Friday, August 19, 2005
life in an autonomous municipality
After a day of rest and laundry and recovery from a minor stomach bug from the last trip, I set out on the first journey to the community where I have permission to begin my field work. This is a remote place that I've heard is a relative success story, a longstanding Zapatista stronghold which became the seat of the autonomous municipality after a joint military/police operation in 1998 closed the municipal (i.e. county) seat in another community. That operation included jailing several academics and deporting foreigners who happened to be there at the time. The place I'm heading, which I'll call El Conejo (not its real name), reportedly has a very positive relationship with a solidarity group from Greece and several innovative projects, including a teacher training school.
I take a 6:00 a.m. combi, arriving at 8:00 (7:00 "God's time") at the town at the edge of the jungle, and make my way across town to the spot behind the market where the one bus a day leaves in the direction I'm heading. Already more than half the tickets are sold, though the bus doesn't leave for another four hours. I go for some coffee, get my muddy boots cleaned by one of the expert shoe-shine urchins in the plaza, and go while away a couple of hours at one of the internet cafes that seem to have popped up in every town.
I go back and claim my seat on the bus, an aging vehicle named "Live and Let Live" according to large letteriing on the windshield. Jesus and Mickey Mouse decals adorn the inside front, the Virgin Mary and a baby shoe hang from the rearview mirror, and the driver's assistant (a boy of about 15) wears a sleeveless t-shirt with a picture of Ché Guevara. We're going to need every icon we can get to keep this bus rolling. Nearly every window has a spiderweb shatter pattern from decades of flying rocks, and the seats are worn down to rusted iron frames and mended wood, with only a few tufts of gaping foam and scraps of plastic to attest to the presence of upholstery in bygone days. The bus driver assistants, all adolescent boys, busy themselves exchanging vulgarities, calling out remarks to passing girls, bantering with the traveling salesman of axle grease and used tail-lights, and pouring dark fluids from dirty buckets into the entrails of the engine. The bus fills up, with much heaving of sacks and prodding of cardboard boxes tied with rope, filling every corner of the luggage racks and aisle. I am the only non-Tzeltal passenger, and my vocabulary is pretty limited, but I can understand two old men making a pun at the expense of the President, a play on words between his last name and the Tzeltal word for turkey.
Finally we rumble off, the pavement soon runs out, and the ancient chassis groans and rattles at every rut in the road for six and a half bouncing hours. My seatmate is a 52-year-old middle peasant from a small ejido (one of the collective lands given to groups of petitioning peasants as a right won in the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17, but now reversed by President Salinas in 1992 as part of the drastic opening to the global market that has dramatically increased inequalities). He has 9 hectares planted with corn, beans, a little coffee, and pasture for an indeterminate number of cattle (peasants will never tell you how many cows they have--it's sort of like the contents of their savings account, and they're always afraid some government official or jealous neighbor might try to take one). He has made the long trip into town to buy a jug of oil to treat his fenceposts so the termites won't eat them, and also to see two of his sons who are in middle school there. He has eight children and struggles to maintain these two in school in town, hoping they might someday become "college graduates or engineers or something," though he has no idea how he would come up with the money for that. He asks me the usual questions--how many days' bus ride away my country is, what crops we grow, and if it's really cold there. Looking around at the passengers and their baggage, I realize that most have gone all the way into town for one item, six or eight or ten hours on this road for a small sack of flour or jug of oil or a radio.
As we rumble up and down the jungle hillsides, the vegetation and crops change noticeably with the micro-regions, evidence of the biodiversity that is one reason why transnational capital is interested in this long-forgotten corner of Mexico. The bus stops for passengers along the way and at one point picks up a middle-aged woman with four teenage girls wearing makeup, very unusual in indigenous communities. Their mission becomes clear when the bus stops a few kilometers later to let them off at an army base. The soldiers peer at the bus through binoculars, and I'm hoping they can't make out the tall bearded gringo. This is the first of two large bases we will pass on the only road through this canyon, part of the heavy military occupation involving about one-third of the Mexican Army in a state with less than 4% of the national population. Human rights groups estimate there is one soldier for every two families in the so-called "conflict zone" spanning the jungle, highlands, and northern regions of Chiapas.
