Antonio

In my opinion, Antonio is the most special member of the crew. The first minute you meet him you can tell there’s something different about him, something in his way of being that is very unique. 

Antonio is an animal man. Any trouble with an animal and immediately Antonio is called over, any question about an animal and he is consulted. I remember back in October spending an unsuccessful hour wrestling and trying to coax our pigs out of some bushes. After much frustration, Antonio was called over and he quickly herded the pigs out in a matter of minutes.

Antonio smiles a lot but doesn’t speak much, he is shy and practical, patient. He has a kindness and understanding in his eyes and above all, a remarkable calmness.

Every day I chat with the workers and little by little find out details about their lives away from the farm. It feels like an excavation project, I’m slowly peeling away at the layers. I am beginning to figure out all the intricacies of their family problems, their journeys from Mexico, the lives they left behind. By now I suspect I know more than anybody else at Full Belly knows. I don’t think anyone else from the farm has ever talked to them in this way and I can see that my position is very unique. They like talking to me, for them I’m a bridge between two worlds that are very far apart. It’s strange possessing this knowledge all at once. I feel there is so much to learn from them, and so much left to understand.

Today as I was talking to Antonio I asked him how come he was so good at being with animals. Always modest without realizing it, he explained he had worked with animals for four years. But I knew that all his expert lasso-ing, milking, and sheep herding skills could not have come from just four years of work. After talking more he revealed that he had grown up in Guerrero, México, in Tierra Caliente on his grandparents’ dairy. On the farm they had pigs, chickens, sheep, and 1,200 cows for milking. His grandfather had been a big producer of cheese, making queso fresco and queso duro very effectively. When I asked him if he sold to a big company he said that he had successfully stayed strong doing his own business, selling at all the stores in the area and working very hard. This seemed like such a nice portrait of his life in Mexico but I knew that something was out of place because then why else was he here? We talked more and he eventually told me about his grandfather’s great misfortune:

Seeing that he was so successful, other people in the area became jealous and kidnapped his sons, vowing to kill them unless he gave them his cows and a big sum of money. Of course he gave them what they wanted and was suddenly left with nothing. When I heard this I'm positive I felt my heart shrink a few sizes, how could something so unjust happen to such a special person? I guess that might be part of what makes him so special. Somehow he was able to move on. But I still have a sore spot where that story rests.