We understand the importance of rivers,
since they are a source of life.
In this region, there are several basins and each has several rivers.
The basin called "La Antigua" is where, eight years ago,
a dam project financed by the Odebrecht company was stopped for the first time
through community organizing.

And now we’re defending the "Actopan" basin  
from a 19,000-hectare open pit mine.

We know that we have to weave river networks
and waters to take care of our mother earth, Abya Yala.

That’s why we act in solidarity with groups that defend water.

Below is a story about our watershed...

When you’re born and grow up in a city, you learn to fear nature, because people say it’s dangerous and dirty.

"Don't play with the dirt! It's full of bugs," my mom used to tell me when my friends and I would go into the neighbor's yard and make mud pies.

"Don't touch that plant! You might get sick," was the same old story from my best friend's father when we played treasure hunters.

We were taught that nature is full of diseases, microorganisms lethal to human beings. And they were everywhere. I wasn’t even allowed to have a pet, because "all animals are contagious and make us sick," according to my aunt.

My grandmother, my dad's mom, grew up in the countryside and didn't think the same way as my parents.  She told me that everything good comes from nature. I wanted to make my mom understand that it was okay for me to play in the dirt. That way, I would generate antibodies and be safe from diseases.

But my mom was not a good listener.

They say that old people are stubborn, that they’re only able to see the beauty of the past and don't understand progress. I never saw my grandmother that way. For me she was a wise and jovial person, who didn’t know anything about remote controls and who had ideas that were much more revolutionary than the progress my parents loved so much.


I think the ones who are really stubborn are the parents. They don't listen to those who are more experienced. They want to do things the way they think is best and defend this by saying that old people don’t understand the world, that they’re useless and only get in the way.


This was repeated so often by my parents, my neighbor's parents, and everywhere else, that one day the old people finally disappeared. The nursing homes were empty, the nurses had no one to take care of, and those of us who were children had no one to watch over us when our parents went off to work.


My dad got very sad. He thought his mom abandoned him. It wasn't like that. I knew where the grandfathers and grandmothers had gone. Together they decided to help nature. My grandmother told me not to worry, saying she would come back as soon as nature was free again.

All the elders set about the task of searching for the remaining rivers in the region.
Once they found them, they began to follow the current back to its source. And as they made their way, they realized that all the rivers were dirty, full of garbage. The rivers were becoming one, more and more full of dirt, filth and grime.


When all the old people arrived at the first spring at the top of the mountain, they were numb from the cold and the long walk. Yet at the very place where the river was born, the water was also filled with garbage, which disillusioned the grandfathers and grandmothers, since they couldn’t imagine how they could help clean up the tributaries.


When they all had lost hope and were trying to decide what they would do to survive that night, they heard a long, deep moaning.


The sound came from inside the cave where the spring was flowing. They all went closer, fearing that someone had fallen with no one to help. They carefully entered the cave and were surprised to find a wandering old woman.

They thought she was probably crazy, since she looked filthy and smelled bad.
She was all dirty. There was dirt on her dress, dirt on her huaraches, dirt on her arms and on her face.


Her hair was tangled and filthy. Not only was it dirty, but also sticky. The garbage appeared to be coming from it--chewing gum wrappers, plastic and styrofoam cups, bottles, boxes, toilet paper, among many other things.


The elders felt quite disgusted, yet they decided to help her. They approached her without speaking, so that they could hold their breath and not smell her stench, and began to remove the garbage. Other grandparents stayed a little farther away and began to talk with her. They asked her how she had come to be in such a terrible state. She answered them in a raspy, gravelly voice, saying that the culprits were their sons and daughters.


As they cleaned her hair, there was ever more garbage and with it came all the vermin that lived on her--fleas, rats, flies and even cockroaches. The old people were not intimidated and continued with their work. Less and less garbage remained and the vermin stopped appearing. Suddenly, the elders saw multicolored wings, and little by little, they saw a butterfly emerge. Following it came owls, opossums, sparrows, beetles that resemble precious stones and, finally, countless varieties of bees of different colors.


The cleaner the woman's hair became, the more it began to take on silvery hues and was falling towards the river, which also began to free itself from garbage and filth. At the same time, the air became purer and fresher around the woman, and the stench was gone. The cave smelled like a forest now.

After a while, the woman stood up. She was unbelievably beautiful. Her skin had a light turquoise color, just like the leaves of certain trees in the sunlight. Her eyes were gray as storm clouds, and with a voice as clear as the completely clean and flowing river she told the elders:

“I am the spirit of the basin and what lives in it. Everything that is done to it, you do to me.
And what you do to me, you do to yourselves. Thank you for turning your eyes towards nature and me. Carry this message to your children and your children’s children. Go back to your families and tell them what you discovered today.”


And the spirit turned to water, joined the river and flowed away, leaving the elders rejuvenated, stronger and healthier than they had ever been.


When my grandmother returned, she did not want to tell my parents where she had been, because she knew they wouldn't believe her. But she did tell me. My neighbor told me that his grandmother told him the same story. Now we have started to tell it to other children who want to protect the spirit of the basin and help keep clean the place where we live.

Alejandro Beltran Cordero & Ainhoa Verdugo

Coatepec, Veracruz

Artes Curativas Coatepec

Art & Photos by Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

Translated by Steven White