Pamela Cerdeira

The town of the tlayudas

In a project that lasted just over a year, 60 women tlayuda producers stopped kneeling in their kitchens.

I am lost and hopelessly in love with Oaxaca, its sky, its mezcal, its streets, its food. I have tasted tlayudas in different restaurants, however, the most delicious I have eaten was in Santa Inés Yatzeche. Just 45 minutes from downtown is this community of just under a thousand inhabitants where 70% are women. Where did the men go? They migrated. "I don't let my husband leave, he'll fall in love with a gringa and forget about me," one of the inhabitants tells me with a laugh. An immense sculpture observes us all: it is that of a woman kneeling in front of a comal, holding a tlayuda. She represents them all, or rather, she represented them all.

"May no woman ever kneel again," says Eufrosina Cruz, aware of the double meaning of her phrase. Esther shows me her kitchen, part of a room that separates its areas with imaginary lines. She has lived there with her mother-in-law, father-in-law, husband and a little girl for 10 years. She not only worked kneeling in front of the comal, the smut on the ceiling is the graphic sample of what also came and surely painted her lungs for years."Now it's different, now I can make three tortillas or four tortillas without inhaling smoke" (she refers to the packages of tlayudas). Her old routine: wake up at 4 a.m., wash her nixtamal, go to the mill for half an hour and at 5 a.m. start making tortillas, at 9 a.m. get her daughter ready for school, have breakfast and then make tortillas again until 12 or 1 p.m.. But now she finishes at 9 a.m. A day she makes 100 pieces, which she then sells. If she can avoid sending them by motorcycle, because that costs her, she asks her father-in-law to take them to her on a bicycle, and with the surplus she buys a cheese for the family or a fruit for her daughter. The motorcycle charges him $20 per bag of tortillas, he usually takes two. The store he delivers to pays him $200, minus the $40 for the motorcycle, $20 for the mill, minus the lime, firewood and corn, leaving him at most $100. I ask him what he will do now that he has gained a little free time: "play more with my girl and see if they can help us find a place to sell and pay more, to earn more money. I already have a new stove, but I also want a new stove and a new sheet. She tells me everything as she looks around as if she can already see the changes in her home. Esther is allowing herself something that would have been impossible until a few years ago: to dream. The girls in Santa Inés get married at 14, on average; at 15 they are already carrying a child in their arms. The highest school grade is a telesecundaria and although there is a high school a few kilometers away, it is not easy for women to move unaccompanied from one town to another, they run risks. However, she has a different destiny for her daughter: "I want her to go to school, to be something in life and not be like me".

Why does Esther's body no longer hurt? Why can she imagine another kitchen, think about selling more and at a better price? The answer is wonderful, hopeful and involves the efforts of many people: a girl who came out of the mountain, private initiative and civil society organizations.

Eufrosina repeats to me several times: "I don't want them to admire me, I want them to help me, I want them to tell me how they are going to carry this burden with me". So, with that idea, to help a community that she knows, and that in addition to its many women, has in the municipal presidency the first woman to be reelected to that position, in a town that is governed by customs and traditions, was that they came hand in hand with Coca-Cola Mexico and Coca-Cola Foundation to make a change that, despite seeming simple, no one else had done.

In a project that lasted a little over a year, 60 women producers of tlayudas stopped kneeling in their kitchens because they had ovens built inside their homes with a specific model for their needs, not an oven imported from the best kitchens... an oven that worked for them, with its comal, at waist height so that their bones would not hurt when they finished cooking, and with a chimney to keep the smoke out of their homes and their lungs. So that they could continue doing what they know how to do, but in a more comfortable, simpler and safer way. The matter does not end there, they created an alliance with the National Chamber of the Restaurant Industry and Seasoned Foods (Canirac) so that their products reach the restaurants directly and at a fair price. They share a new mill that allows them to save time and effort. And also, together with the Global Environment & Technology Foundation and Neta Cero, they have a rainwater harvesting system that can store and filter 200 thousand liters of water.

To close, they also unveiled a mural as part of the "Love Multiplies" campaign, called Strong Womanwhich undoubtedly portrays those who sustain this community.

The tlayuda? First imagine that the tortilla is freshly made, with its seat, beans without fear of them running out, lettuce, lots of quesillo and tasajo, and to enjoy it give a kiss to the mezcal that comes out of a bottle without a name, and immediately blow a little so it doesn't burn when you pass by. Haven't you been to Santa Inés? Well, go soon, so that in the future when you see a brand of their tlayudas everywhere you go, you will know where this dream started.