I'm so so sorry

I just have to preface this with I'm so so sorry that this is so so long. I was writing this for my family, and I just kept thinking of things I had to include until all of a sudden I was at 6 pages. I really wanted to post it here, even though I know that few of you will actually take the time to read it all, because it was too much effort to go back and edit it and thin it down. So here is my recap in it's full entirety, and again, please do not feel like you need to read it. Maybe after finals and everything you can take the time to read it....It's long, and probably boring.

But I thought it was extremely interesting. Dare I say it changed my life?

So here’s an explanation of what I did in Chiapas, el Istmo, y La Costa.

First, we traveled all night long to San Cristobal de Las Casas, 12 hours on a very very windy road, two hours into which my seat neighbor threw up into a bag. When we got to San Cristobal at 8 the next morning, we were greeted by Julio, one of the nicest, humblest, wisest people I think I will ever know. Because he’s so well connected with social activists in San Cristobal he served as our guide and chauffer that week. We got put into our home stays that morning, and I lived with a woman named Cheri in her lovely house downtown.


These first few days in San Cristobal were really eye opening because up until this point I had really only known Oaxaca City and had a very short stay in Mexico City which was so big it is nearly impossible to get to know. In San Cristobal my first impressions were the diversity of languages and peoples, and the immense disparity of wealth. Now, Oaxaca City is by all definitions a tourist city. It’s not uncommon to be in a café with ALL white people if you know where to go, but in San Cristobal I invented a game in which I would TRY to meet someone from Chiapas. There are people from all over Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and they probably constitute 75% of the people you see on the streets and in the shops. The other 25% I would say were the poorest citizens of Mexico, the indigenous men and women from the Chiapan highlands who speak nothing but tzotzil and other native languages. People talk about Oaxaca as a city with a large indigenous community, and that may be true, but it was still markedly different. In the markets in the city all you hear are indigenous languages, and they usually have someone of a younger generation translating your purchase into Spanish. On the streets young girls and boys, all below the age 10 because that’s when they actually have to start REAL work, run up to you and try to sell you bracelets, belts, or big beautiful scarves. They all wear traditional garments and run around without shoes.

That first day in San Cristobal was a sunny, t-shirt weather day, but after that the city showed her true colors and it was misty and cold, very much like Seattle weather. I have a good friend from Willamette studying abroad there, so we met up and walked around and looked at churches. Besides that, we were pretty busy meeting with different NGO’s and social activists to talk about stuff like the economic crisis (or should I say the collapse of imperialist capitalism) in the United States, militarization of the Chiapan highlands, the Zapatista struggle, alternative models of education and traditional indigenous medicine.

On the fourth day of that week we had the extreme privilege of going to two of the most remarkable places I’ve been to. Following a serpentine road way up into the cold wet mountains we arrived first at Acteal. Acteal is a very small community who out of necessity formed a non-violent religious social movement called “las Abejas” or, the Bees, in 1992. They fight against the government stealing land from the indigenous communities who have lived there for centuries, the exact same goals as the Zapatistas, (which makes it interesting that they were formed two years before the world met the EZLN) only through prayer and peaceful protests. Because of their “radical and dangerous” activities, the Mexican government took several people as political prisoners in 1997. On December 22, 1997, 45 members of this communities, many also Abejas, were praying in their little church in Acteal when they were surrounded by paramilitaries and continuously shot at. 15 children, 21 women (4 of which were pregnant) and 9 men were shot and killed, the pregnant women torn open to ensure death to their unborn children, and an additional 25 were injured. We met with the leader of this organization and he told us a long history of the organization and so many of its activities, only mentioning the massacre for a brief 10 minutes. We were sitting on this large cement platform, and at the end of his hour long talk he asked us, “So you want to go down and see our cemetery?” and we realized then that platform we sat on was the roof to a very large tomb. We went below and saw the 45 spaces marked off with small name placards. Lining the walls were photos of the dead, crosses, paintings, tributes, more crosses and candles. I at this point lost it. I know that many of my compañeras also felt the way I did, but my emotion manifested itself in liquid form. I became a puddle of snot and tears as I tried to gulp down my loud hollow sobs.

