Another Silent Spring
The last time we would ever have the pleasure of sitting in the company of Alcides would be at his family’s house this past Spring as they celebrated a birthday. His family was eager to have us into their already cramped house, slices of cake ready to be served to anyone who visited. He was more clean-cut than usual and smiling, happy to be surrounded by his family. Tim did most of the talking for us, but our intimate little crew of viejitos (a term given to the gringos who have spent a lot of returning years in the area) managed to communicate with him in ways that words fail.
Before he was forced to seek shelter with his family in San Miguel, he lived on his own in a humble house on the same dirt road, but in the other direction from Mastatal. The man that owned the house decided one day that Alcides could no longer reside there. It was in that house that some of us got to know him. We helped install solar panels to bring him free electricity and built a rocket stove to replace his old set-up that darkened his walls and lungs with soot and ash. I hope it was not our influence that altered his living situation.
The man that we got to know was reserved, gentle, and kind with a timid humor that could make any grown man with a heart, wit and sense of humor laugh and cry simultaneously. He was one of the most humble persons I have ever met. Never will I forget the day that he flipped through the pages of a small sketchpad he had filled with original pencil drawings. They were magnificent in their simplicity. Every page summarized what many of us are attempting to live.
He passed away from pesticide poisoning. This is a serious problem that one would think should be curbed by now, almost fifty years after Rachel Carson tried to open our eyes. An estimated twenty-five million agricultural workers are struck with some form of pesticide poisoning each year in the developing world. Pesticides are sold worldwide, and often used by people who do not understand the real risks associated with their use. I am very saddened to say that a friend of ours has been added to that ever-growing list of victims started in Silent Spring. I hope that he finds his fallen friends wherever he is now: the birds, bees, and multitudes of flora and fauna that continue to disappear from our lands. I am contented to know that his final days in this place were with family.
I am happy to have known such a wonderful and humble man, as short as my friendship with him may have been. He taught me more in a short time than I could hope to inspire in anyone over the course of a lifetime: live simply, love family, make your friends laugh, keep sketching beautiful ideas, and smile often. Thanks Alcides.
