montanas

first things first, some pictures from the hike in Amatlan:


this is us walking through a canyon named Tepexi (I think thats how you spell it) which was a site of campesino resistance against the Mexican army in the 1940's. The man with the hat is my host dad, Don Bonfilio, and the woman is Charlene, a Canadian and the latest addition to the family when she married the youngest brother, David about 2 months ago. Here is another view:


the mountains on either side of us:



our destination!



San Jose de Los Laureles grows a large amount of nopal (catus) that you eat in traditional Mexican dishes.



the feria for San Jose de Los Laureles. We went in the church to pay respects to the patron saint, and it smelled thickly of flowers. mmm



I'll write about Costa Chica a bit later, or else this post will get extremely long.

peace

me voy caminando

whoa, I'm in Cuernavaca for one night -- back from Amatlan today and to Costa Chica tomorrow, but I wanted to update on my spring break before it got too late.

I arrived in Amatlan on tuesday, thinking I would just stay for 3 days and 2 nights, but ended up staying until sunday afternoon. Just that I was able to stay for that long, and that they wanted me to stay for that long is testament to this family's generosity and kindness. I feel really honored to get to know them because they are really good people -- hard workers, loving family members, keepers of indigenous culture, and people that care about justice, the environment, and the well-being of all people. The first week, and now this week too I was incredibly welcomed into their family, and last night Don Bonfilio commented that its like he has another daughter. And I really enjoy staying with them, because to me that it what Mexico is, for real, and I learn so much more by being with a family and participating in their every day actions and traditions.

Wednesday we hiked through a pass in the mountains (even though it was through a pass, there was still a lot of scrambling up rocks) to San Juan de los Laureles, a town on the other side of the mountains that was celebrating its patron saint's feast day. The hike (they call hiking "caminando" or walking, which is pretty different in my book, but i like that they use that word) was beautiful as we went through with mountains on each side of us. luckily there were a lot of trees, which provided shade. all along the route there were crosses placed there by other hikers to signify something that happened in that region. I'm going to add pictures later, but right now my camera is packed away.

we got to San Jose de los Laureles, got startled by fireworks, touched the statue of the patron saint and ATE. apparently what people do at these festivals is go to everyone's house that is your relative, or that you know one of their relatives and they will serve you food. luckily, we only had two houses to go to, but they both gave us two plates of food, plus more mole to bring home. I was so full, but you really have to eat the food as a sign of respect. actually, thats something that I had trouble with for a good amount of the week. i would eat so i wasn't hungry anymore, but then the family would be like, here's more food, eat! and I would say, I'm so full, I can't. but I think sometimes they interpret that as, I don't like your food. so thats something I have to feel out a lot of the time. the festival was a lot of fun... the kids rode rides, we listened to music and talked, and then one of the brothers came to pick us up so we didn't have to walk back with our tired legs and full stomachs. again, generosity is a main theme here -- families provide everyone else with a full meal, and then when it is Amatlan's turn for their festival, the roles are turned around and my family will provide food for everyone that comes to their house.

this stay was great because I got to know all of the family better, met more people that I didn't know, and made genuine friends. Pepe, one of the brothers, is going to Canada in two days and will be there for six months. even tough i do not live in canada, nor can he come to the US without a visa that is impossible to get, I gave him all of my contact information in case there was any way I could possibly help. that it one of the hardest things to know after receiving so much from this family, is that it is really hard for me to return the favor because it is really hard for them to get into the United States, and then travel to find me, even if just to visit. a visa to get to the US is really expensive, and so is the cost of a coyote to get across without documents. so anyway, i really hope he accepts my offer and contacts me, even if it is just to talk.

again, I was really sad to leave. They kept asking me, when are you coming back? Are you going to stay for longer next time? Which was really nice to hear, because I thought that I stayed for a long time over this break, but I definitely did not wear out my welcome and they at least feel similarly to me. I am going to try and go back in a week for a wedding in the town, but there is no way that I will be able to stay for another longer amount of time, unless it is in the summer.

all in all, it was an amazing spring break, and I felt like I really got a chance to know more Mexican people, which is hard to do when you are with a bunch of US students. I like the people in the group, but it was good to get away and be a part of real Mexican life, for a change.