This canyon is sprinkled with little settlements, part of the stream of internal migrants who began populating this "agricultural frontier" since the 1950s. The government initially encouraged this squatting on public lands as an escape valve for landlessness and mounting agrarian social conflict, and a cheap one at that since the state provided few services out here in the wilderness. But decades of pioneering experience in managing their own affairs made this fertile terrain for independent and increasingly radicalized peasant organizing in the 1970s and '80s which would be a thorn in the government's side, and from which eventually the Zapatista movement would emerge. Today the Zapatista communities along this road have placed hand-lettered signs defiantly proclaiming their membership in "autonomous municipalities in rebellion." They are interspersed with "priísta" communities aligned with the government, usually distinguished by signs of belated government handouts such as tin roofs and solar electric panels and the stencilled logos of welfare programs like "Progresa" from the last administration and "Oportunidades" from the current Fox administration. The Zapatistas proudly refuse government "aid" and the conditions attached, struggling to create a more self-sufficient development model and a self-governing political counterpart.
I get off at a crossroads village and start asking around for transport to where I need to go. It's awkward because this is a priísta village and I'm heading to a Zapatista community. Someone directs me to a place where I'm told a Nissan truck sometimes passes by to take passengers in the direction of El Conejo. After an hour and a half of waiting, I'm told there probably won't be any more transport. By now it's dark and has started to pour. I'm debating between the unappealing alternatives of sleeping under the overhanging eaves of the general store in a priísta village, or walking a couple of hours in the dark and the pouring rain on an unknown road toward my destination. I notice a few people with backpacks taking shelter on another porch, so I scurry over through the downpour and ask where they're going. It turns out they're also stranded, hoping to catch a ride further down the road. They talk to the shopkeeper about whether anyone else might take us, and he knows someone who has a truck but no gasoline. In the next lull of the rain he dashes out in search of someone with a jug of gas, and after a brief four-way negotiation, we've got our truck ride into the night.
A half hour later I'm dropped off in El Conejo. It's late and it's still raining hard, so I head toward a light on a porch where a family has gathered to check out the strange arrival. They ask where I'm going, and I apologize for the lateness of the hour and explain that I'm hoping to talk to the autonomous authorities, but perhaps if I could just find shelter for the night I could talk to them in the morning. They seem uncertain, and talk among themselves in Tzeltal. I mention that I have a letter of authorization from the Junta of Good Government at the Caracol, and suddenly they brighten up and relax. Someone produces a rain poncho for me and I am escorted over to one of the communal buildings. A young boy is sent for his uncle who asks the purpose of my visit, and then I am shown to a room that appears to be a combination meeting room and storage shed. It's nicely constructed with a real concrete floor, wooden windows that swing open on hinges, and a light bulb (thanks to a homemade connection that has "liberated" some electricity from the federal lines, I later learn). In one corner there is a bed frame with wooden slats, where I am invited to rest for the night. As I drift off to sleep, exhausted from the 15-hour journey, I wonder whether the bed frame of carved wood once belonged to the local rancher before a land recovery.
I'm up with the roosters, and a little girl wanders by selling bread, which I have for breakfast. In the morning light I notice signs of a well-organized community. The latrines are clean, with wooden doors instead of the usual plastic sheets, the women's and men's marked by painted pictures of ski-masked faces with and without braids. Buildings are very simple, but with architectural touches showing a little extra care in the construction. A two-story wooden building is labeled "Library of the Autonomous Municipality." Next to that is a court where some guys are shooting baskets at one end, and a co-ed volleyball game is underway at the other end. The backboards of the basketball hoops are painted in Zapatista motif, black with a red star. Across the court is a building under construction with a beautiful mural on the front depicting life in an autonomous community. (I later learn it was painted by an Italian volunteer, and is a replica of the one that was destroyed by paramilitaries when they burned down the previous seat of the autonomous municipality.) Watching the games, I strike up a conversation with a 23-year-old young man who is studying in the teacher training school. He is a Ch'ol from deeper in the jungle near the famous Mayan ruin of Palenque, but he also speaks Tzeltal and pretty decent Spanish. People seem noticeably more self-confident and conversational here than in many indigenous communities. The games are interrupted by another series of downpours, and everyone goes inside to wait out the rains.
