La intersectorialidad en materia de discapacidad en el Municipio de Puebla.

Despite taking the opportunity o f the com m ission to write up fragments o f his travels as young ondero, thus reviving his forgotten link to that generation, Ramirez Heredia was clear that the point o f the chronicle was to give ‘una vision global del estado’ {Por los caminos, p. 16) through his travels. Ortiz also aimed to transmit to the reader his ideas and feelings about the area of the Huastecas, although he did not feel obliged to formally define their ‘essence’, or turn his work into a didactic exercise.

In accordance with this principle aim, Ortiz believes that travel-chronicles need to be kept simple in their conception and execution, and to be written within the parameters of the traditional design, so that stylistic innovations do not detract from the main communicative aim o f the text. In interview, he defined him self as a ‘cronista clasico’, ‘sin pretensiones estilisticas’, who simply struggles with the literary limitations o f the genre in order to convey information and impressions to his readers:

La crônica de viaje es dificil por la responsabilidad que requiere: por un lado, la mirada; la mirada que tiene que abusarla uno para captar todo. Algo, también, que debe uno tratar de conseguir es la object!vidad, es decir no llegar con prejuicio hacia algo. (Interview)

He did not aim, in any w ay, to be identified by his ‘style’, although in retrospect he considers that the chronicle does conserve some of his literary fingerprint: ‘una smtesis de lo que ha sido mi trabajo; por una parte, la cuestion narrativa; por otra, la preocupacion historica, social, etcetera, y estilistica también’ (interview).

In terms o f the structure o f his text, he was aiming at a ‘fully-integrated’ type o f travel- chronicle, where everything would stem organically from the experience of travel itself:

Manejo el tiempo del viaje con lo que voy encontrando, lo que sean las evocaciones, los recuerdos de cuanto yo conoci en mi infancia, adolescencia en aquella zona, y también, lo que séria la Huasteca conocida a través de los libros. (Interview)

In fact, according to Ortiz, these stylistic and structural lim itations on the literary elaboration o f travel-chronicles are ‘un reto literario’ in themselves; one which he feels he can execute successfully.

In the case o f Ranurez Heredia, while the chronicle is still clearly identifiable as a piece of his writing, sealed with his literary fingerprint, this show of idiosyncrasy does not affect 12 Personal interview with Ortiz, 24 June 1996; with Ramirez Heredia, 16 July 1996.

the overall design o f the travel-chronicle. He, too, is committed to staying within the parameters of the traditional travel-chronicle as he understands it:

Yo me enfrento con un problema. [...] La técnica que yo uso es muy simple: agarro una grabadora, y agarro un bloc de apuntes, y voy; y voy, a caminar, a ver, a preguntar, a hablar con la gente, ‘A ver, ^qué sabes tu de esto?’, a requérir informaciôn. Esto lo voy pasando en la computadora y cuando tengo todo listo yo digo, ‘A ver, ^qué hago con esto?’ Pues lo armo de esta manera, lo arreglo de esta manera. [...] Y o creo que el principal objectivo de una crônica de viaje es que otro, él que la lea, te acompane en esa crônica, es otro viajero igual que tu. Y para eso hay que usar una fôrmula, una forma que tiene que ir acompanado de un fondo para que no sea pura palabrerîa, para que también tenga un basamiento. [...] Conozco el fondo porque es lo que yo he visto, pero la forma no sé com o escribirla, sino que la ecribo en el orden en que lo siento que deba de escribirse. Es decir, me pongo un poco en el papel de un lector. (Interview)

Ramirez Heredia goes out o f his way to feed his reader something that he or she w ill identify without problem ( ‘una formula’) and devour without hesitation (as a travelling- companion). He would like people to think that the formal com position o f his travel- chronicle is spontaneous and natural. However, if he is at all concerned about getting through to his reader, he is obviously also interested in holding on to the traditional format, ‘ whatever that maybe’.

