Simón dice: San Cristóbal

The Final Countdown!

2006-01-13T11:17:00.000-06:00

da na na na! da na na na na! da na na na! da na na na na na!

that's how that 80's classic goes... And I am on it. In less than 60 hours I'll be flying out of Mexico City, one of the largest cities in da world, back to San Fracisco, 8 days less than a year from when I left. It's kinda cool.

I am sad to be leaving Chiapas and San Cristóbal behind, and even sadder to be saying goodbye to some good friends, the amazing sunsets of San Cris, and, of course, my worms (see photo)... But it's time to go back. I had vaguely planned a year stay, and that year is up. It's time to go home, visit dear friends and family, turn 30!!!!!! and (eventually) get a job.

Tomorrow night I'm playing music at my friend Oscar's bar, "La Mil y Unas Noches" -"1,001 Nights." It's in a barrio about an hour outside of the center of Mexico City. He's billed me as a gringo hip-hopper, which is not exactly true. I only have my 2 raps - bok choi and bowel movements... The rest will be me and a guitar, and maybe vocals from my friend Laura, playing Dylan, Cohen, Nelson (Willie), Nirvana, etc... It'll be seat of the pants, cuz I've been playing not at all lately, but we all know that that's how I fly. Maybe my friend Jen will take some video for me to share with yall.

So, Bay Area folks! You'll be seeing me soon! New York crew! I arrive Feb 6! Looking forward to hugs and love, and cake in my birthday face.

OK. Computer is being stoopid. Will post photos soon. Bye!

did you ever think about when you outta here?

2006-01-04T12:04:00.000-06:00

So I'm almost out of San Cristobal. tonight is my going away party, and I catch a bus out of town to Mexico city, where I'll be until my flight back to San Francisco. I'm getting all loaded up with presents for you all, so be ready! things are fine. it's kinda hard to believe that i'm leaving, but everything is coming together. i'm definitely gonna miss my friends here, but I feel ready to be going back. that doesn't mean that I'm not going to have real intense culture shock tho. I'm definitely gonna need to find some good spanish speaking friends and good mexican food when I get back...

In other news, I have applied to be the Alumni Coordinator for the Peace House Board of Directors. I'm the only one who's applied, but the motion regarding my acceptance hasn't officially passed yet, so I'm still waiting for the word. For now, I'm officially unofficial. I'll also be interviewing soon for a summer job leading a group of highschool kids on a three week trip to El Salvador to study poverty, migration and the effects of the countries civil war in the 1980s. Should be a cool opportunity, and we'll see how the interview goes.

My friend Avi has a real cool professional digital camera, and I've been making him take pictures of me. He's my personal photographer. He's also got some really cool fotos from all the crazy Zapatista action that's been happening here since the 1st of the month (their launching a national tour to expand their campaign, the Otra Campaña, for a new kind of politics - no parties, originating from the bottom and to the left), as well as this cool trip that we took to the jungle after christmas. We went to Bonampak and Yaxchilan, two Mayan ruin sites. The later is super cool, located in the middle of the jungle on the banks of the Usumacinta river, which is the border between Mexico and Guatemala. You arrive after a 1 hour boat ride down the river. We got there in the morning and saw tucans and spider monkies swinging through the trees. There are also howler monkies there too, and the surreal sounds of thier shouting was an aural backdrop for the visit of the ruins. To get in you walk through the Laberinth, which is a dark, maze-like building full of bats and big spiders. A group of us walked thru illuminating our way with a weak penlight, checking out the bats and spiders and visiting the dead ends of the building. It's definitely one of the coolest ruins I've seen. It's a big site, and it's crazy to imagine how impressive they must've looked in their day. The run high up this hill at the river bank, and would've been cleared of trees (the jungle has swallowed it over the centuries), and the buildings painted green with mineral and plant dies. Crazy.

From there we caught a ride with Brian, a Canadian born in Scotland who worked illegally in LA for 18 years as a contractor. Funny, huh? An undocumented Canadian worker, who, of course, hired undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans to work construction with him. He's traveling down to South America in an extended cab pickup, and we all drove to Las Nubes, this really cool waterfall site, and had a nice few days there. The cool thing about Las Nubes is, well, everything... Well, aside from the expensive restaurant and the upscale cabañas and guest houses they're building there. The water is clear turquoise blue, and mineral rich. As it flows over the rocks and trees, a coral-like deposit forms on them, and it builds up over the years. As a result, there are all these holes and under ground channels that the water swirls down to come out at the bottom of the series of falls. It's really cool. Out of other holes and tunnels, the air and pressure created by all the water going underground comes out, either in bubbling pools or in vents that shoot gusts of moist air out. We spent a lot of time swimming and walking around on the water falls.

After going over 2 falls, the water rushes through a tall, narrow canyon. It's not very long, but the water comes rushing out all white and foamy at the other end, crashing over huge rocks and spreading out over a large series of smaller falls and pools. It's really breath taking. We hiked down to this area one afternoon, and stayed till it got dark. That meant tromping thru the jungle in the dark to get back to our hammocks. We had flashlights, but it was still annoying cuz I stuck my foot into a mudpit - the whole trail was really muddy, this thick, sticky glue mud. So I had to walk the rest of the way back with mud caked on my left foot, which made it slide all around in my sandal, and was rather annoying.

I'll get fotos of the adventure up as soon as Avi gets them on the computer. I'll have lots to share with all you all in SF and NY state as I make the rounds in the next 2 months. So you'll be seeing them soon. If you want more information on the Zapatista's Otra Campaña and all the cool things going on here right now, here are some good sites to check: Chiapas Indymedia (should have english translations of articles), the Peace House website, and Narco News.

There you go. You got the links. Inform yourself.

Peace out and see you all soon!

And feliz año!!!!

PS: If anyone can name the artista and album that the lyric I quoted in the title comes from, I'll buy hir a beer.

home stretch

2005-11-28T17:26:00.000-06:00

Hi Everybody! I finally figured out how to get the photos up on the blog. It seems the interweb did not want to upload them from my fancy korean USB flash drive; it prefers to have them on the computer I'm working on. Thanks to cousin Lauren for your thoughtful photobucket comments.

Thanksgiving was a fun time. I made calabaza pies for our Peace House Feast. Calabaza is a pumpkin, but it's harder and more gourdy. A much denser veggie. I got a recipies for pie crust and filling from one of the kitchen ladies and Casa del Pan, and they turned out really yummy. All our extended friends community and some other random gringos came over to eat with us. It was more or less a casual potluck affair, and if we were thankful for anything, we kept it to ourselves.

Other than that, I've been working, which has been a bit tiring and dull. Not many tourists in town currently, and my crazy Texan stoner co-worker lady was working at another restaurant for a few days, so things were quiet in the kitchen. We did get to kill another rat, tho, using the same broom-squashing technique. This time his eyes were popping out of his head. I made Lauren (the Texan) dispose of the corpse this time. We found out where the rats were tunneling in, and covered the hole with some rocks. But they're tunneling in through these planter boxes, so they might just dig around it. The front end manager never seems to worried. I told him we should buy mouse traps to leave out at night, but he never listens. He always ignores me when I tell him about the ants that are always scouting out around the honey jars in the store... ni modos....

Today I am tired. Lots of things to do, but little time, 'specially when I'm working 48 hrs a week. I should be done with the job by next Sunday. I just hope they get someone new in time. I've told a few friends about it; hopefully they'll get hired. The hitch is they need to speak english too, and the guys I know looking for work are Mexican. One I know speaks some english, but he is El Tormenta (The Storm) - the guy who is always yelling incoherently at parties, constantly bumming and chainsmoking other people's cigarettes. "Noooooo maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammes!" I must admit that I sometimes egg him on by yelling along with him, which makes him yell louder. But knowing him in this social context doesn't give me positive impressions of his employability. That, however, is not my problem. If they hire him, it's at their own risk... hehehe.

The kitchen ladies have given me some new names. Doña Reina, who I work with in the evenings once called me Lorenzo, confusing me with Lauren (Laurena in spanish) in a momentary lapse of reason. The woman who runs the kitchen in the morning called me Geronimo for some reason, probably cuz she couldn't remember my name. I obviously strike some sort of rugged, fierce image for her to call me such.... I'd agree. I also get mistaken for Ian, the son of the woman who owns the restaurant. People keep talking to me as if I were him. This is a little more annoying, but I can deal with it. Since I don't have any new pictures of mine own to post, I'll throw up a MacGyver photo in memory of my first nickname here in Mexico. I would just like to officially disclaim that I am not in any way supporting a presidential bid by MacGuyver in 2008.

My cousin Luke should be in Iraq by now for his second tour over there. My dad told me when he was going to ship out, but I've forgotten when exactly that was. It was sometime in November, which is almost over now, so he must be there, or on his way. I mention this because I'm thinking of him and hoping he's safe, but also because of an email an acquaintance sent me. The friend of a woman I met here in Chiapas committed suicide on Thanksgiving Day after having spent a year in the army in Iraq. And sadly, this isn't the first time I've heard of returned service men having severe emotional problems and committing suicide. It's a really heavy thing, not only this one person's death, but also the suffering of all the other soldiers fighting this war, on whatever side, and all of the rest of us, who witness it, whether in our own homes, communities and countries or from afar, through news and media. War is not the answer.

la neta, guey

2005-11-21T18:45:00.000-06:00

Computers are annoying, especially when they won't upload your pictures to your blog. I can't seem to find a computer that will correctly upload my fotos to the web, so that's why there continue to be no new fotos. I also can't find a scanner that works, which is why I can't share my bike zine nor pix from my most recent trip to do repair workshops in communities. I've said it once and I'll say it again: Technology will be the downfall of humanity!!!!!

So, yeah... I took a week off from spilling drinks on tourists -- I mean waiting tables -- to do some more bike repair work. I went to the Zapatista community of Roberto Barrios, which is outside of Palenque, in the steamy jungles at the base of the Yucatán peninsula. Things went really well. I worked for 3 or 4 days with some of the compañeros staying in the community. There is no functioning bike repair shop in this community, so the work is a little tougher than in the other communities I've visited; we only have the tools I've brought with me to use, and they're far from complete. Still, we were able to cover a lot of repair topics, and through improvisation, resurrected an old kids mountain bike that was left over from a previous bike donation to the community.

By the end of my time there the compas were riding the little bike around the basketball court in the community. Many of them didn't know how to ride a bike, and were practicing with the bike we put together. That was pretty cool to see. It reminded me of the day I first rode a bike all by myself, with my dad in the field behind the highschool.

Working at the Casa del Pan, or the "House of Pain" as my friend Vann likes to call it (get the joke!?!?!), is going fine. Not much in tips, cuz high season is not yet upon us. I enjoy working there for the free food, but more importantly cuz the kitchen ladies are soo cool. We laugh a lot. They always forget my name, and call me Geronimo, or Lorenzo (prolly cuz the other waitress is Laurena). This week we had a bonding experience. We killed a pair of rats that had infested the kitchen by smushing them with brooms. It may sound really repulsive, and it was kinda morbid and gross in the moment, but it's things like these that bring people together, ya know? Doña Reina was laughing for the rest of the night that three of us used 5 brooms to kill 2 rats. I guess you had to be there... I heard some new rat sounds there yesterday, tho, so maybe I'll take some pictures to send y'all when we have our next rat hunt. Betcha can't wait...

I actually gave notice at the restaurant last week, and not because my dad was giving me grief for choosing waiting tables as a career. Since December is, believe it or not, my last full month here, I don't want to be working the whole time. So why work at all, right? I'll be traveling around to make final visits at the communities I've been working in before i head back to Gringolandia (aka USA). And of course returning to visit my friends Basi and Reina in the kitchen.

This Thursday we'll be feasting Thanksgiving at the Peace House, being thankful for, among other things, friends, cheap beer, and not being in the US (just kidding! kinda). I'm definitely thankful for all of you, my faithful blog readers. The only thing I'll be missing this year is the Wild Turkey, tho I'm sure I'll find an acceptable substitute.

día de los muertos

2005-11-01T11:35:00.000-06:00

Today is Día de los Muertos: the Day of the Dead. Halloween and All-Saints Day festivities in Mexico are much more elaborate than those in the States. Here the kids have been running around from store to store, house to house asking for candy for the past 3 days at least. Technically, they’re only supposed to do it today or tomorrow, but most fiestas and parties here last longer than one measly day. And the kids don’t just say “trick or treat” when asking for candy, they sing an entire song about how they are angelitos – spirits that have come down, or back, from the afterlife – and they want to be appeased with treats. If you don’t give them anything, they wish death on your aunt: Que se muera la tía! If you give them treats, they might wish her a long life: Que viva la tía!

Given the large number of tourists passing thru town, the mischievous little kids have taken to asking for pesos from the visitors. I came across a mother and her two young kids today. “Halloween!” she said to me. I smiled at her costumed children and went to go on my way when they asked me for 50 centavos. When I said no, her son wished death on me: Que se muera de una vez! We’re all gonna die some day, kid. My giving you 50 cents isn’t going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme.

