From boatman to balladeer: The simple life of Victor Valdez

We took a rowboat 'cross the Rio Grande
Captain Pablo was our guide
For two dollars in a weathered hand
He rowed us to the other side

-- "Gringo Honeymoon," Robert Earl Keen

    ALONG THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER -- Texas singer songwriter Robert Earl Keen wrote "Gringo Honeymoon" in 1994 after visiting the Mexican border village of Boquillas.

   Victor Valdez (pictured) could've easily been the man Keen referred to as Captain Pablo. Valdez was a boatman in the town for 24 years before the border was closed for security reasons several months after the 9-11 attacks.

   Victor can't boat anymore, but he hasn't given up on his hometown, and he still counts on congenial tourists who hike by him into beautiful Boquillas Canyon.

   I saw Victor last week and we talked for a long time. He said he's seen no terrorists come through Boquillas, nor has he seen any Mexicans try to cross into America. He assured me though that if he does he'll pick up the phone and call Border Patrol to alert them. The villagers here are still connected via telephone to America, a rare link that remains.

   Victor is one of a number of campesinos, or farmers/workers, who live in  villages along the border. Before, when the crossings were open and tourists plentiful, Victor told me during the busy times of year -- Christmas, Thanksgiving and spring break -- he would make as much as $300 a day rowing people across the river so they could have a beer and some tacos, and interact with the friendly villagers.

  Until several weeks ago, he and others in the town scratched out a meager living selling walking sticks, handcrafted wire scorpions and painted rocks to people who walk the Boquillas Canyon trail. With law enforcement in the area cracking down on that now, Victor has been encouraged to no longer make the crafts. Instead, he has been invited by authorities to put to use the obvious talent he has: singing.

  So that's mainly what Victor does nowadays. Every day, he and a couple of friends from town get up and make a mile-long walk through the tall reeds and desert brush indigenous to the river area of northern Mexico. They arrive at a lean-to shack they built, and they wait, a pair of binoculars in hand, hoping to eyeball hikers as they make their way over the mountaintop and into the canyon hiking trail. When he sees the hikers, he begins his song. Victor's rich Mexican tenor echoes off the canyon walls and hikers into the canyon are treated to not only a great walk, but a beautiful natural surrounding and music that echoes through the air.

   It's not boating, but it's all he has now since he's lost the ability to move tourists across the river, and now to sell sticks to them. Now, he just moves people with his music.

   "Sometimes I make $5 a day, sometimes people very generous and leave me $20," he told me. "It's very bad. Business is very down since I can no longer make sticks and scorpions. But I have a good voice and people like my singing."

   When I walked out of the canyon last Wednesday, there was no money left in the jars along the way.

   On the spare change he makes from tourists, he helps care for a 94-year-old man in the village, his wheelchair-bound niece and his wife, who now lives in Muzquiz, where there is more opportunity.

   Victor preferred the boat industry and even though both his previous occupations have dried up, he doesn't want to leave Boquillas, where he has been for all of his 56 years.

"This is my home," he said.

   After we talked, Victor walked back across the river and belted out a big Mexican ballad, strong and confidently enough to rouse emotions in even the hardest of hearts. It didn’t matter the language was another culture’s, the music was beautiful and the message received.

We waved at each other and I walked back toward the car.

“Vaya con dios!” he shouted out at me. “Vaya con dios!”

Comments

[Gringo de la Americano]

Boquillas, one of billions of sad stories in the world
Sticky Door Knobs has many sad Mexican stories. A human interest story is usually of interest to most readers, but do they all have to be connected to Mexico?
The author has about 4 or 5 web spots and uses them for Pro-Mexican activism. It is an unbalanced situation and very annoying when the majority of Americans want less of the things connected to Mexico.

[Jimmy]

Vaya con dios, Gringo de la Americano. Vaya con dios.

[Cowtown Pattie]

Jimmy,

As someone who has met Victor personally, this story strikes a chord in my heart.

It is so easy to paint an faceless swath of humanity with a broad brush of a single color; it is when you use the finely defining brushstrokes of a real artist's palette that things take true shape, definition and color.

I love it when you paint words using a Number 2 brush.

"Those people" are suddenly harder to demonize when you become acquainted with them on a one-on-one basis.

Thank you for introducing your readers to Victor.

[Betty]

I have known Victor for 27 years; he is the most honest person I know, an extremely admirable man. But Victor was not a particularly unusual character in Boquillas; he was more gregarious and spoke better English, but everyone else in that town was just as honest and friendly. The same was true in the Chihuahuan town of Santa Elena. Now they are scattered across northern Mexico and the Big Bend in Texas, families separated, children living with distant relatives, husbands and wives working where they can sometimes 100s of miles (and an International Border) apart. This is not a sad situation, it is criminal. If you visit Boquillas Canyon, please be one of the 'nice people' who leave $20. Victor and the people in Boquillas are worth much more.

[Ospurt]

I have as an acquaintance a long time border patrol agent who worked the Big Bend Region. When 9/11 came, and they closed all the non-regulated crossings, he was dismayed at the level of bureaucratic idiocy that created the problem we now have in Boquillos, La Linda and Lajitas.

Government, when it regulates large and diverse areas, lacks common sense and judgment.

Big Bend will never be the same if Boquillos becomes a ghost town...I wish the remaining inhabitants well.

[carlos velez-ibanez]

Anybody recorded Victor? I would like to hear his voice. Es la voz de la genete no de gobiernos.

cvi

[eric a. garcia]

>Anybody recorded Victor? I would >like to hear his voice.

I heard about him on NPR All Things Considered and they recorded him. You can find it online @ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17709267&ft=1&f=2

[buy cialis]

I just love this kind of people, campesinos are very nice and they always helped. I think you should add more pictures about him.

[Messenger bag]

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

[Burberry Handbags]

Putin ruled as president from 2000 to 2008 before handing over to Medvedev to comply with a constitutional ban on a third consecutive term. He will be free to run in the March presidential election.

[Hermes]

Putin, 58, and Medvedev, 45, have repeatedly refused to say which of them will run but as Russia's paramount leader, officials and diplomats say the decision is Putin's.