Chihuahua.- Wearing her traditional Tarahumara dress and dyed red hair, 17-year-old Iztaccíhuatl Teresita Zamarrón Díaz sells typical crafts from the Sierra Tarahumara at a stand mounted on a cart where necklaces, rings, quartz and even a book written by her family are displayed.
She wears a smile that shows her braces and colored bands. She says that she has had two maxillofacial surgeries, which is why her mother had to move to this city to treat her because she was born with serious problems in her jaw and extra teeth. They prevented him from speaking: “I have been taking care of myself since I was seven.”
She says that thanks to a program sponsored by the Autonomous University of Chihuahua and because of her indigenous origin, she was able to receive care in various private hospitals in the city at no cost or at a very low cost, since she would have already paid more than 100 thousand pesos for it.
She says that her mother Genoveva Díaz Cadena started the stand selling handicrafts that she brought from the mountains, since she is originally from the municipality of Urique, although she grew up with her brother Tláloc Noé in Creel.
Now they sell more quartz, before they only sold crafts, but clients began to ask them for quartz and they had to become experts in the uses of these stones that most of them bring from the Tarahumara Mountains, although some, such as Tourmaline and Malachite, are brought from Brazil. Her mother picks them up in Monterrey, when she goes to see the doctor.
Teresita, as she is commonly called, is a fearless young woman who learned the trade from her mother and makes necklaces and rings out of gold, silver or copper plated jewelry wire that serve as protection for the users who already know her and buy without haggling, because, she says, they know what the stones are for.
She says that living in the city of Chihuahua has not been easy, since just last year she had to leave school because of her origins. First she was pointed out by her classmates for wearing her indigenous attire, then by her teachers and finally by the authorities, who finally expelled her.
Despite this, she saw the positive side of this situation and went to the mountains to feel the wind again, because she says that she loves the mountains like her mother, that she doesn’t like the city, it gives her allergies, but despite She wants to go back to study and finish high school, she only has one year left and she wants to be a forensic expert and to do so she plans to study Anthropology first, at the ENAH, she would have already started, she says, but she was delayed because they kicked her out.
He comments that the surrounding merchants are very envious of them and that many merchants have arrived from Mexico City who make fake crafts and sell them at very low prices, a situation that affects them a lot, he says, because they are not really authentic.
Like any young woman, she listens to all kinds of music, because she says that “in life, happiness is not just being or doing one thing.” She also mentions that she would like to be treated like any other person and not be seen as “indita,” which sounds undervalued to her, but rather like any other girl.
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