Día de los Muertos has some wonderful traditions here, tho. It’s not just a day for kids to run around in costumes begging treats, getting all hopped up on the sugar, and leaving flaming piles of dog shit on their neighbor’s doorstep. It’s actually a time for people to remember loved ones who have passed on. People go to the pantéon – the cemetery – to decorate the graves of friends and relatives with funcia (pine needles) and cempasúchil (marigolds), and leave offerings of liquor, water, pan de muerto, and foods for the visiting spirits of their ancestors. Then they have a meal at the grave, and pass the bottle around and sing songs to welcome the dead back.

People also make altars in their homes, which we did yesterday and the day before. We spread funcia on the floor of our patio and a table and decorated with cempasúchil flowers and petals. We made offerings of green beans, herbs and flowers from the peace house garden, calabazas (pumpkins or squash), colorful fresh beans from the market, mandarins, tomatillos, avocado and other treats for our dead. Today we added pan de muerto – bread in the shape of bones, or with skulls on them. We have candles lit and pictures of our passed loved ones. I put a picture of my grandmother on the alter, and some tea and macaroons for her to enjoy.

Other than the festivities, I’ve been busy working. I actually gots me a job here last week. I’m waiting tables at a vegetarian restaurant in town – La Casa del Pan. I’m working Tuesday thru Sunday 3 to 11pm. I make about 8 pesos ($0.80) an hour before tips. I’m kinda on the fence about it. It’s nice to make money, and I’d definitely cover my expenses here every month with the salary and tips. But the work has been a bit tiring; slow at times, because it’s a slow season for tourism; a bit stressful when it gets busy. I get fed some tasty vegetarian food every shift, but I don’t know if waiting tables is a job that I am naturally suited for. I like working food service; I enjoyed working my coffee shop last year. But I’m gonna have to work hard if I’m gonna get good at serving soup without spilling it, or carrying a tray of drinks without spilling beer on the customers. Now there haven’t been any major soup spills, and I didn’t actually get any beer on the customers when it fell on a tray. They didn’t make a big stink about it, and even came back on Sunday and left a big tip. Have you ever tried to balance a tray of drinks on one hand? Not so easy, my friend. But my tally after five days of work is 3 broken glasses, a broken ashtray (not completely my fault), and the aforementioned beer spilling incident. Not completely confidence inspiring, I’ll admit. But I don’t want you all to think that I’m walking around the store like a complete klutz. The only major mishap I had on the floor was the beer blitz. The rest of the accidents happened in the kitchen, and half of them because the wet glass was slippery. And another good thing about the job is that it’s pretty relaxed. I don’t have anyone riding my ass all the time and getting on my case for making mistakes. So it’s a good place to learn waiting, if that’s what I want to do.

Now, I know that some of you, my parents in particular, are getting a real kick out of my clumsy waiter stories. But I’m actually trying to be good at it. Or at least considering it. I’m gonna work there another week, and then head out to do some more bike workshops this coming Sunday. I should be gone for a week. And then I’ll see if I’m really jonezing to continue the job. Or if it’s worth it, cuz it’s 48 hours a week, more or less, and it doesn’t leave me hardly any time to do any other activities or work around here. So the past few days I’ve been a bit exhausted, after 8 hours of work and 5 hours of costume parties afterwards. I know, rough life, right...

The other fun thing that happened lately was our First Annual Homemade Boat Regatta, or Concurso de Barquitos. You probably saw the fabulous pictures at the beginning of the entry. My housemate Melissa (maroon sweater) came up with the idea one night. We like to say she was touched by god. I made my boat out of a Tiburón bottle. Tiburón, aka Sharky, is our agua ardiente (fire water) of choice. It’s liquor made from sugar cane and flavored with coconut. It costs 15 pesos for a liter. That’s cheaper than soda. As you can see in the foto, my boat is chingón (kick-ass). Somehow, I lost the voting for coolest boat. I suspect foul play. As for performance, the SS Tibursión sank in 3 seconds flat. I wasn’t completely surprised. Melissa chose a particularly rapid section of the river for the course, and as my boat is of the open cabin design, the water entered quickly and she was lost with all passengers and never seen again. Still, you can appreciate the glory of the Tibursión in the fotos, and see Melissa, my neighbor Juán Carlos and the whole barquitos gang.

hurricane relief

2005-10-23T14:15:00.000-05:00

This week I volunteered for a few days at an NGO here that is coordinating relief efforts for the thousands of people affected by Hurricane Stan. Mexican President Vicente Fox, during a recent visit to Spain, that disaster relief and funds should go to Guatemala and El Salvador, because everything is under control in Mexico. His bravado is, of course, completely ridiculous, and his statement false. People are hurting here, and will continue to hurt. Fields of coffee plants and mango trees and other agricultural products were ruined in the storm, leaving many poor farmers with no economic recourses for the future. Areas along the frontier with Guatemala are still incomunicado - and it is difficult for food and clean water to reach some populations. Needless to say, the government isn't doing much to help those affected by the storm, so NGOs and civil organizations are doing a lot of the work.

If you are interested in supporting some organizations that are providing relief in the disaster areas, I've included some info below. It's a request from the Mesoamerican Permaculture Institue in San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala (IMAP). I've visited this group before, and was going to do so again, but the storm closed all the roads, and the region they're in was hit hard by the storm. The group has shifted its focus to work solely on potable water projects in the wake of the hurricane. Water borne illnesses pose a serious threat during a crisis such as this, and I can assure you that any funds you're able to donate will go directly to affected communities, and not sucked up by some inefficient nonprofit bureaucracy.

**********
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Sponsors:

Surely by now you are aware of the devastating effects hurricane Stan has caused the Central American region. The Western and Central Highlands of Guatemala and the Pacific Coast were struck by relentless rains for five days, resulting in major landslides and the bursting of rivers, which swept away homes, roads, bridges and crops, leaving many communities without access to communication, basic supplies or medical attention. In the Lake Atitlán region, department of Sololá, all surrounding villages have been affected, specifically the two largest towns, Santiago Atitlán and Panajachel, with an estimated one thousand five hundred deaths and hundreds of people missing.

We respectfully request your immediate financial support in attending to the urgent issues facing the community of Santiago Atitlán.

IMAP is an non-for-profit organization working with rural communities in the preservation of biodiversity, the establishment of food security and environmental education. We are located on the southern shore of Lake Atitlan, 10 kilometers from Santiago Atitlán. Because of current conditions, we have suspended our planned activities in order to concentrate on relief and prevention efforts in coordination with the municipality of Santiago Atitlán and other local and international non-governmental organizations.

Our concern is for the immediate needs of families who are without water, food, sanitation, medical attention and housing. Currently, an estimated one thousand people are being housed in 10 provisional shelters where the sanitary conditions pose a major health risk to the community. In light of our human resources and abilities, we have decided to concentrate our efforts in two areas: 1) securing food for at least one shelter and 2) installing water tanks and purifying equipment for at least three shelters. To the extent possible, we will also work on sanitation issues with respect to the same three shelters, in terms of installing latrines. Donations received by IMAP will go directly towards these efforts.

HOW TO HELP

Please send donations to our umbrella organization Permaculture America Latina (PAL) with 501 C-3 status.

Permacultura America Latina
723 Allendale Street
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505-989-1695 ph.
505-988-9702 fax

If you wish to send a wire, you have two options:

Use Wells Fargo's FedWire routing transit number, 121000248 for domestic
wires or use Wells Fargo's Swift code: WFBIUS6S for international wires

Bank Name: Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
City/State: San Francisco, CA (regardless of where your account is
located)
Routing transit number 121000248 or SWIFT address: WFBIUS6S
Account number: 769-0079853
Account title — Permacultura America Latina
-- Instituto Mesoamericana de PermaculturaSan Lucas Tolimán, Departamento de Solola Guatemala, Centro America502 55848111 - Ronaldo Lec502 57868033 - Rebecca Cutter

the skies opened up

2005-10-18T16:48:00.000-05:00

Hi Everybody. Things are going pretty well down here, if you don't count the thousands of people who were killed or displaced by Hurricane Stan. I guess that's the biggest news lately. Hurricane Stan came through Central America and Guatemala with a vengance two weeks ago. You might not've heard, as 75,000+ people were killed in earthquakes in Pakistan around the same time. San Cristóbal was relatively unaffected by Stan, but I wasn't here then. I was traveling to Tapachula, a town on the border between Chiapas and Guatemala, to catch up with friends and meet with groups working on immigrant rights in Mexico's southern border region, and then head to Guate to renew my visa.

My fellow peace housers Melissa and Akane went to Tapachla on Monday Oct 3rd. I couldn't make it there that night, and spent the night in Comalapa, another sweaty border town. I awoke Tuesday morning to persistent rains and hopped into a van to begin my journey around 8 am. I had to pass through 2 or 3 other towns before I got to Tapachula, but I didn't even make it half way to Motozintla, the first one. We had already passed several areas where the hills were beginning to slide down into the highway. By the time we made it to the first town between Comalapa and Motozintla, the van driver decided to head back, as word was coming that the highway ahead was either fully or partially blocked. All the other passengers got off to try to catch rides. One man assured me that there would be passage through to Tapachula. I sat pondering my dilemma; do I take a risk and ride ahead to meet my friends, or do I turn around and head straight to Guatemala? I wasn't thinking how screwed Tapachula might be with the storm. I wasn't even aware that a storm named Stan was ravaging the countryside. I just figgured it was best to meet up with my friends in Guatemala rather than getting stuck along the road I was on.

So I turned around with the combi driver. I shared a cigarette with him as we stopped to check out the river, which was running wild. The water was frothy, rapid and brown with erroded earth. I watched as an entire tree was uprooted and battered along with the current. On the ride back to Comalapa the driver told me of the two years he worked in Florida at a nursery and garden center. We had to stop to wait for the mountain to spit some boulders on to the highway before we skirted one of the slides we'd passed before. With the landslieds, sometimes the earth moved slowly, like a mass that was in no hurry, but had a solid, unstoppable force. Other times rocks 3 to 4 times as big as my head fell rolling down the mountains to smash and crack on the highway. As I watched this I realize I'd made the right decision in turning around.

I had it easy. After six hours of chicken bus travel I made it to Xela (Quetzaltenango, Guatemala). It was getting dark and there was a chill in the air. I found my way to a small cheap hostel I knew about and spent the three days with out running water or electricity. But I was dry, I had food and water from the store, and, unlike families living mere blocks away, my house wasn't flooded. Lots of people are still suffering from this disaster. My friends Melissa and Akane had to spend 3 days walking out of Tapachula, hiking, crossing flooded bridges and catching rides to Xela. Check out Melissa's blog on her adventure. It's pretty mind blowing what she went through.

I had another board game experience while waiting out the storm in Xela. I played Monopoly with some fellow hostel mates. It has made me reflect on the diversions of my youth, primarily Risk and Monopoly. One gets you all excited for world domination, and the other has you bankrupt your friends and glory in capitalism. If you're not careful, you can end up having horrible fights with your friends over these games. Why? Because the point of the games is to screw everyone else, to attack them mercilessly until they are no more, until they have to take their pieces from the board, place them in the box, and go away. I would only like to take a moment to ponder the cultural implications of these lessons we grew up with. Sure, they are fun games. But they teach us how to relate to each other and the world in some very specific and not always pleasant ways.

Alright, I'm off the soap box. When power and the oh-so-vital internet connection came back to Xela, I let everyone know I was ok. My parents hadn't yet heard about the storm, but the Peace House board of directors was worried about the 5 of us who were traveling in the area. After 3 days being cooped up with english-speaking students of a spanish language school, I was rather annoyed and restless. The news about the situation in Tapachula, where I was convinced my friends were trapped, got me all riled up. Luckily, it turned out that all of us had made it to Xela, so we were eventually able to meet up and share stories.

Three of us headed back to San Cristobal on Monday the 10th, as soon as the roads were opened up. Our other friends continued their travels as they could. I made it back safely, but at that point I'd contracted the fever and cough that Melissa suffered through on her 3 day trek out of the storm. So I was delirious with nyquil and fever dreams for about 36 hours. At this point my parents started to worry, as they'd heard nothing from me since my initial "I'm trapped in Guatemala" email. So they emailed Melissa, who let them know I was still alive.

I'm still struggling with the cold, which seems to have lodged itself in my left ear, and continues to produce copious phlegm. So my immune system is a bit depressed right now. Other than that, things are fine. Melissa organized a boat race for this Saturday. We're all making our own little "barquitos" to float on a river outside town. I'll be sure to send pictures. Friday is my housemate Julietta's birthday. Other than that, I'm abstaining from drinking and smoking in order to allow my body to heal a bit.

The bike repairs are continuing. Today I finished working on a friend's bike. In the beginning of November I'll be traveling to one of the communities I previously visited to see if they want some repair training.

My thoughts have started to turn towards what's next, as in: post MX life. I bought a plane ticket back to the Bay Area for January 15th, 2006. I'll be in the 415, 510 & environs for a Peace House board meeting, to celebrate my 30th bday, and visit all my friends. All 4 of you. Then I plan on heading to the NY state for fam visits and fun in the snow in Feb. Of course, making $$ will have to be a part of this plan, as I am running low on funds. I'm working on it. Please respond with interesting job announcements. And stay dry.

¿Qué hora son?

