San Cristobal de las Casas

 March 6, 2009

• 9:30 am depart Palenque—I got motion sickness
• 2:30 pm arrive San Cristobal
• 3:30 pm Hostel
• Walk San Cristobal de las Casas
• Dinner
• Bar Revolucion—Enoko el vasco

 

San Cristobal de las Casas

San Cristobal is a beautiful city. It has a lot of similarity to San Francisco: its leftist politics, bookstores, coffee houses, anarchist graffiti, hip stores and it is cold (at night). I could live in this city. It also has a large indigenous (Mayan) population.

 

Oventik—Zapatista Territory

It was interesting to go to Oventik. Enoko, a basque volunteer, had told me of the Encuentro para Mujeres, in honor of International Women’s Day in Oventik, a small Zapatista community. I thought it would be a series of lectures and workshops…but it a sporting event for women and girls.

First was locating a combi that would go to San Andres Larrainzar. The combi stop was located just north of the Mercado in San Cristobal. It was fortunate that many drivers knew people (tourists) were going. The combi did not depart until the van was full.

 

It took almost an hour through windy roads to get to Oventik (thank goodness for Dramamine) Upon arrival there were signs declaring: “Ud. ha entrado a territorio Zapatista y aqui manda el pueblo.” There were men in ski masks at the driveway to the town and women in ski masks at the gate. The women were in charge of entry to the event. There were other waiting visitors (foreigners like myself) who also wanted entrance to the event. 

 

I approached the women that a friend had invited me to come to the event. They asked for my passport and asked if I had a camera. “Yes.” Did I have a video recorder? “Yes.” They took my passport (with those of a couple of women who had come) and went away into a small room. A little while later they came out and told the women that they could enter but I could not. For a moment I was about to give up, but I had traveled on a van for an hour and I could not so easily give up and return. I offered the women in charge that they could hold my camera while I visited. A woman there indicated to me that I wait momentarily and they would make a decision in reconsidering my entrance. As I waited I noticed a visiting woman had her digital camera taped with a slip of paper with her name on it. An argentine man was denied admittance and he was advocating with for himself. A decision was finally made to let us enter with the condition that I not use the camera. We were told that we would be watched and if we disobeyed, we’d be asked to leave.

 

They had a sports completion of women (some were teenage girls) teams in basketball, soccer, and volleyball. Some were very good and others had good spirit. At first glance, many of the teams were composed of a majority of non-indigenous women. Some of the women played in bare feet, some in sneakers, some in skirts, some in shorts. While they played two bands played alternately on a stage. I wandered from event to event, falling asleep on the grass at one point. And left at 5:00 pm just before dark, as the combis/taxis stop running shortly after.

 

The community follows norms and an economic system set up by the community. They have a school, a clinic and stores, where their leftist political alliance is clearly displayed. It is a community that has roots in community organizing and self-reliance and has suffered persecution at the hands of the state. It is not a perfect system, as none ever is, but I admire their pluck to set up a system for their community. I read Subcommandante Marco’s reflections on the community and the choices the communities faced back in the 1993 was death of their children by starvation or death at the hands of governmental militia. The choice was obvious: they had to choose life. And in their choice they set up a system apart from the main governmental system.

 

No hay arma mas eficaz que la verdad en pensamiento.

--Oventik

 

Arrazoiak gison egiten gaitu egiak, pertsona.

La razon no hace hombres, la verdad, personas.

--Enoko

 

El hombre vale por lo que sirve, no por lo que sabe y menos por lo que tiene.

--Dr. Manuel Velasco-Suarez, chiapaneco

 

No queremos presos politicos. Queremos politicos presos.

--graffito en Jovel (San Cristobal de las Casas)

 

March 3, 2009

• Mass
• Museo Na Balom
• Museo de los Altos
• Plaza

 

Tzotzil (Maya) Chiapas

 

San Juan Chamula.

The church of San Juan Chamula is fascinating—the sensation is otherworldly. The church is rather dark as one side wall has no windows. The floor is covered in pine needles, which give off a pleasant smell as they are stepped upon and are used as cushion on which to kneel as there are no pews or kneelers in the temple. The church is lit up in candles that are brought in by the plegarians. Along the sides of the church are Spanish-style saints, dressed in fabric, in glass cases with name labels. The main altar dominates with St. John the Baptist. Next to him is a small crucifix. The plegarians light sets of thin candles (8 to 20) as they place their prayers before God and the saints. While I was there a man emotionally and fervently prayed his plea—an experience that moved me as I could only imagine his petition. Some offered chickens and soda beverages. The candles are place along the center of the church, on tables on either side of the church and at the main altar. The Mayans in their temples believed that the place of ritual transformed itself into the reality of the otherworldly where one communicated with deities and those on the other side.

 

Gaby me commento que los latinos, a pesar de todo, siempre son alegres. Ocatvio Paz comenta que el Mexicano le gusta lo colorido, la pachanga, la musica para escaparse del laberinto de la solitud. Quizas es cierto.