Orientation to Chiapas

Two weeks ago I had an amazing orientation into the situation here in Chiapas. I was presented to a range of different organizations (set up by the organization who organized the internship) in San Cristobal who each gave ma a briefing on their area of expertise (all in Spanish!). I also had the opportunity to visit a Zapatista community, autonomous communities who have very well thought out ideals and political views, with someone who has been working with them for years (Julio) and therefore was able to brief me in detail about their 'lucha' (fight). They have set up an autonomous government completely apart from the Mexican government which is entirely democratic. They are attempting to be sustainable, relying as much as possible from their own communities for everything they need as well as trying to conserve their own cultural practices. But the primary goal is to have control over decisions and issues that affect them. I was able to talk to the ‘good government junta’ on my visit, after being checked by a committee to find out the reasons for my visit. I was greeted with open arms into the government building and was able to chat to the government council for an hour, answering all of my enquiries about the community with eagerness and pride. The community was located in beautiful countryside, up in the mountains in complete serenity from the outside world. This visit was definitely one of the highlights of my trip so far!

Situation in Chiapas
The military presence is extremely high in Chiapas. They're not doing much at the moment but Julio tells me they're increasing their troops and establishing themselves more and more, making their presence known. The most concerning is the para-miliatary gangs which are apparently trained by the army to attack communities.

The overall plans of the government here is to take land away from indigenous communities so as to be able to sell it to mining companies or ‘develop’ it for e.g. future tourists. They are also planning on growing 1 million hectares of bio-fuels in Chiapas by 2012.

The Plan Puebla Panama, a highway that is planned from Mexico to Columbia is already taking place – they have started work on the highway from Chiapas to Palenque (have done approx. 9 km’s) but they have encountered opposition, especially since where they’re planning on building the highway is through some Zapatista communities. They will also be destroying a very rich ecosystem which is used as a haven by migratory birds on their way up or down every year. There’s also another highway planned (under a different name – IIRSA) stretching from Columbia all the way to the South of America. The main reasons for this highway is to create infrastructure for mining companies (mainly coming from Canada) to come and extract resources as well as the opportunity to create new sweatshops, where labour will be cheaper down south and the transportation will be swifter with this new highway.

No need to say that my head hurt at the end of this week from the overload of very interesting but quite confronting information. I was taken to Palenque on the Friday to be presented to the organization I will be working with for the next 3 months. But all the travelling I had been doing ended up catching with me and I fell sick as a dog as soon as I got to Palenque. I had all the symptoms of swine flu, or so it seemed to me! I couldn’t do much more than moan about having a fever in 40 degree heat and try and sweat it out. I did go and visit the ruins in a fit of insanity with my friend Flo who happened to be in Palenque at the same time as me, but quite obviously didn’t appreciate any of the amazing archaeological ruins in my presence.

Next blog issue – my organisation – what will I be doing? Not to be missed!

Travelling - not the right time?

First, here's the link to my pictures - there's been a little problem with uploading to flickr... many of the photos have lost some of their colours and contrast - but you get the drift!

I am writing to you based from Palenque, Mexico. Yes, that’s right I’ve left Guatemala (quite sadly) and am in one of the hottest towns of the country not to mention the big tourist attraction – the impressive Mayan ruins just down the road.

So to recount the last 3 weeks or so, I left Xela about 3 weeks ago (quit my bar job and said goodbye to Spanish classes) to go and see the rest of Guatemala. I traveled up to Semuc Champey, a natural wonder where the river flows under land and there are a series of stepped turquoise rock pools on top of the river. It’s a beautiful, sacred place that reminded me of Kakadu and made me realize once again, how beautiful Australia really is.

From Semuc I went up to Tikal. The journey there was the most thrilling of the trip. Two oil trucks that had taken the same route the night before had experienced leaks and therefore oil had spilled all over the road. We were driving in a chicken bus where all passengers and driver seemed quite alarmed with the condition of the road (not a good sign if locals are concerned!) The driver was being extremely careful and maneuvered our chicken minibus with great ability, sometimes driving on the wrong side where there was less oil (but on coming traffic!). An hour and a half of this and we managed to surpass most of the oil. Sighs of relief were heard throughout the whole bus.

