The Week In Review: A Challenge, por lo menos

What I've been doing for the last week:

Thursday: I was hanging out in Florianopolis with Laura and Guto, who treated me very well. We basically just went to the beach and walked around the tiny tourist town where their rented apartment is, because for most of the day it was too hot to do anything else. Oh, and I ate acai. I love acai!!!
Good: the beautiful, clean beaches with perfect, foamy water that wasn't too strong to play in. Having a few days do do basically nothing. Watching Maria Full of Grace and Life Is Beautiful, both really good and really sad but neither of them as devastating as I had expected them to be. Finding the health food store and buying bulk organic food that saved me for the next week! The granola-looking hippie lady that ran it was totally classic!
Bad: Getting bitten all night, every night by some kind of insane, tiny flying biting ants that were really excited about the fact that I was sleeping on the kitchen floor. That totally, totally sucked, actually. Mmmm, but I think that that was the only bad thing. Everything else was pretty effing great.

Friday: (3/7): Said my goodbyes and thank-yous to Laura and Guto and got on the bus to Foz do Iguacu, arriving early Saturday morning- I wrote a whole entry just about this, so see "Foz Do Iguacu" below.

Saturday: That night I got on another bus, this time headed for Asuncion, Paraguay, and after dealing with some total crap at the border where they charged me $30 for not having a visa (since when did you need a visa to go through Paraguay?! Since December, according to them), I eventually made it there around 11:30 pm. SInce I hadn't heard back from any of my couchsurfing attempts, I just walked across the street from the bus station and booked myself into the first cheap, sleazy hotel I saw. $8 US got me a tiny room and a hot shower with a shared bathroom, and I realized happily that dingy though it may be, it was the first actual bed I'd slept in since leaving Sao Paulo, so I was happy- though really, totally ready to leave Paraguay.

Sunday: I checked back out of my little room at 9:30am and put my things in the storage room at the bus terminal, after buying my ticket to Bolivia. I then spent the rest of the morning looking everywhere for an open internet cafe, since I actually had no concept of where in the city I was, where anything else was, or what I might actually do with myself for the day, since my bus wasn't due to leave until 7pm. Eventually I asked one of the guys working in a telephone call center and he told me to catch a certain bus to a certain market, and that they would probably have something there. Well, that bus never came, so eventually I just got on a different bus with the same market listed in the hand-written sign on the front, and after about 10 minutes we passed an open internet cafe on that road so I just got out there and spent a little time re-connecting with the outside world. Sometimes it is just really, really grounding to be able to sit at a computer and feel reassured that the world you know really is still there, you just aren't in it right now!
Paraguay in general was really intense, even though I was only there for one day. I couldn't understand what most people were saying to me, even though they were speaking Spanish, because they were speaking with this really slurred accent that basically leaves out distinct syllables and entire endings of most words. Even when I asked someone to repeat it but more slowly I couldn't really make it out, so that sucked. When I can't understand what someone is saying to me it makes me feel so anxious, like I'm sure they think I'm really slow or something, which in turn makes me paranoid that everyone dislikes me and/ or wants to rip me off for being an ignorant gringo that can't even speak spanish. I'm trying, I swear!!!
Another thing about Paraguay is the really obvious, crushing poverty that subsumes it. When we crossed the border from Brazil the difference was crystal clear. I know that Brazil has intense problems with homelessness and poverty too, but at least in the cities, Brazil tries to cordon those people and communities off, to hide them from frightened tourist eyes. But in Paraguay there is no such deception. There are families living in dirt lots with innumerable grubby kids running around, crying, with distended bellies and enormous, tragic eyes. There are children grasping fences and huffing from plastic bags while gesturing wildly at something invisible in front of them, and vendors hopping off and on buses, all night every night, desperately hawking biscuits and hot orange juice for the equivalent of about 10 cents, going back and forth, back and forth all night until they've earned enough to buy food for their families for the next day. For me, the middle class American, it is much easier to travel somewhere without the consequences of my own privilege staring at me, begging for change, making me uncomfortable. Maybe this is why so few tourists go to Paraguay.
That night I got on the bus for Bolivia, and as we pulled out of the station, an hour late, rain started to fall. I put in my headphones, reclined the seat of the ancient bus, and fell asleep.

Monday: The first thing that happened Monday was leaving Paraguay. Sometime around midnight, we pulled onto a long dirt road, made muddy by the rain, and stepped out into the humid night air to be allowed to leave Paraguay. We walked down a path and up to a rough wooden shack in the middle of a vast pasture, and waited in a line while chickens and dogs ran to and fro in the front yard. When it was finally my turn, the man behind the wooden table took my passport without a word, gave me a cursory glance, stamped the exit page and handed it back without ceremony. Eventually we got back on the bus and kept going.
Some hours later, we hit a similarly muddy and similarly remote area, wherein a small cluster of buildings signalled that we were now at the Bolivian immigration office. Again I stood in line, only this time there were money changers and a "cafe" on either side of me. This time, though, the men behind the desk were not silent. When it was my turn, they flipped through my passport, looking, vainly for- what? Once, twice, then, "no hay visa?". My heart sank. Fuck! I had even asked people if I needed a visa and everyone told me no! I said, "no, no necesito un visa, verdad?". The men rolled their eyes and exchanged irritated glances before telling me, "si, necesitas una visa o no puedes entrar. Es cien dolares." Ummm... excuse me?! One hundred dollars?! What did they think, that I'm completely stupid? Besides, I actually didn't HAVE a hundred dollars with me. What do they think, I just carry around that kind of money like an idiot rich tourist? I was mad. But then they pointed to the sign on the wall, and there, to my even greater annoyance and disbelief, was the proof: All U.S. Citizens have to pay $100 US to enter Bolivia, along with a whole other list of needed documents, including a credit card, yellow fever vaccination card (luckily I had done that before Brazil), ticket in and out, and some other stuff too. I was sooo annoyed! Not only was it 3am and I was totally out of it, but I didn't actually have the money they wanted and they were threatening that they weren't going to let me in at all. Then when they asked me why I even wanted to come to Bolivia and I told them I was here to volunteer on an animal sanctuary, they tried to give me even more crap saying that well, then, I was lying by saying I only needed a tourist visa since really I was trying to work here, which of course is completely ridiculous. Great. Eventually the bus driver stepped in and spoke with the guys, who were very blatantly enjoying my misery, and agreed to front me the cash until we got to Santa Cruz, using my passport and all my documents as collatoral, just to make sure. 16 hours later we were there, and he got his money and I got my passport, and I was all too happy to get off of that bus.
Once I arrived I called Carla, my couchsurfing host, and she eventually came to get me and rescue me from the attentions of every single "hippie /traveller/ freak/ weirdo" in the station. There aren't many people in South America who look "different", so anyone who does is kind of automatically part of this secret club, and sometimes I welcome the immediate solidarity. But other times it just stresses me out to have to talk to people, to explain where I'm from, and what I'm doing here, and talk about my tattoo and where I want to go next and what I'm doing for money etc etc. Especially having just disembarked from a 23-hour-long bus trip from hell.

