Here we are, back in Acoma, the Native American Sky City, named for it's place on top of a desolate, wind swept mesa in the middle of nowhere in the New Mexican desert. Its been here for a thousand years. I've been here before, but it didn't seem the same. Been everywhere before, but it never seems the same. Considering the holocaustic indignities we have inflicted on their people, it is a wonder that the Acoma people tolerate us at all. Must be the steady flow of income we provide, but that doesn't mean they have to like us. So the excursion was short and expensive. Don't like to flaunt my senior privileges at the ticket booth, but at these prices...
Been here before and needed to return, if only to breathe in the experience of being in one of the most otherworldly, breathtaking places in America...the Indian Masada. A good part of the tour was devoted to having our guide refresh our European collective unconsciousnesses about the absolute horrors of degradation and genocidal ethnic cleansing our ancestors wreaked on these once noble people; tortured, dehumanized, and denied their identity and language in the name of religion and manifest destiny. The Europeans were horrible. They left death and cultural decimation in their wake wherever they went, everywhere in the world was scared by them. I left amazed, ashamed, and angry.
As always, my interests are photographic, but the tour was short, brisk, and insufficient to my needs, which drove me to follow my eye and not the tour guide, so on a number of occasions, our group leader felt the need to chastise Jackie for my indifference to the direction and content of the tour, and my tendency to drift away and not stay with the group, so I did my best to behave, but I'm sure we won't be back, so it was now or never and I needed to follow my muse, as best as I could given the constraints. Given more time and room to move I could have seen more, but this is a bit of the what's up there.
Adding to my discomfort was this annoying European woman with an open blue parasol who seemed to be everywhere, standing dead center of any interesting shot I was lining up. To make matters worse, she was part of an equally annoying European family group whose members asked too many "meaningful" questions for my liking. Further reason to drift away out of earshot and into more interesting areas. After a while however, my annoyance with the woman with the umbrella turned to obsession and possibly in an act of self preservation/passive aggressive hostility, I began to stalk her with my camera, with interesting results.
By now, I'm sure she was feeling my malevolent intent. If umbrellas could kill...
Pablo
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