Mexico D.F.

I'm on spring break! but I am not going to the beach to see other crazy americans. This past weekend I went to Mexico D.F. (Distrito Federal) with two other girls from the program, and saw a whirlwind of sites. There are so many impressive buildings and parks.. we saw a LOT of them, but there is still so much more to see and do in the city, and so I think I might go back. and next time it will be a little more relaxed because I won't be running all over the place to see as many things as possible in 2 and a half days. I'm glad that I was able to visit so many important sites, but i would have liked to take it a bit easier, and soak things in a bit more. here are a bunch of pictures from this weekend:

Cathedral

Inside the Palacio Nacional

More Diego Rivera murals! my favorite. In these murals, he put some figures of Frida Kahlo in, which is pretty cool to see, especially when you spot her amongst a bunch of other people. These are inside the Palacio Nacional.


Bellas Artes. This is where the best art performances take place. There are more murals inside, but we didn't have time to go see them. Plus I think it costs money.


A metro stop at Bellas Artes. I really like the design of this particular stop, for some reason. We took the metro a lot.. yay public transportation!


A monument dedicated to Benito Juarez... Mexican leader for Independence and the only indigenous President of Mexico.

Sidewalk art by the Zapatistas in front of the Benito Juarez monument.

The castle that Mexico's Emperor (Maximiliano) and dictator (Porfirio Diaz) lived in. In it was the presidential chair that Pancho Villa sat in and Zapata sat beside when they met in Mexico in 1914.

In the National Anthropology Museum.

Temple of the Sun at Teotihuacan. We went all the way to the top! The pyramids are really impressive and there are so many other buildings and temples surrounding them. The pyramids and other buildings were actually covered with plaster and then painted with bright colors. Can you imagine what that would look like! wow.

there are more pictures, but obviously I can't post them all.

Mexico City is filled with beautiful buildings, but its also filled with people! About 25 million people. Half of our trip consisted of seeing the sights, but during the other half we met some really cool people! I really love practicing my Spanish with people, so if random, not too shady looking people want to talk, I'll talk back. In this way traveling is great, because you can meet so many random people who are traveling or just want to practice their English with you. We ended up hanging out with a guy who is a student in Mexico City and had a really great time, talking, exchanging music and phrases in Spanish and English. so now I have a friend in Mexico City!

today I am off to visit my host family in Amatlan!

peace,
Ruth

películas

This past week I watched two inspiring films about struggles for economic and social justice. Mexico has a rich history of people uniting together to work for social change and resisting the established and oppressive order. (although often the government makes that difficult… see police brutality, corruption, and massacres)

The first film, “El casino de la selva: La defensa del patrimonio,” was actually shown in our Spanish class. The Casino de la Selva was an old casino in the 1920’s, turned into a hotel in the 50’s, and was a symbol of Cuernavaca. The hotel’s walls were covered in murals by some of the most famous Mexican muralists, including David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Reyes Meza and Benito Messeguer. Unfortunately, the Casino went bankrupt and the government ended up buying the property for $63 million. Instead of turning the tree-covered land around the Casino into a park or the casino itself into a museum, municipal president Sergio Estrada Cajigal sold the land to the United States corporation Costco for $10 million, a give-away considering its original price. With no care for the murals inside or the old trees outside, Costco began to demolish the Casino and clear the land.


this not my picture, but a picture just the same of a partially destroyed mural in the Casino de la Selva

A group of citizens under the name of Frente Civco Pro Defensa del Casino de la Selva began to organize to ask the government and Costco to stop building over an important Mexican historical site. In fact, an activist in the movie powerfully proclaimed, “They are slowly building over all of our cultural symbols and cutting down all our trees, so eventually there will be nothing to fight for anymore.” While bulldozers destroyed the building, ancient Olmec pottery was also found at the site, but the government official stated that the artifacts were not of enough value, and the building process should continue. The Frente Civco kept protesting, and during a camp-out near the building site on August 21st, 2002, police came and pushed them all out, beating people and arresting 33 activists in the process. This struggle garnered a lot of attention, but in the end the Costco was built on the site. Now, there is a museum in the Costco with a few pieces of the old murals, which would have surely been destroyed if citizens did nothing.