Tikal is an extensive archaeological Mayan site which was one of the largest Mayan cities during its peak. It is still being excavated and will take years before it’s mostly uncovered. As everyone tells you, you need to go nice and early in the morning otherwise it just gets too hot and you have no energy to walk around and see these amazing pyramids. The best thing about Tikal for me is the jungle that it’s set within. It’s thick, green and tropical and makes you feel like anything could happen in the vastness of the trees. You can also hear the cries of Howler monkeys in the thick vines that surround the ruins, an impressive cry if you’ve never heard one before! At Tikal I decided that my heart wasn’t into traveling at that point and that all I wanted to do was head back to Xela. With my heart and mind set, I caught a night bus with a fellow Israeli for safeguard. We got the cheapest and nastiest bus tickets possible and were sure that we would be pushing the bus after purchasing our tickets from two very strange sales people – one being a serial smiler. Luckily enough the bus was safe, although we were cramped in like sardines. I got back to Xela and spent the last few days enjoying knowing a place, people and feeling at home.

Since then I’ve left Guatemala through a series of Chicken buses (10 hours worth) I crossed the border to Mexico with no hassles whatsoever. I don’t like border crossings. They make me nervous for some reason. I always feel as if I don’t have the right documents on me and I’ll be refused entry. You get a little piece of paper when you go through the Mexican border which is meant to be your tourist card that you have to pay for at the bank. No one tells you this of course and if you can’t read Spanish, well good luck to you! Finally at 8pm I arrived in San Cristobal, a city situated in the mountains of Chiapas with colonial Spanish architecture. There are so many churches in this town, all built on hills overlooking the city. It’s a bohemian city with many hippies flocking here for the easy lifestyle it brings. You can sit in a Zapatista café sipping your café late discussing the politics of a revolution while listening to street buskers and feeling like you’re a radical.

To be continued…

Working and women

So as some of you have noticed, I’ve skipped a week in my blogging… mainly due to the fact that I’ve started working. After 3 job offers I decided that it was a sign that working here was something that I should take up. Now, I thought my hospitality days were long gone,, along with my uni days but I guess you can never say never…

I’m working in a bar/restaurant called Salon Tecun, the oldest bar in Guatemala which is located in the centre of town, in a beautiful old arcade. It’s a bar where Che Guevara drank when he came to Xela I’ve been told and it’s definitely very popular with locals. My Spanish is improving from having worked here, or at least my table and wine Spanish is. I think the main reason why they hired me was because foreigners apparently attract more tips, therefore meaning more tips for all the staff. I get approximately $1.50 an hour, and a total of $15 (90Q) for my 8 ½ hour shift and around $2-3 in tips a night. Not exactly raking it in! Now I’m not working to make money, it’s just for the benefit of practicing my Spanish that I’ve decided to work. What is amazing is when you consider that what I’m earning is above the minimum wage for Guatemalans (approximately $9 (52Q) for a days work) and a litre of beer for example costs $ 6.50 (35Q). Life is extremely expensive for Guatemalans earning an average salary, particularly now with the economic crisis, unemployment is extremely high, especially in rural areas. That’s why a lot of people can’t afford the necessities of life such as fruits and vegetables and sending their kids to school.

Before I came to Guatemala I had read that the society here was entrenched with patriarchy. This seems to be true from my experiences so far. I have met so many women who have been left by their husbands, with kids to look after or women who are regularly beaten up by their husbands. Women do all the housework as is to be expected in a machismo culture and many accept to be subservants to men. It seems to be a regular occurrence for men to cheat on their wives and almost accepted within society that this happens. I’ve been told that women who separate from their husbands find it much harder to find a new partner and are sometimes ostracized by society. Therefore many women don’t by choice separate from their husbands. Violence against women is amongst the highest in Latin America with over 4000 women killed since 2000. They say that approximately 4 women a week are being killed here and the majority being poor young women.

Looking different and being a woman here attracts a lot of unwanted attention. Sometimes you take it in your stride and brush it off and other times you can’t help but react with offense. Obviously working in a bar opens you up to this sort of behaviour and you just have to politely decline the offer and continue handing out the drinks.