Tuesday: I woke up in the office of Carla's house, and learned that Carla has gone out to run various errands, but would be back soon. So I put on some clothes & arranged my stuff as neatly as possible, and went downstairs to eat the rest of the bread and olive oil I had brought as some sort of breakfast. Sure enough, shortly thereafter Carla reappeared and said I could go into town with her and her friend if I wanted, so I jumped in the car and away we went. Carla had a bunch of other errands to run, so she suggested slew of parks and museums I could go check out and dropped me at the vegetarian restaurant , which was only a few blocks away from the central plaza in town. I ate a decent, though not terribly exciting, lunch of salad, soup, & some kind of rice thing with tvp, and then headed for the square. But I was still feeling really tired and low-energy, despite having gotten nearly 12 hours of sleep and having slept the majority of my time on the bus the day before. So I just sat on a bench next to a shoe shine man for a long while, watching the people around me, taking in the plaza (24th de Septiembre) and all it's attendant activity.
Eventually I decided to check my email, so I killed almost two hours doing that, and then I went for a walk to see some parks, and came across a japanese market that had really cheap tofu and miso and soy meat, so I bought a few things there too and continued on my way. I stopped in at a bakery and inquired about whether they had any sweets that were without dairy or eggs, and the woman motioned to a pile of adorable little donuts with white coconut icing. After verifying that they really were totally vegan, I bought two and went happily on my way, feeling like maybe things were okay after all. By then it was time to meet Carla, but when I called her she was busy so we agreed to meet two hours later in front of the cathedral. I killed a few more hours searching in vain for the art museum and drinking a frozen iced tea (delicious) in a cute cafe next to the cathedral, and went out to wait but she never showed. By now I was getting a little anxious and irritated cause I had a headache, so I called her and realized that we had misunderstood each other because she was at home helping her mom and wouldn't be able to come and get me anymore. So I asked her to email me directions by bus and once again embarked on an internet odyssey, this time feeling pretty out of it and over Santa Cruz in general... If you got an email from me that day, I apologize! I have never been good at hiding my feelings!
Anyway, eventually I got a cab home and it all worked out in the end. I took an ibuprofen and went to bed, and once again slept for a very long time.

Wednesday: Today Carla was really excited to actually take me out and show me around, cause she didn't have a million things she had to do. So we went and bought my ticket for Sucre, and asked around at various travel agencies for quotes on a ticket for her to go to Germany later this summer, since she's been offered a job as an au pair. Another element to the inequity of the world economy is the fact that folks here in South America, despite earning far less than those of us in North America, have to pay far more in real dollars to travel. For example, the absolute lowest price she has found on a round-trip ticket to Germany is somewhere around $1800 US. Now I know that it is a long way to go from here to there, but I can pretty much guarantee that if the ticket was round-trip ORIGINATING in Germany, it would be less. Less people here can afford to fly, so there is less service, and therefore less competition, and therefore- everything is actually MORE expensive than for those of us who already have the money to spend! The irony is astounding, and the cyclical nature of this system is disheartening, to say the least.
Anyway, we also went and hung out for a bit with Carla's friend Fatima who make us a lovely lunch, including a special batch of veggies without eggs just for me, and then the three of us took a long walk to the muddy, overflowing river nearby. After this Carla and I said goodbye to Fatima and went to the biggest open market in town, where Carla's mom works selling the sportswear that is made in the workshop attached to their house. We hung out there, wandering in and out of stalls, and Carla bought some clothes while I settled for a chocle (an ear of traditional corn, very different from the corn we have at home) and some papas fritas. Eventually we helped her mom carry stuff back to the car and close up the stall, and headed home. Later that night we went back out with some of Carla's girlfriends and sang along loudly to the guy with the guitar doing a pretty good job of covering just about every "alternative" hit from the nineties, the pinnacle of which was "Creep" by Radiohead, which he even played a second time for us. Much, much later, we found our way into a cab and eventually arrived in her neighborhood, by which time both of us had fallen asleep. I woke up easily but getting Carla awake again was a whole other challenge, but eventually I was able to jostle her into consciousness enough to prop her up while we picked our way back to her house through the muddy, rutted dirt roads.

Thursday: After going to bed sometime around 5:30, I was awakened by Rosio, the girl who does the cooking and cleaning at Carla's house, asking me if I'd seen Carla's cell phone. Unfortunately, I didn't have it, and apparently neither did she, which is a shame. I eventually crawled out of bed and managed to shower and get packed, since I had a 4 o'clock flight to Sucre. I know, I know- I really, really didn't want to fly anymore, but after so many days on the bus and with the roads being mostly impassable due to either flooding or blockades by striking workers, I really couldn't say no when I realized that a plane ticket was $50 and would save me 16- 24 hours of bus time. I promise, I will do something valuable to make up for the size of my environmental footprint this year- really!
Anyway, I got another cab to the airport and had a complete painless trip here to Sucre, where I arrived at 4:30 in the afternoon. I headed into town and realized that my Couchsurfing contact hadn't gotten my emails yet, so I waited a while, went and ate at the vegetarian restaurant (the best meal I've had in weeks- tofu asada with veggies and rice in some kind of traditional sauce), and eventually met up with the other girl I'd been planning to hang out with (also from CS), who conveniently enough, turns out to sort of be dating the guy that I was supposed to stay with! So she walked me to the house and we all ate some cabbage and potatoes and they went out while I, once again, went to bed. Hmmm, I'm detecting a theme here.

Today- Friday: Woke up late, feeling on the verge of getting sick, and am still a bit low energy wise, though my mood is 100% better than it was a few days ago. I guess this is what happens when I don't have access to a kitchen to cook for myself- I become totally malnourished. I haven't even been able to find beans here that don't already have meat in them, so I've been surviving on bread and oil and white rice and fried things for about a week now, along with some fruit here and there, and I am totally feeling it. Thank god now I have a kitchen though! I made a really exciting salad with mint-tahini dressing for lunch, and am going to eat some form of protein for dinner tonight, no matter what!!! I had a really nice time snooping around the main market this morning- I just really love the way markets are in Latin America. There are just so many colors and smells and sights and sounds and the vegetables are all so beautiful, and there are huge sacks of different grains and seeds and pastas, and it is cheaper than the grocery store, especially if you're good at bargaining (which I am not, but who cares. I'd rather pay a little more to buy from an indigenous farmer than buy some mass-produced agri-food from the local subdivision of Wal-Mart). So that was fun. Now I'm going to go try to find a new set of headphones, since the ones I have now only work in one ear and the sound in that ear is pretty crap.

If you're still reading this- thanks for caring, though maybe you have too much time on your hands! If not, don't worry- I understand. I'm writing this blog as much to not forget my experiences as to keep everyone up-to-date, since my memory is so very regrettably bad. As always, I hope you are all doing great and that this finds you healthy and happy! Big hugs, Me.