2005-09-24T15:59:00.000-05:00

What up, homies?!?!?! Things are going great in San Cris. For the previous two nights I have been staying up late playing some heated games of Risk. Sure takes me back to the summers of my youth, when I spent the days watching game shows and playing Risk or Monopoly with cousin Luke and brother Ian. It also reminds me of Thanksgiving 4 years ago when Derek and Brian and who know who else got into a huge fight over a Risk game. Dangerous stuff. Damn near ruined Turkey Day... well, that and we ran out of whisky. We've yet to complete an entire game here, but I don't think we're gonna try. 4 or 5 hours of shouting at one another over broken pacts and alliances, and watching to make sure that our pal Narices doesn't add extra armies to his terretories is pretty tiring. We had a blast, tho. It was enjoyable at certain points to step back from the drama of the game and observe how CRAZY everybody looked, all red-faced and gesticulating and shouting at one another. And I must say that learning the minute differences in the Risk-playing styles and rules of Americans, Mexicans, and Anglo/Francos has been an invaluable addition to my already rich cultural immersion experience.

I'm throwin' some fotos at yah. The star & bike logo is from my bike zine, which will soon be on the web in some form. I'm still scanning and converting the pages. The rest are from the bike workshop in Oventic from the last day I worked there. That's the bike frame that we scraped the paint off of with putty knives. My demand is growing in the circles i travel in here. In the past two days at least five people have asked me to fix their bikes. Some of them are actually interested in learning some repair skillz, so I'll probably organize a little workshop at the Peace House at the end of October. But in the mean time, I got some travels planned.

I acutally just got back on Tuesday from a week out in the campo. I visited two other communities to check out possibilities with bike work - La Garrucha and Roberto Barrios. Both are interested in some capacitization, and I'm headed back out tomorrow for more workshops.

During my travels I went first to La Garrucha, a community I'd visited before. The compañero there had previously expressed the lack of parts as a big obstacle. Because, of course, you can't fix a bike, or do training if you have no spare parts. In fact, the 2 or 3 times I've tried to work with this compa, we couldn't do jack because the spare parts were busted or non existent. So it was a no-go. I was apprehensive that he wouldn't want to work. But he was down, so we planned to work the following week, cuz there was a big ole Zapatista meeting happening the comming (ie last) weekend.

One of the most confusing things about being in community is time. Naturally, time passes more slowly in rural communities, and the compañer@s move a different place than us city folk is used to. But in Zapatista communities, you have to juggle with three different hours. First is La Hora de Fox, o La Hora del mal gobierno (The Hour of Mex President Vicente Fox, or "Bad Government"). This is the same as Central Standard Time in the US, and changes with day light savings time. Most Mexican cities and towns use this hour. Then you have La Hora de Dios - God's Hour. This is an hour earlier than La Hora de Fox. Then you have La Hora Zapatista - the Zapatista Hour, which is an hour and a little bit earlier than La Hora de Dios. This is the hour that the Zapatista comandancia uses. So I always get confused about which hour is being used at which time, and when. I can't quite wrap my noodle around it, and it doesn't help that some communities use an hour that is later than La Hora de Fox, or at least I think they do. See how confused I am...

Any way, this time confusion played into my departure from LG. I was taking the early morning transport back to Ocosingo, the nearest city, which supposedly left at 2 am, or maybe 3, hora de Dios, as far as I knew. I went out at 1 am to catch it, due to time confusion, and spent 3 hours sleeping on the patio floor of the little store on the highway until a truck finally came by. It's a good thing my friend woke me up, or I might've missed it. It was a cool, bumpy, groggy ride, but the stars were pretty.

I visited Roberto Barrios from there to get approval for doing bike work. It's pretty damn hot in the jungle there, but there's an incredible river that runs right alongside the community with awesome waterfalls, so I had a nice swim to cool off the afternoon I was there. I'm going back to RB on Monday to do my bike work, and will pass by LG on my way back to practice some wheel truing. Wish me luck. Truing wheels is hard.

The big event of last weekend was, well El Grito de Dolores, which is where every one shouts "¡Viva México!" and ¡Viva! everything else in rembemberance of the Cry of Dolores, when a priest, Miguel Hidalgo, set off the struggle for Mexican independence from Spain in 1810. I was back in La Garrucha for this, along with a load of other people (2,000+ by the time everyone arrived) who all came to a plenary meeting with the Zapatista comandancia to launch and present their "Other Campaign" for anti-capitalist, non-electoral politics in Mexico. It was a long and interesting meeting that went on over the course of 2 days. I met a lot of cool people and saw some old friends. After the community drain of most of its visitors, I did a bit of bike work. We mainly took stuff apart, cuz the compa had to send someone to buy spare parts in Ocosingo. Unfortunately, we found some of the tools missing from the workshop. The community was so full of people that some slept on the floor of the workshop, and the door was left open the entire weekend. So, of course, when we needed the vise grips, we discovered they were gone. So we got the stem out of the headset by holding the bike upside down and smacking the stem with a hammer. Fun times.

My days since returning to San Cris have been filled with showers, naps, my favorite telenovela Amor en Custodia (Love in Custody), movies, Risk, and visits with friends. I guess that's all I got for now. I'll end with a big shout out to my Babcie (aka Grandma), who turned 86 yesterday. Word to ya grandmother.

reinicia bicicleta

2005-09-11T15:01:00.000-05:00

So, I'm trying to remember what's new...

Well, I just finished putting together the Aug/Sept Peace House Newsletter. I had fun writting the introduction. And the Mexican Army "invaded" the US this week. On a mission of peace, of course, to provide aid to the victims of Katrina. The news gave us a good laugh, and god knows our pintxe cabron presidente needs all the help he can get sorting this mess out. On a side note, this isn't the first time Mexico has invaded da USA; Pancho Villa and his troops ransacked a town in New Mexico in 1916, during the Mexican Revolution.

We've been watching the news and talking it over at the House. It's a pretty screwed up situation. But Kanye West

I started working on my bike stuff after at least 2 months of distractions. I know have a completed illustrated bicycle repair zine in Spanish to share with the communities I'm working with. I'm pretty psyched about it. It's got 8 pages, covering repair topics from flat tires to bottom brackets to frame painting and wheel truing. And it's got a rad cover. I'm gonna scan the whole thing and hopefully get it in a downloadable pdf format soon. It's titled gets mad props for pointing out the racism inherent in the media coverage and the lack of federal preparation and response for the catastrophe. Susan, a woman who was volunteering with us here earlier this year, has family in Louisiana, and went there from Cali last week to volunteer with releif efforts. I've definitely been thinking about all the victims and sending the love vibes their way."La Revolución en Dos Ruedas", or "The Revolution on Two Wheels" for all you gringos out there. Get it? It's a play on words.

With my new zine hot off the presses I headed up to Oventic, the community I'd been working in May and June, to check in with the compañeros there. My first day working with them was a bit rough. We were truing wheels, which is the hardest repair to do on bikes. But the hub on the wheel we were using was bunk, and had a lot of play in it no matter how tight I tried to adjust it. That means you can't really true the wheel properly cuz it won't be fixed in the truing stand. It just made me bummed. I felt like a bad teacher and a crappy mechanic and all this negative junk. But I realized that this is Mexico, and Mexico is different from the US in soooo many ways. This place has its own quirks and vibes, like the food issues, and the intestinal illnesses, and how fanatical shop keepers are about accepting money with tiny rips in it, or giving you change for large bills, etc... The same is true for the bikes, the workshops, and the work I'm doing here. Mexican bikes are generally of a lower quality, and for a lot of people here, you gotta make due with what you got. Like a hub that don't adjust right, or a headset that won't come off cuz it's stuck to fork with rust and mud. After all, the workshop that Oventic has is a small, wooden building with a tin roof and a dirt floor. It's a different world down here. So I tried to shake of all the bad vibes, and went back up the following day to do some more work.

There were some different compañeros were at the shop and we had a good talk about things. They're expanding the workshop to automotive service too; namely flat tire repair and oil & filter changes. They've bought some equipment and supplies and have begun getting the shop rearranged a bit. So that's exciting. The building was recently wired for electricity, so now we can hook up their air compressor and start painting bike frames. These guys are really psyched about painting, and it'll be fun to work with them on it. A week ago Friday we stripped a frame of all its parts and started scrapping the paint off the frame with putty knives. The fork and headset are sealed together pretty good, but I'm hopping that some immitations wd-40 will loosen them up. I was supposed to work with them on painting yesterday, but the shop was closed when I got there, and the compañeros were no where to be found. I just ended up going home. That's kind of the way things go in community sometimes, and it's not the first time I've showed up to work to find the shop closed. But I can roll with that. This week I'm heading to some other communities in Chiapas to try to set up some bike repair stuff there too. All in all it feels good to be rolling with my projects again.

Oh, I took some pictures of the workshop that I can share. I just gotta get them off my friend's camera. In the meantime, here is a picture of the school that's across the road from the bike workshop. It is The Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Primary School 'Moreno Zanchetta' in Oventik, San Andrés Sakamchen de los Pobres, Chiapas, México. And the quotes on the mural say "Education is not separate from the struggles of the people. Here one teaches while learning and educates while producing. Love of the Mexican homeland and awareness of international solidarity with all the peoples of the world are promoted here."

I moved out of the Peace House to an apartment an entire half-block away. I'm living with Melissa, da Peace House Coordinator, and our friend Julieta. She's Mexican. It's a nice little place. Our 3 rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, a big ole concrete sink for doing laundry, and a nice cement patio. Julieta is an avid gardener, so we have a nice arrangement of plants and flowers that is home to a bright green lizard. I'll have to snap some photos of the house for y'alls too. We had a little house warming party last weekend. It was a rainy evening, so it was a small but fun crowd. Tranquilo.

Nationally, September is "Mes de la Patria", which is basically independence day all month long. All the taxis and cars in town are sporting Mexican flags of one size or another, and homes are adorned with tri-colored banners and streamers (green, white and red, that is). The big day is this coming Friday, September 16. On this day in 1810, a priest named Hidalgo sparked the movement for Mexican independence from Spain with the Grito de Dolores, when he shouted "Long live Our Lady of Guadelupe! Long live religion! Long live Fernando VII! Long live America (not the USA) and death to bad governement! So I'm hoping to return to San Cris Thursday evening to celebrate the festivities. Tho I'm sure there'll be a party wherever I am.

So to all youse and yours, I say ¡Viva México!

some pictures fo' yo' ass!

2005-08-11T16:48:00.000-05:00

These pics are all from some months back, but I thought you'd enjoy it if I shared them. The group shot of the Peace House crew isfrom the day after I arrived in San Cris (Feb 2, 05). There's also one of the awesome mural that was painted at our house by Sarah earlier this year. The straw hat picture is from the composting workshop I gave in June. The guitar picture is me jammin' out with Peace House coordinator Melissa. And the other one speaks for itself.

Click on a pic for full-sized view.

Enjoy, and happy snapping!

Since this entry is mostly photos, I'm gonna try to add some random filler text so they don't look so crappy on the screen.

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San Lorenzo

2005-08-11T15:20:00.000-05:00

I dedicate this post to my good friend Brian P. Myers, who once had a pet egg named Lorenzo. Why? Because two days ago I visited Zinacantan, a community about 20 minutes outside of San Cristóbal, that was having a big party for the fiesta of San Lorenzo, the town's patron saint. I went for the afternoon to eat tacos, ride the ferris wheel, and play some carnival games with some friends. One of these friends is posh, a strong traditional liquor made from corn. I've known posh since I arrived in Chiapas; on Tuesday we spent some good quality time together. Meaning I got tanked. So tanked, in fact, that I couldn't really speak, or stand up for long periods of time. Well, I could speak. I just couldn't understand what I was saying. The good thing is, I was home safely and passed out in bed before 9pm. So the hangover wasn't that bad since I got a good night's rest. Cheers, Brian! This bender's for you.

Now, I don't want any of you to think that all I've been doing is partying, and being so drunk or hung over or whatever else that I haven't made a measley blog entry in nearly two months. I've actually been busy doing stuff. You know, stuff.

The Zapatistas released the Sixth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle, a long document that describes where they are at, where the movement is at, how they view things in Mexico and the world, and unvails the "Other Campaign" they wish to develop among nonelectoral groups of the Mexican left. The EZLN red alert was lifted on July 15, and everyone is welcome to return to Zapatista communities and continue working on projects and what not. This means that I am now able to continue my bike repair work in the communities, a project on which I plan to embark next week.

Since mid July I've been doing a lot of translation and interpretation for individuals and delegations that have been visitng San Crisóbal. I first spent four days visiting rural health clinics with a paramedic/professor, Julie, and her son Alex, who are from Colorado. Julie hopes to provide emergency medical training to the health promoters that work at these clinics. The following week I was translating for a group of pastors from Wisconsin that was visiting INESIN, the Institute for Intercultural Studies and Investigations. The next group was made up of Unitarian Universalist pastors and seminarians from Meadville-Lombard University in Chicago. This delegation was arranged by one of the Peace House board members.

I traveled with this group to the community of Pacayal, a small town of about 500 people in the mountains close to the Guatemalan border. We were greeted at the community by a marimba band at a small ceremony. The group presented the community leaders with a small donation towards their health clinic project. The nearest health services are at least 2 hours away on bumpy, unpaved roads, and people with urgent yet treatable illnesses often die on the way.

The group slept all together in the school, and split up in pairs for breakfast and dinner with various families in the community. Most of the people here are coffee farmers, and probably live on less than the $45 pesos ($4) that make up the Mexican daily minimum wage. Many families have relatives working in Tijuana or the United States. It's a very poor community, but people are humble and generous.