As I wait around all day to meet with the authorities of the autonomous municipality, other student "education promotors" (improvised teachers) stop by to chat during breaks from their classes. The are from small communities throughout the region, and they alternate between a month of training and two months teaching back in their communities. They study math, languages (Spanish and Tzeltal), natural sciences and history. The first graduating class produced 64 promotors, and this second class has 54. They are full of questions about the United States: Is everyone rich? Are there indigenous people? Are there organizations and movements of people who are struggling, like here? Was the attack on the Twin Towers directed against soldiers or civilians? Is the U.S. still occupying Iraq? What happened to Saddam Hussein and his people? Is the U.S. government like the bad government of Mexico?
At 2:00 p.m. a small boy wanders over selling tamales, so I have a tasty lunch for the equivalent of 20 cents. Around 4:00 someone comes by to tell me the municipal authorities are still occupied elsewhere, and maybe they'll be back later in the day, or maybe I'll have to try to see them tomorrow. I was hoping to be able to observe some of the teacher training classes before I have to head back, but I just have to settle into the different rhythm of time here.
At 7:30 p.m. a member of the autonomous coucil suddenly appears. He sits down to ask me about my project, taking notes and asking clarifying questions. He apologizes for the delay in receiving me, explaining that they were busy with other tasks, and promises to return at 9:00 the next morning with other members of the council so I can interview them. I thank him and give him a list of the interview topics, and he's off.
Later some more of the student teachers come visit and bring me a gift of bananas. I learn that there are a half dozen words in Tzeltal for the different types of banana, and they find it highly amusing that Spanish only has one. Their lesson today was on pedagogy, "What is true education?," and they discussed the challenges of teaching children in ways that are relevant and appropriate in their communities. They asked me if the educational system in the U.S. is good. I had to think about how to respond. I told them it was pretty good at transmitting information to large numbers of people, but not as good at presenting diverse perspectives or developing habits of critical thinking. Then they wanted to know what people in the U.S. thought about the war in Iraq. Good questions! I said I thought most people generally didn't know or think much about the rest of the world, so at first the government was able to scare them with stories about dangerous weapons at a time when they felt insecure anyway after the September 11 attacks; but more people had doubts now as the casualties rose and the government stories didn't add up.
Later I talked to a student teacher who had been all the way through high school in San Cristóbal. He was being recruited there for a career as a government teacher, but said he gave that up in favor of "true education" with his people. He wanted to know what I thought of the Zapatista Sixth Declaration, and we had a good discussion. We were joined by two young women who at first were too shy to speak to me and asked their male classmate to ask where I was from. Once they overcame their shyness, they confirmed that more than three-quarters of the students were male, and said the women were often reluctant to participate for fear of being made fun of. They said some women had left the program to get married; and a few people "who could no longer bear the burden of resistance" had given up and taken government handouts "because of economic necessity," while others had gone in search of jobs in the tourist industry in Cancún or "up north." I was struck by how bright, thoughtful, and committed these young people are. With the Zapatista rebellion now 11 years old, these student teachers are the next generation of the movement.
Thursday morning I get up and clean the room with an old broom I found, in preparation for the meeting with the council. Rainclouds are already gathering, so it looks like it's going to be another wet day. Two members of the council come, about an hour late, for the interview. They live far away, so a trip in to the municipal seat here is a big deal. I recognize Rafael (not his real name) from when I went to get clearance from the Junta over in the next canyon, where he was just finishing his 10-day shift as representative of this municipality. His quieter partner on the couuncil, whom I'll call David, is from a distant divided community of 120 priístas and 24 Zapatistas. They patiently answer all of my questions, some of which have to be rephrased when I exceed their Spanish vocabulary. After two hours and six pages of notes, I have a clearer picture of how an autonomous municipality functions. I am impressed by their clarity as they explain why they have resisted the government's increasingly sophisticated cooptation schemes, updated versions of the trinkets and promises used to lure and divide indigenous peoples for centuries.
