Annotations for Sounds: Background--natural Sounds--birds

We're so far apart, our communities, and sometimes you don't get to see each other for two or three or four days, so when you meet each other on the road, you wave at each other and say, hi, how you doing? And it's contagious.

Loyola Archuleta, the manager of the store, explains that most Chama Valley locals practice three waves, a kind of scale of friendliness.

One is for people that you don't really know too well. You just pick up one finger and for people that you really know a little more, you pick up your whole hand. But if you really know somebody that you really, really like, you really shake your hand back and forth [laughter]. Let's see, this is going to be {unintelligible]. Let’s see, hi. See he waves and then he shakes his finger at me, that what am I doing? [Laughter].

All the history of a family, a community, a friendship are revealed in a wave.

And this is her now. She's my, she's my comadre I baptized her daughter when we're ex sister-in-laws. So she'll wave and say hi, and that's as much as it goes.

John Nichols, author of the Milagro Bean Field War, describes his return to Taos after a long trip in his book, If Mountains Die. "When I raised my hand in greeting to a car driven by a stranger", he writes "and received a salutation in return, I knew I had a arrived to a place worth trying to call home". Pedro Archuleta of Tierra Amarillo, or TA as the locals call it, couldn't agree more.

The moment you see somebody just wave at you, as you come [unintelligible]. It's a different feeling because hey, I'm home. Finally home feel better.

My husband was telling me that one time he was coming down the grotto. And we have a tradition that when we pass the grotto, we cross ourselves. And instead of making the sign of the cross, he waved to the grotto.

[Background--natural sounds--birds chirping] Often, early in the morning, I'll see a woman or a man driving two or three burros loaded with mountain produce, heading for a nearby town or city. [Background--natural sounds--farm animals] I make it a point not to camp close to someone's home, just out of respect and so as not to use a firewood that doesn't belong to me. Firewood is scarce around here. This day, as I crested a hill, I spotted a ranchito, just a little two-room house, adobe walls with a flat roof. Smoke was rising from the chimney. I was barely 300 yards from the ranchito and it would be dark soon. [Background--natural sounds--crickets] It was too late to move on. It was going to be a cold night and the only firewood I could find was already cut, tu sabes. For the rancho's wood stove. Ni modo. I used the firewood. I felt guilty but warm that night. [Background--natural sounds--fire] Anyway, I would make it up to them in the morning. [Background--natural sounds--rooster]

He reached into his bag and handed me a small bundle. My wife packed this for you, he said. [Background--natural sounds--birds chirping] It was bread, goat cheese and jamoncillo, a homemade candy made from fresh milk. We talked for a while. I told him I was a painter who took inspiration from the Sierra. He told of his early life as a shepherd in these same mountains and of his many years as a miner in Zacatecas. The mines are bad luck he said, es muy duro. Siempre en lo oscuro. Always in the dark digging with dynamite for God knows what or for whom. Here, on top of the earth, we have everything a man can need. What more can one ask for. Dios provides the earth, the sun, wind and rain. We provide the labor, he smiled. Somehow, my pack felt especially light that whole day.