Thursday, August 04, 2005
off to a new region, deeper in the jungle
I set off Tuesday, August 4 at 4 a.m. for the other region where I need to get permission from the Junta of Good Government. The first leg of the trip is a 2-hour combi (van) ride east to one of the other cities on the edge of the jungle, then a taxi across town to where the combis leave for another town 15 minutes away. From there I'm told there's one 10 a.m. truck from the zócalo (main plaza) toward where I need to go. It's still early morning and the plaza is deserted, and I'm not sure exactly where to wait for the truck. An old campesino (peasant) in tattered clothes and carrying a small backpack appears on one corner, so I go ask about the truck (mentioning its final destination rather than where I actually want to get off). It turns out he's heading that way too. When he learns I'm from the U.S., he tells me he spent two years working there. He paid a coyote (smuggler) $1,000 for the risky trip across the Arizona desert and into the hands of the enganchador (labor contractor), did agricultural work for awhile in Florida, then heard you could work longer hours and save up more money in California, which he did. It seems a huge number of people have started going to the U.S. to work in recent years from Chiapas (not a traditional sending state), reflecting the desperate state of the post-NAFTA economy especially in southern/agrarian Mexico. Everyone talks freely about it. My anthropologist friend Jan has started to study this, and he says the average migrant spends about 3 years, sends home $200-300/month, of which half goes to pay off the moneylenders (who charge a usurious 10% monthly interest on the $1,000-2,000 loan to pay the coyote).
After an hour or so he suggests we walk down the street to where the truck stops, to be sure to get a spot. The street is still empty, but soon people start to appear with bags and boxes, a couple of señoras set up stands to sell breakfast, store shutters start to get rolled up, and all the sounds and smells of a busy street corner emerge. The truck cruises by--a 3 ton cattle truck with the emblem of a Zapatista autonomous municipality on the side--then disappears. Another truck, half full of pop and other cargo, pulls up and starts negotiating fares with prospective riders, and my conversation partner hops on. I decide to wait for the Zapatista truck, especially since there is a large military base at the end of the canyon and I'm wary of the passengers the other truck might collect along the way. So far I've seen no military roadblocks, a welcome change from previous trips, but that changes constantly.
The truck finally shows up, and there's a rush of passengers and hastily loaded cargo of all sorts heaped in a big pile. We rumble off for a grueling 5-hour ride over another mountainous dirt road, packed in like cattle, the bags and boxes jumping and sliding and everyone struggling to stay on their feet and avoid getting whacked by overhanging branches. I arrive exhausted and bruised, and head for the Junta to check in. The vigilance committee (a 30ish man and a boy of about 15) takes my data, then offer hospitality: "If you need to pee or poop, we'll show you to the latrine." I gratefully accept, then go back to wait. They reappear to ask for my passport, then another hour or so of waiting. It's beautiful in these jungle canyons, and fortunately it's not raining. Finally they tell me they'll take me to where I can rest, and the Junta will send for me when they're ready and will return my passport then. They take me to a little shack, about 8 by 10 feet with wooden planks to sleep on and a small table and chair, entrust me with a key to the padlock, and point to a spot on the river where I can bathe. I crash by 10 p.m., waking up only when a grazing cow bumps into the shack and a cockroach drops onto my face, but otherwise I sleep like a rock.
I eventually got my appointment with the Junta the following afternoon, when they told me to come back at the end of the month after they've consulted with the community where I hope to work. So I ended up spending 2 days in the Caracol, and passed the time reading and talking to the schoolteachers--one couple from Mexico City, a Spaniard and his Mexico City girlfriend, and a young Tojolabal indigenous man from the community who had just received some teacher training. From what they said, school was a hit or miss affair, since all the grade levels were jumbled and students dropped in and out according to agricultural cycles and other tasks.
The man from Mexico City was fascinated to hear that I taught political science and wanted sort of a crash course in Intro. Poli. Sci. in one afternoon, which I did my best to oblige. There was also a French carpenter there, sort of a drifter who had been there for years making tables and chairs for anyone who needed them, kind of an amiable cynic with a very French outlook, and he interjected an occasional comment in the impromptu "lesson." There was something kind of surreal about the whole thing--maybe it was traying to break down classroom concepts in a way that made sense in the Lacandón Jungle--but it also made me realize that I do miss teaching a little bit, at least the motivated students.
The truck was half empty on the return trip and it seemed much easier. One of the passengers was a psychology professor from Puebla who had come with her niece to deliver a donation from her solidarity committee and pick up artisanry to sell as a fundraiser. She had left her car back on the paved road and gave me a ride back to San Cristóbal, so the return trip was not as tiring. She was definitely a city person and at one point expressed dismay that drivers were passing despite the continuous line in the middle of the road. When I mildly observed that there was really no law in these parts, she looked a bit startled, but eventually got into the swing of passing slow trucks.
I learned from the conversation on that trip that Mexican universities are also trying to erode the tenure system and replace faculty with part-time lecturers whenever they can. She had been teaching 20 years and had tenure, but the administration disapproved of her political activism and transferred her from the psychology department, making her teach ethics and other intro courses in the university's core curriculum.