One of the many interesting things I learn is that their "Honor and Justice Commission" (court) hears mostly cases between priístas, who come to the Zapatista authorities for rulings because the official judiciary is so corrupt and ineffective. Rafael even cited a case brought by two pro-government paramilitaries who had gotten into a drunken fight with machetes, which resulted in the Zapatista commission ordering a payment of compensation for lost wages and medical treatment to the more seriously injured party. Rough justice on the agricultural frontier.
Afterwards my room is being used for another meeting, so I stand outside talking with one of the education promotors, who asks what I think of the municipality. I comment on how well-organized it seems, and on the nice construction. He smiles widely and nods agreement, adding "Look at that library--just like one of the pyramids at Yaxchilán!" Interesting comparison with the nearby site of an ancient Mayan city.
Rafael comes by to tell me that there will be no transport out that evening after all, but that a couple of compañeros will be walking out to the crossroads town to catch the 11:00 p.m. bus if I want to accompany them. We set out around 8:30 p.m. for the two hour hike in the driving rain, walking at a good clip mostly in silence as we concentrate on trying to avoid the deeper puddles, a hopeless endeavor. I discover that my rain poncho has no waterproofing whatsoever, so I'm instantly drenched. So much for Army surplus, must be made by a Halliburton subsidiary trying to cut costs. The bus comes along, this time decorated with decals of Jesus and Marcos, with a big hole in the floorboard under my seat so I can watch the inch-by-inch progress of the bus as we heave around the mountain curves. After about five hours we come to a stop. There is an overturned truck in the middle of the road, and not enough room for a large vehicle like ours to get around it. Everyone piles out, shovels and pickaxes are produced from somewhere in the interior of the bus, and several men begin to construct a makeshift detour. The driver tries it out, but gets stuck. Another truck that managed to get by backs up, cables and chains appear, and they attempt a towing operation. The cable snaps a couple of times, but eventually between pulling and pushing and shoveling we get some traction and get by. Everyone piles back on, the driver turns on the scratchy radio to full volume in celebration, and we eventually get to the town at the edge of the jungle about 8:00 the next morning. I decide to break my journey for breakfast and a decent cup of coffee, then catch a combi for the two-hour ride on paved roads back to San Cristóbal, arriving around 11:30 a.m. After a shower, more coffee, some soup, and spreading out all the wet things to dry, I'm starting to feel human again. All in all, a very interesting first visit.
I take a 6:00 a.m. combi, arriving at 8:00 (7:00 "God's time") at the town at the edge of the jungle, and make my way across town to the spot behind the market where the one bus a day leaves in the direction I'm heading. Already more than half the tickets are sold, though the bus doesn't leave for another four hours. I go for some coffee, get my muddy boots cleaned by one of the expert shoe-shine urchins in the plaza, and go while away a couple of hours at one of the internet cafes that seem to have popped up in every town.
I go back and claim my seat on the bus, an aging vehicle named "Live and Let Live" according to large letteriing on the windshield. Jesus and Mickey Mouse decals adorn the inside front, the Virgin Mary and a baby shoe hang from the rearview mirror, and the driver's assistant (a boy of about 15) wears a sleeveless t-shirt with a picture of Ché Guevara. We're going to need every icon we can get to keep this bus rolling. Nearly every window has a spiderweb shatter pattern from decades of flying rocks, and the seats are worn down to rusted iron frames and mended wood, with only a few tufts of gaping foam and scraps of plastic to attest to the presence of upholstery in bygone days. The bus driver assistants, all adolescent boys, busy themselves exchanging vulgarities, calling out remarks to passing girls, bantering with the traveling salesman of axle grease and used tail-lights, and pouring dark fluids from dirty buckets into the entrails of the engine. The bus fills up, with much heaving of sacks and prodding of cardboard boxes tied with rope, filling every corner of the luggage racks and aisle. I am the only non-Tzeltal passenger, and my vocabulary is pretty limited, but I can understand two old men making a pun at the expense of the President, a play on words between his last name and the Tzeltal word for turkey.