We were given a tour of the clinic site, which now is only made up of a concrete foundtion with wiry strands of rebar jutting skyward. The community still needs to raise a lot of funds to complete the construction. A church youth group from Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas' capital city, is currently fundraising for the community, and has a work trip planned for later this year. I'm considering returning to help out. Community members also gave us tours of the coffee fields - cafetales - and took us to the river that runs throught the mountains that surround the town.

On Sunday morning we split up into groups and went to church services. I joined the three other catholics at the small service up on the hillside. This church is nothing more than a tin roof supported by wooden posts, and as we sat through the ceremony, we were surrounded by the green vegetation of the jungle. As we prayed and sang, I watched chickens scratch through the underbrush, and could hear the singing and clapping coming from the livlier, more populous celebrations of the communty's Presbyterian and Pentecostal churches.

We spent a lot of time in the school yard playing with the children. One of our group was an elementary teacher from El Paso, and she organized soccer and basketball games with the kids Sunday afternoon. All the kids wanted to play at once, so the basketball games ended up being melees of 15 on 15. The kids spent more time struggling for the ball rugby style than dribbling and shooting. I must say that I took advantage of my height and size to streak down the court and lay in a basket a couple of times. After a while, I started picking up one of the five year olds to put him closer to the basket, you know, to give him an advantage. Soon, I had ten kids swarming me asking me to pick them up too. And they all wanted me to do it again. But we traded. After I picked them up, they all mobbed me, grabbed my legs and hefted me off the ground. From then on I had my own fan club of 5 year olds sitting on the sidelines and cheering my name: "Simón! Ra! Ra! Simón! Ra! Ra!" Hopefully all the attention didn't go to my head.

It is definitely a challenge to come to know people who are so welcoming, yet so poor, with such great need. Some families and community members made direct requests of money or gifts for themselves when we ate at their homes, or while we visited with them at the school. It was a difficult thing for us to deal with. Obviously, as Americans, we are all wealthy compared to them. And it seems that some people have become accostomed to receiving gifts or cash from other visitors to the community. While talking to one young man, he asked me if an older member of our group was "Señor Billete." I didn't know what he meant. He was asking if the guy was "Mr. Money Bags." "Mr. (dollar) Bills" would be the direct translation.

Despite these challenges, I enjoyed the visit to Pacayal. Some of the group members left with intentions of raising funds and seeking grants to help the health clinic project move forward. I plan on returning to help with the clinic construction if I can.

Since returning to San Cristóbal last week, I have been working on the Peace House August newsletter and saying good bye to a few departing friends. The House itself is pretty empty, as most of our summer volunteers were unable to make it down here for various reasons. Because of this, I became the House Representative to the board of directors last month. All this has meant so far is that I get more emails. But I get a backstage view of all the inner workings of the organization, so that's pretty cool.

Last week I got some good news. First, my uncle John Allen didn't get arrested when trying to steal a painting of a naked woman from the men's room at the reception hall where my family was celebrating my cousin David's wedding. Way to go Jashu! And, more importantly, my brother Ian got engaged to his girlfriend Joanna. (All together now: "Awwwwwwwwwwww!) By all accounts, they are happy in bling-bling land. Congratulations and much love to you both!

Hopefully I'll be updating the blog monster a bit more frequently over the coming weeks. Check back soon! I'm gonna see if I can get some pictures posted here.

Peace! And may San Lorenzo of the soft-shelled eggs shine light upon you all!

Amen.

Red Alert

2005-06-23T16:35:00.000-05:00

¡Hola, amigos! Soy yo, Don Simón, el changoleón. I realize it's been quite a while since I been writin' at y'alls. Things in Chiapas have been busy and good for the past month. Partying, bike workshops, more partying, worm & composting workshop, partying again - but not quite as hard... This week, everything has gotten even more interesting, due to a series of communiques sent out by the EZLN, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation that operates in Chiapas. You can read the translation of the initial communique here; and check out the Peace House website to get our summary of the developing events. The FZLN website is a good source to keep up on all things Zapatista. Basically, the Zapatistas have closed all their Caracoles and communities and are holding an internal consultation to determine the next steps of their movement. This has come as a rather big surprise to everyone around here, and they have requested that international solidarity workers and human rights observers leave Zapatista territory. San Cristóbal has been a bit tense as we all wait to see what happens, but all are safe and well with the Peace House crew and community, myself included. Another communique issued today assured that the EZLN is not preparing for military action, but consulting with its members and support bases as they decide how to continute their struggle.

I'm affected rather directly by these developments, though, because the bike repair training I have been doing for the past month or so was in a Zapatista community about 1 hour outside San Cris. So my progress in this department are currently on hold. It's a bit of a bummer, too. I've done four workshops in the past 6 weeks, and have been creating my own curriculum for the training, as the workshop is well stocked with tools, but lacks a bike repair manual in Spanish. Which is funny: all of the people in the community I was working in speak Tzotzil, a Mayan language, as their native tongue. So we were both speaking Spanish as a second language when we worked together. I made up some cool instruction sheets with images and graphics I stole off the internet. It took a bit of time working with the compañeros to establish a rapport, and sometimes I would arrive at our prearranged time to find that they had all gone out to work in the milpa (corn field). But after a bit of reorganizing, we set up a regular time to meet and do some repairs. A few weeks ago they fed me lunch, and presented me with a formal letter requesting parts and supplies for the workshop. They spelled my last name "Boquer." Last week we fixed a kid's loose handle bars, and they began teaching me phrases in Tzotzil. I can now say "Mooyuk tyuk," which means "It's not straight" (as in the handlebars on the bike we'd just fixed). I was looking forward to visiting the other bike workshops in 2 other communities next month, when there's less work in the milpa. But again, it's on hold to further notice. For now I'm working on translating some documents for the House, and giving a workshop on privilege and international solidarity to a delegation from U Mich.

I also got to give my composting and worm workshop for the house last Saturday, which was super fun. I gave it in Spanish, as a Mexican friend of the house also wanted the good dirt on how to get good dirt. This is Julieta, who is dating our neighbor Juan Carlos. She calls me Don Simón, after her favorite cheap wine. She always says it's my fault she's drunk. Changoleón can by roughly translated to vagabond, but the word is a fusion of chango (monkey) and león (lion). Juan Carlos told me it comes from this Mexican reality show where they take this drunk guy (El Changoleón) off the street and put him in wierd situations, like making him take ballet classes n' shit like that. {It's always so great to see which aspects of American culture are being exported to the rest of the world.} Anyway, put it together and it rhymes: Don Simón, el changoleón.

In other news, it's raining. It's been raining a lot. June is one of the biggest months for rainfall in Chiapas. But I got me some big black boots to wear. They're a little big, so could one of you please send me some thick hiking socks? Thanks.

Surprise, surprise: I've also been partying. Exiting Peace House member Diego planned 3 days of despedida (goodbye party) before he left two weeks ago. This entailed dancing til 3 am on Thursday, House Party til 5 am on Friday, and going out to Wicho's on Saturday aftenoon. Wicho's is one of the family bars we like to frequent. They have 2 fer 1 beers and botanas, which are plates of food that come each time you order drinks. So we passed another merry afternoon there. Sometimes I get afraid that the party won't end. Our friends Jen and Julia left later that week, not without much festivities. I kept it low key for those events, tho, so as to be fresh for my bike workshop last week.

I guess that's about it. I'm doin' good and feelin' fly down here. Wishin' you all the same wherever u be.

I'll leave you with a tasty treat that some of you all are familiar with. Smash hit "baby bok choi" has a new home on the net, thanks to my friend Joe (big ups!). Visit this site to listen, and while there, you can also check out Jawa, Joe's band from highschool.

boca del cielo (or "why is there sand in my hair?)

2005-05-25T13:43:00.000-05:00

Sooo... When last we left our intrepid traveler, he was lounging on steamy beaches of the Oaxaca coast, before being rudely interrupted by a computer that ate half his blog entry.

Yeah. Tenley and I spent a lot of time in Puerto Escondido pretending we could surf. We did this mainly by watching other people surf the big waves and making snide and sometimes funny comments. We did actually boogie board one day at a calmer cove, and we were in the water for almost an hour! I caught one wave, maybe two. On the way in, I tried for one last ride, but I misjudged the wave and it landed square in the back. Of course, this happened right in front of a 9 year old mexican boy who could surely surf circles around me, and who got a kick out of the smack I got. But what am I here for if not the ammusement of the Mexicans I pass daily, as I stumble on slippery cobblestone sidewalks and what not...

From Puerto Escondido we headed to San Augustinillio, a smaller, more relaxed town, where we stayed two nights at a little place that definitely falls in the category of shit hole. It was hot and buggy, so Tenley sprung for a night in nice joint with screened windows and a fan. Ooooh! From there we headed back to San Cristobal for our final days together. We were confronted by another snaggle, that being a march planned by a striking teacher's union that was threatening to close the highways to Tuxtla on the day Tenley left. So we got up super early that day, though Tenley's flight was at 5 pm. I must say I was in a right grumpy mood that morning. By the grace of the gods, we didn't die when the van 2 cars in front of us on the highway to Tuxtla lost it's entire rear right wheel, including some axel-looking thing. The driver kept it under control, and no one was injured. Good thing, cuz we coulda rolled off the side of the mountain... We whiled the day away in Tuxtla with an over-priced breakfast buffet, and a movie. It turns out that the highway blockage was more of a march through the streets, but it was best to get there early to be sure. I sent Tenley off to the airport with hugs and some extra pesos in case she needed to bribe an immigration official to deal with her lack of a turist visa.

Once she got back, I learned that no one on either the Mexican or American side bothered to examine her passport, or notice that she didn't have a visa. No problem at all! Homeland Security my ass! Tenley said she spent the whole time with the US customs offical talking about which is better, the East Coast or the West Coast. (West Coast in tha hoooouuuuuse!) There's really a lesson to all this. We made the paper work issue into a big deal, and worked ourselves up trying to deal with it, when in reality, we didn't need to do anything cuz it just worked itself out. Such is life.

Last week was highlighted by my bro's 27th birthday on Wednesday, Star Wars on Thursday, and my first bike workshop on Friday. Star Wars was pretty cool, tho I always find myself underwhelmed by the new movies. Ain't nobody gonna tell me that Revenge of the Sith (ep 3) is better than A New Hope (ep 4). I punch him in his teeth! There were some cool scenes, but I was sandwiched between two peace house compañeras, one who was hooting and hollering for the wookiees and the opening credits, and the other one asking me silly questions like: "Do Princess Leia and Obi Wan Kenobi ever get together?" (ie. cuz obi wan is hot) I still managed to enjoy myself. Still, we shoulda been able to see Darth Vader in full costume kicking Jedi butt.

Friday's bike workshop went well. I had a gaggle of five peace house compañeras with me along for the ride and moral support - helpin' me with the jitters. I worked with two of the compañeros in the community going over flat tire repair and brake maintenance. It went well enough, and we're going for another round this week. Still looking to get bike parts down here, and am going to hit up a couple of places that send shipments to Latin America. To celebrate, we baked some home made pizzas and did a book making workshop set up by my cool peace house sister Julia. This weekend was spent relaxing at Boca del Cielo, where we swung in hammocks, drank beer and body surfed in the warm Pacific for 2.5 days. I'm still a bit crudo (ie. hungover) from the good bye party for Susan, one of three peace house compañeros who are leaving in the next few weeks.

wish me luck on the bike workshops, and best to all ya'lls!
i think I finally got all that sand out my hair!

dun dun dun - dun duh dun, dun duh dun...

2005-05-18T19:06:00.000-05:00

That was the Imperial March from Star Wars, incase you couldn't hear the music in your head... Reveling in my dorkiness, I am, and finally, the frantic obsession of my past few months will be eased tomorrow night when I go to the fancy megaplex on the outskirts of San Cris to see Star Wars, Ep. III with a gaggle of pals. I guess I'll have to find something else to obsess over after that...Yay! The NY Times reviewer said it's even better than the original Star Wars (Ep. IV), if you can believe that. The review also disses George Lucas for the lack quality acting and writing in his films. Ha ha!

Time has been flying here. When last I wrote, Tenley was here, and we planned to do some traveling together. Our time together was, in part, a fabulous tour of some of Mexico's fine bureaucratic institutions. It turned out that Tenley didn't get her passport stamped when she flew into Mexico, and had lost her tourist visa. We attempted to resolve this by going to the local immigration office, where, as is to be expected, the woman there told us that her boss wasn't there and there was nothing she could do for us, without even looking at the documents. The immigration people in San Cris are notorious pendejos, because of the city's proximity to Zapatista communities; they're hard asses so as to discourage unwanted activists from staying too long and meddling. So we took a trip to Tuxtla, the capital city, which is about an hour away. Tuxtla is hot and dirty, and not much of a tourist destination; not too much to see there, except for all the teachers and their supporters who were, and probably still are, on strike due to gov't cut backs. The immigration official in Tuxtla was a lot nicer to us, but told us there was nothing he could do for us, that we'd have to go to Guatemala and re-enter to get the passport stamp. This bummed us out a lot, so we decided to forget about it and get on our way to the coast of Oaxaca. We spent four lazy nights in Puerto Escondido, a big surf town. There we read, soaked up the sun, swam in the pool, talked, ate%

BOOO! Stoopid computer just at half of my blog entry! Damn. That's really annoying. I'll write more later.

