la rutas

for all of you who like taking public transportation, the rutas in Cuernavaca are a trip. they are these mini-buses, in varying condition, and every driver has wall hangins and decorations inside to personalize their bus. favorite soccer teams are a pretty common theme, but one I was on had a tweety bird theme!! to take them, you have to know the city pretty well, like where exactly you are going and where you want to get on and off because there is no map or schedule. You just look for a bus that has the place where you want to go in the window. And if you get on the wrong bus, you can't always just walk across the street and wait for a new one because the routes back are different. That hasn't happened to me yet, thank goodness, but it is something you have to check all the time. And sometimes even routes with the same numbers say they are going different places.

To top it off, I think the ruta drivers have a year-long race going on. One day I was on one that was ripping around corners and making some crazy driving moves just to pass the other rutas in front. yesderday my ruta driver was getting super mad at the bad traffic, and layed on his horn about once every minute. they like driving fast, and if they can't they get really frustrated and try and cram into spots that are definitely not big enough. Then there are some stops where they get a card punched to record what time they arrived at the stop. I know it is to measure effeciency, but I like to think they are keeping records and at the end of the year one ruta driver will win the ruta cup or something.

derechos humanos

This month of April has been by far the best, because we live with families, ride the public transportation (las rutas), and work at an internship site. I am doing my internship at a place called La Comision Independiente de Derechos Humanos (from now on called La Comision). I split my time between three places. One is La Comuna, which is a cafe that they own and collectively run. Its fun to be there, because there are always groups having meetings or press conferences going on. Its a place of a lot of action and every day I meet someone new. Since my Spanish is good, but not good enough to be a waitress (can you repeat your order please? again?) I help out by preparing some food, brining people coffee, and washing the dishes. The next place that I go to is the official office of La Comision, which is really close and suprisingly a really good location in the middle of downtown Cuernavaca. There, I am able to check my email and my job is to help them organize all of their papers. I categorize newspaper article clippings, and try to find space in an already crammed office to put them. Its okay though, its nice to go to a quiet space sometimes. Okay, who am I kidding, this part is not my favorite, but it is something that they need so I grin and bear it. Their office actually has a wealth of information about socail movements, and if it was organized it could be a really useful resource for people. The third place that I go is to the offices of Sin Linea, an independent news magazine, which is two floors down from our office. There I give two young women reporters English lessons.. well more like we chat in English and they practice basic phrases with me. Last time was really fun though.. because they are all interested in politics they were asking me about my opinions on the election (actually, people are very aware of this election. I get asked that question all the time) so we read Obama's health care platform on the internet. It was really fun! And I really like the people who work in that office as well. A lot of them are in their late twenties/early thirties, so we joke around and talk about other things in Spanish. Its nice to have Mexican friends.

In the same vein about having Mexican friends, I went to a prize ceremony for a Human Rights award on Saturday, and it was so nice because I knew a good group of people there, and I felt like I was getting to know the social justice community. Granted, I think everyone in that room knew everyone else, but it was nice all the same. I ran into the jewelry artesan who I had taken one class from about 2 months ago and then lost touch with, and talked with him for a while and we exchanged emails so more classes can actually happen! He is involved with the Zapatistas and knows a lot of Mexican history, so the classes are amazing because it is not just makign earrings, but talking about social movements. I say classes for lack of a better word, because it is more like we sit down together at a table for a set period of time, but its nothing official. I also got to spend more time with a youth activist that I have made friends with, just chatting, learning more about all the people in the room, and having a good time. All in all, it was a great day.

boing

the search for an alernative to Coca-Cola has now been completed. Coca-Cola is everywhere in Mexico, and I mean everywhere. In remote villages where they on't even have water, the coke truck will inevitably come. but, there is a cooperative company called Pascual Boing, which makes juice and pop. its actually pretty famous in Mexico and a lot of people drink it. plus it tastes realy good, and they have mango and guayaba juice too.. mm.

