There are so many ways to enjoy Mexico. My friend Clint has found a particularly intriguing one. He drives his pickup truck all over the country, visiting small towns, meeting artisans, buying their work which he then exports to Texas.

He isn't gonna become another Wal-Mart this way, and he doesn't want to. For Clint, the destination is the journey, something he sees as clearly as any Zen master. In his journey, he's seeing a Mexico few of us ever will experience.

One category of exports is hand embroidered garments. He overpays for them here, benefiting hundreds of women who do the work, and wholesales them at a good markup in the north. Part of our mission on this trip to Oaxaca is to visit with one of his suppliers.

Working with this kind of operation isn't like placing a wholesale order with a Wamsutta account executive. There are no downtown sales offices, no sleek glass headquarters in some industrial park in Hackensack, NJ. This business is more modest. Way more modest.

This place might look poverty-stricken to you. Well, for rural Oaxaca State, it actually ain't bad. The proprietor is fairly wealthy by local standards. She's an employer, after all. A member of the power elite.

Clint went right in and began discussing business matters with her. I wandered around her place, camera in hand and Chiapas the parrot on my shoulder. Right away, we met two other parrots, a couple of parakeets, a dove and two chicks of undetermined species.

Foolishly, I carried Chiapas over to meet one of the parrots. He took one look at the overhanging tree branch and gleefully climbed onto it. Free at last! When I grabbed for him, he squawked and bit the hell out of my finger. Clint and Marne ran over, and between the three of us, we managed to get him down out of the tree. Note to self: Don't walk under low tree branches while carrying bird.

This place was unlike any manufactory I'd ever seen. An enameled pot of beans bubbled away on a charcoal brazier.

Two grandchildren emerged from somewhere and greeted me. They insisted on posing for pictures, asking to see each frame as soon as I shot it.

A junkyard dog, chained to a tree, barked threateningly and incessantly, until the owner broke off her discussion with Clint long enough to beat it with a broomstick. (I have a hard time accepting the way animals are treated in this country.)

Clint negotiated with the embroidery lady for a couple of hours. This photo was taken late in the discussions. Does she look happy?

She does not.

Her rigid position was that she wanted Clint to buy the pieces on the table in front of her. Clint wanted her to embroider the box of jeans jackets he had brought with him from the States, as she had promised to do at their last meeting.

For years I was involved negotiations like this with suppliers and customers in the semiconductor industry. Not fun then; not fun now. The only difference today was the size of the deal: ten thousand pesos instead of ten million dollars. But it still boiled down to two hardheaded people trying to get what they wanted. Some things never change.

I snapped my photo and retreated to the yard to talk with the grandkids some more.