Building this cooperative caused untold challenges for Sofi’s vecinos. The first year was especially hard on them when they lost many of their sheep to a series of catastrophes, first to an electrical storm and later repeated attacks by coyotes. But they carried on, although by trial and error at first, because above all, to stay on their land, to work it as their families had for many generations, was the desire of everyone who joined in and became everyone’s dream.

Some neighbors began planting organic vegetables. In this way, most people had inexpensive access to pesticide-free food, not to mention just having vegetables to can for their familias.

The Ganados y Lana Cooperative took so much of Sofi’s time that she soon decided to sell her Carne Buena Meat Market in shares to her neighbors and they developed a food co-op. In this way, too, the less fortunate neighbors and even the not so unfortunate neighbors, like el Mr. Charles Peacock who took over the management of the food co-op, could live on more substantial diets than what they had previously relied on from the overpriced and sprayed produce of the huge supermarket down at Los Lunas Shopping Center.

Years later, once Los Ganados y Lana was fairly secure, they also established a low-interest loan fund for their members, so that those who were motivated and willing could start up their own business.

Still others, inspired by the diligence, ingenuity, and communal spirit of Sofi’s vecinos, began to work on the drug problem that had found its way into the local schools and into their immediate vicinities, by forming a kind of hard-nosed drug SWAT team. And while the problem was not completely obliterated it would not be a lie to say that some lives had been saved because of the SWAT team’s own diligence, ingenuity, and communal spirit.

As time went on the morale of Tome had gone up and most of Sofi’s neighbors were interested in contributing in some way to their community’s improvement. And although the local residents learned early on, or perhaps some always knew that they could not realistically go to Sofi—who had indisputably started it all—with all their problems, the title of La Mayor Sofi did catch on informally, out of respect.

La Mayor Sofia, in the meantime, had gotten most of her own things that needed fixing around her house done through bartering, including the Singer. Needless to say, this put Domingo ill at ease, knowing that without contributing nothing worth mentioning to Sofi’s household, he would sooner or later be reproached in some way for his habitual dawdling. Nor was he ever able to find his niche in the Ganados y Lana Cooperative and nowhere else neither.