Finally we rumble off, the pavement soon runs out, and the ancient chassis groans and rattles at every rut in the road for six and a half bouncing hours. My seatmate is a 52-year-old middle peasant from a small ejido (one of the collective lands given to groups of petitioning peasants as a right won in the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17, but now reversed by President Salinas in 1992 as part of the drastic opening to the global market that has dramatically increased inequalities). He has 9 hectares planted with corn, beans, a little coffee, and pasture for an indeterminate number of cattle (peasants will never tell you how many cows they have--it's sort of like the contents of their savings account, and they're always afraid some government official or jealous neighbor might try to take one). He has made the long trip into town to buy a jug of oil to treat his fenceposts so the termites won't eat them, and also to see two of his sons who are in middle school there. He has eight children and struggles to maintain these two in school in town, hoping they might someday become "college graduates or engineers or something," though he has no idea how he would come up with the money for that. He asks me the usual questions--how many days' bus ride away my country is, what crops we grow, and if it's really cold there. Looking around at the passengers and their baggage, I realize that most have gone all the way into town for one item, six or eight or ten hours on this road for a small sack of flour or jug of oil or a radio.
As we rumble up and down the jungle hillsides, the vegetation and crops change noticeably with the micro-regions, evidence of the biodiversity that is one reason why transnational capital is interested in this long-forgotten corner of Mexico. The bus stops for passengers along the way and at one point picks up a middle-aged woman with four teenage girls wearing makeup, very unusual in indigenous communities. Their mission becomes clear when the bus stops a few kilometers later to let them off at an army base. The soldiers peer at the bus through binoculars, and I'm hoping they can't make out the tall bearded gringo. This is the first of two large bases we will pass on the only road through this canyon, part of the heavy military occupation involving about one-third of the Mexican Army in a state with less than 4% of the national population. Human rights groups estimate there is one soldier for every two families in the so-called "conflict zone" spanning the jungle, highlands, and northern regions of Chiapas.
This canyon is sprinkled with little settlements, part of the stream of internal migrants who began populating this "agricultural frontier" since the 1950s. The government initially encouraged this squatting on public lands as an escape valve for landlessness and mounting agrarian social conflict, and a cheap one at that since the state provided few services out here in the wilderness. But decades of pioneering experience in managing their own affairs made this fertile terrain for independent and increasingly radicalized peasant organizing in the 1970s and '80s which would be a thorn in the government's side, and from which eventually the Zapatista movement would emerge. Today the Zapatista communities along this road have placed hand-lettered signs defiantly proclaiming their membership in "autonomous municipalities in rebellion." They are interspersed with "priísta" communities aligned with the government, usually distinguished by signs of belated government handouts such as tin roofs and solar electric panels and the stencilled logos of welfare programs like "Progresa" from the last administration and "Oportunidades" from the current Fox administration. The Zapatistas proudly refuse government "aid" and the conditions attached, struggling to create a more self-sufficient development model and a self-governing political counterpart.
I get off at a crossroads village and start asking around for transport to where I need to go. It's awkward because this is a priísta village and I'm heading to a Zapatista community. Someone directs me to a place where I'm told a Nissan truck sometimes passes by to take passengers in the direction of El Conejo. After an hour and a half of waiting, I'm told there probably won't be any more transport. By now it's dark and has started to pour. I'm debating between the unappealing alternatives of sleeping under the overhanging eaves of the general store in a priísta village, or walking a couple of hours in the dark and the pouring rain on an unknown road toward my destination. I notice a few people with backpacks taking shelter on another porch, so I scurry over through the downpour and ask where they're going. It turns out they're also stranded, hoping to catch a ride further down the road. They talk to the shopkeeper about whether anyone else might take us, and he knows someone who has a truck but no gasoline. In the next lull of the rain he dashes out in search of someone with a jug of gas, and after a brief four-way negotiation, we've got our truck ride into the night.