She also told me an interesting story about her trip into the jungle. There is no real public transportation in these remote areas, so the roads are plied by trucks owned by particular communities, bringing in supplies and picking up passengers for a fee. Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas will pick each other up--a truck is a truck and a fare is a fare--but it's a bit awkward, and the unwritten rule seems to be that the "guest" passengers keep a low profile when riding a truck from one of the "other" communities. On the Zapatista truck she was on, some pro-goverment guys (still called "priístas" after the former ruling party) got on stinking drunk, passing a bottle among them. The Zapatista have a strict dry law, but presumably they let it pass to avoid provoking an incident. The drunks started losing their balance on the bouncing truck and crashing into this woman and her young niece. At that point one of the Zapatista passengers intervened and told the priístas, "If you don't stop hassling women and children, I'm going to put you off the truck right here, and break your bottle too." A small incident, but it revealed some of the complexities of divided communities living in such close proximity and intertwined lives.
After an hour or so he suggests we walk down the street to where the truck stops, to be sure to get a spot. The street is still empty, but soon people start to appear with bags and boxes, a couple of señoras set up stands to sell breakfast, store shutters start to get rolled up, and all the sounds and smells of a busy street corner emerge. The truck cruises by--a 3 ton cattle truck with the emblem of a Zapatista autonomous municipality on the side--then disappears. Another truck, half full of pop and other cargo, pulls up and starts negotiating fares with prospective riders, and my conversation partner hops on. I decide to wait for the Zapatista truck, especially since there is a large military base at the end of the canyon and I'm wary of the passengers the other truck might collect along the way. So far I've seen no military roadblocks, a welcome change from previous trips, but that changes constantly.
The truck finally shows up, and there's a rush of passengers and hastily loaded cargo of all sorts heaped in a big pile. We rumble off for a grueling 5-hour ride over another mountainous dirt road, packed in like cattle, the bags and boxes jumping and sliding and everyone struggling to stay on their feet and avoid getting whacked by overhanging branches. I arrive exhausted and bruised, and head for the Junta to check in. The vigilance committee (a 30ish man and a boy of about 15) takes my data, then offer hospitality: "If you need to pee or poop, we'll show you to the latrine." I gratefully accept, then go back to wait. They reappear to ask for my passport, then another hour or so of waiting. It's beautiful in these jungle canyons, and fortunately it's not raining. Finally they tell me they'll take me to where I can rest, and the Junta will send for me when they're ready and will return my passport then. They take me to a little shack, about 8 by 10 feet with wooden planks to sleep on and a small table and chair, entrust me with a key to the padlock, and point to a spot on the river where I can bathe. I crash by 10 p.m., waking up only when a grazing cow bumps into the shack and a cockroach drops onto my face, but otherwise I sleep like a rock.
I eventually got my appointment with the Junta the following afternoon, when they told me to come back at the end of the month after they've consulted with the community where I hope to work. So I ended up spending 2 days in the Caracol, and passed the time reading and talking to the schoolteachers--one couple from Mexico City, a Spaniard and his Mexico City girlfriend, and a young Tojolabal indigenous man from the community who had just received some teacher training. From what they said, school was a hit or miss affair, since all the grade levels were jumbled and students dropped in and out according to agricultural cycles and other tasks.
The man from Mexico City was fascinated to hear that I taught political science and wanted sort of a crash course in Intro. Poli. Sci. in one afternoon, which I did my best to oblige. There was also a French carpenter there, sort of a drifter who had been there for years making tables and chairs for anyone who needed them, kind of an amiable cynic with a very French outlook, and he interjected an occasional comment in the impromptu "lesson." There was something kind of surreal about the whole thing--maybe it was traying to break down classroom concepts in a way that made sense in the Lacandón Jungle--but it also made me realize that I do miss teaching a little bit, at least the motivated students.
The truck was half empty on the return trip and it seemed much easier. One of the passengers was a psychology professor from Puebla who had come with her niece to deliver a donation from her solidarity committee and pick up artisanry to sell as a fundraiser. She had left her car back on the paved road and gave me a ride back to San Cristóbal, so the return trip was not as tiring. She was definitely a city person and at one point expressed dismay that drivers were passing despite the continuous line in the middle of the road. When I mildly observed that there was really no law in these parts, she looked a bit startled, but eventually got into the swing of passing slow trucks.
I learned from the conversation on that trip that Mexican universities are also trying to erode the tenure system and replace faculty with part-time lecturers whenever they can. She had been teaching 20 years and had tenure, but the administration disapproved of her political activism and transferred her from the psychology department, making her teach ethics and other intro courses in the university's core curriculum.
She also told me an interesting story about her trip into the jungle. There is no real public transportation in these remote areas, so the roads are plied by trucks owned by particular communities, bringing in supplies and picking up passengers for a fee. Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas will pick each other up--a truck is a truck and a fare is a fare--but it's a bit awkward, and the unwritten rule seems to be that the "guest" passengers keep a low profile when riding a truck from one of the "other" communities. On the Zapatista truck she was on, some pro-goverment guys (still called "priístas" after the former ruling party) got on stinking drunk, passing a bottle among them. The Zapatista have a strict dry law, but presumably they let it pass to avoid provoking an incident. The drunks started losing their balance on the bouncing truck and crashing into this woman and her young niece. At that point one of the Zapatista passengers intervened and told the priístas, "If you don't stop hassling women and children, I'm going to put you off the truck right here, and break your bottle too." A small incident, but it revealed some of the complexities of divided communities living in such close proximity and intertwined lives.
# posted by Richard Stahler-Sholk @ 7:15 PM 
