The village of Ajoya is the link between the lowlands and the Sierra. It is 27 kilometers from the town of San Ignacio, but the road that connects it is so poor that one can walk the distance in twice the time it takes to cover it in a motor vehicle, and few are the vehicles that can make it. Most travel over the rough road is undertaken on foot or on horse or burro-back, and the majority of the residents of Ajoya make the journey seldom, if at all. In many respects the village is nearly as isolated as that of Jocuixtita or Verano.

The day we arrived in Ajoya (Dec. 8) the weather was muggy and hot. Winter had still not arrived. But it was closer on our tails than I realized. In the afternoon as we drove in a strong wind suddenly arose, shaking the few leaves on the trees and billowing clouds of dust. Mike Garbett, who had made the trip down with me to take my Jeep back to the States, asked me if such wind was normal here, for there was something strange, even spooky about it. I said I had not experienced it before.

We arrived at sundown, and José Vidaca, who had helped our Pacific High School group so much the year before, invited us into his home. During the night the sky clouded over, and in the-morning it was dark and ominous. The people of the village kept looking upwards and saying to each other, “Va a llover,” or simply, “¡Ya viene!”

And then it came: a few fat drops exploding in the dust, then the downpour. As we stood in the “portal” of the casa poking out into the street the water streamed down as from a hundred hoses from the tile roof, forming a giddy curtain.

“You’d better take off for the highway pronto,” I said to Mike, “or you’ll never make it!” And sprinting through the waterfall he scrambled. into the Jeep and departed… I assume he made it alright, as no word has come back to the contrary.

“No va a salir por unos días,” said José as he watched the rain pour down and I nodded…

Now it has been raining off and on for six days. The river has risen a good two feet, and still there are heavy rain clouds in the mountains. José and everyone else assures me that travel at this time is impossible, and that the trails will remain precarious for a week or more after the rain stops… if it stops. For now the “cabanuelas”—winter rains—have begun, and if it proves to be a wet season, they may continue as late as the end of January! The entire village is praying for a lot of rain now, not because it will help the crops (for there are no winter crops, the cabanuelas being at best too brief), but because the amount of rain that falls in the cabanuelas is thought to be proportional to the amount that will fall in “las aguas” (summer rains) on which the harvest depends. This last summer, despite the floods in Mazatlán, there was a very low rainfall in this stretch of the Sierra Madre, and the harvest was scant. The poor families, who farm small patches upon the hillsides, will once again have to sell their few chickens and pigs to the wealthy holders of the river-basin lands, in order to buy enough corn to subsist upon, and to plant next summer. Or they can borrow corn from the rich, which has to be paid back in triple the following harvest. No wonder the degree of malnutrition among. the poor is startling!

With the coming of the rains the temperature has turned abruptly cooler. It is now quite pleasant here. If I am to be stuck in Ajoya for many days longer. I shall probably have to wait here until the Wolfs arrive from the States with the other portion of my medicines on December 28th, for it seems rather pointless to make the long burro trip to Verano if I am to stay there only a day or two before starting the journey back again.

I do not mind waiting in Ajoya, however. It is a beautiful village with its closely grouped, tile-roofed, adobe cases anti its thick-walled “iglesia” which I am told dates back four or five hundred years. (The village of Ajoya—or, more completely, Ajoya de San Jerónimo—was first settled by the Spanish long before Mazatlán existed. Before the Spanish came, it is said to have been a “pueblo de indios.” There are still some old-timers in Ajoya who speak some Mayan, or “Mexicana,” as they call it here.) Also I have grown very fond of the villagers, who have made me feel very welcome here.