After the massacre, that same day, the bodies were rounded up and put into pick-up trucks to be burned or dumped in mass graves. But it was too late- there had been witnesses, and the witnesses called the press, a much more effective law enforcer than the police here in México. The media arrived, and the police followed, and the paramilitaries ran and hid. They took the bodies to be autopsied and then returned them to Acteal, and the half-assed investigation began. Of course nothing was ever found, no one was ever tried, and no one is in jail except for more Abejas.

So who are the paramilitaries? They’re not government supported in theory, yet they do a lot of the government’s dirty work. What happens is that the government tries to come into the mountains and steal land. The people there protest. The government installs military bases in “strategic zones” (next to natural resources). The people who live in the communities end up walking by these military bases everyday, and they begin to get to know the military men. Once they become friends, when no ones around they might start playing around with guns, and the young indigenous men think, “That looks like fun! I want to be in the army too!” And the military responds, “well you’ll need a bunch of years of training… but if you want to help us out, I can let you borrow my gun and train you a little bit… and then you can help us out with some exercises,” all the while indoctrinating their pro-government beliefs. The young indigenous men train unofficially, and when the time is right their enlisted to help in a project, totally out of the government’s hands, and yet representative of what the government would like to be done. The young indigenous men attack their own community for being “radical” or “narcotraficos”.
I know that this explanation of paramilitary forces is very vague and incredulous, but this is how it was told to me. I encourage you all to do your own research to fill in the gaps of this explanation.

After Acteal, we stopped and had a great big lunch in a little rural town. All 20 of us ate the same three things: scrambled eggs with sausage, quesadillas and “meat” tacos (it’s always a mystery…) plus drinks, salsa, tortillas, avocados. Then we kept traveling and arrived deep in the clouds to Oventik, a Zapatista Caracol. The Zapatistas are a social movement against the Mexican government. The roots go way back, but the world first heard of the Zapatistas on New Year’s Day 1994 when they took armed control of various cities in Chiapas. They demanded that the government give them total control of their region, citing various constitutional guarantees that protect indigenous land rights. They took up arms because they had tried for so many years to get their demands through the lawful means, but always without success. The first 12 days were violent, many people lost their lives, but the vast majority the poor, indigenous farmers who made up the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or as it’s known by its Spanish initials, the EZLN. After that the EZLN retreated back into the jungle, completely hidden. They haven’t taken up arms since, so the critique that we all hear that they are a violent radical movement should be discredited. They had meetings with all levels of the government after that and finally came to some agreements, called “Los Acherons de San Andres”. These are agreements that the government signed on, and yet NONE of them have ever been met. Finally, frustrated with working “through” the law when it never has worked, they declared complete autonomy. They created autonomous regions where there are large Zapatista strongholds. They accept no aid from the government in these regions—no schools, hospitals, or funds. They set up their own form of government which is truly democratic. Decisions are only made after every single person in the community comes to agreement, which you can imagine is a very long and tedious process. They do this through assemblies where everyone speaks and is heard. They take hours, and several meetings to really come to decisions, but the beauty of it is everyone agrees, not the 51% majority that leaves 49% of people really unhappy like we practice in our country. In the Zapatista government, at these assemblies people are also elected as representatives of the community. These representatives then meet up in what is called the “Junta de Buen Gobierno” or “The Good Government Collective for every region which is based inside “El Caracol,” or “Shell,” and begin to implement decisions made at the assemblies. The Caracol has actually more than one translation: it means shell, snail, spiral, and horn. All of these have beautiful symbolism for what the caracol represents in their communities. The motto of their government, la Junta, is “mandar por obedecer,” which means “command by obeying,” because the representatives never just invent projects or decide what to do without consulting with the greater community. Or more than just consulting, without waiting to hear what the community actually wants. The Junta positions rotate, but it’s kind of complicated so I don’t really understand how it all works. I know that they are in la Junta for 1 week at a time, in that time they live at the Caracol. They are only allowed to be representatives for 3 years before they’re switched out completely. This method ensures that everyone is truly represented and prevents an abuse of power. Inside the Caracol, like the one we went to at Oventik, there are the government buildings, basically just wooden buildings with chairs inside, a totally autonomous school and medical center, and then cooperatives where artisans make beautiful products and the money goes directly to them and their communities.
Why do they wear masks? Lou Anne wants to know. Well for various reasons, symbolic and practical:
1. During their armed rebellion, and even now, it was obviously very useful to be anonymous.
2. The mask, symbolically, erases their individual identity so that they may be one collective Zapatista unit. That’s why when they are in positions of power they all wear the mask, or as it’s called in Spanish, la pasamontaña (pass through the mountain).
3. When only your eyes show it’s nearly impossible to lie, because, as Julio says, “the eyes are the windows to the soul.” This, albeit symbolic, tactic represents the need for truth. And it is really acted upon. The Zapatistas have never lied or misconstrued their aims and strategies to the Mexican government or the general public. They only ask to not be lied to as well.
4. IT’S REALLY COLD IN CHIAPAS!!!!!!!!!!
The EZLN first “declared war” on that day in 1994 with their “first declaration.” They keep adding more declarations, and now they’re up to the 6th, which was announced this year. Each one basically outlines what their vision is for Mexico and for the world, which all fall in line with their main motto, “un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos,” or “one world where many worlds have a place”. This phrase is painted in murals all over their villages, and I think it’s really beautiful. IT doesn’t tell anyone else how to live their life or how to form their society, but just requests a chance for their own little world to have the right to exist. In the first declaration, they clearly gave rights to all kinds of people; for the first time for many indigenous women in this region they had the right to be sold into marriage, the right to join the army, the right to be in peace. The army’s official position on women is that even though they only make up 40% of the actual soldiers, they must represent 60% of the top positions. This is intentionally an unequal representation of women because the EZLN values their voices and ideas, and is also responding to a culture where women have always had way less than equal treatment.