This example of neo-liberal growth was both a blow to Mexican cultural roots and to the small store owners around the area. Sadly, this same kind of disregard of the local community and culture still goes on. As one of the activists said, “We welcome progress, but not at the cost of our culture, history, or environment.”

Saturday was International Women’s Day and I went to the movie “La Sal de la Tierra” and a talk afterwards to commemorate the day. The movie was about a miner’s union strike in New Mexico, in which many of the workers were Mexican-Americans and they demanded equal conditions and pay with their US counterparts. The labor movement and economic justice was a big part of the movie, but so were gender roles. The wives of the miners wanted to help with the strike, but many miners didn’t think it was a woman’s place to be on the picket line or pushing scabs back where they came from. Eventually, the women did get their way because the company put out an order that it was illegal for the miners to be in the picket line, so in a citizens’ meeting the women voted to take up the signs. The men had to take care of the kids, do the laundry, and make food, and they were not very happy. The women’s actions were pivotal in winning the strike, but as the main character said at the end of the movie: they won more than just the strike, but through the process they won a new sense of gender equality.

It felt really nice going to this event, because it was a group of socially and politically people, and seemed like something I would do with my family and friends back home and at school. Like if I actually was from Mexico, this would be my community. A teacher from the program and also Juana (my internship supervisor) were there, so I felt like I was getting to know some good people in the community. The movie was at the same place that I went to see the African dance concert, and I really want to keep tabs on what is going on there, because it seems like a lot of cool stuff.

la maquila

On Monday I met with Juana de los Angeles, who is going to be my internship supervisor. I think she does a lot of different things with her time, but one thing that she does is work with women that work in the maquiladoras nearby and form women's groups to talk about what is going on in their jobs and their health. One of the big health problems that comes from working in a maquila is low calcium levels, because people are sitting all day and don't get to move around. That, coupled with poor diet makes young women have similar calcium levels to a 75 year old woman living and working in the countryside.

we visited the maquiladora earlier in the semester with her and learn about the working conditions and salary and all that. I don't have the facts in front of me, but it will suffice to say that they are low, and workers are paid by the piece so if they mess up for some reason, they take in all the negative consequences. The maquiladora that we visited made bathing suits. they were actually for the 2009 season, because the swimsuits for this summer are being shipped to stores right now. they make bathing suits that are sold in Macy's, Bloomingdales, JC Penny, etc. maquilas got started before NAFTA and are in their own tax-free production zone. all the material is sent in from the US and everything has to go back, even the little thread scraps all over the floor. it would be more expensive to keep a swimsuit in Mexico because of the taxes that will be imposed on it, rather than ship it all the way back to the US.

on Monday I went back to this same maquila with her because she has a relationship with the human resources people there. we are planning to have cine (movie) nights with groups of people and then talk a little bit after the movie about the themes in the movie or whatever else. then after we have a good group and people know us, we can help them do a small project. Last time they did a small brochure that was like a comic that dealt with education and relationship issues. the funny thing to me is that we pretty much have to hold the movie on company property. from Juana's past experience, people will not come if they have to spend time and money on transportation to another place. Even if the workers have a good relationship with management, I know that being on company property will change what workers have to say about the company. at least in the US that’s an issue, and I would assume in Mexico it would be the same. so we'll see. I hope that we can draw people in and form a group, then maybe move off company property..??

unions here are really interesting, because they are SUPER corrupt. they are institutionalized in the government somehow (I should check exactly how) which does ensure longevity but with that comes too much security, i think. The unions for many years, the unions were linked with the PRI, which is the political party that held power for 70 years straight. the heads of unions get a lot of money, and often don't have the interests of the workers in mind. There are some good independent unions, but they have to be independent of the whole system, and that’s really hard to organize.

now here are some pictures that have nothing to do with what I just wrote:


