more reprots from chiapas
reposted from san diego indymedia: 1 | 2
Once the delegation ended, Adriana and I continued working on support projects to help the Zapatista communities.
One of these projects is a follow up from a previous delegation, the Mother Seeds in Resistance delegation. This delegation had the opportunity to observe a conference that the Zapatistas held to discuss their plans to begin testing their corn for genetic contamination.
Adriana and I travelled with two of the agro-ecology promoters to the community they live in to take photos of the testing process. These photos will be disseminated through the communities so that more people can help with the testing process.
Traveling through Chiapas, you see corn fields, or milpas, everywhere. Literally every mile you drive through contains corn fields. This time of year, most of them are folded in half for drying and are beige in color.
As we document testing the process, numerous people, young and old gather to watch. Once we finish, one agro-ecology promoter invites us into his home for pozol. Pozol is a thick drink made from corn, water and sugar. It is one of the indigenous customs of this region. I am nervous about drinking it, given the already precarious state of my stomach, but I do and it is very tasty.
Afterwords, we go into San Andres to find a car back to Oventik. In San Andres, I am reminded that we are in a war zone. Many of the buildings are old and worn and many people sit on the street and look at you. I'm speaking not only of the war that the Zapatistas are waging with the Mexican government, but of the economic war the U.S. is waging with Mexico. Subcomandante Marcos has said that Neo-Liberalism and Free Trade is "the finance bomb" that the U.S. has used on Mexico.
When passing through cities and places that aren't exclusively Zapatista, it is important to be cautious of talking about why you're here. Not everyone in Chiapas supports the Zapatistas, and the danger of the situation is apparent when you're in a city looking for a ride somewhere. You don't want to end up being taken somewhere you don't want to be going. We sit on the side of the highway, waiting for a taxi to pass.
Outside of the carcoles, you never know who is Zapatista and who isn't, so you never want to talk too much about what you're doing. I had already made the mistake of talking too much in the car on the way here to San Andres, and Adriana told me I shouldn't. So I was already nervous.
The police drive by as we sit. One car offers us a ride, but our friend, the promoter, says that he thinks they are drunk. Finally an official collective taxi arrives and we drive home as night sets in.
The next day we make plans to go to another Caracol, La Garrucha. Adriana has never been there and we want to work on some projects there as well.
Before we leave, we meet with the people who run the bike workshop. They give us a detailed report of how they spent the last donation a member of a Schools for Chiapas delegation gave them. They also show us their wonderful bike workshop, with lots of well arranged tools, an air compressor for tires and for painting and a rack for holding bikes to work on. They recently received a donation to have electricity installed in their workshop, which they want us to see. They tell us of their need for more support and their plan to make the bike workshop more sustainable so that they can help set up workshops in other communities. With more tools to fix car tires, they would be able to bring in income from people needing car repair. They say that there isn't a place to repair car tires within an hour and a half drive, so it is a major need of the community.
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Adriana and I arrive in Ocosingo at night to take the morning car out to La Garrucha. We're told they only leave at 5am and 7am. In the morning we head down to where the cars leave from.
Again we're in this careful negotiation for transportation, where we don't want to tell everyone that we're going to La Garrucha, so it looks like the vans say they're going to San Quintin, which becomes our destination. So we sit in this huge dirt lot where vans for various destinations come, and find out that the car should be there in a few hours, and I sleep with my head on my bag.
Finally the car shows up, a pickup with a sort of cage on the back so that people can stand up and hang on. We start the ride to La Garrucha and I quickly learn why they have this setup. The road is dirt and full of holes, mud puddles and huge rocks, with steep up and down inclines through the mountains. This is the drive into the Selva Tzeltzal region in the Lacandon jungle. The trees and landscape are beautiful, but it takes all of my effort to help myself up so that my ass isn't smashed on every bump or so that my head doesn't hit the bars while I'm standing up. It's a long, difficult ride that lasts over 2 hours.
We arrive in La Garrucha at the Caracol Hacia un Nuevo Amanacer, which means towards a new dawn. The caracoles have their own names and the municipalities also have their original names and their autonomous names. It makes me think of this whole project as something so human and something I can relate to so much. What would you rename your community or city? The autonomous name for La Garrucha is Francisco Gomez. The name of the Caracol in Oventik is possibly my favorite, Caracol en Rebeldia y Resistencia por la Humanidad, or Caracol in rebellion and resistance for humanity.
We're received in La Garrucha by the comite de vigilancia, who's building has a gorgeous black, red and white mural on the outside depicting a well known photo of a Zapatista woman pushing a Mexican soldier back.
After talking to them, and the comite de comunicacíon who have a great satellite dish painted like a Zapatista on top of their office, we head to the dormitory for the peace observers. Its a short wooden building and all over the inside of it is wonderful graffiti from the many nationals and internationals who have stayed here. Some in italian, some in german, some in spanish. Some of it reads "the only good fascist is a dead fascist", "I want to be a flower, but if I can't, I'll be a rifle", "no gods, no masters and no fucking balls". I add "queremos un mundo sin capitalismo, sin fronteras, collectivo organic".
There is a lot of activity here. Possibly because of the Encuentro that was held here the past weekend to discuss the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandon and the Other Campaign to send a committee of Zapatistas out of the jungle and around Mexico in order to build a broad alliance of leftist groups working outside of, or beyond, the electoral sphere.
We meet and talk to some peace observers from Argentina and Matamoros and meet a guy from Barcelona who we also saw in Oventik. He's volunteering with the health clinics.
There are lots of animals, more pigs here than in Oventik, as well as the usual dogs and chickens. There are also more beautiful murals that we photograph.
One afternoon it rains. Its a hard jungle rain that pounds on the metal roof of our dormitory. It goes on and that night the lights go out, so we all head into the cafeteria for light and company. In the cafeteria we talk to pass the hours. The woman from Matamoros talks about her work to educate people in Mexico about the grim reality of crossing the border and I tell her of our campaign against the border and for human rights for migrant people. Many people have asked Adriana and I about the US, how much it costs to go there and f there's work. Clearly the U.S.'s economic war with Mexico is taking its toll and like any war torn country, lots of people want to migrate out of it.
After about two days, we decide to head out to the municipality of Pancho Villa to learn about their schools and see what their needs are. This is another crazy ride through the muddy, rocky roads of the selva, but this time we depart at 5am for the 2 1/2 hours back out to the transportation center and 2 1/2 hours back into the deep jungle after waiting about 5 hours for a truck that will go to the community.
In Pancho Villa we have a meeting with the Education Promoters. They tell us of their many needs, like the need for a typewriter, as simple as it is. They stress that overall their schools need money because they can buy materials with the money. We also hear of their reasons for starting autonomous schools. The government schools don't teach or speak in the indigenous languages, which contributes to their disappearance and to the loss of indigenous culture. A promoter from one community tells us that the closest government school is a 5 hour walk and that the little ones can't make the walk because of the mud. Many of them speak of teaching "with love and care" and respect for the children, saying that in Mexican schools many teachers still hit the children. The promoters and the school coordinators tell us that they are still planning and working and trying to develop better methods of education than the state methods, saying that it is an important part of their autonomy.