A half hour later I'm dropped off in El Conejo. It's late and it's still raining hard, so I head toward a light on a porch where a family has gathered to check out the strange arrival. They ask where I'm going, and I apologize for the lateness of the hour and explain that I'm hoping to talk to the autonomous authorities, but perhaps if I could just find shelter for the night I could talk to them in the morning. They seem uncertain, and talk among themselves in Tzeltal. I mention that I have a letter of authorization from the Junta of Good Government at the Caracol, and suddenly they brighten up and relax. Someone produces a rain poncho for me and I am escorted over to one of the communal buildings. A young boy is sent for his uncle who asks the purpose of my visit, and then I am shown to a room that appears to be a combination meeting room and storage shed. It's nicely constructed with a real concrete floor, wooden windows that swing open on hinges, and a light bulb (thanks to a homemade connection that has "liberated" some electricity from the federal lines, I later learn). In one corner there is a bed frame with wooden slats, where I am invited to rest for the night. As I drift off to sleep, exhausted from the 15-hour journey, I wonder whether the bed frame of carved wood once belonged to the local rancher before a land recovery.
I'm up with the roosters, and a little girl wanders by selling bread, which I have for breakfast. In the morning light I notice signs of a well-organized community. The latrines are clean, with wooden doors instead of the usual plastic sheets, the women's and men's marked by painted pictures of ski-masked faces with and without braids. Buildings are very simple, but with architectural touches showing a little extra care in the construction. A two-story wooden building is labeled "Library of the Autonomous Municipality." Next to that is a court where some guys are shooting baskets at one end, and a co-ed volleyball game is underway at the other end. The backboards of the basketball hoops are painted in Zapatista motif, black with a red star. Across the court is a building under construction with a beautiful mural on the front depicting life in an autonomous community. (I later learn it was painted by an Italian volunteer, and is a replica of the one that was destroyed by paramilitaries when they burned down the previous seat of the autonomous municipality.) Watching the games, I strike up a conversation with a 23-year-old young man who is studying in the teacher training school. He is a Ch'ol from deeper in the jungle near the famous Mayan ruin of Palenque, but he also speaks Tzeltal and pretty decent Spanish. People seem noticeably more self-confident and conversational here than in many indigenous communities. The games are interrupted by another series of downpours, and everyone goes inside to wait out the rains.
As I wait around all day to meet with the authorities of the autonomous municipality, other student "education promotors" (improvised teachers) stop by to chat during breaks from their classes. The are from small communities throughout the region, and they alternate between a month of training and two months teaching back in their communities. They study math, languages (Spanish and Tzeltal), natural sciences and history. The first graduating class produced 64 promotors, and this second class has 54. They are full of questions about the United States: Is everyone rich? Are there indigenous people? Are there organizations and movements of people who are struggling, like here? Was the attack on the Twin Towers directed against soldiers or civilians? Is the U.S. still occupying Iraq? What happened to Saddam Hussein and his people? Is the U.S. government like the bad government of Mexico?
At 2:00 p.m. a small boy wanders over selling tamales, so I have a tasty lunch for the equivalent of 20 cents. Around 4:00 someone comes by to tell me the municipal authorities are still occupied elsewhere, and maybe they'll be back later in the day, or maybe I'll have to try to see them tomorrow. I was hoping to be able to observe some of the teacher training classes before I have to head back, but I just have to settle into the different rhythm of time here.
At 7:30 p.m. a member of the autonomous coucil suddenly appears. He sits down to ask me about my project, taking notes and asking clarifying questions. He apologizes for the delay in receiving me, explaining that they were busy with other tasks, and promises to return at 9:00 the next morning with other members of the council so I can interview them. I thank him and give him a list of the interview topics, and he's off.
Later some more of the student teachers come visit and bring me a gift of bananas. I learn that there are a half dozen words in Tzeltal for the different types of banana, and they find it highly amusing that Spanish only has one. Their lesson today was on pedagogy, "What is true education?," and they discussed the challenges of teaching children in ways that are relevant and appropriate in their communities. They asked me if the educational system in the U.S. is good. I had to think about how to respond. I told them it was pretty good at transmitting information to large numbers of people, but not as good at presenting diverse perspectives or developing habits of critical thinking. Then they wanted to know what people in the U.S. thought about the war in Iraq. Good questions! I said I thought most people generally didn't know or think much about the rest of the world, so at first the government was able to scare them with stories about dangerous weapons at a time when they felt insecure anyway after the September 11 attacks; but more people had doubts now as the casualties rose and the government stories didn't add up.
