The Last Dance

The Encuentros Zapatistas wrapped up on Saturday and so has my work here in Chiapas. I never made it out to the last leg of the Encuentros in La Realidad (Tojolobal Jungle) but it was a difficult two days from what I understand. The heat of course was brutal plus there were some issues with finding/harnessing electricity for the talks and of course for the dancing in the evening. The Zapatistas reminded me that even if you can’t dance, you can dance. It doesn’t matter if the lights go out or the band stops playing or if your resisting and struggling in a revolution you can always find time to laugh and have some fun and my last dance at Oventik was just that, FUN! I am exhausted from all the traveling I have done over the last two and a half months. I was able to see almost every corner of Chiapas, however, thanks to the grueling work provided to me by Frayba and CAPISE. The experience has been unforgettable and one of a lifetime. I’ll never forget the people that touched my life and I hope that I (us) made a difference in theirs. I am excited to return to Minneapolis to talk to people about my experience, keeping true to Alejandra’s words – “Don’t forget about us”. I feel like I have a million ideas swirling around in my head about a dissertation topic (or maybe four), and ideas for a new class to teach. The pictures I have taken of all the graffiti have turned out nicely and I am not sure what I am going to do with them yet but I think it would be cool to make them in to a little book. I have also begun creating a pretty extensive bibliography complete with not only books but articles, videos, websites, etc. and I am on to a fourth page already.
My sense of time has changed dramatically since I arrived in May. This is probably my sixth or seventh stay in Mexico but this time around I had a difficult time adjusting to a different concept of time. When someone tells you “horita” it means you’ll be attended to anywhere from the next 5 minutes to the next hour. If someone tells you “mañana” it usually means two to three days and if someone tells you “unos días” o “dentro de la semana que viene” then forget about it. I have caught myself over the last 6 weeks or so saying these exact things though, even telling the guy that comes to pick up the trash that I’ll be around “mañana”. So, there is already this cultural difference in the concept of time, but when one leave San Cristóbal (a major town/city) and goes out to smaller communities, many of these communities and all of the ones that I visited do not change the hour for day light savings time. Once you leave the city there are two different times. There is the “hora de Dios” and the “hora del gobierno” which many kindly refer to as “la hora del Diablo”. The communities, from what I understand, don’t change the hour because, 1) it is an act of resistance against the government and 2) they don’t have electricity, which means it really doesn’t matter what time it is, you get up when the sun comes up, work all day, and go to bed when there is no more light. Needless to say Zapatista communities are on God’s time. This puts a whole new twist in teaching beginning Spanish speakers “¿Qué horas son?” In short, even though there is no time zone change there still exists a time change, if you know what I mean (right, Kelly).
One of my last stops today will be at CAPISE to drop off some pictures to send back to the communities that I visited and also to say thank you and good-byes.
I hope all of you received the postcards I sent and if not hopefully you’ll receive them by the time I see you next. Thank you to everyone that has helped me along the way and thank you for all the emails and support from home.
Starting on Wednesday (Aug 1), I am going to take advantage of already being in Mexico to travel north to hang out at the beach for a while with my sister and my wife before returning to Minnesota. Enjoy the rest of your summer where ever you are, I have heard that is has been quite hot the past month in the upper Midwest, I hope it passes by the time I return home. Un fuerte abrazo para todos and I’ll see you all at the end of August. We’ll talk soon – Te jk’opon jbatik ta yan k’ka’al – the Tzotzil (Bats’I K’op) sounds better.

From the mountains of the Mexican southeast, JT

Ven a bailar con nosotros!