Paraguay

Holy Shit, Paraguay. I'm on the bus and I've been here all of five minutes and already it's so intense- totally different than Brazil- at least the Brazil that the gringos are allowed to see. This place, the poverty is fully in your face. We just pulled into the bus terminal right across the border and next door is an empty lot with at least a dozen or so families living in various refrigerator-box type dwellings, with millions of filthy little kids running around with huge stomachs and even huger eyes. To top it off, there, perching on the fence that is the border of this lot, is a boy who can't be more than 10, screaming and gesturing wildly at someone visible only to him with one hand, as he clutches and huffs from a plastic bag with his other. His eyes are crazy, rolling back in his head and just looking at him makes me want to cry. Why is the world like this? How can this be real?

Foz Do Iguacu, Brazil: A Review

Foz do Iguacu is a magical place of beautiful waterfalls on the 3-way border between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. According to everyone I met here in Brazil and abroad who has been this way, it is a sight not to be missed. So I figured that since it was on my way from Brazil to Bolivia anyway (since I'm going through Assuncion, Paraguay) I had better stop and check it out. I left Florianopolis at 2:35 yesterday afternoon, on a fairly comfortable, if crowded, bus. I spent the next 19 hours alternatively trying to converse in Portinol with my neighbor, listening to my iPod, watching Mission: Impossible (terrible), and, eventually, sleeping fitfully in a vicodin haze, waking every time we stopped (which was often) and when I was extremely cold due to the crazy refrigerator-like air conditioning these buses invariably use. But finally, at 8:25 this morning, we arrived. I was really confused at first because I looked at my little alarm clock thing and it said we were two hours later than I thought we were supposed to be, but the women in the next seat over assured me that no, I hadn't slept through the Foz and wound up in Paraguay (as I feared), we were just late. This was actually a bit of a relief for me, because I had been worried that 5 hours of sleep wouldn't be enough, but by the time we rolled in I had gotten close to 7, which is a much more healthy and reasonable amount to get, I think. So even though I was groggy, I figured with a little bit of caffeine I'd be all set to hike lots of beautiful jungle trails and spend a nice day totally by myself in nature, for a change.
So I checked my luggage at the bus station after confirming that there are, in fact, evening buses I could take to Paraguay tonight, and got myself on the bus to the falls.
I guess I knew I was in trouble when I first saw the theme park- like entrance to the Falls. I scanned the various price lists, noting the tiered system: Brasilieros pay one price, citizens of neighboring countries another, and the rest of us a third, and highest price to get in. This is fair enough, I suppose, since really I don't think Brasilieros should have to pay at all, since it is after all a National Park, in Brazil. Nonetheless, even the cheaper rate of R$13 for them was pretty steep, I though, and the R$ 20.50 I had to pay was really over the top. But I had come all this way and I wasn't going to turn back now on account of being a total cheapskate. No, I told myself: even if it sucks, the only way I won't regret it is if I go in and see for myself. After all, I had come all this way.
So I paid the money, and was even cheerful about it, since I was sure that it would be worth it once I was in the jungle, hiking around and looking at all the waterfalls. I was hoping it would be like one of the amazing national parks I visited earlier this year in Australia- the one I'm thinking of was particularly gorgeous, with fast-flowing streams and natural pools that, if you dared, you could get into and out of again before being sucked down one of the many rapids. Monica, Jak and I spent hours in that jungle, climbing and swinging in trees, exploring all the different paths shooting off from the main one, wading in the calmer waters and climbing the bridges over the fiercer ones. I was hoping for something like this.
My second warning sign was when I discovered that you can't actually just "go for a hike" to the falls- you have to get on a bus (the cost of which makes up R$ 5.50 of your entrance fee) and be driven there. Still, though, looking at the map and seeing 2 other trails in addition to the main one to the waterfalls, I had hope. I went with everyones else to see the falls first. They let us off the bus and we scrambled out, and I quickly made my way onto the wide, very well-maintained concrete path, which was also equipped with handrails, making it great for folks with mobility issues, but bad for someone who really wants to get a good workout (which I really, really did). The first thing I saw was a cute, raccoon-like creature snuffling around in the brush before he or she noticed that I was trying to take a picture and started ambling away. I thought that was pretty neat, but as I continued down the path I soon realized that these little guys were EVERYWHERE, and many were not nearly as shy as that first one. So of course, being me, I had my camera out and was desperately snapping away for like 20 minutes as I inched my way down the path, trying to get some good shots. It was sort of ridiculous. Anyway, eventually I left the poor creatures alone and continued along, and soon came to the first part of the falls, which were, in fact, really beautiful. There were rapids, and huge cliffs, and even numerous parts where you could see rainbows. Out came the camera again, and after another hour or so of relentless photographing, I was ready to really hit the other trails and do some hiking.
The problem was, when I got off the bus at the first of the other 2 trailheads and started walking, I was promptly stopped by an employee of the "safari tour" company and informed that I wasn't allowed to go on the trail unless it was as part of the paid safari, which was NOT included in the entry fee. I was just like, "are you kidding me? This is a National Park! Why is a private company allowed to monopolize an entire huge section of what is supposed to be a public place?" He seemed vaguely sympathetic, but was firm, adding that it could be "dangerous" if I went in alone, so finally I gave up and ended up just walking for about an hour in the broiling sun along the side of the paved tar road until I got to the next bus stop. The other trail was the same deal, so by that point I was hungry, dejected and ready to go.
So I guess in the end, I'm glad I went because I know that if I didn't I would feel like I had missed something incredible. But really, if I had to do it all over again (knowing what I know now), I would probably skip it. I know it sounds bratty, but as much as I love nature I've seen a lot of places that are equally as beautiful but without the overwhelmingly capitalist slant that was the entire experience. Everything from the food to entry to the postcards was way expensive, and for that I expected more in terms of actual interactive things to do. Instead it's just another place that, sadly, has managed to turn experiencing nature into just another spectator event.