The lake

Hello fellow readers – My ‘editor’ recently told me that I should write smaller chunks, more frequently. After some pondering, I decided that this was probably a good idea although it does means that I will have to stop procrastinating so much and push myself to write on a more regular basis. So here it goes. You can now expect more frequent updates (maybe once a week?) without having to read an essay. Gasps of relief from all…

So recently I made a weekend trip to Lake Atitlan. The lake is surrounded by amazing volcanoes (like almost everywhere in this country!) and provides you with mystical journeys in more than a few ways. I was lucky enough to stay with a couch surfer who had quite a few others crashing at his luxurious palace, situated in a town called Panajachel. Some of the beds in this palace were 4 x 4 meters, easily fitting four people comfortably. The place included a sauna, a tropical garden refuge and some squirrels that the cat liked to chase, creating loud bangs on the roof as if a person were breaking and entering. Thanks to the people staying at the palace I was able to learn about Guatemalan politics, spoken in Spanish which meant that I was able to understand about half of what was said – I say proudly. In summary, the situation in Guatemala is getting worse, with much distrust in the government but at the same time, with the possibility of opposing groups taking advantage of the situation.

We visited a few of the other towns also situated on the lake, one called Santiago which seemed to be quite touristy, especially in the initial few 100 meters after getting off from the boat. The other we visited was San Pedro which had an interesting café where we found most of the tourist population on a rainy Saturday afternoon. This café had cushions spread all across the floor with low to the floor tables and colourful lamps that hung from the ceiling creating a Turkish feeling to the place. The only thing missing were hookah to go with the smell of the grass floating around the place. All in all, a beautiful place to spend a weekend. I recommend it to all of you!

Three weeks in Xela

21.5.09

Three weeks living in Xela and I feel like I´ve been here for ever. All the ex-pat longtermers say that the city sux you in and takes a long time to spit you out again. I think this may be true. Or maybe it´s just that my traveling style has changed. No longer do I feel the need to see all the main attractions and tourist haunts...feeling unsatisfied until all places have been visisted. I´m quite content trying to live my life as a local and settling in in one place rather than being on the move, ticking off the places I´ve seen as they start to all blend together.

The political situation in Guatemala has recently developed another important historical milestone. A well respected lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg was shot dead a little over a week ago in the capital. A little after his murder, the media released a video that Rosenberg produced if he was killed. He incriminated several high ranking government leaders for his murder, including the President, Alvaro Colom. This has started a massive political debate upon corruption in the current government. There are groups asking for the government to be ousted and others who say its an attempt at destabilising democracy. Protests are occuring frequently and there´s even been talk of a possible cue by the opposition. This is a country that has suffered more than 36 years of civil war which ended in 1996. Trust in the government is essential especially if old wounds are to heal. Colom is very quickly loosing this trust. It´s amazing to see so much political debate in civil society. Apathy doesn´t exist here and people who have had access to education seem to be well informed about politics and the history of the place. A little different to Australia´s situation.

I was wondering through the La Democracia market yesterday, overwhelmed with the abundance of fresh food, kitchenware, traditional cloth and general chaos that a market that size brings. After purchasing what I believe to be Guatemala´s version of a huge squash from a wrinkled old lady sitting amongst her vegetables, she asked me where I was from. Everyone who´s white in Guatemala is considered to be a ´gringo´ (from the U.S.) until you prove them otherwise. I told her Australia and she looked at me bemused, not understanding that I wasn´t from the U.S. She had never heard of Australia and neither had any of her friends sitting near her. I told her that it was near Asia and left it at that. Almost as bad as when I was speaking to someone before I left Sydney about Guatemala and they responded, ¨Guatemala, what is that?¨.

I´m not sure if this is a tradition held solely by the Guatemalans, but for every occasions here (and this means for absolutely anything), fireworks/crackers are let off at ALL hours of the day (especially Sunday morning, very early...). My belief is that they are used with the aim to scare the living daylights out of people, especially while they´re sleeping. On mother´s day a couple of weeks ago, I woke up to the pleasant sound of bomb explosions - at 1 in the morning. This is a tradition that could be fazed out in my opinion.

So everyone may think that it´s a tropical country here, but the evidence is opposite, or at least in the mountains where Xela is situated. It´s bloody freezing! And here I was thinking that I was getting away from the Sydney winter. It also rains a lot, at least from the start of May till the end of October. When it rains in Xela, it´s definitely classified as a tropical downpour. You get saturated in one second flat, just as if you´ve had a shower, with ponds in your shoes and clothes that cling onto you like wet towels. Rivers run down the streets and laneways and walking becomes an opstical course, jumping from rock to rock with the objective of having less water inundate your shoes.