Happy 27th birthday to my brother Ian!

Peace.

ode to diarrhea

2005-04-27T19:16:00.000-05:00

Well, it would seem that great, wonderful things come from arduous and unpleasant circumstances. Like my latest hit song, Ode to Diarrhea. I was real sick last week with a bacterial infection called shigaella, which is very similar to the salmonella bug that's been infecting a lot of the city lately. Same symptoms: fever, aches, diarrhea, stomach cramps, vomiting. An all around not fun time. And I got to poop in 3 cups over 3 days so a lab could tell me what I had, and thereby what antibiotics to take to kill it. Tho, I didn't end up taking any antibiotics, cuz my symptoms were much more chill after resting, rehydrating, and pooing in cups for 3 days; and also cuz it's widely recommended to not take antibiotics for these types of infections because, among other things, it makes you a carrier of the bacteria for much longer. So I'm better now, and the goddess has shined on me, rewarding my suffering with the beautiful piece of art I now wish to share with you.

WARNING: As this new song is about diarrhea, there is a lot of potty humor and imagery that some might find offensive. I think it's terribly funny, and witty to boot. But I wish to forwarn the faint of heart, or those grossed out by fecal references, and hereby excuse myself from any responsibility or guilt if you should be offended or sickened by my genius. The lyrics to the song will be posted at the end of this entry so you can avert thine eyes, if you so wish. PS: if anyone would like to contribute a beat to this song, which is a rap, please post a comment at the end to contact me.

In other news, my special lady Tenley arrived on Monday for a 2 week visit. We're gonna hit the beaches of the Oaxaca coast next week for some surf and sun, and maybe check out some ruins too. Yesterday I built my first official compost pile, following directions I found at www.mastercomposter.org, a great resource for composting. I call it my first official, cuz this time I was doing a layer method that follows this formula: dry/brown/carbon layer (dry leaves, hay), wet/green/nitrogen layer (kitchen scraps), water both layers. Cover pile with layer of browns, and plastic (if desired). Today I have in my yard a nice hot pile, where the thermophyllic bacteria are eating up the food scraps to make the good organic fertilizer. I'm very excited, and will be giving the Peace House a workshop on composting as my contribution to house knowledge. The worm bin is also doing pretty well. I'm feeding it regularly to get the population level up up up. For me, there's no joy quite like that of seeing a writhing mass of red wigglers eating your food scraps. But that's just me.

I'm also looking into doing some bike repair training at a workshop in a nearby community, and also hopefully working with a bike delegation that may be coming down this summer to do workshops and deliver parts. It's a bit of a scarry idea, doing a workshop on a topic I've never given one on before in Spanish. But I figure that's what I came here for... so I might as well go for it, eh?

And now, with out further ado.............

ode to diarrhea
by mc hershey squirt

i gotta poop, dood – i can't help myself
get outta my way! – or i'll mess myself
eatin street tacos is bad for yo' health
pull that pink pepto bismol bottle offa the shelf
guardando la cama for the past 3 days
i can't see straight thru this feverish haze
went to the doctor, he gonna sample my stool
drop a turd in a cup, life is just too cruel
fecal matter go splatter walkin down the road
pitter patter poo poo platter sittin on the commode
feel like i got diarrhea of the mouth
all we talk about is shittin sittin round the house
don't wanna set foot in the bathroom for about 2 weeks
la lucha sigue! always got a movement passin thru my cheeks
whoever smelt it, dealt it – we used to play that game
now every time i fart i be leavin a stain
in my underwear
i got a rumble – where?
a grumble grumble – where?
right down under there in my intestines
some evil bugs infesting, nesting, distressing
i'm not resting 'til i get everything out
leaky butt like a spigot drippin, ain't no drought
some mean chocolate milk comin out my spout
i know a few in san cris know what i'm talking about
salmonella, e coli, man they gimme the runs
la gringa! tons o' nutella spread on my buns
it ain't no fun havin Moctezuma's wrath
between my bed and the toilet i done worn a path
pull my finger! yeah, you know how that one goes
but don't do it to me, i'll have to change my clothes
you might be hosed down standin near my behind
and let me tell you this potion don't smell so fine
gimme a cork, man, and some pampers too
my draws got more skidmarks than the highway do
sent my best friend down to the sex toy store
i finally found out what they make butt plugs for
i can't wipe no more, god damn that hurts
feel like Charlie and the factory of hershey squirts
i better thank the spirit for sendin this rhyme to my dome
good thing i get my best ideas sittin on the throne
wooooo haah! send my love out all the sick peeps
man, i'm outta toilet paper, pass me a few sheets
and take this message out to the streets
wash your hands, clap clap, and be careful what you eat
less you wanna have wicked potty mouth like me

on the chicken bus

2005-04-14T11:45:00.000-05:00

Last week I went to Guatemala. We had a long day of traveling on Tuesday to get to our destination of San Lucas Toliman by the end of the day. I was traveling with Melissa and Anne. Anne had been to Guate before, so Melissa and I just sorta trotted after her as we went from van to taxi to bus to another bus and to yet another bus. We took 8 different buses, taxis and vans in our almost 12 hours of traveling on that day. The main form of transportation are the chicken buses, colorfully painted and decaled school buses, just like the ones I used to ride as a kid, that are crammed full of people and driven at high speeds on winding roads through the Guatemalan highlands. I have no idea why they are called chicken buses, or even if they are called that in Spanish. But they oddly remind me of the type of colorful costumes and masks that the Lucha Libre fighters wear. They seem similar to me in design and hue. Take a look: http://www.karlgrobl.com/Browner2New/bus%20antigua%20guatemala_std.jpg
They are almost always have religious phrases emblazoned in huge, sparkly letters across the windshield, like "Fe En Dios" - Faith In God, or "Regalito de Dios" - Gift from God... stuff like that. Often they have other Bible quotes written on the inside of the bus, right above the front windshield. They are usually along the lines of "God is watching over you on your travels..." My friend Vann found this amusing. Instead of having seat belts, we have the protection of God, as the driver makes risky, high speed attempts to pass slower vehicles on inclines or around blind turns, then stops to cram some more people in the already crowded bus. I feel like it's just part of the adventure, but it does make for exhausting travel.

So Anne, Melissa and I made it safely to San Lucas, though we weren't sure we'd make it there all in one day. We ended up at a crossroads called "Las Trampas" - The Trap - as the sun was getting ready to set, waiting for a bus we weren't sure was coming. Melissa wasn't so keen on trying to catch transportation at a place with such an ominous name, but everything worked out fine. We rode another chicken bus down towards Lake Atitlan as a red, red sun set behind the clouds, and a thick fog blew in. We were in the very back of the bus, a coveted place for elementary school kids. But I found it jarring to be launched out of my seat each time we hopped over one of the many speed bumps. My back was hurting at the end of the ride. At the crossroads to San Lucas Toliman, I entered a hazy, grey fog shrouded world, with an abundance of blinking fireflies greeting me. I was about to share this beautiful moment with my companions, but they were already hopping into the back of a pickup truck headed into town. So I kept it to myself, and continued to watch the blinking flies as the truck whisked us into town.

After some searching, we found the house of Gabriel Cuj and his family, who Anne knows from previous visits to the school. Gabriel is the principal of an autonomous school started 14 years ago. The school is centered around preserving the Mayan cultural traditions of these people, and is part of an association of such schools in Guatemala. Gabriel, his wife Escolastica, and their 3 kids were gracious and welcoming hosts. Gabriel arrived from work shortly after we did, and we had a nice dinner and chat together. The next afternoon, we traveled a half hour to visit the school, where Anne was going to give a concert of songs from various Latin American revolutions and movements in the evening. A member of a community organization was also coming to talk to the children about the Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC), or the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that Guatemala signedwith the US a month ago, amidst large and violent protests by the population that left one protestor murdered by police. CAFTA is no good, and is widely expected to benefit the rich business men in the US and Latin America, while deteriorating conditions for the majority of poor and working class persons in the hemisphere. Call your elected officials and tell them to oppose it: http://www.stopcafta.org/

Well, Gabriel decided that it would be a good idea to have a pannel discussion between the four of us, where each of us would have 10 minutes to talk about the TLC and our reactions to it. Good thing we had done a work shop on global trade agreements and financial institutions just the week before! Some in our small group were still rather nervous about taking the stage in front of 200+ Guatemalan school kids. Given my natural talents and wonderful stage presence, I knew I could hack it (wink, wink...) At the very least, I knew I could blabber on for 10 minutes about how international trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA are undemocratic and have mechanisms to force countries to accept imports of goods, even if the gov't decides it's toxic or against the better good of people; that it will encourage poor people to leave the country to search for work in bigger cities, or even the US; etc... On a side note, did you know that the #1 source of $$ coming into Mexico last year was from money orders sent by Mexicans working in America??!! Why, I ask, after 10+ years of NAFTA, are so many Mexicans continuting to look for work in the US?? Cuz NAFTA ain't done shit to improve the lives of poor people here. The talk went well, and each of us 4 panelists answered a coupla questions from the audience. Then we got ready for Anne's concert.

Melissa and I thought we were off the hook, but we weren't. One of the teachers said they'd like it if we all sang a song together at the end. So we decided on "The Times They Are A Changin" and Anne started her show. The kids loved her songs. She played the one about Che Guevara twice, cuz they asked for it, and each time she tried to end the show, the kids screamed for more: "Otra! Otra! Otra!" Melissa, who'd been nervous about the pannel discussion, was adamant about not singing. She kept telling me no, no, no. But when the time came to share our song, I think she was to nervous to be a bad guest and not do it. So we got up, and the three of us sang while I played. Bob Dylan isn't nearly as popular as Che Guevara in rural Guatemala, for numerous obvious reasons, but I gave a brief description of the song in Spanish, and we dove on in. It went great; I mean, Anne had the kids eating out of her hand at that point, so we really couldn't lose. At the end, one of the teachers thanked us and presented each of us with a small gift of a pound of coffee. As he gave the gift to each of the women, the kids screamed for kisses "Beso! Dale beso!" You could barely hear his words of gratitude over the roar of the children. The kids erupted with delight as Anne, Melissa, and then I blew them kisses in response to their chiding. It was amazing. I had no idea how easy, and satisfying, it is to be a rockstar in the eyes of the youth of Guatemala...

Later that evening Melissa and I met up with Vann, who'd been chillin on the other side of the lake. Then next day, after a walk around town and a swim in the beautifully clear lake, Vann and I left for San Pedro, the touristy lake town where he'd been hanging. Melissa and Anne stayed to check out some more projects going on in San Lucas. San Pedro was OK. We had a nice soak in some solar heated hot tubs. It seemed like the kind of place where you could pass a month in a haze of pot smoke and not do much of anything. But I was only there for a day... The next day, on the way out of town we had a bit of confusion, and ended up paying 150 Quetzales (aroudnd $18) for a private truck ride out of town. The driver tried to drop us off at the side of the road not 15 minutes out of town, but I made him take us to the crossroads where we could catch the bus to Xela, our destination. Vann was pissed at getting swindled, but I told him I'd cover it. It was a beautiful ride twisting up the mountains from the lake. A lot of coffee is grown here, and people have plots all the way up on the steep slopes of these mountains. It must take them at least 2 hours to hike up there at least.

Vann had some business to take care of in Xela, so I watched the partial solar eclipse for a bit, and ate some mango from a street vendor that didn't make me sick (I thought it was gonna). I randomly bumped into a friend of my housemate Susan on the street and had a few beers with her, and then headed back to the language school that Vann had been studying at for a spirited foozball tournament that lasted several hours. The next day, Vann and I spent many many hours on more chicken buses, heading towards the border back to Mexico. One of our buses got stopped four times as the police were searching for criminals or illegal aliens or somthing. They kept asking people for their papers and such, taking some people off, some of whom got back on and some who didn't. It was a long, hot day. We were a bit worried for the border crossing, as Vann had some problems on the way in with his visa. But we made it out fine, and continued traveling to Lagos Montebellos, in Chiapas, where we were meeting some peace house chums for a bit of a retreat and a visioning meeting for the org.

The lakes were beautiful, and the piney forests that surrounded them reminded me of Cape Cod. It was refreshing to be in a quiet place that was new, but some how familiar. We swam and ate and had bonfires at night, had our meetings and explored some caves. It was a nice place to chill before heading back to San Cris, where I now find myself.

Lucha Libre!