Not only are they not Coke, and they are a cooperative company, but they are a drink company that actually does good things in the community. Boing helps out a lot of different social struggles with matericas for signs, funding, and all that. They were involved in the Casino de la Selva protests that I wrote about earlier. They also have their own fight against Coke, because in Coke's effort to control the whole world, Boing is a sharp thorn in their side. so, what has Coke done? they buy the right to sell exclusivey at popular events. A few years ago, they excluded Boing from selling at Cuernavaca's annual fair. Boing set up outside the gates and told eveyone what had happened and asked the fair-goers to block Coca-Cola. I think they actually had a pretty good response, espcially since they are actually a Mexican company, and people really don't like the invasion of US corporations.



needless to say, I am pretty obsessed with this company now. Luckily, I'm doing my internship at La Comision Independiente de Derechos Humanos, which owns a cafe where they hold events and press conferences, and guess what they sell.. Boing! I got a free key-chain out of the deal, and if I fee like it I think I could have a poster. although their posters are kind of cheesey with pictures of tough-looking fruit, so I think that may not go up on my wall. I need to find out if they sell Boing in the United States...

agua si, basura no

in April and the beginning of May I am spending a lot of time doing internships with community groups here. I've already started with Juana and the women's group at the maquiladora, but that wasn't enough hours every week so I added a group called Luz y Libertad, which was formed out of a Base Christian Community group, which started during a period of really strong liberation theology. Every Monday evening they give cooking classes to teach women who live in another industrial area how to make cheap but healthy food. I think I might help them put together a cookbook that they can use, and also sell to foreigners who come to talk to them.

But, those two groups are not enough hour either, so yesterday I went to talk with someone from La Comision Independiente de Derechos Humanos, which is a really cool organization here that has connections with a lot of social movements. I wouldn't say that they are the organizers, but more intermediaries. They keep track of repression by the government, hold press conferences, and have a cafe that is used for press releases, meeting space, and other political and scoail events. I actually am going to be spending the most time working with them and I am really excited because I will be able to have one foot in the movements around water, land, and trash that are currently getting larger.

and to that effect, after I met with La Comision there was a march against the landfill that the government wants to build that I went to. They stopped PASA from building in Temixco in January, but now the governmetn went around that community and is looking to go through a community north of Loma Mejia, which is where they want to build the landfill. The community leader said yes, that they could go through, but the people of that community do not want the landfill either. so last saturday the police took some people away who were making signs against the landfill...i don´t think they were arrested, but they were taken away and not told where they were going. so there is now police repression around this issue, and I think its about to get a lot more interesting. I watched a video about the defense of water in Morelos, and there was a part about the relleno sanitario, and the place where they want to build the landfill is so beautiful! its open land, with rivers and a tree that is more than 500 years old. a landfill does need to be built somewhere, but really, this location is a horrible place. it would be built OVER an aquifer, and contaminate water that people depend on daily.

more to come!
Ruth

pastel y gelatin

This past weekend we started our homestays in Cuernavaca, and I'm moving into a new stage of the program where I'm living in a working class neighborhood and taking the bus to my internships and classes. Its actually really nice to take the buses because I feel like more a part of the city rather than an outside observer. although they can get pretty hot..

This past weekend I went to two little kid's parties. On Saturday it was the 10th birthday of one of Erika's (my host mom) nephews. We had hamburgers and french fries, the kids broke open a pinata, and I listed to all the adults talking really fast about people I don't know about. It was fun though.. and at the end of the party the kids danced to reggaeton music and asked me to judge them. so I'd say: hmmmmmm...... 10! and they'd be really happy.

then on Sunday I went back to Amatlan for the day to go to the baptism of Damian, the grandson of my host parents. It was really nice to be there for that family event, and I accepted the role of photographer to try and document everything. I also accepted the role of writer, because after the baptism we went back to the church and there was a party, and the mom made tortilla cloths for all of the tortilla baskests and on each one I wrote "Mi Bautizo, Damian, 06/04/2008." So now there is hard evidence of my existance in that family :)... We ate traditional Mexican food: they killed their hog for the event, so we had barbacoa, rice, beans, tortillas, and tamales. the food was really different at the two parties, except for the desert. apparantly at Mexican kid's parties, you eat cake with jello. I don't know why, but I sure did get my fill over the past weekend.

costa chica

last week I went to the Costa Chica in the state of Guerrero. Costa Chica is the coast on the Pacific Ocean south of Acapulco, and actually some of the costa chica is in Oaxaca, which is the state south west of Guerrero.

the main objective of going to this area was to learn about the afro-mexican community there. In that region there are a lot of people with African blood, a legacy of slavery, but the government and educational curriculum do not recognize Africans as the third root of "mestizaje" or the mixing of races that was a result of the Conquest. And it is really true. We mainly stayed in the city of Cuajiniciulapa and when we walked along the streets there, it really looked like pictures that you see of Cuba or the Dominican Republic, whose people also have African roots. but it was Mexico... just goes to show the great amount of diversity in all countries.