That´s it for now. Am off for a weekend trip to the ´lake´ and then for a week in a rural mountain school where I´m sure I´ll have no access to internet.

First week in America

4.5.09 - Sydney to Aukland – Not much to report, Aukland airport is as nice as any other airport, but watching the sun go down from the large windows next to the bar was inspirational and helped ease my post-goodbye sadness.

Aukland to L.A. – Bloody long trip! 12 hours of uncomfortable sitting, awkward neck positions while trying to sleep and receiving food that left much to be desired. We finally landed in the acclaimed city of L.A. with a few cases of masked people wondering around the airport…

Stopover for 12 hours – Angry officials greeted us at the immigration counter – two hand prints later and one unsmiling photo, I passed through with no problems (surprise!). Met a kiwi in the queue who was also waiting for his connecting flight so we decided to try our luck and do a quick tour of L.A… or at least Santa Monica beach.

First impressions – everything is so big! Cars especially are the size of trucks; funny bike police dressed with aviator sunglasses and cowboy uniforms, lots of fast food everywhere, lots of diverse ethnic groups – much more so than in Australia. I feel like I’m in a movie with American accents all around me (how surprising!). Santa Monica is a huge stretch of a beach, where some of Baywatch was filmed. Alongside hammers, troop carriers and limo’s lives the working class... it´s a weird but familiar contrast. I feel so strange being in America. Perhaps because I have seen and heard so much about this place and have very set ideas of what I will find here. To finally set foot on American soil and experience what I have only seen on T.V. is a marking moment indeed.

L.A. to Guatemala – I arrived in Guatemala after almost 48 hours of traveling and feeling very spaced and displaced. I realize at this point that I really don’t know how to say anything in Spanish and so I get my phrase book out, like a typical tourist and work out how to say “can you take me to the Xela bus stop” to the taxi driver. After some haggling about the price (I somehow managed to suss out the words for this!) off we went into the city of Guat.

First impressions – Guat. reminds me so much of Timor! The sprawl of city life, street vendors parading their goods, markets stretching out onto the streets, the way people drive, the large mountains in the background of the city, the fields full of produce... sometimes even the Guatemaltecans have similarities to Timorese people. Amazing – this makes me feel much more at home. One of the marking differences is the level of development in the city and towns. Bigger houses, bigger buildings, well constructed roads, better resourced, and generally seems to have more money than Timor - just a bit more...

After a four hour bus trip I arrive in Xela (Quetzalteco). I pick up my extremely heavy backpack (22 kg’s!) and set out to find my couch surfer friend.

Xela is a beautiful city/town set amongst the mountains and volcanoes of Guatemala. It’s cold in the morning and at night (didn’t prepare for that!) but sunny and relatively hot during the day. Most of its architecture has a renaissance feel to it, built during colonial times. There’s a gorgeous town plaza which displays the reconstructed church which collapsed in an earthquake in the 70’s. Speaking of earthquakes there’s been a few tremors in the past week. Eeek!

Guatemala is a country of more than 55% indigenous people. They’ve been discriminated against for centuries and are still so today. When the Spanish were here, they imposed a typical set of clothing for each indigenous group to be able to differentiate between them. You constantly see these dresses and skirts being warn in the street. It’s quite a strange site to see so many people wearing such colourful ‘uniforms’. These were around before the Spaniards arrived but weren´t regimented in style and colour to each indigenous group.

So I started my Spanish school on Monday (felt like I was starting my first day of school all over again!) and feel like I’m already improving although I get frustrated when I can’t explain things properly, which happens a lot! I have an elderly woman teaching me Spanish for five hours a day, five days a week. I don’t think she liked me too much at first (another bloody tourist wanting to learn Spanish!) but I’m sensing that I’m growing on her. She’s been telling me about the problems that indigenous (Maya) people face and has also been telling me about her political efforts in the civil war, to organize women. My flatmates speak to me mostly in Spanish and thanks to my French and Tetum, I seem to understand most of what they say. I do make up some words (normally a mixture of Tetum and Italian) but either people nod politely in agreement not having understood a word or they understand what I say.

That´s it for now - I will put up some photos up of Xela soon - once I get over my shyness and take my camera out for a walk around town.