2005-04-04T17:09:00.000-05:00

This past Friday I had the opportunity to witness a genuine Mexican tradition which is gaining popularity the world over; LUCHA LIBRE. Lucha Libre is essentially professional wrestling, but in the Mexican version many of the fighters wear masks like this: http://www.mericphoto.com/gallery/ll6.jpg

I got to see classic fighters like Payaso Maligno (Evil Clown), Ninja, and Psicopata Americano (American Psychopath). It was a lot like the wrestling you can see on TV in the US, except this took place in the modest bull ring in San Cristobal as a part of the Spring Fair that is currently going on. In the match I went to, there were two teams Los Tecnicos (ie the good guys) and Los Rudos (The Rude Boys, ie the bad guys). Everyone was cheering wildly for Los Tecnicos - even though the fighting was obviously fake, just as it is in the US - except for the group of young men sitting behind us, who all arrived wearing their own lucha libre masks. They were for Los Rudos. They would cheer at Los Tecnicos: "Tecnicos! Tecnicos! Tecnicos! Tecnicos!" And then, just when Los Tecnicos thought they were cheering them on, the chavos would shout "Que chingan su madre!" I won't translate that litterally. It's not very nice though. Funny, but not nice. The chavos behind us would also throw their mostly empty beer cans at the ring from time to time. A couple of times, a wrestler picked up one of the cans and used it to smack his opponent in the head. Good times. The wrestling was just as you'd imagine it. There were some interesting flips and acrobatics when los luchadores were throwing each other around the ring. The did the leaps off the top ropes, and the fighting would sometimes explode out of the ring into the rows of wooden chairs where us spectators were sitting. People would jump for cover and shout things at the wrestlers, who were pretending to hit each other with folding chairs. We got a nice surprise in the third match when one of the guys who sold us microwave popcorn at the concession stand appeared in the ring on one of the Tecnicos teams. He was wearing a snappy black and red faux leather bellbottomed out fit with a cape. I recognized him because he had these barb-wire temporary tatoos on his face which extended from his sideburns out to his cheeks. He got thrown into the folding chairs right next to me later in the fight.

As the hours and the beers whiled along, it began to drizzle, and we came to the evening's highlight - the cage match. There were about seven fighters going at it in the cage. One of them, the Ninja, came around to shake our hands and personally thank us for coming before climbing into the ring. Two minutes later there was fake blood streaming down his face. Five minutes later he smacked another wrestler over the head with a wooden chair. It was for real this time. There was an audible crack as the chair connected with the masked man's cranium. It was one of those "Awwwww shiiit! I know you didn't...!" moments. The chair was left propped up against the side of the ring after the match was over, next to small pools of rain tinted dark red by the blood that oozed from the Ninja's head wound. It stood there on display, two of the wooden slats cracked, proof to the audience that a chair really was just busted over some dude's skull.

It was an interesting an amusing spectacle, replete with blatant zombie nationalism, as one of the matches had a Mexico vs. Guatemala theme. Many in the crowd were fervently yelling in support of their homeland: "Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!" It struck me how much that nationalistic fervor is stuck in everywhere, and how easily people get swept up in it. The same happens at sporting events in the US... It's also interesting how engaged people get in pro wrestling, how easy it is for silly characters in clown masks pretending to pummel each other can get ordinary people riled up, allowing them to vent their normally pent up emotions. My roommate Monica and I have decided to start a wrestling duo. We're calling ourselves "Los Gueros Fighters" (The Whitey Fighters). We practiced our moves a bit at a party we went to on Saturday, jumping off the couches on top of each other, much to our own amusement. We'll let you know how it goes. It's illegal for us to do work here in Mexico on our current visas, so I don't know how far we'll get.

In other news, I started volunteering at an organic garden on the outskirts of town last week, where I spent three days chambeando - toiling. It's a nice, quiet place with a pleasant view of the city, and it's always a good thing to do a bit of physical labor. I spent much of Wednesday morning pulling weeds, and I'd like to personally thank my loving parents for giving me ample training in such matters as a youth. Thursday we marked off a new bed for planting and set about preparing the soil. This involved taking large hoes and hacking up the pasto - the turf - which consists largely of knotted clumps of thick rooted, stubby grasses. And the unturned earth is dense and clay like. Tough work, and I got the blisters to prove it. But I enjoy working there with Salvador, Mauricio and Señor Ron, who moved to Chiapas from Palo Alto, CA about 30 years ago. As a volunteer there, I get free meals at a vegetarian restaurant in town that Señor Ron also owns, I believe. I also got a couple of bags of lumbrices - worms - for the Peace House worm bin and compost project. Yay worms!

The week before that was Semana Santa, with all sorts of Easter-related events. On Holy Thursday we saw a re-enactment of the Last Supper. There was a music track, and pre-recorded reading of the script, so the actors, with their fake beards and robes, swung their arms about grandly and lip synched when it was their turn to "speak" lines. At the end, they actually put Jesus in "jail," which was a cage next to the pavillion in the center of the square. I don't know if he spent all night there, but the did also re-enact the Way of the Cross (Viacruces) the next day, with Jesus carrying his cross all over town, passing by different churches on the way. I didn't actually get to see it though. What I did see was La Quemada de Judas - the burning of Judas, which is shortend too Quemajudas, or even Quemajudio, or Jew burning. The antisemitism is unfortunate. It's right there in the gospels where the Jews tell Pilate that they accept the blame for Jesus' death and that it will be a curse on their future generations and all that bunk. I have a hard time believing that that is acutally the word of God. Regardless, the Quemajudas in present day San Cristobal involves an puppet contest, of sorts. Local artists build big, life-size puppet, depicting some sort of lamentable situation. The whole thing is a sort of cathartic burning of negative energy. So, at the Quemajudas, the most recognizable figure in all the six puppets that were burned, was Mexican President Vicente Fox. Many of the dioramas depicted some sort of Mexican political crisis or scandal. One encouraged people to recycle their trash instead of throwing it away. My favorite was an homage to the tsunami victims. Its emotional intent was profound.

There were a number of fire trucks on the scene, as the cardboard and plastic structures were to be set ablaze. It turns out that used fire trucks from the US end up in Latin America. The two truck I saw that night still bore the shiny gold decals of the US community they once served on their doors. I think one of them was from Green Springs, KY or something like that. Most of the puppets were packed with fireworks, and the plaza was packed with on lookers. So the puppets really took off once lit, spewing rockets and bright white sparks every where. One puppet shot fireworks and debris out towards the cloud, with a burning chunk of puppet landing in the street right next to that fire truck from Green Springs, KY, as the stunned fire fighters looked kinda stunned and wondered if they should do anything. I was struck by the close proximity of the spectators to the burning, exploding puppets. I remember fireworks displays in the US for the 4th of July, where town officials don't let anyone get anywhere near the rockets. Too much of a liability. I guess that's just not the case here. The danger zone. Then again, I also remember my dad setting off fireworks outside our house aroud new years one year. One of the buggers didn't launch right, and spund around and around on the ground, shooting directly towards my dad and his bag of explosives, which was pushed by the rocket towards our open garage door, making me believe more and more that my house would soon be engulfed in flames. Crisis was averted, though. I guess it's this kind of "danger zone" instance that I need to hold close to my heart here in Mexico.

Yo no quiero taco bell!

2005-03-22T16:12:00.000-06:00

I had the chance to support this group in Florida at the FTAA protests in 2003, and also in Irvine, CA in 2004. Read more about this successful campaign to improve working conditions for farmworkers in Florida below.

COALITION OF IMMOKALEE WORKERS, TACO BELL(r) REACH GROUNDBREAKING
AGREEMENT

March 8, 2005 (IMMOKALEE/LOUISVILLE) - In a precedent-setting move,
fast-food industry leader Taco Bell Corp., a division of Yum! Brands
(NYSE: YUM), has agreed to work with the Florida-based farm worker
organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), to address the
wages and working conditions of farmworkers in the Florida tomato
industry.

read more: http://www.ciw-online.org/news.html

it can't be worse than the last one...

2005-03-22T14:50:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody! Less than 2 months to go until the NEW STAR WARS MOVIE OPENS! I'm already waiting in line down here. I got my plastic lightsabers and my obi-wan kenobi tunic. It's gonna be great. I'm counting the seconds. Let me geek out on you: http://www.starwars.com/ for the trailer.

And here's a funny video clip that my friend Lori sent me of a cop stopping a drunk driver. Verry funnee:
http://www.big-boys.com/articles/topdui.html

Hope you all enjoy National Egg Day this weekend! That reminds me of my trip to the campo. Being in the country, there was a large variety of livestock that roamed freely around the community. Hungry dogs who barked and fought all hours of the night; muddy, snorffleing pigs, one of whom scratched an itch by rubbing his flank agains the wall right at the head of my bed as I slept one early morning; horses that grazed mainly at night; roosters that crowed all throught the night; and chickens. There was one hen in particular that would sneak into our bunk house by wiggling under the wall at one end. She would then sit on the bed of my teacher friend Gabriel and leave him a present in the form of a freshly laid egg. She did this with regularity. So here's to hoping that a chicken sneaks into your house on Easter Day Eve and leaves you a freshly laid egg on your pillow. I sense a new tradition forming here... Maybe the chicken will drop down the chimney late at night and drop eggs for all the good little peoples of the world, just like Santa...

Semana Santa

2005-03-21T17:50:00.000-06:00

Holy Week has begun in San Cristobal, and the people here are celebrating by, among other things, shooting off fire works - cohetes - all hours of the day and night. This caused Javier to call San Cris the Fallujah of Mexico. Indeed, given the tumultuous nature of 11 years of Zapatista uprising, and military-sponsored violence, many locals call the city "San Crisis" or "San Cris-Bosnia." I returned to fair "San Cohetes" Thursday morning after two weeks out in the country, glad to be back and returning to the comforts of the Peace House. Since returning I've eaten a cheeseburger w/ fries, played video games with Melissa, washed my underthingies and hankies, danced and drank till 4am at a house party (where I pretended I could salsa), bought a snappy hawaiian-style shirt for said party, spoke to Mammy and Pappy via internet phone (2 cents a minute, people!), and watched a Monty Python flick at a local film house. We've had 2 house workshops (one of which focused on the complexities and challenges of being a privileged 1st worlder doing solidarity work in the 3rd world), and have 2 more this evening, where we review new volunteer applications. Yesterday a friend of the house accidentally stepped through a sky light at a hostal while hanging out on the roof with some friends. He fell 3 meters, at least, but broke no bones, and didn't so much as scratch himself. He spent the night in the hospital, and is apparently back at home, and even walking around. Some guys have all the luck, eh?

It's nice to be back at home base. Trips to "Peace Camp" in the campo can be long, drawn out, introspective times, I was told before I left, and I found this to be true, even though I was in a relatively large and busy community. I was in Francisco Gomez (also know as La Garrucha), a Zapatista municipality in a canyon that leads down from the High Lands around San Cristobal into the Lacandon jungle. My purpose in going was to participate in a "Campamento Civil para la Paz" or peace camp. The campamentos were set up in Zapatista communities in '95 as a means to document and deter army and paramilitary attacks against those communities through the presence of international volunteers. Generally, things here are presently rather calm. The army passed by the community daily in little caravans - a couple of humvees with big machine guns on top escorting a truck carrying 10 to 15 soldiers, but there was not direct confrontation or intimidation going on. Still, things can be tense in divided communities (ie. not 100% Zapatista) or over local disputes, say over municpal elections. Violence and even killings are still happening, and at times the conflicts still force Zapatista families to flee there homes and hide in the mountains.

I made it to the community safely enough. One of the campesinos in the back of the pickup truck I rode in passed me a bottle of aguardiente (fire water - liquor made from sugar cane) and asked me where I was going, though I'm sure he knew the answer. I asked what he did, and he told me he was in the army. I responded that I had 2 cousins in the army, one of whom is getting ready to go back to Iraq. When he asked me why I didn't join myself, I told him I'd wanted to do other things... I sat down and begged off the liquor that he and his friends kept passing my way. When I got to La Garrucha, he also got off the truck, drunkenly sharing a few more swigs of aguardiente with some friends before wobbling off home. It seemed a bit strange to me that a self-professed military man was getting off right by the Zapatista community, as the base was still a ways on down the road. But I went on about my business. Strangely, I saw him around the community a number of times, always wearing the same "Walker-Texas Ranger" t-shirt bearing a montage image of Chuck Norris' face, a pickup truck, and a Texas Ranger badge over a background of a waving American flag. I even think that one morning he came by the campamentista bunk house we all slept in to ask us how many tortillas we wanted for the day. I eventually told a friend I'd made - one of the community school teachers - about it, and he seemed to think the guy was bullshitting me. Maybe that's the joke he likes to play on the hueros (light skinned people) he meets on the way to the community.

My first days in La Garrucha were marked by a general feeling of "What the hell am I doing here?!" And not just in terms of being in the community, but in Mexico in general. This was accompanied by the feeling that "Maybe I should just get the hell out of here..." I guess I attribute these thoughts to the difficulty of doing solidarity work in a foreign country, the challenges of living in a rural community, and also the fact that I'm going through my Saturn Return. http://www.newage-directory.com/saturn.html http://www.astrologycom.com/saturn.html This is the astrological occurence of the planet Saturn returning to the celestial location it occupied at the time of your birth. Basically, it's a time of "endings and new beginnings" that can often be challenging and intense, when one moves from the Phase of Youth to the Phase of Maturity. I suppose that this search for a new beginning was one of my primary, albeit vaguely defined, motiviations for this trip. And now I'm getting what I asked for, but it's feeling a bit more challenging and intense that I expected (or didn't expect) it to be. As my teacher friend Gabriel said to me, in the wise words of his grandmother: "It's a great thing to be born again, but you don't have to kill yourself to do it." I agree 100%, but theoretical understanding is one thing. Putting it into practice is another thing all together.

