Dos, Tres y Cuarto!

CHELLO! Hope everything is treating everyone really well! I realized this week how much I miss the fall and changing leaves and lots of people. But Mexico has been treating me really well. I'm learning a lot about social movements and popular education and Zapatismo and how to take a cold shower and totally enjoy it. I've been in Oventic for four weeks now, this upcoming week will be our last. It has gone by so fast- I've been in Mexico for more than a month now! Oventic is a region about an hour from San Cristobal. We've been staying more specifically at a Caracol, which is an autonomous community completely run by Zapatistas. The one we're staying at is covered in murals dedicated to the beautiful faces of the students of the secondary school, the luchadoras, the women of the cause, the men of the cause, the message that is the Zapatistas: todo para todos y nada para nosotors, which roughly translates to everything for everyone and nothing for us. They are anti-capitalist, autonomous, as in they reject the Mexican government, which has been deemed el mal gobeirno, which is how I've started to refer to it as well. This program is a lot about looking at history and the current condition from the bottom up, as in how people have been exploited and where we all fit into the picture; the picture of change and of exploitation.

Anyways since being in Oventic I've climbed a huge hill/ slash mountain which has a pueblo at the top and the only way for people to come and go is to climb the path which is about a 30 minute walk, but that was without bags of things. I've visited a river and had class there- most of my classes are outside and only with four-six people. We're usually in circles without shoes on. Sometimes we look at picture books other times we're playing board games. We've visited a woman's cooperative, where indigenous women sell all the amazing clothes and jewelry they make and get the money directly- there is no middle man. The women were incredible. They saw the manner in which they were being exploited and did something about it. So they no longer have to sell on the street and sell at unfair prices. There is also a clinic in the caracol and two men talked to us about everything they've been working on, including prevention measures in the various pueblos because treatable conditions, such as diarrhea continue to be serious conditions.

But on some happier notes, we've all worked with students from the high school and made a radio show (all in Spanish- which is the students' second language, an indigenous language called tsotsil being their first). It was great and I worked with three students, Ana, Rosa and Mauro. Mauro is from a community about seven hours from the Caracol; its a long trip to from the school. These kids are motivated, beautiful, inspirational. They live all together in large dorm style rooms and they are so affectionate towards each other; the environment here is like none other I've ever experienced. The kids take care of washing their own clothes, cooking food (for the 200 students), cleaning their living areas, functioning as a collective; I sometimes have a really hard time imagining this kind of place existing in the United States.

I'm trying as hard as I can to appreciate being here each day and taking in the food, the murals, and most importantly the people. We leave on Friday morning for a week of vacation, but sometimes I feel like I still have so much to learn from the Zapatistas.

On Thursday we're going to throw a huge party! Una fiesta! WITH A PINATA! AND FOOD FOR 250-300 PEOPLE! AND GUESS WHOSE COOKING? ME! haha just kidding. All twelve of us are cooking all day Thursday. Peeling, cutting, dicing...its going to be great! And we're putting on a puppet show. Its going to be really busy! We did all the cooking, I wish you call could see the mass amount of food we have!

Then after the fiesta, on Friday we're coming back to San Cristobal for one night and then driving the 12 hours to Mexico City to start vacation week! We'll spend like 2 nights there and then off to Michoacan, where five of us will spend an amazing week looking for turtles and lying in the sun!

Miss you all