PROFILE: Libby Townsend

Many of us know Libby Townsend. For 20 years, she has handled payments, subscriptions, distribution, home delivery, and reader calls for The Guadalajara Reporter.

“If someone calls with a story tip, I direct it to the appropriate reporter,” Libby told me when I visited her in her office in Plaza Bugambilías, directly across from Chopsticks Restaurant.

“How long have you worked for the Reporter?” I asked.

“Twenty years.” She laughed. “But I was only supposed to help out until they found a permanent person.”

Others will remember Libby as the queen of the Lip Sync shows. In her time, she played roles as varied as Pavarotti, Lola Beltran, the Mexican diva, and Mama Cass from the Mamas and Papas. I was in a few of those shows myself and can testify that it took courage for Libby to perform, as she experiences stage fright.

She sewed her own costumes – one took four months of beadwork. Libby is a fine seamstress and specializes in outfits for larger ladies. I happen to own a beach top she fashioned from an Indonesian shawl and it’s a beauty.

“I have about two hundred shawls waiting for me to get around to them,” she chuckled.

But when does a woman like Libby find time for sewing, when she’s busy crocheting baby blankets for Tarahumara babies? Who are they? you ask. The Tarahumara people of Mexico’s Copper Canyon are Libby’s life’s work.

This came to be thanks to a road trip many years ago with her best friend from high school.

“We took a beat-up Jeep, with no roof, and headed north to the state of Chihuahua (home of the Copper Canyon). Mountain roads can be perilous, we punctured a tire, our vehicle broke down, and it started to rain…hard.” She recalled.

“Around the bend came a dilapidated old lumber truck full of Tarahumara men. They promised to return with help and about an hour later they did just that. They got the Jeep to a town with a mechanic’s shop which turned out to be a roof between two giant boulders. Of course, the Jeep needed a part which they had to order in.

We were stranded in Creel for two weeks, and our credit cards wouldn’t work. Everyone was very understanding. The hotel extended us credit and so did the restaurants. We were struck by the kindness of the people.”

When Libby returned to lakeside, she saw a television report featuring two little Tarahumara girls walking through deep snow to get to school – barefoot.

“I heard my [long dead] grandpa’s voice asking me if I was going to help,” said Libby.

“Long ago, he had been a poor, barefoot schoolboy himself, and was denied attendance to his high school graduation because he didn’t have shoes! A beautiful relative cut her long red hair and sold it to buy him shoes.”

Libby believed it was her turn to do what she could for Tarahumara schoolchildren. She started asking lakeside residents to donate money but was getting nowhere until a musician named Montana suggested she join his band at La Vieja Posada one night and pass the hat. To her amazement, the patrons came through for her big time. One woman arrived on her doorstep a few days later with a trunk full of blankets and candles and canned foods for the Tarahumara who were suffering one of the coldest winters on record.

How was I going to get all this stuff to them? She thought. She found a way. And has made regular trips north since then. And continues to raise money.

“By far the biggest money maker is the Feria Maestros del Arte. Almost every November since 2008 they have allowed me to sell baskets and carvings and art pieces made by the Tarahumara and those sales have changed many of their lives. One artist makes traditional drums, and a hotel owner who likes to decorate with drums bought all the ones he had with him!”

Libby works closely with a group of Jesuits who run a boarding school and a medical clinic for the Tarahumara. “I can’t divulge the name of the village where they are located because they don’t want to attract attention or tourists,”

She did tell me that there are between 60,000 and 110,000 indigenous people in the Sierra Tarahumara. They live close to the land, raise small crops and some livestock. Helping them has become Libby’s life’s work. Her grandpa would be proud.

Note: Donations are welcome. Visit Libby in her office or call her at 3310743311.