I did manage to have a good time, despite the philosophical and existential rumblings of my soul. And, coincidentally enough, for a second time in as many months in Mexico, my work involved lumber. This time it was accompanying Gabriel 2km up a steep peek behind the community called Corralchen to retrieve the 27 boards and timbers cut from a felled tree that will be used to build new house for the 4 community school teachers. The weather in La Garrucha was frequently quite warm and often a bit humid. The first day I accompanied Gabriel up the mountain, we left rather close to noon, when the day was getting towards its hottest. I had breakfasted on coffee and a few cookies, and brought no water with me. On one of the occasions when we stopped on the way up to catch our breath and admire the view, Gabriel made the sarcastic remark that my bike trip guide made every time he had to wait for me as I panted my way up the hills around San Cristobal: "Otro cigarillo?" (Another cigarette?). I'm sensing some commonalities in the Mexican sense of humor. I wasn't quite sure what exactly we'd be doing, and when I realized exactly what it was, I was rather disheartened. Gabriel assured me that it wold be easy to just slide the boards down one on top of the other. The path up the hill had been a rather steep accent, but had flattened out substantially before we got to the tree. So I was rather skeptical. Quite, acutally. 10 of the boards were 4x4s between 3 and 4 meters long, and heavy with the sap that once ran through the heart of the ocote tree. We spent a good 3 hours lugging the boards from the sight of the felling to the start of the descent. I was feeling rather peckish before we started toting the wood, and by the time Gabriel suggested we go down to get some food and water, it was taking all my power to focus on not passing out. I was beat, hungry and dehydrated. But I made it down OK, and Gabriel let me rest during the afternoon. We went back up a few days later to finish the job, which took us from 9 am until 6 pm. The boards actuall did slide down the hill rather well. At least we didn't have to drag it all the way. Thankfully, our second day of work was hazy and over cast, not nearly as hot, and I was sure to eat a big bowl of granola for breakfast, and bring water.

My bouts of labor were split by two days of festivities for International Womens' Day. http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womday97.htm Lots of people came to the municipal seat from the surrounding communities. There was a basketball tournament (basketball is big with the Zapatistas), food, dancing, and loud music blaring pretty much nonstop, or at least as long as the power was on. My favorite song, which I heard at least 6 times over the cours of two nights features the refrain "Que me laves la ropa y la cosa." It's a charming mexican song in which a husband asks his wife to "wash my clothes and my thingy." Very romantic, and, as one compañero pointed out, very appropriate for International Womens' Day as well. You know what I mean by thingy, right? Anyway, the music blared until 5 or 6 am, so we spent a few sleep deprived nights bouncing around to the music.

Lots of internationals passed thru La Garrucha while I was there. Germans, Spaniards, Swiss, more Germans, a bunch of Gringos, loads of Mexicans, even more Germans, some Italians, the Spaniard came back. People coming and going. We ate popsicles at the cafeteria, bathed in a nearby river on hot hot hot afternoons, cooked beans and rice for dinner over a smoky wood fire, played basketball against some of the compañeros (they're really good), burned our garbage (local custom), cooked more beans and rice, read books, played chess, watched a puppet show put on by traveling performers who visit the community every year. I also ended up helping a Spaniard named Alex work on setting up a fenced in pasture for sheep that were coming to the community.

As La Garrucha is one of the Zapatista communites with a bike shop, I also availed myself of the visit to the community to check out the situation there. I spoke with the Junta (local council) about the shop and asked if they were interested in any training, and got a response in a few days. What they really need are parts. They have a full set of tools, and a few bikes donated by a group in '03. But without the parts they can't really fix anything. So I have a full list of parts, essentially everything you need to put a bike together (save a frame), and am going to try to find a source for parts, either local or other wise. It feels like a challenge, for sure, given the scant response I've received from the US groups I've contacted so far, and the troubles involved in importing bikes to Mexico. I kinda feel like I'm flapping out in the wind here with this project. The Junta approved the workshop, which might happen in June or July, as now is the busy time of planting the milpa (corn patch), and there is a lot of work in the field. But I'm questioning my abilities to adequately lead a repair workshop; a compañero I spoke with said that the repairs they had questions about include building wheels, lacing spokes, and changing out bottom brackets, repairs that I am familiar with in only a loose, theoretical sense...

For now, I am back in San Cristobal, though, and enjoying being back from the community. I'm going to look into contacting orgs for support with bike part donations, and try to contact the group that did workshops back in '03. I think there are a few new volunteers who are biking down to San Cristobal right now (*jealous*******!) who might be interested in working on this too. So I'ma gonna see what I can put together. Tomorrow I hope to finally get some worms for the house worm bin, by volunteering at a nearby garden. We need em too, cuz the froot flies are going crazy in the compost bin...

Goin' down to the country...

2005-03-02T18:25:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow I'll be heading out to the campo to spend two weeks living in a Zapatista community. So I'll probably be incognito till I return to San Cris. In the meantime, check out the CPHP website, where you'll soon be able to view the February newsletter, to which I contributed a piece. http://www.uupeacehouse.org/
It might not be posted for a few days, tho, so be *patient*.

Yo soy MacGyver.

2005-02-27T11:42:00.000-06:00

The Peace House is fillin' on up. This week, 3 new voluntees moved in, and 3 others moved out to find other residences in San Cris. We are now 3 women and 3 men in the house, with a group of 3 or 4 "non-resident volunteers" who are affiliated with the house, but don't actually live there. They just come over sometime to eat our food. The house consists of 4 gringos (myself, Monica, Susan and Indigo), one spaniard (Javier) and an españo-gringo (Diego, who was born in the US to spanish parents). The Elvis Presley bookshelf is still standing, and I built a bed last week for Diego and Javier's room. It consists of a platform of boards that I nailed together supported by 6 cinder blocks. And it turned out pretty good. Least ways, Diego hasn't complained about it yet.

Javier is a good natured chap, and he seems to enjoy giving people nicknames. He christened me MacGyver (in spanish it's pronounced MacGeeever) after I repaired a loose toilet bowl seat with some wire. Ah, MacGyver. Wasn't he everybody's hero in 4th grade? I know he was mine. Here's a picture of good ol' Mac from some one's cheesy fan site: http://www.uplinktech.net/macgyver/photo/jeepmac.html Javier also greets Indigo with a rousing cry of "Hola, Hippie!" - cuz she's a hippie. But Javier now has his own nickname. Some of us started calling him Gachupin, which is a derrogatory term for Spaniards in Mexico - like Gringo for Americans. Indigo, however, had trouble remembering the word gachupin at first. So she calls Javier Gaspacho.

In other news of repair and construction, I did a little work on the Peace House bike on Friday. The front fork was loose, so I took it apart to see if I could fix it. And to my surprise, I could. Good thing, eh? Since I'm here to help with bike repair and all... When I was fiddling with the rear brakes, I noticed that the rear wheel was kinda messed up, so I took that of and tried to fix it. That went not quite as well, as the axel is bent and the gear cassette is loose, and I don't have the tool to tighten it... Following success with failure like that wasn't so reassuring, but some things are just beyond my control, I guess. The Zapatistas use a phrase that goes something like: to each according to need, from each according to ability.

I was blessed with some package love this week. TWO packages! One with cookies and other goodies from my parentals, and a nice letter and some mix CDs from my friend Tenley. It's nice to get mail (you can still send me stuff at the address listed in a previous post on this blog. hint, hint.)

The weekend before last I did some traveling to some Zapatista communities. There was a delegation of Israeli and American activists who were visiting San Cristobal, and wanted to meet with some of the community members. It was a good chance for me to visit local communities, and I also learned more about the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The delegation consisted of Reuven and Daphna, who moved from Detroit to Jerusalem in 1951 and became involved in the Israeli Peace movement (Daphna is one of the founders of Women In Black: http://www.chorley2.demon.co.uk/wib.html), Daphna's sister Selma, who has been active in Civil Rights and Welfare Rights issues in Detroit, and their friend Diana, who has connections with people and organizations in San Cris. On Friday we visited the community of Oventik, where I actually acted as translator for the group. This basically consisted of translating spanish to english when our group met with the Junta - the community governing council in Zapatista communities. This was lucky for me, cuz it's way harder to translate the other way around. I got a couple of compliments from the delegation, and it was good to know my efforts were appreciated. On Monday we visited Morelia, another Zapatista community. This time I got to sit and watch, as a translator was hired to accompany the group. It was a nice trip, and interesting to compare between the different communities. The council in Oventic was much more formal than in Morelia, and our group was able to have more of a dialogue with people in Morelia, which they enjoyed.

Other than that I've passed the time with some document translation, a bit of wrangling with Mexican bureaucracy to get my visa extended, and welcoming the new house memebers. I'll leave you with some of the immortal words of MacGyver: "I think if you try hard enough and make the best of a situation, the situation won't get the best of you." That was from the episode where he broke out of a Turkish prison using only duck tape, a hershey bar and a bubble gum wrapper...

have you ever seen the rain?

2005-02-16T15:40:00.000-06:00

Things have been going pretty well in San Cris. The sun has been shining, and I been keepin' my schnoz sunblocked. I even bought a bucket hat at the mercado - the kind that fishermen wear, with their lures stuck on 'em. Only this one doesn't have lures. It's got a near red, green and yellow stripe runnin' around it, tho. I spent the end of last week shopping for wood to build a book case with, and reading most of the house's spanish comic book collection. The X Men rule.

I was feeling this odd mixture of antsy-pants-ness and anxiety last week. The antsy-ness was from getting here and feeling like I should be doing stuff, but not knowing exactly what I should be doing... And the anxiety was a mixture of culture shock and feelings of communication inadequacies. I can understand and make myself understood well enough to get by, but I'm far from perfect on both accounts. So I was feeling like a bumbling idiot when I'm going around to these lumber yards and woodshops on the outskirts of town, talking to the men there about buying a docena of wood. See, boards of wood come by the dozen here, each being 250 cm long. So it's a bit intimidating to feel like that. Tho I realize that not a lot of gringos come to Mexico to buy docenas of wood. The dueño of one of the woodshops took me for a ride up to his storage yard a couple blocks away. That was a trip. We were in the car for less than 5 minutes, but we were near a neighborhood called La Hormiga (the ant) that isn't so gringo friendly. I freaked out a bit and almost jumped out of the car. Of course, I was in no danger at all, and the guy was trying to explain to me the difference of the types of pine he had for sale. Just another up tight gringo tourist... I have since come up with an antidote for this anxiety, and it's the kind of attitude that I think my former housemate Dan would espouse: I've had a good run, and it's a good day to die. Dan's a care-free kinda guy, and I think it's a good way to poke fun at those irrational fears that pop into one's head now and then. There were also delays in purchasing the wood that were out of my control; namely, making sure that the other house members were OK with the purchase, and ensure we had enough money in our meager budget to buy it. Ahh, living communally... Did I mention we have weekly house meetings...

So I took a break from wood searching for the weekend, and spent Saturday afternoon in the woods outside San Cris with Melissa, Vann, Juan Carlos and Julieta. We were up in the pine forest, picnicking on sandwiches, and playing soccer amongst the trees. We also made up a game that went like this. I stood up in front everyone and we bounced a beach ball around between us. When the ball got away from us, I ran down the hill after it, hoping to catch it before it got to the really steep part of the hill about 20 meters down. So I chased the ball down the hill, but it bounced off a tree and went in another direction as I slid down the hill past it. I was possessed, tho, and made an amazing backwards leaping catch to save the ball, much to the glee of my adoring fans above. It was really awesome; you shoulda been there. We only played this game once, cuz the hill was really steep.

On Monday I was able, with house approval, to buy the wood. We'd planned to make a number of different useful things with the wood from the docena - the bookshelves, a worm bin, a bed platform, as well as some other random things. We had the shop cut it to length for us. Yesterday, I set out to assemble the bookcase. I was a bit worried because the planks were cut ROUGHLY to length, and I knew it wouldn't quite fit snugly together. But I had help from my housemate Melissa and her friend Chavi. We were listening to an Elvis Presley cassette while we worked, and Chavi joked that the bookcase was gonna shake just like Elvis by the time we got done with it. Which it did. It was a bit on the wobbly side. I found some small scrap pieces that I used to brace the four corners, and that helped a lot. Chavi remarked that it ended up being "muy potente" (or very strong). And 24 hours later it is still standing! At least I hope it is. I haven't been home in a few hours...

To celebrate, Melissa, Chavi and I went out to a local Mexican bar called Los Amigos. Yesterday afternoon, Los Amigos was offering 2fer1 beers, with free food. Can you beat it?! This is the same bar that I watched half the superbowl at, tho I could hardly see what was going on cuz the screen was so fuzzy. And I'd wager that most Mexicans don't give a shit about who wins the superbowl. There are also a lot of musicians that go around the room, playing songs to people at different tables. They play mostly traditional and contemporary Mexican songs, and they feature bass, accordion, guitar, and a mexican five string guitar. The night of the superbowl my table actually got kicked out, cuz all of the Mexican friends of my housemate were loudly singing popular mexican rock songs with the one teenager who plays in the place. Well, at 3pm on a Tuesday, this place was packed. We ended up having to share a table with a lone man who turned out to be in the military, stationed outside of San Cristóbal. He was a nice enough guy, and we got to talking. Chavi told a funny story about seeing this kid get kicked in the balls in Nicaragua. A crowed formed around him, and made jokes about him while he writhed on the ground. For example: "Hey! Go run to the pharmacy and see if they have any cream for this kind of thing!" A real funny story. The military man is telling us how he likes to play video games on his playstation at the base on his days off, and how money is the root of all evil. The musicos are singing and playing all over the bar. All the while, there's this kungfu soccer movie showing on the tvs, with people flying thru the air and booting footballs all around.