Right now, the Zapatistas are also working on their “otra campaña,” or “other campaign,” which they launched in 2006. In 2006, especially in the state of Oaxaca but all over Mexico, there were a bunch of shady and fraudulent elections. So at this time, Subcomandante Marcos, the spokesperson for the movement, went all around Mexico campaigning for a different world, a different form of politics. He gives very eloquent speeches and is one of Latin America’s most prolific writers. He calls himself the “SUBcomandante” because he’s below the people’s command, he leads by obeying.
When we got to the caracol we had to show our passports before they would let us in, and Julio, our wonderful host, explained who we were and why we were there. Julio himself has been to the caracol many times, but the people receiving us didn’t know that because of the rotating positions. Also, because they were all wearing masks, he didn’t know if he’d ever met any of them before either. That same night we got permission to meet with the Junta. They are the people in masks in my picture. Julio introduced us and why we were there, to learn from their way of life. We wanted to ask questions, he explained, so they told us to compile a list of questions and submit it that same night and then the next day we will regroup and they’ll give us a little lecture.

We went back to the dirt-floored auditorium where we slept on the ground that night to start deciding what we wanted to ask. It was hard to do because no one wanted to ask something stupid, but at the same time we didn’t want our questions to be so lofty and academic. As this process started, a girl from our program was feeling rather ill. She thought it was probably just the twisty car trip, but then threw up inside on the dirt floor. A few of us rushed to help her clean up and she began eating a little bit and resting. Then, another girl said, “It’s probably just from being around Megan while she threw up, but I’m feeling pretty nauseous….” And moments later she too was throwing up on the floor inside the auditorium. A few more of us were feeling pretty gross at this point, but we held it together and made the list of questions. By the time we all got settled in our sleeping bags on the dirt floor or on wooden benches (me curled up with a little stray kitten…so cute and I escaped flea free!) another girl had thrown up. I slept like a little baby, and when I woke up I discovered that HALF of our group had been violently ill throughout the night, several of them throwing up inside where we were sleeping and many making desperate and rushed trips to the bathroom. It was in this state that we met again with the Junta, a few of the girls reluctantly opting out of the visit. The Junta answered our questions for about an hour, and then we unfortunately had to take off right away to care for our victims of food poisoning. * the craziest thing about the food poisoning was that we all ate literally from each others plates and yet some of us never got sick at all, like me. I think it’s because I’ve been so gung-ho from the start in tasting all the different tacos and juices on the streets in Mexico that my stomach developed pretty strong bacteria. I was one of four who never had…ehem…intestinal difficulties.

