He Faces Uphill Fight to Upgrade Mexican Village

‘We got a lot of work to do before the rains . . . too much work.’ --John Pierce

Walking listlessly up a winding road that is surrounded by thick brush, kicking up dirt and small rocks in his path, John Pierce could almost see the fertile spot at the heel of a mountain that someday he will farm.

But the uneven, rocky path ended almost two miles shy of the rich spot of farmland. Over the past three weeks, Pierce and a man from a tiny hamlet nestled at the bottom of the path had cleared almost a mile of the road.

The work is back-breaking. Tons of heavy rocks and small boulders were unearthed and trucked away. But the additional two miles must be cleared by late May, when the heavy rains arrive in the 12,500-acre valley.

“We got a lot of work to do before the rains . . . too much work,” Pierce said one recent afternoon as the sun beat down on his sunburned face.

The clearing of the path is one clue to the enormity of Pierce’s dream to convert San Miguel del Rio, a village of 78 residents, into a productive community.

Pierce, 52, a ceramics merchant from San Juan Capistrano, gave up his business and his home nine months ago to return with his wife to the village where she grew up, and where poverty and illiteracy are still a way of life. His goal was to change that.

He admits that had he known the huge struggle his five-year project would mean, he might never have left Orange County last summer.

Part of that struggle has been the villagers’ lackadaisical attitude about the project.

“Most people here don’t want to work; it’s very disappointing. But I have to continue because I said I would do it. It’s a promise I plan to keep,” Pierce said.

Despite Pierce’s work the past nine months, the village is almost the same. The 78 residents still subsist on the basics and live in mud-and-stick huts. They bathe on the banks of the wide Coahuayana River, the hamlet’s lifeline that meanders to the Pacific Ocean.

Subtle Changes

At noon recently, the village looked deserted and dusty, almost lifeless.

But subtle changes are taking place in the hamlet, located at the end of a winding road in the state of Michoacan, 250 miles southwest of Guadalajara.

Pierce has brought seven tractor rigs of Quonset hut material that the Capistrano Unified School District gave him last year. Besides building a Quonset-hut home for himself and his wife, Elda, Pierce has finished a concrete block, one-room school, which was the real impetus for the project.

Pipe that runs two miles up one of the mountains delivers a little water to the village from a spring. A few homes have tin roofs now. One resident even built a wire fence around his small hut and painted the fence posts white.

Pierce also built a new brick store for his father-in-law, Dolores Gonzalez. The old store, which had a dirt floor, was torn down. The two small streets were cleaned of the trash that brought disease and scorpions.

Money a Major Problem

And Pierce’s father-in-law, who has not actively helped in the work, at least has been coaxed into clearing two small hills of shrubs and trees, where he will plant 60 acres of corn and hay.

In empty lots and on a small, weedy patch by the old, open-air school hut, Pierce has tons of used materials to continue the project. Money, however, is a major problem.

“We’ve stayed broke pretty much since we’ve been here. It’s been a real struggle,” he said.

While clearing the path leading to the mountain where he will farm, a wheel broke on Pierce’s truck. A recent surprise visitor to the village brought him $200 from friends in Orange County, and he was able to fix the wheel.

“That’s what I need the most, money. I can work hard, but without money I can’t do everything I want. I need money for cement, especially,” he said.

School Is Built

Pierce needs cement for house construction, especially for floors. Dirt floors attract insects and scorpions. Since he arrived in San Miguel del Rio nine months ago, Mexico’s inflation has tripled the cost of cement.

Yet the school, the centerpiece of the project, has been built. It still needs a concrete floor, but desks and a large blackboard provide the village’s schoolteacher with the basic tools to instruct the 22 students.

Natalio Gonzalez, Elda Pierce’s uncle, is proud that he helped Pierce with the school. Three of his grandchildren attend, and a son, who has seven children, is planning to return to San Miguel del Rio in May.

Gonzalez, 58, is illiterate. He has lived in the village for 28 years, since he arrived with family to begin an ejido , a farming-oriented community. He has been Pierce’s most loyal ally since the beginning, and will be his partner when the road leading to the patch of farmland is completed.

‘It’s Worth It’

“This project will work. We’ve been working very hard to clear this road, but it’s worth it. We will have very fertile land to cultivate and that will help the ejido ,” Gonzalez said.

Throughout the village, Gonzalez is known for “working like a burro.” Pierce said Gonzalez, whose hawk-beaked nose and sun-beaten face make him look a decade older, was the main reason he has continued the project while everyone else in the village has refused to work.