The military man is glad to have the company, I think, and starts buying us beers; he has a two hour head start on us. Melissa keeps giving me looks, cuz she's sure that the afternoon isn't going to end well. After a while, Military Man calls the teen that plays mexican rock songs over to our table, and he starts playing for us. I recognize some of them from a few weeks ago. In between songs, the kid gets me to teach him some scales on the guitar; but I'm not that familiar with the pentatonic, cuz I didn't stick with my guitar lessons last year. I show him what I know, and he keeps playing. After five songs or so, the kid asks me if I know any Creedence. He just learned to play "have you ever seen the rain." So I sing along with him. Only I don't know the verses, only the chorus. So here I am singing "blah blah blah blah..." to the verses, and singing the chorus... And the Military Man must recognize the song, cuz he's singing along with me, but he has no idea of the words either cuz he doesn't speak english. But he's mouthing the words along with me, mimicking my sounds...

We left around 5:30, much to Military Man's disappointment. He really wanted us to go out with him, even after 4.5 hours of drinking. We watched the sun set behind the hills from a church courtyard as the bells rang, calling people to evening mass. Then we headed home. I got a headache, and was in bed by 8:00 with random fireworks and howling dogs lulling me to sleep.

Happy Valentine's Day to all you friends and lovers out there. I love you guys. No, seriously.

finally found a home

2005-02-09T11:11:00.000-06:00

So I moved into the Peace House on Monday. It was nice to unpack my bag and settle in a bit more, tho I'll be changing my room in about a week, as current volunteers find other living situations, and newbie volunteers arrive. Tonight is my first attempt at cooking dinner for the house, which residents do every week. Garbanzo stew is on the menu. And now that I am settled, you can send me mail at the following PO box:
Pago de Apdo. Postal Num. 303
San Cristobal de las Casas
Chiapas, Mexico 29200
The word is it takes from one to three weeks for mail to arrive, and that packages are sometime lost or stolen. Asi es.

On Saturday I took a guided bike tour of the campo outside San Cristobal with a group called Los Pinguinos (the penguins). Joel, our guide, is a mountain bike racer here in Mexico, who aparently almost always comes in first place. He's got the trophies to back it up. A Swiss couple, David and Sandra also came on the trip. There was a lot of climbing. San Cristobal sits in a valley over 2,000 meters (6,000 ft) in elevation, and is surrounded by hills on all sides. We rode around a small community to the south east of the city, with Mayan women herding flocks of sheep around the pastures, and roosters crowing in the yards and gardens. We spent some time sitting outside of the local cemetary talking about the history of the indigenous Mayans in the area, and the effects spanish colonization has had on them. There is an old church in the community, dating back to the late 1600s. Apparently, the indigenous peoples of the area were nominally converted to Catholicism by the Dominicans and other missionaries in the 1500s. But they were given lee-way to integrate their own colorful traditions, such as Dia de los Muertos, with church festivals. From the small community church we rode up into the cloud forests that crown the hills around San Cris. The pine trees there are inhabited by three different kinds of bromeliads, which are sort of like orchids living in a drier climate. On our descent we had some nice views of the city. I started going to fast at first, and lost control and hit a tree. Which was a good thing, cuz it stopped me. And it was a small tree, so I don't think either of us was hurt too badly. I also got a good gringo sunburn on my face and arms. I had ran out of sunscreen. But I'm a lot closer to the sun here at this altitude, and longitude. My nose keeps turning red when I spend any time in the sun, even if I put sunscreen on. It's time to invest in a hat, eh?

Yesterday I went to San Juan Chamula, a near by town, for the final day of Carnival; Fat Tuesday, as it were. But sans any scantily clad, feather and sparkle laden women as one may see in Brazil and other locations. There were a lot of bulls. Nine in fact. Three from each of the different barrios of the town. It's kind of like a bull fight in Spain, with some distinct differences. Ropes are tied around the horns of the bull and groups of costumed men pull the bull from the front and behind to bring it through the streets down to the Plaza Mayor, or zocalo. There are also men who poke and slap the bull with long wooden switches to get it good and pissed off. There are also men in colorful costumes and tassled hats who's job it is to run and jump around and blow horns to alert the crowds that the bull is coming through the streets. At this point, all the people cram on to the sidewalks and watch as the bull runs up, and stops, and pulls against the ropes, and swings and bucks around the street. It's sort of dangerous, but the men are able to control it well enough. The main event is leading the bull into the zocalo, where the majority of the people are gathered, and spectators line the rooves of all the buildings to watch the spectaculo. So the men with ropes run the bull around and around the zocalo in circles. Crowds of young men run after it and jump on the bull's back and try to ride it for a while, usually no more than a few seconds. The process continues over and over for the whole afternoon. Quite a sight to see. And my gringo nose is nice and red again from another afternoon in the sun.

San Cristóbal de las Casas

2005-02-04T14:19:00.000-06:00

I arrived safely in San Cris on Tuesday afternoon, and was greeted at the bus station by Melissa, the Field Coordinator for the Peace House, and my friend Vann. So far, we've meet a lot of the Peace House volunteers and friends, and have enjoyed some nice meals and socializing at the House. I'll soon be moving into the house, where I'll be building a new bookshelf, painting the bathroom, and building a worm bin for ze composting. Who'da thunk that they got worms down here too?! Joy!!
The most exciting thing I've seen so far is the mercado, which we visited on Wednesday to shop for la despedida - goodbye party - for one of the Peace House volunteers. It's an amazing place. Fruit and veggie stands covered with tin roofs and tarps, a giant indoor area full of meat, fish and cheeses. That's where all the dogs hang out, of course. Mangos, mandarinas, ginger, tomates. Hay de todo. I'm taller than the average Mexican, and certainly the indigenous campesinos in the mercado. So I banged my head once on the low hanging tin roof. I also got some of my big gringo toes run over by a over-stuffed cart full of dry goods tried to squeeze through the narrow walk way full of shoppers. No permanent damage done.
On Monday I'll most likely be headed up to the Zapatista community of Oventic for a composting clinic, and to escort Vann to his language school. It'll be nice to take my first visit of the campo. Oventic is also a site of one of the bike workshops I might be working with, so I'll get to scope that out to. Right now I'm off to visit a local bike shop that offers rentals and tours of local communities.

La Lucha Sigue

2005-02-04T14:05:00.000-06:00

For those who remember the sordid story of my arrest at the anti-war protest at the Oakland Docks in 2003, and the resulting year long trial of the Oakland 25, you might be interested in checking out this link:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0203-08.htm
The City of Oakland has made a settlement offer to the 58 protestors who were injured when the police opened fire, while refusing to admit any wrong doing, of course. And those injured people are still dealing with the aftermath of the violent, unprovoked police attacks almost two years later. And the struggle continues...

Aguas Azules

2005-01-31T19:39:00.000-06:00

Palenque, Mx- It feels good to be inland, in the state of Chiapas, and closer to my destination. The 12 hour bus ride from Tulum wasn't all that bad. The bus was top of the line, as far as Mexican transport is concerned, and we only had to sit through one bad Antonio Sabato, Jr. movie before the driver turned off the TV. The bus sometimes rocked back and forth on the highway like a ship on rough seas. Good thing I don't get car sick! We had to stop at 11:30 pm because the carretera was blocked by an overturned tractor trailer. Turns out it was carrying liquor, and all these guys from the stopped cars were running up to the wreck and walking back past the bus with armloads of tequila bottles. One of the passengers went out and grabbed a couple, but sadly did not pass any around. I met a woman named Catherine on the bus, and laughed with her at how bad the movie was. When we got in to Palenque at 6am, we took a cab out to El Panchan, this forested, hippie-type camping and cabaña area 5km outside the town. Yesterday was a dead day, as we had to wait 5 more hours for our cabañas to be ready. I slept for most of the afternoon.

Today we toured the ruin site at Palenque, the largest Mayan site in Mexico. Only 5% of the temples of the city are excavated. It was abandoned in 900AD, and the jungle has taken it over, so there are layers of soil and vegetation covering all the structures. There are at least 1400 temples and structures on the site - burial pyramids, ceremonial temples, palaces for the royals. They took photos and xray & infrared images from the air, but they still don't know what is where. Kinda makes me wonder what kind of legacy will represent our society 1000 years in the future... The Golden Arches archealogical site... They'll marvel at the many Starbucks temples that we erected in all of our towns, villages and urban centers... Jeez, I'm chokin up here... (tenderly wipes a tear from his eye... continues typing)

We also saw the waterfall at Misol-Ha, which according to the Lonely Planet guide book, was featured in that classic Arnold Schwarzenegger flick The Preadator (y'all need to put that on your net flix list). The coolest thing about this site was the trail that led behind the waterfall to a cave that had a stream flowing out of it. You could walk into the cave and, with a flashlight, make out where the water was flowing out of the ground. There was a little waterfall and pool in the cave too. From there, we headed to Agua Azul, another waterfall about an hour from Misol-Ha. On the way, we passed through some Zapatista communities with their tell-tale signs: "Ud. esta en la territoria Zapatista - en rebeldia" or "You are in Zapatista territory - in rebellion." The communities were small, and quite poor. The highway weaves its way throught the jungle hills. There are spots on the hillsides that are cleared of brush so people can plant small patches of corn.

Agua Azul was a beautiful site that we spent the afternoon at. It's a series of waterfalls that come rushing down from the jungle above. The water is clear, blue and cool. Great swimming. I even did some laps against the current, since I don't know how many pools I'm gonna find out here. It's always nice to hang out at the waterfalls and splash in the pools. (shout out to Stonybrook with the cousins! University Falls, kids! It's all too beautiful! Booty shakin' in the hot tub! Yeah, baby!) As I type this, a gecko is wriggling its way up the outside of the window in front of me. Welcome to the jungle baby! (your gonna dieeeeeeeeeee!)

Tomorrow morning it's on to San Cristobal.

Las Ruinas Tulum

2005-01-29T11:31:00.000-06:00

I arrived in Cancun a week ago tommorrow. Everything went fine at the airport. Tenley was sweet enought to give me a ride to the airport, where I got an open ended round trip ticket [six months max] from the counter. Y'all should check out airtech.com. It's the best $250 I ever spent. I didn't bother spending any time in Cancun itself, as I've heard that it's sort of the pits, as in crazy expensive tourist trap. I instead headed south to Playa del Carmen, a slightly less populated tourist mecca. It was quaint enough there, but on my second day, I left for Tulum, another hour south of Playa del Carmen. There I stayed at Hotel El Crucero, a quiet little crossroads hotel 3km outside of Tulum Pueblo. Things are much less touristy, and more laid back here. And the hotel is run by Japhet, a college friend of ex-Purple House resident Margot. Japhet was nice enough to chat with me for a bit, tho he seemed tired and frazzled from working too hard. I guess that's how it goes when the German couple that was running the restaurant at your hotel up and leave with hardly any notice after depleting most of the bar stock... But it was a nice place to relax and work on my sunburn.

The highlights of Tulum are its beautiful, white-sand beaches, and a minor ruin site that is located right on the edge of el Mar Caribe. Las Ruinas Tulum is an ancient walled city with Mayan temples dedicated to various deities - the descending god, the god of the winds, the god of rain. The structures aren't incredibly huge, but the location above the blue blue sea is really nice. I spent one morning poking around the ruins, and an afternoon lazing on the beach below the main temple. Other highlights of the trip so far include - naps! tequila shots with two sisters from Chico who are headed to Belize to open an eco-village! missing the bus to Palenque last night! snorkeling along the reefs outside Tulum and seeing some sea-green sea anemones, baby! chatting with Enrique Diaz, a Chiapaneco [dude from Chiapas] painter who has a studio next to the Hotel El Crucero!

I have secured a seat on this evening's bus to Palenque. I missed yesterday's cuz it was full. After a few days in Palenque, I'll be on to San Cristobal for Tuesday, where I'll be meeting up with mi amigo Vann Miller and Melissa from the Peace House.

The Rough Edits

2005-01-28T12:47:00.000-06:00

The week before I left for Mexico, I recorded some of my songs for the sake of posterity, and for y'alls enjoyment. As the title says, they are rough edits, but you'll get the picture. They are available for streaming and downloading at: http://vanilla.hopto.org

"hallo to tha bears" is dedicated to Colin Stevens, the Purple House, and the people of Mexico.

Special love and thanks to my compañero Vann Miller for recording and web posting assistance. Big up!

Look Ma, I'm a blogger!!!

2005-01-26T12:34:00.000-06:00

Howdy folks!

If you want to keep tabs on me during my stay in San Cristobal de las Casas, you can check this here blog. I mean, who really wants to deal with those annoying mass emails anyway.

San Cristobal is in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. I'll be doing some volunteer work here thru an organization called the Chiapas Peace House Project. They have a house in San Cristobal where they host volunteers, and provide them with food, shelter, community, and connections to different nonprofit organizations doing work in the state. Visit their website: http://www.uupeacehouse.org/

Hopefully I'll be posting here every week or so. Check back, yo!

my crazy picture

2005-01-01T17:25:00.000-06:00