From Chiapas we went to the Istmo of Oaxaca. If you look at a map of Oaxaca you’ll see how the Eastern edge just out into Chiapas a bit. Well there is a city there called Juchitán (hoo-chee-tahn). First we visited an organization that works with the Muxe population. Muxe’s are men who are gay and also cross dress. In the indigenous culture they make up practically a third gender, and they’re really well respected because also in the culture men and men can’t get married and live together but they can have long open relationships, and so every parent hopes that they’ll have at least one Muxe son to stay home and take care of them until they die. Juchitán is a prominent trade spot, and has been for centuries, and the Muxe’s have a very active role in the economic activities of the area.

Then we went to the outskirts of the city where most of the land is under ejido control. Ejido’s were created after the Mexican Revolution as a land reform that gave more to peasants. They’re communally owned properties where many families live and cultivate. If you are an ejido owner it’s very easy to pass your portion down to your descendants, so all of the ejidos have been owned communally for a really long time (especially because before the Mexican revolution, indigenous people’s already “owned” communally the same terrains. It was just made into “law” after the revolution.). This part of the Mexico is also one of the windiest places in the world. Well lately, as part of a development plan, the government has been getting these ejido land owners to sign over their lands to transnational corporations. The project we specifically focused on was by a Spanish company called Iberola (?) who builds wind farms. They went door to door getting signatures on contracts from peasants, 90% of whom were illiterate. They completely tricked them, saying that they would be able to use their land the exact same way before, that they would get the profits from the windmills, and that they would be providing jobs and a renewable source of energy to their community. Unfortunately, the restrictions listed on another part of the contract, only available through legal pressure, stated that they couldn’t grow trees, couldn’t use any creeks on the land, couldn’t build any structures, couldn’t graze their cattle, couldn’t grow corn, the energy generated was actually to be used for bigger cities around the area (some plans are in the works to transport it all the way to the U.S. border), the windmills don’t generate profit until after the three year mark (curiously the contracts are on three year time frames..). Not to mention the problems with the technology: the wind farms are negatively impacting migratory bird patterns, killing bats who eat insects which cause more plagues on their crops, the noise of the blades hurts people’s ears, especially when they’re still developing, there is the “strobe-light-effect” of the sun being reflected off the blades which has led to seizures, the bases have to be supported by half a kilometer of in ground cement, so they’re filling giant holes in the ground with cement. A few times they’ve proposed a sight to put the windmill, dug the hole, and then changed their mind, so now there are very dangerous holes where farmers have found carcasses of cattle and horses. This is all proposed by the government, and yet the profits don’t ever go to the people, they go to transnational corporations. The government is making a path for businesses to generate profits, even at the expense of its own citizens. We met with an organization that educates the community about these issues so that they can halt the expansion of the wind farms. They’re also trying to get lawyers for the ejido owners so that they can take these issues to court.

Hearing about all these issues was a huge blow to me as an environmentalist. I’ve always thought wind energy is a great idea and with the right technology it could really change the world. That still might be true, but it’s making me question Who is going to develop this technology? The government or businesses? And if businesses do it, and if their main goal is to earn money, how are we going to respect communities and protect their rights to say no to transnational corporations? These wind farms are actually bad for the environment, they’re bad for people’s health, and they’re breaking up well established and well integrated communities, all for the sake of profit.

After the Istmo, we went down to Zipolite and Puerto Escondido, two gorgeous coastal towns, where we had three days of vacation. Now I’ve got a suntan.

Now we’re all starting our independent study projects that last one month. I’m working with a non-governmental organization called INSO, which in English means the institute of Oaxacan nature and society. I've wrote up a lesson plan that teaches the kids about the Oaxacan environment, or at least calls their attention to a few environmental problems, and have been going to 6th grade classes for an hour and a half everyday to do the activity. It's been interesting and challenging, and I'm really happy to be doing what I'm doing.

So sorry my email is 6 pages long. I hope that you all read some or part of it!

Love, Dana