Hola compas! I have returned yet again to San Cristóbal after a very intense few days of preparation and a grueling excursion with an organization called CAPISE (the link to their website is at the right). This time around the work was much more intense than the work with Frayba. We visited Caracol V “Roberto Barrios” first to meet with the Junta and to be authorized to go work in communities that are in resistance. The Brigadas were created by the “Comosión Sexta” from the Caracoles asking that national and international people visit territories and communities that are under constant threat of being pushed off their land. We visited a total of three communities in order to listen to their stories and to document the multiple human rights abuses that are occurring. It is so sad to see big political party murals painted on the walls and on the side of government vehicles, including the police, with saying like “Chiapas – deeds, not words” or “Working for all of Chiapas” when it is blatantly obvious that a large part of the population is being excluded though a strong and conscious effort of the state and local government with help from paramilitaries.
Again, the communities we stayed in and the people who received us were amazing and very happy that we had come to visit. We were in the “Zona Norte” and let me tell you, it was/is hot! In the North and North eastern part of Chiapas the main language spoken is Ch’ol, so I wasn’t able to use the Tzotzil I have been learning over the last month, but some of the kids were more than eager to try to teach you some. From what I was able to understand from the Ch’ol/Spanish mixed conversations children do not being to learn Spanish until they are about 9 or 10 years old. So few of the children speak Spanish, the women almost never (very few exceptions), but usually most of the men speak Spanish to an extent. Spanish is a second language for me as well so we usually joked about the time and effort required to learn a foreign language. One of the great things is that we were always learning from each other, especially language. I’m not sure how useful some of the words and phrases I learned are….for examples, the Tzeltal word for “slingshot” is “ule”. (A lot of the little boys carried them around). Also, the Tzeltal word for “star” is “ek”. Ch’ol for “let’s go bathe (in the river)” is “k’uts’e u’me” (spelling?). Where some of the boys would teach me how to look for ocote (wood with dried tree sap that helped to start fires quickly) and teach me about very “local knowledge”, and I would tell them about how fast airplanes go. The people were always very grateful that you came to visit and walk and talk with them in this time of struggle, hoping someday they could get on an airplane that travels 950Km per hour to come visit you to learn how you live and how you resist “el mal gobierno”.
It was very eye opening seeing how isolated many of the places we visited are. Some days we traveled up to 8 hours in the back of 5 different pick-up trucks but only covered a distance of 120 km, which speaks to the lack of infrastructure proving that the state and local governments are not really “Working for Chiapas”.
I’m going to spend my last 2 weeks here in San Cristóbal trying to help CAPISE revise the documentation/interview form/guide that is used by brigadistas to try to record as much information as possible when visiting communities.
This weekend, however, we plan to attend the Encuentros. The Encuentros begin this Friday, July 20th at Caracol “Oventik” about an hour north of San Cristóbal. The Encuentros will be a chance for the rest of the world, with an invitation from all the communities living in resistance, to practice what the Zapatistas try to do daily. There will be round table discussions to learn about the current situations in Chiapas concerning health, education, organizing, work, autonomy, women’s rights, etc. The idea is to observe, listen, and ask questions in order to understand how others resist and organize but to also learn more about oneself and to reflect on the work that is being done in your community as well as here in Chiapas. We will be going to Oventik for sure, but I am not quite sure if we will make it to Caracol Morelia. Our Brigada did receive, however, a direct invitation from the Junta de Buen Gobierno at Caracol Roberto Barrios to attend the Encuentro in Carcol Morelia because the Junta is planning on being there. They want us to “Ven, ven a bailar con nosotros!”, the Junta wants you to know that they are inviting you. “C’mon, come and dance with us!”
I have so many stories to tell and pictures to show all of you when I return. The blog doesn’t do justice to the photos I post. Plus, I have so many stories there is no way I can type them all out on the blog for you all, lo siento mucho pero así es.
I almost forgot, El Sup will be in San Cristóbal on July 19th so we might get a chance to hear him speak, if not we’ll see him at the Encuentros for sure. That’s all for today…keep on resisting!

Li’oyoxuke, K’u xa-elanik?

Tomorrow morning I am leaving on a documentation excursion with the Centro de Análisis Político e Investigaciones Sociales y Económicas (CAPISE), there is a link to their website on the side bar. So, it will be back to the Lacandón Jungle but this time a little farther north. I better explain the picture of our little jungle buddy. My Lacandón guide called the bug in the picture "un chicharro", they don't bite or sting but are about the size of matchbox car and they are loud! I had no idea that much noise could come out of something that size. When they move their wings it sounds like a hollow buzzing/rattling like when you used to put baseball cards in your bicycle spokes, but a lot faster and a lot louder.
Unlike Fray Bartolomé, CAPISE focuses on finding concrete facts that will help create reports and document human rights abuses in Chiapas. The first stop on our 8-day journey will be Caracol “Roberto Barrios” in the northeast corner of Chiapas near Palenque. There, we will meet with the Junta de Buen Gobierno to get out assignment(s). More than likely we will be traveling everyday or every other day on this trip. Depending on the situations in the surrounding communities the Junta will either bring people to us at the Municipios or we will go out to their communities to listen and document their stories.
One of the most difficult things I have had to deal with thus far is the uncertainty. Depending on what happens “today” dictates whether or not something will or will not be happening “tomorrow”. Which means you never know when you are leaving – at what time, when you’ll be back, will a truck/car/van/bus be by to even take you back, are these people coming, should we wait longer, she we ask somebody again (usually the same person). There can be a lot of down time but at the same time the traveling and the work is intense.
I have been taking a Tzotzil class for the last two Saturdays, 3 hours a day, or better said like this… Ta jchan k’opojel ta bats’i k’op. I am hoping to use some of it but again it looks like I’ll be going to another Tzeltal speaking zone. My ears are becoming very tuned into listening for Tzotzil, however. I hear a lot of it at the market and I am waiting for an opportunity to jump in and use what I know.
I may be able to use it more when the “II Encuentro de los pueblos Zapatistas con los pueblos del mundo” (2nd Meeting of the Zapatista peoples with the peoples of the world) come around at the end of July. We are planning on attending the first half in the Caracoles Oventik and Morelia, both in Tzotzil speaking zones. If you want to sign up and attend here is the website: http://www.zeztainternazional.org/ the link is on the side bar as well, and I think you can read it in English. Sometimes I cannot remember what language I heard or read something in and many times it is hard to try to remember the English word for things, it just sounds better and is clearer in my Spanish brain certain words, phrases and ideas.
I will be talking more about the Meetings later and as we approach the dates of the Encuentro. Lek oy, ja’ jech, chibat totiketik xchiuk me’tiketik. (ok, that’s it, see you all later – or more informally – chibat che’e [me voy pues]).