One runs to honor one’s roots, explains Verónica Palma

The municipality of Guachochi, in Chihuahua, is so quiet that in the morning you can only hear the birds singing. Some women walk through deep ravines to carry sacks of corn and beans to other communities, going up and down lightly in wide skirts and huaraches with handmade rubber insoles, as if their feet did not touch the ground. In the middle of those roads with extreme climates, where the majority speaks limited Spanish and public transportation is almost nonexistent, Verónica Palma does not stop running. Her technique consists of lightly touching the stones while she resists the difficult conditions of the heights with little food and water.

Running is part of our lifedice a The Conference the Rarámuri runner, whose life takes place not far from civilization like that of the rest of the settlers; people with copper skin, compact bodies, long legs and extraordinary resistance to travel long distances along the Tarahumara Sierra. There are places in the mountains where it is dangerous to walk alone. Many times we go out to get water or bring firewood to the other town, we cross the vegetation almost every day. Since we don’t have transportation, it’s best to do it on foot, but if you run once in the mountains, you run forever..

Veronica is 34 years old. She works in the coordination of Native Peoples of the general directorate of Social Development and is one of the six Rarámuri women who completed one of the most complex relay circuits that have ever been remembered, from the Santa Monica Pier, in Los Angeles, to Las Vegas. Together – Yulisa Fuentes, Isidora Rodríguez, Lucía Nava, Argelia Orpinel, Rosa Ángela and her – they had to divide the 550 kilometers without stopping for three days along a route with steep slopes, dirt roads and narrow streams.

I was the first to leave at four in the morning. I ran with my huaraches, but after eight kilometers my feet began to bother me and I put on a pair of tennis shoes. The most difficult thing came with the rain, there was a lot of mud and our dresses felt very heavy. On the second day, when I traveled another 14 kilometers, a patrol car stopped me because I was going in the wrong direction. I didn’t understand anything they were telling me. I thought they were going to take me or do something, and I got scared. Later, a person who spoke in Spanish explained to them what we were doing, they couldn’t believe it..

For Rarámuris women, leaving their town for a race is an occasion that requires several days of preparation in the Sierra, testing themselves against mestizo rivals or chabochis, as they call them. Verónica no longer usually wears huaraches at work, they recommended it to her for a while, but she feels that her feet have memory. She conceives of nothing more than a world in which she can run and help preserve her traditions, the same way her ancestors did.

They hunted running to eat. And that’s what my classmates told me: we like to run, because in our past they also did it.she says proudly from Ciudad Juárez, where 21 years ago she began measuring her resistance in circuits of 10, 21 and 42 kilometers, until reaching 63 in the Guachochi ravine. At first I was unsure. My colleagues Lucía and Ángela did not prepare very well. Yulisa has her basketball team and the other two, María Isidora and Argelia, told me that they didn’t know what training was. I told them that it was about going for a run for a while where they live, but for them that was part of their routine..

We have just arrived

Verónica likes to be alone. With her wide skirt of printed fabric and very striking colors, it takes her between one and two hours to finish the complex mountain route where most of the day laborers have fruit fields. I think it’s a way to thank God for the life he has put in my path., he describes with his feet still sore, his soles dry and an image that has haunted his thoughts since he returned from the United States. That moment when she and five other Rarámuri women, with their hands raised beneath the iconic Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, felt like they had conquered the world.

When I saw the city lights reflected in the sky, tears came to my eyes. Little by little the signs got closer. I told my companions that as soon as we arrived, we had to do it together to the finish line, because that’s why they had invited us. Each one had to run a total of 90 kilometers, but some got lost and others of us ran the part of those who could no longer due to cramps or needed to rest. We never imagined how long 550 kilometers were. It is something that represents everything: our culture, my community, all the Rarámuri of our Mexico. A dream from which I don’t know when I will be able to wake up.

With the financial support of members of the Ra ra ra team, who paid for the immigration procedures and air transportation, as well as the rental of a mobile home and their food, the six women – four who live in the mountains of Chihuahua and two in cities – finished in third place in The Speed ​​Project race. On the platform of crowdfunding Donator, they also managed to raise 234,093 pesos of the 500,000 they hoped to reach with donations, a figure that for many was almost impossible.

I like to look for ways to support the children there in the Sierra. Last year I went to a community, I brought them clothes and a little food, but it wasn’t enough for everyone and I felt bad. They are people who need a lot of supportVerónica reflects on the conditions in which thousands of children and adults live in the Sierra Tarahumara. “There are things that are better not to tell. I’m not going to say who or where, but many times I heard people tell me ‘why do you run if you don’t win?’, ‘you look crazy running in the mountains.’ Thanks to that, I learned to move forward without listening to others.”

Born in Mesa de Papajichi, Chihuahua, Verónica Palma, indigenous and mother of two children, emigrated to Ciudad Juárez to support her family. She is one of the five protagonists who appear in the documentary 42.195presented in October at the Cineteca Nacional, where the story of five women whose lives changed by running is told. One also runs to honor one’s rootsshe affirms as the afternoon falls again on the border on her light feet, which are everything to her.