Curitiba, Brasil

Wow, I´ve been in Brazil a long time now I think! Has it really been a month? I can´t believe it, but I think it actually has. Time flies when you´re having fun, and, despite a few snags along the way, I really am loving it here. Like loving it to the point where I´m planning out how to learn Portuguese, get a motorcycle and live in this beautiful old neighborhood in Rio called Santa Tereza.
Anyway, after I left Sao Paolo I headed back to Rio, where I spent 10 days partying like I haven´t in a long time, care of my fabulous tour guide Juliana, who I met at Carnaval Reveluçao. Never mind the fact that I am consistently the way oldest person I find myself hanging out with here in Brazil (when the kids learn my age, their eyes get big and they look at me harder, like they are suddenly going to see the wrinkles materialize or something. It´s funny. Kind of.)- I still know how to have a good time! Already in Brazil my internal clock is set to go to bed around 6am, and as it turns out, everyone in Rio´s is too, so it actually worked out perfectly.
The only major downer was, of course, Jay and I´s failed attempt at meeting up to travel together again as friends. Without going into too much detail, I will just say that it is really apparent that we are so incredibly different now that there is not even a foreseeable way for us to be friends anymore, which really makes me sad since he has been my most reliable support for the past 3+ years. But old patterns die hard, and unfortunately our worst ones had already surfaced by his second day in Rio so we went our separate ways and now our plans are to travel separately. I think it is definitely for the best, but to be sure I would have liked it if we could still have been friends and gone through some of South America together. In the cities it can be really fun to be on your own, cause you meet tons of people that way, but my city time is about to be over as I prepare to head into Bolivia and Peru for the next few months, and I would really love it if I had someone to share the experience with. Anyone really sick of working?! Come on down and hang out with me!!!
Yeah, soooo...
Right now I am in the city of Curitiba, which is about 6 1/2 hours by bus southwest of Sao Paolo. Compared to SP, this is a small city, but still, it has 2 million people and it´s own little rad queer scene, so it´s kind of a nice change of pace. Okay, wait though, I´m totally getting everything out of order here though, so I will put things in a line first (I´m tired so I apologize for my whacked-out writing style right now)... Okay, so after Carnaval Revoluçao I hung out another week or so in Sao Paolo. Then I went to Rio for about 10 days, which felt more like a month, and did just about everything a local would do and basically nothing a tourist would do (well, okay, I did finally go to the beach on my last two days there). We wanted to go see the Jesus but it cost like 36 reals (something like $24 or so?) just to get the train up there, which you have to take, so I figured I could see him well enough from where I was and we skipped it. After much fun and fabulous street food in Rio, I got back on the bus and spent another 4 days or so in Sao Paolo, doing nothing much other than eating vegan ice cream. On my last day there I went walking all around the bougie part of town looking at galleries and fancy cool-people expensive toy stores and stuff with my adorable friend Andrei, who is the boyfriend of Juliana, my fabulous tour guide in Rio. Then there was a dub night happening at Espaço Impropio, where I was staying, so we all stayed up for that since Gui was working the bar. We were all surprised when the main crowd that showed up for the event was a bunch of Brazilian oi kids, which are kind of like skinheads only less racist and militant, but still into the fashion and quite nationalistic. This obviously made the folks who live at Impropio very wary and suspicious, since the neo-Nazi/ fascist/ skinhead movement is really big here in Brazil (who would´ve thought? Not me!) and skinheads regularly target anarchists, queers, punks and other "weirdos" to beat up at random. But nobody acted up and eventually we went and danced around a bit when we ascertained that these were probably just misguided youth and not actually friends of neo-nazis. My real mission that evening had been to locate and play pool in one of the mythical "lesbian snooker halls" that, according to my friend Helena in Rio, abound on the Rua Augusta, which is the main street leading to where I was staying. From what Helena had told me, it is kind of like this total phenomenon where a bunch of dykes kind of monopolize these pool halls, and often will break up into teams consisting of "butch", "femme", and "other"... (I forget exactly what the "other" is...) I just HAD to see it for myself, it sounded like such a bizarre and yet beautiful thing. So I cajoled Helena´s best friend Marina, who was in town visiting her parents, into taking me on a little tour of these mythical places, but when we finally hit the streets around midnight, it turned out that the main one she knew of was inexplicably closed (the night in Sao Paolo is just getting started around midnight), and the other two, smaller pool halls (called "sinuka" here, which is actually what we call "snooker") were already packed full of random, seemingly heterosexual young people smoking way too many cigarettes, so we turned back in confusion and just a little disappointment, though not after I did at least witness several lesbian couples using one table at the last place we checked. Hmph.
Anyway, as with my last night in Rio, I figured that rather than try to get a couple hours´sleep and then get up totally early to catch a 7am bus it was easier just to ride it out and sleep en route. So even though I was fading by 5:00am, I stuck it out and soon enough it was time to collect all my things and say goodbye, just as Impropio was finally closing and my friends were trying to convince me to come out with them to the bar. Everyone was so lovely, and I had so many nice goodbyes that by the time I was finally on my way to the subway I had to really hustle to make it in time, but make it I did, and at 7:10am I got on the bus, took a vicodin, and passed out for the 6 1/2 hour journey to Curitiba.
And now, here I am
After a bit of a drama where I thought I was going to have to stay in this insanely expensive hostel becuase the friend I came to visit lives in a weird boarding house and can´t have guests, I managed, through the magic of the international radical queer network, to find some really cool queer folks who, on 20 minutes notice, hooked me up with a place to stay AND even came and got me at the hostel. Then Tiago, the boy whose house I am at right this second, took me to go eat these insane vegan hot dogs with like 8 different toppings on them and it was sooo awesome. The guy who served us these hot dogs was none other than Ma-ma, an enormous, sort of Henry Rollins-looking character with massive tattoos covering his legs that say QUEER PUNK; he is something of a legend here in Curitiba, as he has fronted a number of well-respected hardcore bands, the most famous of which was Gay-O-Hazard, which never actually put out a record but did put out some amazing t-shirts (several of my friends in S.P. had them and they rule). Anyway, today a bunch of us hung out in front of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, which is shaped like a giant eye, and watched as literally dozens and dozens of rich people with various purebred dogs congregated to let the "dogs" play with one another. It was sooo weird- there was not a single mixed-breed dog there that I could tell and everyone was dressed to the nines, like they are all Paris Hilton or something. Brazil is kind of like that in some ways. I have to say I have noticed more fancy-schmancy designer dogs here than anywhere else I´ve ever been, noting, of course, that I haven´t ever spent much time in L.A. But still- come on.
Anyway, then we all went to eat Açai, which is The Best Thing Ever, though far more expensive and harder to find here in Curitiba than it was in Rio. It´s like this frozen berry from the Amazon that supposedly has all these amazing health properties (though I suspect that the freezing process probably eliminates most of those) and they blend it up with Guaraná, another fabulous product from the Amazon, to make a bright purple sorbet with this really weird, delicious flavor. I like mine with ammendoim (peanuts) and bananas on top. It rules.
Other than that, Curitiba is waaaay mellow (read: kind of boring) so even though I really love the kids I´m hanging out with, come Tuesday morning I think I´ll shove off to go see my friend Laura (who I met in Spanish school in Guatemala) in Florianopolis, which is another 4 1/2 hours or so south of here and is said to be gorgeous. Apparently it´s an island with 26 different beaches around its perimeter. Sounds good to me.
Yeah, so that´s the plan for now. I´ll be en route to Bolivia and Esperanza de Libertad by next week if all goes according to plan, so wish me luck! Huge hugs and all that stuff! xoxo Pike
Anyway. S

I heart Brazil

Wow, it has been a while since I wrote last, and I should probably do a bunch of catching up, but I kind of actually don't feel like it. I've been postponing my new blog entry for weeks now, just because there is actually SO much to write that the task seemed overwhelming, and all the more so the longer I've put it off. So rather than try to recap everything I've been doing for the past 3 weeks, I'll just say this: my time at Maya Pedal was totally amazing, and I highly recommend volunteering there to anyone who is interested in bikes, bike machines, or just helping out a really cool project. The two days in which I went from Guatemala to Miami to Lima via Bogota were insane, as you can maybe imagine, but made a lot smoother and more fabulous by a really sweet new friend I met on Couchsurfing.com. He is a very sweet gay guy who lives in Hollywood, Florida, which is I guess a suburb of Miami/ Ft.Lauderdale (?).... Anyway, even though in a lot of ways we are super different, he was the most sweet and generous host I could ever imagine,picking me up at the airport, taking me all over town to run errands, making me smoothies, taking me out to a couple of gay bars and then, at last, after only 2 hours of sleep on his part and even less on mine, waking up at 3:30 am to drive me back to the airport so I could catch my 6:30 flight... and it was his birthday! Totally crazy but lucky for me!

Anyway, so Lima was really nice too, though my first two days I was in a hostel due to a mixup in how/ when/ where to meet the person who had offered to host me on their couch. But eventually a little crew of couchsurfing folks came to my hostel to retrieve me, and I spent the next 4 nights staying with the wonderful family of my new friend Luis. In Latin America it is a lot more common for kids to still live at home until they are married or go away to college or something (but most live at home while they study), so even though Luis is the second youngest at 20 (the youngest brother is only 11, and super adorable), he and his 4 older siblings all still live there, in a small but cozy 2 bedroom apartment in Callao, which is a northern suburb of Lima. Their family was so warm and sweet and welcoming to me, I didn't feel awkward at all, even though sometimes "family" dynamics make me nervous. We went to the beach the day after I arrived and it was actually a blast, even though the "beach" itself was pretty grey and dismal seeming. Anyway, I stayed with them while I sorted out all the insane, ridiculous details for how to get to Brazil, since I hadn't initially realized that I not only need a passport but a very expensive visa to go there. I also had been totally confused about when Carnaval was happening, thinking it was in early March, but in reality it is right now, the first weekend in February (I discovered this on Monday). I really wanted to make it for this Carnaval Revolucao that I found out about from a wonderful boy named Gui who responded to my post on the Queeruption list serve about radical stuff in South America. He was really excited have someone from queeruption come, and I have been really looking forward to meeting some cool activists here in South America, since so far I have kind of been totally out of that loop for the last few months (well, not in Chiapas, but that was different).

Anyway, so basically I decided to race against time and I put in all my visa application stuff right before the Brazilian embassy closed for lunch on Tuesday morning... waited around, spending the day catching up on email, checking out ticket prices (the cheapest one I found was about $340 US) and basically writing to every single couchsurfer in Rio about staying at their house when I arrived into town. Then, at four thirty I went back to the embassy and waited on the edge of my seat to see whether they would have my visa ready or not.... there were three of us there in the same boat, and at first they tried to tell us sorry, they weren't gonna be able to do it, because they wanted to close. But we were like, PLEASE!! I had already checked and there were no more flights to Rio after Wednesday, since I'm assuming they were all totally booked up with people going to Carnaval. The boy beside me had a flight that night, and so somehow, defying all odds of beaurocracy, they took pity on us and at the stroke of six, ended our anguished waiting by handing us our shiny new visa (well, they were inside our passports, but you get the point).

Getting here, at last, was a whole other epic adventure, and almost didn't happen... I was running late in getting to the airport on Wednesday morning, after staying up late to play "Monopolio" with Sandro (the 11-year-old), Luis and Ivan, another Couchsurfer from France. But finally, I made it to the airport, just one hour before our flight was due to depart, and raced up to the counter where I handed over my passport, visa, plane ticket... but where, the man asked me, was my yellow fever vaccination? WHAT?! Holy crap. In the midst of all my hasty freaking out, I had totally and completely forgotten that we also need that to get into Brasil, which was, by this time, really losing it's lustre. The man informed me that there is a health center in the airport that would do it, but I needed to have waited for 10 days before trying to then enter Brasil. I looked pathetic and told him I didn't have 10 days, and he said I should try to see if they would backdate the paperwork for me, which, when I actually did then go and ask them, the women at the health center were not amused by. I went ahead and got the stupid shot anyway, even though by now I was totally despairing of ever going to Brasil, and once I had done that and paid my $30 I ran back out, only to find the guy from the airline there waiting for me, eager to learn whether they had actually done it like he said. I told him no, and he was like, "well, okay, let me see if there's anything I can do" (in Spanish, of course), and he waved me back through all the security stuff and then talked to his supervisor, and suddenly, before I knew it, he was like, "okay! You're in! Now RUN cause you are really late" and after thanking him profusely I did exactly that. I must've looked like such a maniac, running all over that airport, cursing or talking to myself under my breath for the entire time I was there. But eventually I made it, and soon we were in the air, headed for Rio de Janiero.

The funny thing is though, I had gotten an email just that morning from Gui, my contact for the Carnaval Revolucao, that they weren't in Rio, they were in Sao Paolo, so why on earth was I going to Rio?! I was like, "ahhhhh!!!" So it was even more insult to injury when I arrived at the departure gate and learned that we would actually be stopping in Sao Paolo, but that I wouldn't be able to get out there since my luggage was already checked through all the way to Rio. Bitter irony, or something like that. Anyway, the one guy from Rio who had written back to say I could stay when I showed up at midnight hadn't yet given me his contact info, so when I got into Rio I decided to stay up all night with a nice Canadian couple who was in the same boat, so we could wait for the internet cafe to open and figure out just what we were all gonna do.

I eventually decided that my best course of action would be to go directly to Sao Paolo on the the bus, so that is what I did. I was soooo tired it wasn't even funny, and I kept having to go check email in all these expensive places and there was trouble with the cash machine and blah blah blah, but eventually, I made it, and trudged up the street with way too much stuff on my back, located Gui's house, and there, walking by at that very moment, was Gui himself, who recognized me pretty much instantly. From there on, though, it's been smooth sailing! Everyone here has been SOOOO amazing and warm and open and excited about meeting me and talking to me, even though I totally can't speak Portuguese and many people's English is very limited. I am so humbled and happy about the way people have just been really willing to go out of their way to try to communicate with me, and make sure I'm included in things. A bunch of folks from other cities (this is one of the biggest national gatherings of radical activists in Brazil) have invited me to come and stay with them, and a particularly adorable couple from Rio want to set up a little workshop for when I come so I can talk to people about my experiences with Radical Queer organizing.

As for the conference itself, again, I have to say that Humbling is an apt word for what these folks are doing here. First of all, the animal rights element is incredible. I have never been to a radical gathering where a comprehensive understanding of animal rights is so throughly present that it goes without saying that virtually everyone there is vegan and actively working for animal liberation. They just absolutely get it, that there is no way you can separate the oppression of animals from the oppression of people and the environment, and it is sooo refreshing for me to be surrounded by people who are already on board with me on that! Not to mention that the food they have been making has been some of the most delicious stuff I've ever had. Other things going on at the event have been a huge variety of films, workshops on everything from bicycle activism to vegan parenting to permaculture to indigenous spirituality; lectures and speeches of many kinds, and bands, dj's and performers throughout the day and waaay into the night. Funnily enough, the big famous guest speaker who is here right now is John Zerzan, a very well-known and controversial anti-civilization/ anarcho-primitivist author from Eugene, Oregon. I say "funnily" because I actually met John, very briefly at a friend's house, in 2001 when I was hanging out in Eugene, and also because I actually don't agree with a lot of his views on things. But since we are the two token Americans here, we've had a few nice conversations in the past few days and I'll say that despite our differing opinions, he is actually a really nice guy and it's kind of cool to be able to say I was hanging out with a "famous anarchist" in Brazil, right?! ha ha.

So yeah, that has been my experience so far. I am soooo glad I decided to come here, and I really want to go home and learn some Portuguese and come back for a lot longer. The stuff these guys are doing is really amazing, and I think I could both learn from and contribute a lot. Of course, that wouldn't be for a while but it's definitely an Idea I'm seriously considering right now...

Today is the last day of it all, so I'm going to go now and spend a little more time hanging out with these amazing folks before they pack it up and start heading back to their respective cities. I hope all of you are doing as well as I am. Take care and let me know what you're up to! Thanks for reading! xoxo, Pike.

Maya Pedal, Chimaltenango Guatemala

Wow! What a busy past couple of days I've had. I'm now sitting at the kitchen table of Maya Pedal, the bike project I was originally going to volunteer at in Chimaltenango, Guatemala. I didn't think I was going to make it here, because the coordinator (who is actually based in Canada) had told me there was no space for new volunteers until February. But then in San Cristobal the other day I got another email from her saying that sometimes there are cancellations and that I should call, so I did, and lo and behold there was, in fact, now space for me, so I decided right then to book a ticket back here asap and get going. I was feeling so bored and restless in San Cristobal... I think that if I had been there as part of an actual project or something it would have been different, but since I was just kind of hanging out in a hostel it all began to feel a bit empty. I did, however, get really inspired by all the amazing stencil art that was painted on many of the buildings (I took lots of pictures) and added a few of my own, which at the very least gave me a bit of a project to put my energy into.

But anyway, so I got back on a shuttle at 7am Wednesday morning, reached the border around 11, had to wait nearly two hours for our connecting shuttle on the Guatemala side, and then finally arrived back in Xela at La Casa de l@s Amig@s around 4:30 pm. The first thing I did was stop in at PLQE to collect all the mail that I didn't receive in time for Christmas, and I had a fabulous little Christmas moment all over again with the adorable cleaning lady looking on and commenting on all fabulous vegan booty that I got. It made me so happy that people had actually put a lot of time and energy into sending me packages, and I was definitely glad I had decided to go back when I did. I was also really pleasantly surprised that I actually still knew almost everyone who was staying at the hostel, since I had assumed they would have mostly finished out their time and moved on by the time I got back. So it was nice to be welcomed by familiar faces, too.

The rest of my time in Xela basically consisted of having my laundry done (cause it's super cheap there, especially compared to Mexico), doing email, and eating the quinoa and chocolate that I got in the mail. I got on the bus with so much baggage it was embarrassing at 2:30pm yesterday afternoon and arrived here in Chimaltenango at about 7:30 at night. Luckily the cab driver let me use his cell phone cause I realized that I didn't actually have an exact address, though I think the driver pretty much knew where it was anyway. I was warmly greeted by a whole crew of other Americans, which was a bit of a surprise but also something of a relief, since I was worried that maybe I had misunderstood the woman I had talked to on Wednesday- I was envisioning showing up at this random place in this totally non-touristy town and be turned away, forced to try to find shelter elsewhere or maybe even flee to Guatemala City! But no- everything was fine. Three of the folks who were here when I showed up were film students from Chicago, making a documentary about the project in the hopes of helping get more funding/ other support. They were super nice but unfortunately they were leaving today, so I only got to hang out with them for a little bit. But my last 24 hours have definitely been full of activity. Upon my arrival I was shown up to the living quarters where all the volunteers stay, which is basically 3 rooms above the bike shop with some "beds" (I use the term loosely) and a toilet, and a shower which at the moment doesn't actually have any water. A very friendly girl named Laura announced that I would be sharing her bed, since it was the only double bed of the eight they had, but in the end she decided to sleep on the roof since it was a beautiful night and I had the bed all to myself. I guess I get it tonight, too, since she went to Guatemala City for the night to go visit her boyfriend there. After that I'll take one of the less cushy ones recently vacated by the Chicago-ites, which is fine, too.

Anyway, today everyone else got up at 6:45 to go on some nature trek that the main director guy, Carlos, had planned, but I was super exhausted from my last few days on the road and stayed in bed until 9am. It felt really luxurious, but eventually I reminded myself that I am here to work, not hang out, so I got up, tried and failed (due to the lack of water) to take a shower, and eventually got downstairs and made some breakfast just as a group of about 8 visitors showed up for a tour. The main lady who runs the shop, Johanna, gave little demonstrations of all the different bicycle-powered machines they make here, including corn grinders, coffee grinders, clothes washers, water pumps, and, (my personal favorite, albeit the least actually needed), the bici-licuadora, or bicycle powered blender. Then she led everyone upstairs to the bicycle showroom, out of which are sold the bikes that the shop puts together out of other old bikes. I was a little surprised at the relatively high prices of the bikes, but one of the other volunteers explained that they have to pay super crazy taxes to import all the old bikes here from the United States, where the bikes are collected and packed into shipping containers to be used for parts and new bikes here. Apparently too they had a major problem with their shipment last year, wherein it was actually held up in customs for almost the entire year, leaving the project with virtually no income and no materials for a very long time. Anyways, I also learned that the machines made here are also sold, at cost, to various indigenous groups locally and even to cooperatives as far away as Africa, since many of these communities don't have electricity and this allows them to process their own corn, coffee, or whatever (one women's collective near here uses the licuadora to produce natural shampoos) they need to generate some income and become more self-sufficient. It's a pretty amazing concept, so I'm hoping that during my brief stay here I can actually make some kind of a contribution.

Even though I was all set to jump right into working today, Johanna told me that since the Chigago folks were leaving they had all agreed that today would be a mellow day w/ a little celebration to see them off. While we waited for the others to get back from their hike, I attempted to install some brakes on a bike that is about halfway done, but after hours of digging through old brakes and brake pads, only to discover that the ones I had finally matched up are actually not long enough to reach the rims, I gave it up. It really made me realize how very little I really know about bicycles, because even though I have done a few basic repairs on my own bikes over the years, I have never built a bicycle from scratch, and much less with only used, often ill-fitting parts to choose from. It's going to be slow going, I think.

But the other thing I did today was play with the adorable puppy the two girls who are here from MIT found abandoned in the market yesterday. She totally has worms and probably lots of other problems, so the two guys were both like, "ew, don't bring that thing in here", but I was like "whatever, the least we can do is get her de-wormed and vaccinated" so today we got the ball rolling on that project. When they brought her in last night she was looking super ill and sluggish, and basically just wanted to burrow into our arms and sleep, but then today after some food and water she was already looking way healthier and was jumping around and playing a lot more. She is sooo cute! We named her worms, for obvious reasons, but hopefully after we give her her pill and the garlic we've been feeding her it won't be such a relevant name anymore. One really cool thing about being in a tiny town is that every tienda has like 4 purposes, so in order to get her sorted out we just walked down to the cell phone/ canned goods/ veterinary supply store and bought a de-worming pill for 10 quetzales, and also learned that they do parvovirus vaccinations for 37.50 Q (about $5 US) so we're gonna bring her in tomorrow for that, too. It's amazing how everything is just so much cheaper here- in the US it would cost like $50 just to take her to the vet and then another $20 or so to have her vaccinated, whereas here it's as simple as taking her to the corner store. Lucky for her, and for us! I don't really know who's gonna look after her when these MIT girls go back home though, although one girl has already offered to adopt her and bring her back to the US. I don't know how viable that is with immigration and stuff but I guess we'll just have to look into it and hopefully everything will turn out okay for her! It's so sad though how many stray dogs there are here- people simply can't afford to spay and neuter them, so instead they just breed like crazy and then run around in packs till they starve to death or get some disease or run over by a car or something. And then of course, just like in the US, there are STILL pet stores selling intentionally bred puppies- it is soooo crazy! Very little makes me more frustrated than people buying animals that were bred on purpose when there already so many going hungry and dying for lack of a good home. I guess I could say the same about children, though, too (and I do).

Anyway, so once everyone got back from their hike we all piled back into Carlos' truck and headed to this hot springs nearby, only to discover that we had come at the exact time that the water there gets cleaned every week (it's like a man-made pool that is fed by natural hot springs). So that was a bit of a disappointment, but then we went to this other weird sort of amusement park thing that had a pool (not hot) so a few people went swimming, and we had a fabulous picnic and everyone gave little goodbye speeches (they were really rolling out the red carpet for the film folks) and it was all just lovely.

So that's kind of been my last couple of days. I'm kind of amazed at how relatively smoothly everything has gone, since it is me, after all, and it is Guatemala to boot. But I'm not complaining! My only complaint right now is how much crap I'm hauling around at the moment, but a bunch of that is getting mailed back home as soon as I'm in Miami so once I embark on the South American leg of my journey I hope to have substantially lightened my load! At the moment I'm hauling my backpack, a huge blanket that requires it's own bag, a hammock thing I bought, my regular purse bag thing with my laptop in it, and a huge, heavy box that is mostly fiilled with food but also contains a few things I bought in Mexico to send home. I'm super sad though that I somehow managed to leave behind a whole bag of really nice goodies that I had bought in Chiapas, both for gifts and for myself! Wah! I'm hoping that maybe if my friend Spike comes down to Guatemala he will have grabbed the stuff and can bring it down for me, but it seems like a long shot so I'm not holding my breath. It wasn't anything expensive, but there were some really sweet Zapatista-related things that I really can't find anywhere else. And also my ipod has just mysteriously stopped working.... hmmm...

But yeah, I guess since these are my biggest problems at the moment then I'm in pretty good shape, so wish me luck and let's hope things stay this way! Thanks for reading and as always, keep me posted on what ya'll are doing! Huge hugs to all, xoxo Pike.

Zapatista Encuentro, Ahoy!

Hi Everyone! Well, sorry this has been a while coming. I haven´t really had much access to the internet as of late, so there you go.

I´m currently in the town of San Cristobal de las Casas, in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. I took a couple of buses up here from Guatemala the day after Christmas so I could attend the Zapatista Women´s Encuentro con las Mujeres del Mundo, being that I am, in fact, a mujer del mundo (woman of the world).

So I got into San Cristobal around 4pm on Wed, the 26^th, after an arduous 9-plus hour journey from Xela, and flapped around in frustration for a bit while I tried to get SOMEONE to give me change so I could use the phone to call the girl I was potentially supposed to stay with. Nobody but nobody was trying to help me break the 100-peso note that the ATM had given me, not even the people inside the bank when I eventually gave up on the shops and stood waiting in the line to talk to a real human teller. Now I´m no expert, but when someone at a BANK tells you that there is no way they can possibly make change for what is the equivalent of a $10 note, you know that something is seriously amiss. As it turns out, this was an important introductory lesson to Mexico, as I have now come to expect the look of shock and sweeping panic that appears on the face of any vendor I approach with any money worth over $1. It´s as if there´s a national conspiracy to Not have change, and just about everyone is in on it.

Anyway, so eventually the parents of a friend I had ridden the shuttle there with suggested that I try to just use the phone in their hotel, or at the very least try to get change for the phone there. So I did, and after much misunderstanding the guy finally gave me the denominations I needed to make my phone call- hooray! But success was not yet to be mine: I very rapidly then discovered that actually, none of the phones here take change- they only work with a card you have to buy, for a minimum of 30 pesos. Well. We all know that I have sort of a pattern of ¨harsh landings¨ when I get to a place, so I tried to bear this in mind as I then eventually went back to the evil tourism office that had originally been the first to deny me the change, and after much ado managed to use one of the phone booths there to make the call. And… nobody answered. At this point I decided that it was time to give up and move on, so I consulted my little list of potential places to stay, got a free map from the evil tourism place and headed toward the cheapest hostel on the list that looked close.

I never actually found it, but I wound up at a different one for the same price (60 pesos, about $6US) and just stayed there for the night. I managed to email my friend Rahel (who I had met at Spanish school and who I was supposed to meet up with to go to the encuentro) and so I spent the rest of the evening kind of wandering around San Cristobal and then taking out my extensions and redying my hair (it was looking bad). The showers were hot and again, I just have to express my extreme joy at the very concept of hot showers. I slept well.

In the morning I got up and was making breakfast when Rahel turned up, right on time at 10am, so we sat and ate and then headed straight back out to the buses from there. She was a real trooper considering that she had just spent the entire night before on a bus from Punto Escondido, a 13-hour bus ride away from San Cristobal. We caught a collectivo to Ocasingo and from there, by sheer chance, ran into a couple of punks from Spain that were able to direct us to the pickup that then shuttled us another 2 hours or so to the caracol of La Garrucha, where the encuentro was being held.

The pickup ride was kind of an adventure in itself, since there were 13 of us herded into the back of the truck with a big wire frame all around it. 3 of us sat way on top the whole time (I wasn´t one of them- not so much for lack of interest as lack of spots on top) and the rest of us either stood or sat on top of a backpack or pile of blankets for the bumpy, dusty ride. Those of us who were sitting couldn´t really see anything, so when the truck stopped for the last time and I stood up to look around, it was kind of a really funny surprise when the first thing I saw were the ski-mask-covered faces of about 15 traditionally dressed indigenous women looking up at us as we stood and began to jump down from the truck. They were the ¨registration committee¨, and once we had finally all provided our names and personal details, we were escorted past various mural-covered buildings to the large concrete room beneath a giant stage that would serve as the main bunking quarters for all those of us who did not have tents for the remainder of the encuentro. The middle of the space was slung with at least 20 hammocks, all diagonally tied side by side like a line of cars in a parking lot. The rest of us had to stake out spaces on the floor all around the perimeter, and those unfortunate souls who came too late had to stash their stuff in a corner and then try to sleep on the floor under the hammocks once it was time to go to bed. I wasn´t really sure what the policy was on taking pictures, so I erred on the side of caution and resisting the urge to shoot all of the amazing murals and signs that were covering nearly every outdoor surface. My favorite was the handwritten sign that was posted in various places, stating (in Spanish, of course): In this Encuentro, men are NOT allowed to participate in: relating, speaking, answering questions, translation, or talking of any kind during the meetings. Men are ONLY allowed to assist with the following tasks: Sweeping and cleaning the areas, especially the latrines; cooking and preparing meals; caring for the children; and washing and cleaning whatever needs to be cleaned. I thought it was super interesting, then, that so many men were there anyway, ostensibly to support their ladies (or, perhaps, to meet one?) At times, in fact, it looked like there were more men than women, though in actuality the numbers were probably about even since a lot of times the women were off in meetings somewhere, leaving the guys to kind of mill around in the center and hang out with each other.

Soooo, the meeting(s): Wow. I came having no real idea of what to expect, since I have never before been to a Zapatista caracol (the word means ¨snail shell¨in Spanish, and is used to indicate an opening or portal to outsiders by the Zapatistas- there are five different caracols, each one the ‘center of government’ so to speak for a respective community) or meeting. The day I arrived was actually the day before the encuentro officially began, so we kind of wandered around and tried to find some food or a kitchen to cook in, eventually locating the one tienda that had black beans and tortillas ready to eat and turning in for an early night. We made friends with the folks sleeping in the spot next to ours, two students from D.F. (Mexico City) named Carmen and Jorge. They were super nice, and patient with my bad Spanish. They, too, had not been to a caracol before and we all speculated a bit on what the next couple of days would be like.

The next day was pretty mellow for the most part. I had been expecting that there would be more opportunities to kind of jump in and help stuff like setting up, childcare, or whatever, but there really wasn´t much they seemed to need done, so eventually I jumped in and painted a couple of signs for the latrines encouraging the ladies to not throw hygiene products into them, but rather into bags that were provided. This was about the extent of my active participation, I´m sorry to say, but it soon became apparent that that´s just kind of how this gathering was going to be. The food situation was interesting, too, cause rather than one or two kitchens serving everyone like I´m used to at big outside events, there were a number of tiny eateries that had been set up by various families, each with a set menu of basically either rice and beans (15pesos) or chicken in soup w/ veggies (25pesos). Later a few started offering empenadas, some of which were even vegan (just beans or potatoes inside a fried tortilla), much to my delight. There were also little stores selling everything from bottled water and toilet paper to cookies and other junk food, so rather than pay a donation or fee to attend the whole gathering, we kind of just paid for what we needed as we went along.

Okay, yeah, but so I still haven´t even started talking about the meetings… geez I talk (write) a lot… I just hate leaving out details, and actually I usually already am anyway so just remember, this is all in the interest of giving you a clear idea of what I´m up to!

The opening meeting kicked off in the early evening, and began, as all the other meetings would begin, with a blast of insanely loud Mexican polka as the Compañeras, in balaclavas and grouped by caracol (indicated by different colored ribbons on top of their ski masks), walked single file across the main field and into the auditorio, a rough wooden building that had had the front (back?) removed to allow more benches to be placed there for people to sit and listen. After the Compañeras were arranged either on stage or in their seats in the audience, the rest of us women would file in and locate a seat on one of the benches. The first two days of talks were mainly about the differences many of the women had observed between their lives as women now as opposed to before their uprising in 1994. In Zapatismo, women are unequivocally granted the same rights as men, which is actually something extremely significant in many of the cultures these women come from. Many shared stories of how women were treated `worse than animals’, being deprived of the right to an education, to choose whom or whether they married, how many children they had, or the right to expect any sort of assistance from their husbands in household tasks, including raising the children. They spoke too of how alcoholism had decimated many of their communities and oftentimes there was no money left for food because their husbands had spent it all on booze (which made me think of several of my grandmothers´ experiences). There is no drinking permitted on Zapatista land, and people who are considered Zapatistas are generally expected to be clean and sober, so this, too, has been a significant improvement. Various women described the efforts they´ve made to build their own schools, clinics, and other forms of infrastructure free of the government, and of the profound difference it has made to simply have something as basic as a clinic to treat infirmities that for most of us wouldn´t be a big deal but that for poor campesinos with no access to treatment, were often deadly. It is difficult to comprehend the extreme level of neglect that the indigenous people of Mexico had been facing prior to their uprising, but hearing about it firsthand made it all the more incredible to me that in the face of so much need these folks were able to pull together and form a movement powerful and cohesive enough to not only force the government to pay attention, but to grow and thrive in the face of brutal governmental backlash, stronger now fourteen years later than they could have imagined when they started.

So although it seemed to me at first that a lot of the speeches were more overviews and a bit heavy on the dogma, I still think that for what it was, it was incredible. I do wish that the format had been more open, because basically the structure was very “us” & “them”, not really allowing for much actual interchange or discussion. On the last day there was time for various visiting groups to get up and talk for 5 minutes each, and at the end of each session of speeches there was a 5 minute period allotted for the reading and answering of questions that the audience had written down, but a lot of these went totally unanswered if the women didn´t really know what to say or didn´t like the question. So it definitely wasn´t perfect, but again, for what it was, it was certainly worthwhile.

Anyway, aside from getting totally bedridden-ly ill on the third day of the conference (I was totally incapacitated with a winning combination of nausea, diarrhea and menstrual cramps- what fun!), I don´t really have much more to report. It was nice to spend the New Year there, in a totally sober environment for once instead of being surrounded by people who are totally wasted, like most New Years. I danced a lot to the Mexican polka with my friends, and they even played a couple of songs that were NOT Mexican polka, so that was cool too.

The trip back to San Cristobal on New Years Day was sort of miserable, since it was raining and by the time we got from La Garrucha to Ocasingo, all the collectivos back to San Cris had left for the day, leaving us to try to find our own way out. It was only a few hours til dark but we (me, Rahel, and our new friend Spike) decided that we had to at least try to hitch a ride, and after about 25 minutes of unsuccessfully attempting to get to the nearest gas station, an already full pickup stopped and offered us a lift all the way to San Cris for 50 pesos each, only a dollar more than the collective would have been, so we apologized to everyone already in there and hopped in, shoving our bags as best we could into the already huge pile of luggage. Poor Rahel spent the next 3 hours perched on the tailgate, trying to stay warm and dry as best she could as the rest of us just dealt with being super crammed together.

Eventually, though, we made it back, and after several attempts managed to find a hostel with some space where we spent the next few days. Now I´m at a place called La Finka (the farm), though why it´s called that I don´t really know since it´s totally urban. I guess they have some houseplants that look pretty good… Anyway, there are tons of hippies but it´s okay. Okay, I´m gonna post this now cause I´ve got one minute left on the computer! Bye! Love me