Teachers Without Borders

Handkerchiefs in Plaza Hidalgo

After a successful Teachers’ Congress in Mexico City last week, I decided to celebrate with a friend by taking a walk in sunny Plaza Hidalgo.

Ringed by shops and restaurants and anchored by both an imposing municipal hall and a majestic church, the Plaza was alive with shoppers, lovers holding each other close, and families stooping down to hand their children ice cream cones. Police paced about, their automatic rifles bouncing from their bulletproof vests. Pigeons typed on discarded cobs of grilled corn. A tourist waited patiently for a fresh churro to surface from a submerged fry basket. A mime tagged closely behind an unsuspecting passerby, the crowd giggling with the collective secret.

It was a soundtrack of public conversation, popular songs hand-cranked by strolling organilleros, baritone saxophones riffs from a free jazz concert around the corner, and strident calls from a megaphone at a Mexican version of “Occupy Wall Street.” We navigated around tents and circled a carousel plastered with cardboard signs, as if the organizers had prepared hurriedly for a storm.  We pointed out particularly evocative slogans, turned our heads to make out the titles of books donated to a makeshift library, and snapped pictures with our camera phones.

In front of the carousel, children wore their parents’ T-shirts as smocks and painted cheery pictures on plastic easels. Close by, an assembly line of teenagers stapled, whitewashed, and tossed crosses on a pile, while others spaced them evenly on the sidewalk like a two-dimensional graveyard. It all felt festive, yet deeply serious – both political demonstration and day-care center, circus sideshow and serious drama, the engine of commerce and a democratic impulse. These were regular folks and invited spirits – Emiliano Zapata and Marcel Marceau – walking amongst them, tapping shoulders. This was getting interesting.

We came upon a group of people sitting in an arc of benches. Most heads were bowed, as if praying, while others chatted. Handkerchiefs, each with hand-embroidered messages, blew gently from a clothesline, like Mexican-Tibetan flags.

A young leader approached us. We steeled ourselves for the solicitation. She pointed us to the impromptu group of volunteers (of all ages), who have been gathering, she explained, to embroider commemorative messages of peace for each of the 5,000+ killed by senseless drug violence. They were making progress, she said without hubris, a self-organizing group without members, “Rojas Fuentes” (Red Sources), but growing just the same. She encouraged us to sit with the others and sew one of our own. Her voice was kind, solid, accessible, forgiving.

She held up one of the linen handkerchiefs by its corners. A wooden hoop stretched the fabric in place, revealing a blood-red stitch halfway through a poetic tweet. She told us that her group would continue on every day through December, and then replicate it elsewhere. Here on the bench, I sensed, one may begin as a stranger but leave as a friend because they all share a common bond. No one is untouched by Mexico’s drug war. It matters, she said. It matters very much.

The “it” to which she referred suddenly seemed both Mexican and global, small and profound. “It,” as the young leader implied, is an emerging, Mexican-style volunteerism, centered in human dignity despite the odds, that confronts force with faith, violence with vigilance. “It” is an undeterred belief that humanity’s better nature will, indeed, prevail.

She never asked us for money.

The mainstream media should broadcast more stories about today’s Mexico with images like this, the commons at work. They should translate those cardboard signs into other languages so that we can all read about self-reliance. And along with their prurient flashes of murder, the monotonous weather forecast, and sports scores everyone already knows, they should let the camera pan slowly over one handkerchief per day to mourn the loss of life, and include, perhaps, a child’s painting.

It is Día de los Muertos – the Day of the Dead – in Mexico. The Mexican people will mourn those who have passed with humility and grace. Some will visit cemeteries, sweep away debris from a special plot, and leave marigolds. Families will gather and eat a delicious, sugarcoated, doughy bread, Pan de Muertos. Neighbors will visit each other, share meals, and talk. They will honor La Calavera Catrina, “The Elegant Skull,” and make clothes for tiny skeletons, laughing wryly as they dress up contemporary political figures.

In Plaza Hidalgo, the Mexican people seem to be commemorating Dia de los Muertos all year long, honoring the dead and honoring life – lovers, mimes, families, children, volunteers, activists, embroiderers.

They will rise above this, and then some. They are teaching each other, and they will do so with handkerchiefs and red thread. It’s enough to sew an entire society back together.