O f clear influence in Ramirez Heredia and Ortiz’s conception o f the travel-chronicle outlined above is the audience for which it is destined. Ramirez Heredia commented in interview that, ‘En ultima instancia, los autores clasicos de las crônicas de viaje, lo que pretendian era dor a conocer a otra persona lo que ellos habian aparentemente descubierto... y yo parto de este principio’. He intended to provide, on the one hand, a non-authoritarian guidebook for the potential traveller to the area, complete with information concerning the practicalities o f travel, and on the other, a memory-jogger for som eone already familiar with the region. In either case, his description of his reader is of an ‘average’ Mexican, not highly educated, but curious and patriotic... like him self. Bearing this in mind, the chronicle should be written so that ‘él que la lea, te acompane en esa cronica, es otro viajero igual que tu’. Ortiz, too, wanted to stimulate his readers to get to know a region which he loves dearly: ‘No era mi preocupacion el inquietar o el seducir a sem iologos, o criticos literarios, o semiotistas, o filologos, o eruditos, sino yo queria que la gente lo leyera y si sintiera inquietud podia ir a conocer este lugar’ (interview). Here, it is even more clear that the intended reader is not highly educated, but one o f the people - ‘la gente’; that is to say, the ‘average’ reader in Mexico.

Both writers understood that the commission to write a travel-chronicle required something different o f them; that, to a large extent style was to be at the service o f content, and that the content was something they were going to have to go out o f their way to acquire. They both thus set out to accumulate the base materials for the chronicle: regardless o f how well they knew the region for which they had been commissioned, and regardless o f the fact that time out in the field would compromise the time left to edit and polish the resultant chronicle, they enthusiastically made as many trips as they deemed necessary to cover their area, com plete with notebook, tape recorder and guides (friends more often than books).

eager to benefit from the chance to exercise their profession in the open air - ‘escribir al sol’, as Juan Villoro has described it. Ramirez Heredia commented:

De la cronica me gustan muchas cosas: me gusta primero que no tengo que escribir todo el tiempo el libro en mi casa sino parte del libro lo escribo en la calle, caminando, en las cantinas, oyendo müsica, viajando - cosa que a mf me gusta mucho. (Interview)

And even in a place such as Acapulco which he knew eminently well he took to the streets ‘con animo de ver sus entranas para saborear sus entretelas’ (p. 97):

Es que no quiero sôlo recorrer las poblaciones, no deseo ser un testigo indiferente de una tierra llena de matices, y para conocer los lugares no basta con recorrer las calles, o ver los parques, y las iglesias, se debe uno meter en donde estâ la gente. Entrar, si se puede, a sus casas, tomarse unos tragos en las cantinas de los pueblos, ver a sus mujeres, escuchar sus cantos y su müsica. {Por los caminos, p. 71)

Ortiz also emphasises in the text itself the importance o f ‘being there’, o f gathering fresh personal experience: ‘Siempre vem os lo que queremos ver, lo que necesitam os ver; por eso, aunque conocfa todas estas tierras, necesitaba verlas de nuevo antes de escribir algo sobre ellas’ {Las Huastecas, p. 73). It would seem that in the traditional travel-chronicle there is no excuse for not going out o f one’s way to get this fresh vision o f a place: the reader w ill be able to tell if you make it up, either through gaps in your display o f up-to- date personal experience, and/or in the standardised nature o f the materials gathered. ‘Being there’, experiencing the daily life o f the region and adding your personal touch, is felt to be an effective way to parry the threat o f commonplaces.

Identifying, analysing and experiencing the particular nature o f a region - what holds it together as a region, what different facets threaten to destabilise that bond - appear to be the principal aims o f these two texts. Furthermore, they should be able to serve as sensitive and subtle guides to the region for potential travellers to that region. T hese aims and procedures outlined so far are coherent, practical, balanced and in keeping with what the editors o f either series were aiming at with these commissions. Given that both writers are aiming at an ‘average’ reader, it seem s reasonable to want to keep within the overall structure o f the traditional travel-chronicle and to make some concessions with one’s style to privilege good communication, but what needs to be established is whether they avoid the trap o f being either over-didactic or patronising, in the form and content o f their texts.