“This guy has been the whole salvation of the project. If it weren’t for him, I’d be gone by now,” Pierce said as the two men built a fence around Gonzalez’s plywood house.

Gonzalez sees his contribution to the project as an investment for the future of his family, which lived in squalor and poverty in this desolate area of Mexico for a long time.

“I have helped since the beginning. I know the project will help, not me so much because I am old. But it will be good for my children and my grandchildren,” he said.

‘Right-Hand Man’

Gonzalez knows how tough life can be in this village. Twenty years ago his wife, Rosario, was stricken with polio at the age of 33 after bearing five children. She has been bedridden since then.

“I admire Natalio very much for what he’s done,” Pierce said of his “right-hand man.”

The return to San Miguel del Rio has not been an easy conversion for Elda Pierce, 28, who left the village at age 13. She married Pierce at 18 in Tecate, across the California border. By the time she returned to the village last year, she had grown accustomed to another way of life.

Pierce has provided his wife with a comfortable home and functional kitchen. He also built a bathroom and shower behind his house, the first in the village. But the bathroom will not be usable until he buries a septic tank in the backyard.

He realizes that his wife’s return has been emotionally draining.

“It’s been hard for Elda to get readjusted to living here. She was gone a long time,” Pierce said one morning as his wife served spicy huevos rancheros and hot corn tortillas.

Yearns for America

Elda Pierce joins her three sisters on the rocky banks of the river to do her washing and bathing. She fights the boredom by visiting her family and other neighbors. But she sometimes yearns for America.

“I like it better now. But, at first, it was very hard for me to do everything by hand . . . the cooking and the washing,” she said. “In the U.S., we had everything. Here I have to do everything the hard way, but I’m getting used to it.”

Pierce’s wife also understands his frustrations with the villagers who will not help with the project that is supposed to benefit them.

“John gets very disappointed with these people sometimes. It’s hard for him to understand that they were born here and they don’t know anything else. People are very illiterate here,” she said.

But Pierce has found support in El Organo, a village about two miles west of San Miguel del Rio that is part of the same ejido . About 200 people live in El Organo, but they produce about five times the crops their counterparts in San Miguel del Rio harvest.

Anxious for Help

The villagers in that hamlet, led by Francisco Zambrano, are anxious for Pierce to help them build a new school. They have begun to move sand from the river banks to mix with the cement that Pierce is determined to acquire.

Their dilapidated school hut now sits next to a small, makeshift soccer field. At the edge of the field are a pile of boulders that the villagers cleared when the Michoacan state government promised to build a new school for them.

“Those rocks have been there for four years,” Zambrano said as he and Pierce roamed the area to find a suitable spot for the new school. “Now, with (Pierce’s) help, we can build our own school. Everyone here is willing to help him all we can.”

Pierce’s immediate task is to finish the road to the land where he and Gonzalez will plant corn, tomatoes, beans and cucumbers. He also needs to patch the holes in the tin roof of his home before the four-month rainy season begins in earnest.

Confident Despite Lethargy

“Then I can turn my attention to farming, providing food for this ejido, “ he said. “It will yield enough food because there isn’t a seed that won’t grow here.”

Pierce said he is confident that despite their reluctance so far, the villagers will plant and harvest more crops this year. Last year, only about 15 tons of corn was raised, barely enough to feed the village.

“They’ve at least seen that they can grow more crops if they take better care of the land, and I’m sure we’ll have more food this year,” Pierce said.

Pierce himself has adjusted to this existence. Three months ago, on a visit to Orange County, he had lost 40 pounds and disease had inflicted him with leg sores, forcing him to limp. Today, he remains gaunt, very much unlike the burly ex-Marine he was. But he is now healthy and disease-free. And he is determined to carry on.

Five-Year Project

“Remember, this is supposed to be a five-year project. I’ve been at it less than a year and you can already see a little change. I will stay and finish what I came to do,” he said.

“A lot of work has gone into this place already, and there is much more to do. The damn thing may never get finished because it will just keep growing and growing.”

Perhaps the project will grow, much like the chicks Pierce is now raising. Without money and needing to raise chickens for eggs, Pierce traded some chairs for 30 eggs. He had no hen to nest the eggs, so he borrowed a neighbor’s turkey hen to do the mothering.

By late last week, more than half the eggs had hatched.

“You see, here we trade one thing for another, anything to get by. And we do get by . . . somehow,” said Pierce, chuckling at the turkey hen mothering the pale yellow chicks.