Hello followers,
We just wanted to send a "Hello" as we are back in the civilisation. The last 2 weeks where amazing: We stayed in indigenous villages, sharing their food and get a deep view inside their day to day live. As this was part of a "human right mission" (we had to do some special trainings before that in Spain) and the situation in those villages is a little bit dangerous we are not allowed to give you more information where we where exactly and with whom we stayed. As well our pictures have to be screened so nobody of the people is on the picture or the place can be recognized.
With this blog we will try to explain in short their situation and give as much information as we can:
The last 2 weeks we stayed with indeginous people related to the "Zapatista movement". As everywhere in the world the poorest people with the lowest financial ressourses and the least political influence suffer most from programs as their voices are bairly heared by the public. There is no difference in Mexico. As the country grew in the last decates the indigenous and farmers (who are most of the time one and the same) are left out of the new wealth comming in. Land had been taken away and given to big oil companies, forests got destroid for tourism reasons and a lot of people got replaced from their land - land they where using and living in since centuries.
In 1994 (the same day as the free trade contract between Canada, USA and Mexico was announced) the Zapatistas screamed "YA BASTA" and took several cities in the south of Mexico (department Chiapas). The first speach of their leader Subcomandante Marcos explaind their needs. They where asking for nothing more than a dignified life. With enough food, land and houses to live in peace.
The Zapatistas hoped for a general uprising in Mexico but this didn´t happen. Instead the military moved into Chiapas willing to take back the cities with violence. Thanks to many demonstrations in Mexico and a lot of international pressure a massacre could be avoided and the Zapatistas moved back to their villages from where they started their so called "other campaign".
As they didn´t trust the Mexican goverment anymore (during the years 94-00 they tried to have several unsucsessfull meetings with goverment officials) they are now trying to create a new and parallel society. A society where the community is more important than the individual. This means they every Zapatist has to help as well in different work groups and give some of his time to the community. Also the financial situation is controlled and they are trying that everyone can benefit from their work in the same way and not only some individuals.
They don´t accept any money or help from the goverment. They build in the last 20 years their own school system, health system and goverment system.
Also part from this new structure is that they are now claiming back their land what provokes as well a hard response from the goverment who are going directly (or most of the time through paramilitary movement because they are more difficult to track back) to intervene in order to get the land back. It is not an open war but a continious low level war. This means they burn fields from the zapatistas, beating them up at night, throwing stones through their windows in order to make their live as hard as possible so they will leave.
Our job as "human right wacher" is first to document all the attackes the Zapatistas have to suffer but also to prevent conflicts with our presence. Most of the time it works but sometimes even with human right observers people get attacked.
Our stay in the villages was amazing but very hard in the same way: We slept on the floor, had no shower (we had to take a bath in a small river nearby) and make fire outside in order to have a coffee, tee or some rice in the evening. But at the same time you could talk with the people and live (even only for 2 weeks) their life. The stories they told you, their views and their willing to get on with their life was something very very special. It also reminds someone like us how fortunate we are just having the basic stuff like a matres, electricity or a toilet.
All in all a great experiance both of us will never forget.
We are now staying for 2 more days in San Cristobal (a city in Chiapas) and on Saturday we will be heading to playa del Carman where our Spanish/Belgium/Mexican/United states,... friends Patrick and Sylvia are living (one of the few people we know who are even more international then we are ;) ). Looking forward for some cold beers on the beach!!!!!!
We hope you are all fine and enjoy the European spring
Carla & Roman
PS: For everyone who things we had a "romantic" time in the villages - here our toilet for the last weeks we had to share with 6 people (and diarrea!) :
We just wanted to send a "Hello" as we are back in the civilisation. The last 2 weeks where amazing: We stayed in indigenous villages, sharing their food and get a deep view inside their day to day live. As this was part of a "human right mission" (we had to do some special trainings before that in Spain) and the situation in those villages is a little bit dangerous we are not allowed to give you more information where we where exactly and with whom we stayed. As well our pictures have to be screened so nobody of the people is on the picture or the place can be recognized.
With this blog we will try to explain in short their situation and give as much information as we can:
The last 2 weeks we stayed with indeginous people related to the "Zapatista movement". As everywhere in the world the poorest people with the lowest financial ressourses and the least political influence suffer most from programs as their voices are bairly heared by the public. There is no difference in Mexico. As the country grew in the last decates the indigenous and farmers (who are most of the time one and the same) are left out of the new wealth comming in. Land had been taken away and given to big oil companies, forests got destroid for tourism reasons and a lot of people got replaced from their land - land they where using and living in since centuries.
In 1994 (the same day as the free trade contract between Canada, USA and Mexico was announced) the Zapatistas screamed "YA BASTA" and took several cities in the south of Mexico (department Chiapas). The first speach of their leader Subcomandante Marcos explaind their needs. They where asking for nothing more than a dignified life. With enough food, land and houses to live in peace.
The Zapatistas hoped for a general uprising in Mexico but this didn´t happen. Instead the military moved into Chiapas willing to take back the cities with violence. Thanks to many demonstrations in Mexico and a lot of international pressure a massacre could be avoided and the Zapatistas moved back to their villages from where they started their so called "other campaign".
As they didn´t trust the Mexican goverment anymore (during the years 94-00 they tried to have several unsucsessfull meetings with goverment officials) they are now trying to create a new and parallel society. A society where the community is more important than the individual. This means they every Zapatist has to help as well in different work groups and give some of his time to the community. Also the financial situation is controlled and they are trying that everyone can benefit from their work in the same way and not only some individuals.
They don´t accept any money or help from the goverment. They build in the last 20 years their own school system, health system and goverment system.
Also part from this new structure is that they are now claiming back their land what provokes as well a hard response from the goverment who are going directly (or most of the time through paramilitary movement because they are more difficult to track back) to intervene in order to get the land back. It is not an open war but a continious low level war. This means they burn fields from the zapatistas, beating them up at night, throwing stones through their windows in order to make their live as hard as possible so they will leave.
Our job as "human right wacher" is first to document all the attackes the Zapatistas have to suffer but also to prevent conflicts with our presence. Most of the time it works but sometimes even with human right observers people get attacked.
Our stay in the villages was amazing but very hard in the same way: We slept on the floor, had no shower (we had to take a bath in a small river nearby) and make fire outside in order to have a coffee, tee or some rice in the evening. But at the same time you could talk with the people and live (even only for 2 weeks) their life. The stories they told you, their views and their willing to get on with their life was something very very special. It also reminds someone like us how fortunate we are just having the basic stuff like a matres, electricity or a toilet.
All in all a great experiance both of us will never forget.
We are now staying for 2 more days in San Cristobal (a city in Chiapas) and on Saturday we will be heading to playa del Carman where our Spanish/Belgium/Mexican/United states,... friends Patrick and Sylvia are living (one of the few people we know who are even more international then we are ;) ). Looking forward for some cold beers on the beach!!!!!!
We hope you are all fine and enjoy the European spring
Carla & Roman
PS: For everyone who things we had a "romantic" time in the villages - here our toilet for the last weeks we had to share with 6 people (and diarrea!) :
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