Later I talked to a student teacher who had been all the way through high school in San Cristóbal. He was being recruited there for a career as a government teacher, but said he gave that up in favor of "true education" with his people. He wanted to know what I thought of the Zapatista Sixth Declaration, and we had a good discussion. We were joined by two young women who at first were too shy to speak to me and asked their male classmate to ask where I was from. Once they overcame their shyness, they confirmed that more than three-quarters of the students were male, and said the women were often reluctant to participate for fear of being made fun of. They said some women had left the program to get married; and a few people "who could no longer bear the burden of resistance" had given up and taken government handouts "because of economic necessity," while others had gone in search of jobs in the tourist industry in Cancún or "up north." I was struck by how bright, thoughtful, and committed these young people are. With the Zapatista rebellion now 11 years old, these student teachers are the next generation of the movement.
Thursday morning I get up and clean the room with an old broom I found, in preparation for the meeting with the council. Rainclouds are already gathering, so it looks like it's going to be another wet day. Two members of the council come, about an hour late, for the interview. They live far away, so a trip in to the municipal seat here is a big deal. I recognize Rafael (not his real name) from when I went to get clearance from the Junta over in the next canyon, where he was just finishing his 10-day shift as representative of this municipality. His quieter partner on the couuncil, whom I'll call David, is from a distant divided community of 120 priístas and 24 Zapatistas. They patiently answer all of my questions, some of which have to be rephrased when I exceed their Spanish vocabulary. After two hours and six pages of notes, I have a clearer picture of how an autonomous municipality functions. I am impressed by their clarity as they explain why they have resisted the government's increasingly sophisticated cooptation schemes, updated versions of the trinkets and promises used to lure and divide indigenous peoples for centuries.
One of the many interesting things I learn is that their "Honor and Justice Commission" (court) hears mostly cases between priístas, who come to the Zapatista authorities for rulings because the official judiciary is so corrupt and ineffective. Rafael even cited a case brought by two pro-government paramilitaries who had gotten into a drunken fight with machetes, which resulted in the Zapatista commission ordering a payment of compensation for lost wages and medical treatment to the more seriously injured party. Rough justice on the agricultural frontier.
Afterwards my room is being used for another meeting, so I stand outside talking with one of the education promotors, who asks what I think of the municipality. I comment on how well-organized it seems, and on the nice construction. He smiles widely and nods agreement, adding "Look at that library--just like one of the pyramids at Yaxchilán!" Interesting comparison with the nearby site of an ancient Mayan city.
Rafael comes by to tell me that there will be no transport out that evening after all, but that a couple of compañeros will be walking out to the crossroads town to catch the 11:00 p.m. bus if I want to accompany them. We set out around 8:30 p.m. for the two hour hike in the driving rain, walking at a good clip mostly in silence as we concentrate on trying to avoid the deeper puddles, a hopeless endeavor. I discover that my rain poncho has no waterproofing whatsoever, so I'm instantly drenched. So much for Army surplus, must be made by a Halliburton subsidiary trying to cut costs. The bus comes along, this time decorated with decals of Jesus and Marcos, with a big hole in the floorboard under my seat so I can watch the inch-by-inch progress of the bus as we heave around the mountain curves. After about five hours we come to a stop. There is an overturned truck in the middle of the road, and not enough room for a large vehicle like ours to get around it. Everyone piles out, shovels and pickaxes are produced from somewhere in the interior of the bus, and several men begin to construct a makeshift detour. The driver tries it out, but gets stuck. Another truck that managed to get by backs up, cables and chains appear, and they attempt a towing operation. The cable snaps a couple of times, but eventually between pulling and pushing and shoveling we get some traction and get by. Everyone piles back on, the driver turns on the scratchy radio to full volume in celebration, and we eventually get to the town at the edge of the jungle about 8:00 the next morning. I decide to break my journey for breakfast and a decent cup of coffee, then catch a combi for the two-hour ride on paved roads back to San Cristóbal, arriving around 11:30 a.m. After a shower, more coffee, some soup, and spreading out all the wet things to dry, I'm starting to feel human again. All in all, a very interesting first visit.
# posted by Richard Stahler-Sholk @ 2:58 PM 
