Friday, February 9

I didn't go to Max's class today as student's were workshopping their first week's project. Instead, Rita and I did banking errands for the fieldtrip. Without undue hassle we managed to wire money to five hotels and then send the receipts to them by fax. Took only 2 hours.

We then went to the market to buy supplies for the afternoon gathering and also spent a lot of time looking for a small axe. They specialize in humungous axes here.

The afternoon event was a viewing of Apocalypto in order to critique it. The students were apalled, of course. I had read over 70 reviews so I knew a lot of what to expect and I knew that I wasn't going to watch the chase section (Instead I did some reading and listened to Philip Glass' violin concerto: the perfect antidote).

What surprised me, and Rita who knows a great deal about film, was the rather ignorant borrowings that make up the half of the movie I saw. Gibson's view of "primitive" is sub-Saharan Africa: the urban hairstyles are exaggerations of what I have seen on Mangbetu pottery for example, and his version of Maya dance is pure Hollywood Africa. His version of "decadent" is Rome with its couch-reclining elites and bloody ritualized games. Despite having an archaeologist on board from the start, he couldn't come up with anything either remotely Maya or remotely original. Satyricon and Quo Vadis (Rita's contribution) meet Tarzan and the Lost Safari. I also understood a subtle aspect of the ending. The pure hunting-and-gathering hero family that escapes the Spanish (and speaks Yucatec) represents the origin of the Lacandon, currently considered the most "pure" Maya and the people who have been granted stewardship of the Montes Azules Biosphere, to the exclusion of other settlements.

Thursday, February 8

Max's class this morning dealt with democracy and judgements (biased versions from Europeans and North Americans) on the quality (or lack thereof) of Latin American democracies. Max went through many definitions and arguments with consummate clarity. We also discussed polyarchy as a more refined definition of democracy that attempts to avoid some of the Euro-centrisms of other arguments. This interested me because I have read the term polyarchy used in an entirely peggiorative sense, as the rule by the wealthy. The idea is that only the wealthy can afford to run for office, and then they make laws that benefit the wealthy, no matter to which party they belong.

The afternoon and evening were quieter with some great visits from students: Josh and James and later Peggy. Josh has now left for Veracruz where he will interview some of his elder family members on Zapotec oral history.

Wednesday, February 7

Today started out with another fantastic class discussion with Max on Neo-Liberalism: its goals and its failures. Especially its failures. Also Max clarified many other economic terms including precedents and alternatives to neo-liberalism, and some of the differences between East Asian and Latin American production systems.

The afternoon was spent preparing course materials. Ho Hum.

Tuesday, Februrary 6

Second day of class today. Max and the students are incredibly generous in letting me sit in. The discussion on today's readings about the different "lefts" in Latin America was really illuminating, as students brought much of their own knowledge to bear on the hypotheses presented in the assigned articles.

Rita had her first class today.She said it was extremely exciting and that the time flew by. Afterwords, the class went to Casa del Pan for some "cafe de olla" (coffee with cinamon and brown sugar).

I was hoping to attend Rita's class but had to go to the dentist instead. He has referred me to a specialist and predicts quite a lot of work to be done to get over my problem. I've decided to consider this a "learning experience."

Not much else. Dinner is done and now we are trying to light a fire to enjoy while we work.

Monday, February 5

Well, I've been here two weeks now and the term has finally started, and with a bang! Max Cameron got his huge class terrifically enthusiastic about the political science course. He had them go to the plaza (some went to the Zocalo and some to the cathedral plaza), and observe something and write about it. With his introduction and encouragement, the results were outstanding. Max noted that before going to the plaza, when discussing possible topics of interest no-one mentioned children, but after coming back, children were a hot topic. I remember particularly the comment on the contrast on children who wear uniforms and go to school and children who spend the day hawking souvenirs with their mothers. The military was also a hot topic, as they showed up in mass, in camoflage, coming in two big trucks for a constitution day celebration with bugle and drum.

In the afternoon, after working on fieldtrip organization, Rita and I went to Na Bolom, the house of Franz Blom and Getrude (Trudy) Duby Blom. The name means "House of the Jaguar." Trudy Blom was instrumental in publicizing and romanticizing the Lacandon Maya who had had minimal contact with outsiders before the 20th century, and who continued to worship in the ancient buildings of Yaxchilan and Bonampak. Rita will organize a class trip to Na Bolom shortly.

In the evening, Max made supper for Rita and me: a vegan chili that was superb and a real treat after my cooking. I also bought some tortillas to offer for supper but was so happy to get good fresh ones I managed to eat most of them before supper. Fortunately, Max had also bought tortillas.

After supper we went to Kinoki to see the film Babel. We had prepared an after-movie feast for the usual discussion but it ended very late. Only Josh and James joined Rita, Max, and me and neither had seen the movie. We still had a fine discussion along with hot chocolate. Max liked the movie a great deal more than Rita or I did, but there were many things on which we agreed.

That was it. Rita starts her class tomorrow afternoon and I have to look for a dentist.

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!!!

Saturday, February 3

Very short entry today. They can’t all be staggering.

The morning was quiet as Rita and I both worked in our office/bedrooms. I am reading a PhD thesis that will hopefully be defended this April (in my absence). After lunch we went to do errands. I took Rita climbing up the stairs to the Templo de San Cristobal and afterwards we went into the nearby covered artesanías market. We found a store next to Madre Tierra restaurant on Insurgentes that sells Yerba Mate. Attention Ewan.

On the way back we met Verity, Flora, and Sarah in the plaza of the cathedral and then headed home to wait for James to bring Joshua Schwab, just in from Veracruz. Joshua will be one of the leaders on the big fieldtrip in March, so I asked him to join us for the excursion tomorrow to get to know the group.

After James and Joshua left, Rita and I went to the film on the “Forgotten Zapatistas” (its title in Spanish actually means The Last Zapatistas). It is a documentary on surviving members of Zapata’s army in his home state of Morelos. The reason for the interest was made clear by showing how Salinas, changing Zapata’s article 27 of the constitution on ejidos in order to sign NAFTA, had undone what Zapata accomplished. The film also showed the EZLN leaders visiting these elderly ladies and gentlemen in Morelos and intently listening to their advice to keep on fighting, to never give up until campesinos have equal rights. Sarah, Verity, and Flora were at the film and came over to our apartment for a discussion, joined by Peggy. Verity demonstrated her expertise in fire-building. We have continued to nurse the fire using lung power and are still enjoying it as I write this, waiting for Max Cameron to arrive by taxi from the airport in Tuxtla.