This is the street that I live on. The house that I live in is called "Casa Verde," as you can see by the green tiles.




these are some pictures of the other students in the group, if you are interested who I am making friends with :)

love
Ruth

la vida rural

this whole past week our group was in Amatlan, which I have written about before -- its the indigenous community that has retained a lot of the communal land and has a strong organizing history. Anyway, we stayed for a week with families there and took small day trips to other communities in the state of Morelos to talk to rural people about farming, land, water, immigration, the environment, and so on. the meetings were pretty amazing. we talked to a 72 year old woman who is not married and still plants corn every year. she talked a lot about why she sticks to traditional ways of farming and does not use transgenic corn (which the government pressure farmers to grow). the transgenic corn (and some of you might know this already) does not allow farmers to collect seeds to plant the next year, and forces them to buy new seed every year. meanwhile, the government is trying to take the seeds that campesinos have developed over thousands of years to make a seed bank -- so essentially they are asking indigenous farmers to give their good seeds to them and grow transgenic corn. man, there is so much more that I could write about her and other people that we visited, but I want to write about the family that I stayed with, because I love them SO MUCH.

first of all, the really ironic, sad, and humbling things about visiting with and talking to Mexican people is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON says, "Our doors are always open to you, whenever you come back to Mexico, please seek us out if you need anything, or just want to say hi. this is the beginning of a relationship, a friendship, and we hope you have the trust and confidence to seek us out." Ok, first of all what a contrast to the United States. how often do we say that? and also, these people who are opening their homes and lives to us cannot even come to visit us if they wanted to. our policies to don't permit us to give back the same hospitality and the same warmth that we are received with here. when they do come to our country, we push them down, raid their homes, take advantage of them, and treat them like criminals. such an injustice.

so anyway, the family that I stayed with was so nice, kind, and welcoming that I didn't want to come back to Cuernavaca today. there are tons of people who live on their property, and I think that is one of the things that I liked best, the family was really close to one another and there was always someone in the kitchen willing to talk. First, there was the mom and dad, Doña Chimina and Don Bonaficio. They have six children, 5 of whom I met. 3 of their sons are married, and two live with their wives and children on the same property. Then there are two single sons, one who runs an internet cafe (more like a room with computers and revolutionary symbols on the wall) and one that works in a traditional medicine clinic. I shared the family with another girl from the program, and since we were feeling a little sick Raul took us to the clinic and she got some medicine (made from plants, yes). I have been feeling fine so didn't get anything (unfortunately, right? haha). to top it off there were 5 dogs, roosters and chickens, 2 turkeys, and a cat that is about to have kittens. so its a very full house, and I just had the best conversations with them about migration, what it is like to live in the US, what it is like to live in Canada, music, traveling, politics, all of it.

The oldest brother, who I didn't talk to that much because he and his family live in their own house at the bottom of the property talked with the group about his migration experience. he had gone to the US fives times, all illegally. he crossed through the desert, walking 3 days and nights and sleeping when he could, with little food and water. one time when he was walking he saw a human skeleton. can you imagine? being torn away from your family and newly born kids because there is no work available where you live, and seeing a skeleton and wondering if you are going to die and never see your family again? unbelievable. and then when he got to the United States, he made some friends, but the general feeling was one of being humiliated, put down, treated like a criminal, an animal. he cried when he told of how hard it was to not see his kids grow up, while he was working in the US. he just returned in December, and said he hopes he never goes back. and I just felt so ashamed of my country that he would be treated like that, but also so ashamed at the privilege that a lot of us have to never have to think of living our lives like that. and I sincerely hope that he never does have to go back, because it tears people's hearts in two. and I guess a reason why I didn't talk to him much at the house is that I didn't want to give him any reminder of the United States. I felt that by seeing me, he would be reminded of how small he was made to feel and how sad he was to be away from his family, and I didn't want to put that on him again, even if I did want to talk to him more about his experiences.

yesterday and today they were all like, "are you ever coming back? please come and visit us? how long are you in Mexico for? we will wait for you." And I do really want to go back because that is the best I have felt this whole time. I had to speak Spanish the whole time, and I really like the atmosphere of a close family. I think I am going to go back for a few days over Spring Break. On March 19th there is a festival where people walk across the mountain range that the town is built up against, and they walk over to the town on the other side where there is a festival. so, I think I am going to try and make that. I just have to work on my mountain hiking abilities (ahh!). I want to go back right now!

