it's almost time.

But I would be remiss if I didn't thank my Maui hostess, Diana, who put up with me for a week and provided a base of operations for my trudge down into the crater of the Haleakala volcano. Diana just purchased three more One World Futbols for donation, bringing the number raised so far to 74, so I'm on the verge of 3/4 of my goal. I would also like to thank Mary Jane, Marianne and Darlene (a high school chum I've known since the second grade) for their purchases as well. Together, you ladies have purchased 7 of the 10 balls designated for Ecuador, and you have the right to assign them names, if you like. I'd suggest names in Spanish or Quechua.

Thank you.

Love,

Robert, Wilson

and the kin.