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]).