We also learned about indigenous communities and cultures. One of my favorite visits over this week was to a bilingual school that teaches Spanish and Mixteco, an indigenous language from the area. the teacher was an amazingly strong woman.. she left her village in the mountains after second grade so she could continue her education. She worked in a woman's house as a maid and with her sister's help, they finished high school. The great thing about the school was that it was giving kids a positive sense of indigenous identity. The families moved from their small villages to the city and often when that happens, indigenous culture and pride in their traditions is lost. but this school helps kids learn Spanish while retaining Mixteco culture. And its true too, when we were playing a tickling game with the kids - it was basically everyone run around and try to tickle each other. my friend kelsey got taken down by a group of seven kids all at once.. she ended up curled in a ball on the floor - anyway, I heard the kids speaking Mixteco to each other.. they weren't ashamed of speaking their native language, as is too often common in Mexico. here's a picture:




another favorite visit of mine was to a beach near Tierra Colorada, where they help endangered baby sea turtles hatch and keep track of the sea turtle migration. what was great about this project was how much Enrique (the man who talked to us) understood that environmental conservation is linked to social issues. People raid the eggs to sell them, only because there is often no other viable employment. A really cool thing that they have done is set up a temporary employment program so people can earn a little bit of money working with the sea turtles, and they have actually employed some previous hueveros (egg hunters). Also, the sea turtles are a large part of culture and religion in this area, and if the turtles go extinct, we do not just lose biodiversity, but cultural diversity as well. and then at the end we got to liberate baby sea turtles! The mother leaves here eggs in the sand and when the babies hatch, they have to make a trip across the beach to get into the ocean. Well, we got to carry them across the beach and set them down in the sand, then watched then go into the water so no birds ate them along the way. it was so amazing!! The babies knew that they were near the ocean as we walked with them in our hands, and started making swimming motions trying as fast as they could to get into the water. how’s that for natural instinct. I have no pictures of the actual act, but here's one of the encampment and the ocean:



whew, the last favorite visit (which is actually my favorite one) was with a group of people organizing against a mega-dam "La Parota" that was to be built in their region. This dam would have flooded several municipalities upstream, displacing farmers and communities and would have cut off the water supply for those downstream, effectively displacing them too because they could no longer grow food to eat. and if all that isn't bad enough, the benefits of the dam were not going to help the communities around the area, but was going to be sold to California. so people can watch their TVs 6 hours a day. Bullshit.

they organized in opposition to the dam for several years, and it was a huge struggle. 4 people died, many were thrown in jail, and others were beaten by the police. the CFE, which is the electrical commission here, infiltrated their ejido council meetings and set up police barricades so people who opposed the dam couldn't participate. They forged people's signatures who had died, couldn't write, or migrated to the United States. Its a really long story, but even with all of this deception and lying by the government, in 2007 they stopped their effort to build the dam. The organizers, who are actually just farmers and community members, spoke very strongly about water being life, the earth granting food, and the history and culture that is rooted deep in their land. Each person said something to this effect: "We are willing to die defending what is ours, our woods, our water, and our land." They also said that they are not opposed to development, only a development that rips them away from their land and their culture. They want development of their lands so they can keep working them.

What impacted me most about this visit was that they were extremely wary of letting a group of people from the United States on to their land and to share with them their story. We were still welcomed and they fed us lunch before the talk, but this is the first time that we had experienced a welcome that did not grant us a privileged status because we came from the United States, in fact that is what made them not trust us at first. They asked us why we came, why we wanted to listen to them, and we all responded. Through these responses -- that we want to work for social change, that we want to organize in our own communities, that we hope to have the same strength that they did -- we gained their trust, which felt extremely gratifying. At the end, they took us to see the Papagayo River (the one which would have been flooded) which I think was a really good sign that we had gained their trust, because they wanted to share their most valuable resource with us.

also, there was amazing graffiti and murals in the community and along the roads as we drove by. phrases such as "La tierra no se vende. Se ama y se defiende." (The land is not for sale. Love it and defend it). or "Zapata vive, la lucha sigue." (Zapata lives, the struggle continues). Here are some pictures:






(hell yeah.. I'm sure this was intentionally over Coke's name, as a symbol of outside impositions and corporate America)

and just one last picture to leave you with a beautiful image of the coast: