Sunday, February 4

Last night Max arrived about 11:30, very tired from his journey, so he slept in this morning and missed the “big excursion.” Qué lastima!. All the students were on time, bless their hearts, and so were the two vans. The drivers were a little gruff but everything else went like clockwork. Joshua Schwab, who will be one of the field trip leaders, joined us for the day.

We were at the dock and on the boat by 10 am for a two hour ride. For a while we go along the Grijalva river and then enter the canyon with its lake created by a dam. The “captain” of this little boat gave his tour in Spanish so Peggy climbed up to his deck and became his translator. Some views were silly: a stalactite shaped like a seahorse! Come on! Others were magical, like the tree-shaped rock-formation of plants growing over a shelved formation of limestone and kept lush and moist by a stream of water emerging mid-cliff. In the rainy season it is a regular waterfall but now, in the dry season, the water comes in a kind of mist. It was like being in a huge terrarium. In between the sublime and the ridiculous was a lone spider monkey. I got the feeling that they truck the poor monkey in every morning and out at night. Who knows?

At the far point of the boat trip we reached the dam, said to be 260 meters high and to have been built between 1972 and 1980. There is now a grotesquely huge statue of the engineer and some other guys at the top of the dam. We are told that this dam produces 23% (I think) of Mexico’s electricity and is the 8th largest electricity-producing dam in the world. We were also told (and I’ve read elsewhere) that Chiapas produces 70% of Mexico’s electricity, but because it is first routed to Puebla and then distributed throughout Mexico, it is most expensive in Chiapas. Not only that, but many (mostly Maya) communities, and in some regions virtually all communities lack electricity. Ironic, eh?

On the way back we stopped to gaze at two crocodiles, one in the water and one sunning on the bank. Picture is above—see if you can find him/her.

After a group shot, we headed to Chiapa de Corzo for a free lunch hour. There is an interesting Dominican cathedral and monastery overlooking the Grijalva river. The bare and dusty zocalo is surrounded by the usual arcades, many of them with gift shops, specializing in local lacquer and the famous black dresses embroidered with flowers. In one corner of the zocalo, next to an ancient ceiba tree, is a huge octagonal brick “bandstand” which was a cool and breezy place to sit. Looking up, we saw several groups of bats waiting out the daylight before their nightly hunt.

Returning to San Cristobal, the class met Max, who distributed reading packages, and that was the end of the official group activities for the day. However, 18 students, along with Rita and Max (not me), came to the film showing on the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca at Kinoki, staying another two hours for a discussion of the particular perspective involved. Their report to me was that the film emphasized class struggle with a Stalinist bent, and did not acknowledge the importance of the Indigenist movement in Oaxaca, which is the greater part of the grass roots resistance there.

Classes start tomorrow!!!