In other news, I might be starting my internship on Monday! Keep posted…
Miss you all!!

San Anton

San Anton is the name of the neighborhood that our program house is located in, and a few days ago we went on an eco-tour of the neighborhood with community activists Juan Manuel and Rodrigo. Rodrigo is amazing -- he is the ayudante of the neighborhood and I think that basically means that he is the unofficial leader that knows everyone in the community and is able to gather everyone together and propose projects. we went into the barranca of San Anton and saw the garbage that everyone throws into the barranca (ravine) and the contaminated water that runs through it. Cuernavaca is famous for its barrancas because there are many different ecosystems because of the depths of the barrancas, and they act as a cooling system for the city. It also means that it is VERY hilly.



this is a picture of the Salto de San Anton. this barranca is actually a federal land reserve, but people live in it and throw their trash in it just the same. This looks really pretty, but the water right before the waterfall is almost milky-colored. its such a hard situation though -- can you kick these people out of their homes? if trash isn't collected in the deepest parts of the barrancas or the highest ridges because it is so steep, where do these people put their trash?

There is a bad trash and water contamination problem in Cuernavaca, but the neighborhood organization has been successful at starting up some community initiatives to deal with trash and clean up the water. We visited some ecological toilets, a natural water treatment system, and two recycling centers.

because of the trash problem, the government wants to build a landfill near San Anton, have already contracted with a private company that picks up trash around the city and would help build the landfill. Rodrigo and Juan Manuel were very much against having a private company deal with the trash because they said that PASA (the company) makes money off of collecting trash, and are not going to support any initiatives to lower consumption, reuse items, or expand the small recycling initiatives. the location of the landfill has been the subject of a community struggle against the government. the proposed location is on ejido land (land that Cardenas distributed in the 1940s to meet some of the land reform goals of the Mexican Revolution) and that ejido land is near the barrancas and even though the landfill is supposed to have a protective layer, the land itself does not filter water sufficiently, so if run off from the trash gets through the protection, which it most likely will, the land does not provide a good barrier between contaminants and the ground water. so, the community is against the landfill being built there, and they actually have a report from UNAM, a very respected university in Mexico City, that says all that, plus provides 3 better locations in the state of Morelos.

even so, the government wanted to start building and there was a big confrontation in January between the community and the government. the people blocked the entrance to the building site and taxis surrounded the police so there was less repression. the municipal governor had to fly in a helicopter over the protestors to lay the first symbolic brick. but after that brick, nothing else has been done. talk about successful direct action. Rodrigo said he and other leaders have been offered bribes to let the building take place (I think he said 8 million pesos to be split between people, which is a LOT (its about 10 pesos to a dollar)) but of course he didn't accept it. but after he left and I asked what the next step is, Juan Manuel said that he is worried that there will be more police repression if things keep on the way they are -- he said in Mexican movements what usually happens to leaders is first bribes, then jail or death. which made me stop for a minute... death is a realistic consequence of action for social change.

on another note, yesterday was really great because I had a lesson in jewelry making! there is a guy who sometimes comes to the language school we are at and sells jewelry. so I got to talking to him one day (he has great politics, and I think he is involved in Zapatista solidarity in Morelos) and he offered to give me a few lessons! Lisa, one of the interns here who is really cool, took a few lessons from him when she was a student on the program and it sounded like a good idea, so we figured a time and yesterday was the first day we could fit it in. I made a pair of earrings! with a lot of help from him of course, but I am really excited to learn more and also chat about politics and social movements. although, to be real it is a little awkward when you are an American with tons of privilege and you are learning a craft from someone who makes their living doing that. I only hope that I have something valuable that I can share or give back to him. here's to more learning!