Back to Reality Last Friday I attended a meeting of world travelers. The organizer requested that we take pictures of our trip. I have never been affected to capture on film evidence any of the places I've traveled: I prefer to surrender to the eternal reinvention of memory: refer to feelings that I left every place and experience.
However, I participated with this letter (disguised as chronic) it blurs a long time and I made some adjustments (and added) to get closer to the emotions that made me stay in the jungle of "no war."
Back to Reality I live without living in
and I hope so ...
San Juan de la Cruz
Reality (Lacandon jungle), Chiapas / June 1999
- point? Asks the man who stands above the rest of the community for its size.
dripping from his forehead, holding a huge backstrap just balanced board his back. You stare at the remains of what yesterday was still a light pole, and this is their astonishment, that does not seem to bother the burden it carried. Beside
a man leans round, and smiling, just wearing a deep blue shirt and shorts, to lift the remains of the bulb. Why
-shot ... "muses without the slightest hint of annoyance or surprise.
It's early, but the heat and rises, in step with fading dawn mist. There is a time of morning when the air humidity becomes unbearable, as if the weight of the sky could be felt in every breath, though still lacking for that, indeed, no rumor of military convoys.
is about a young, smiling also much smaller than the crouching man. With a single sentence leaves no doubt:
"The commander ordered us to throw Tacho. Valente
Guevara, Electricians Committee of the EMS between a box of cables that attach to the pole and back-up: "I hope
not damaged the sensors ... He says, squinting through the sun's intensity, at the moment, no cloud lighten their strength.
"The next time you do not exalt Valente, continues," take care of removing the lamp first, are very expensive and not readily available; focus, as it may, it melts and changes, but the transformer ...
The young man nods with a slight nod and continues his spirited way.
7 workers arrived yesterday from the Mexican Union of Electricians (SME) to continue with the installation of a turbine in the river of La Realidad. This project started at the initiative of a group of Italian Solidarity with Chiapas. Some of its members have spent several months in the Civil Peace Camp, of which there are several Zapatista communities as Oventic, Morelia and San Juan del Rio (a few minutes from here.) The camps are made up of English, German, French, Italian, Danish, Norwegian and even Mexicans. The reasons that bring these people to the canyons of the Lacandon jungle are as varied as boundless, one can glimpse through his gestures and looks a strange mixture of hope and depression. They are not very communicative. An air of suspicion and reservation dominates the atmosphere for those who come from outside and, therefore, the only thing natural is silence.
already got used to the "rules" of the community, by warning of Don Max (in charge of receiving visitors), missing one of them is cause for immediate expulsion. I just feel like if any, stated: "You should not ask questions of the people or take pictures unless authorized, can not leave Ejidal House to other places in the community, except to the store or river. If something is missing, let me know. Did you bring enough food or money? "
After waiting more than a fortnight, what surprises me most is the energy of this man who seems never tired, so visitors arrive early, as was the case of electricians, there is Don Max on his bike from quiénsabedónde and goes back with packages, letters and messages seeking immediate response.
And something very important, "says Don Max as he leads visitors to the call Ejidal House," for no reason and I beg you give anything to children or to leave your sight. We've had problems that have been lost cameras, recorders and even money. I recommend that when you go for a swim, have someone stay here. Try not to be left alone.
And when he spoke in the plural was referring to the Japanese group arrived shortly before and who are still here, awaiting reply for an interview. Don Max
as greeting and farewell, while the sun sets, light your bike is lost in the foliage above the mountain.
girls are back- asks your name which embraces empty cans, followed by three to competing for a file.
-Mallku "replied the boy with a faint accent.
- Marcos?! -Repeated surprised.
"No, Mallku ... -Extending the "l" and "u" to leave no doubt.
-Marcos, well ... -Abstract in chorus.
This will continue, to hear the blades of a helicopter.
Every morning a black flies over the village type Hawk helicopter gunship, which supposedly gave the U.S. the Mexican government to fight drug trafficking, but this time stops than usual.
- Damn, is to fall ...! Exclaimed Pedro Rosado, English director and CNN, while mounting a camera on his shoulder.
ship maneuvers are intended to distract from what really happens: tanks and military trucks (30 in total) stop just behind the
Zapatista Aguascalientes. Someone
contact us and we get calls immediately, so that the soldiers notice that there are people from other places, witnesses who can testify to an illegal.
We ran out and, with the midday heat, sweat profusely immediately. We
panting to where they are parked military man and a belt of masked men and women, most with bandanas and one or balaclavas, and guard the
Aguascalientes.
In this climate, only to see them a feeling of suffocation.
The "campers" as they say here in short for International Observers wonder why the soldiers have been arrested, and remind them they can not make stops on communal land: "That violates the Law for Dialogue, Conciliation and Dignified Peace in Chiapas ..."; but his comments do not even get a look for an answer. With eyes on the horizon soldiers pretend not to see or hear anything. The Japanese made several photo and video footage of the olive-green trailer, the English manage to put a microphone in front of the soldier who heads the patrol:
-failure-is the only answer.
In the distance, the curve of the road, stands a crane improvising "maneuvers to rescue a car apparently broken. Each convoy carries between 7 and 9 soldiers, of which two or more take pictures (or video) to the community, its inhabitants and even to us. They move slowly staggering.
After the incident, we realize that human belt has disappeared and the helicopter and the villagers, like the morning mist, suddenly.
shirts dripping with sweat, would swear that everything has been a collective hallucination, the result of embarrassment jungle, but the tracks of tanks and military trucks on the dirt road left as more than just a witness.
Later we organize for the food. The English bring fruits and fresh but, although we used canned the last two weeks (the Japanese and a server), not hungry. The heat, insects, and this environment of uncertainty do not allow for another feeling that is not capsize. For days I could not pass on the same page of this book and the few notes I make in the book end up blurring the next day. So I go to Banquitas that are shaded and the stage is always the same: women washing their clothes in a bend of the river, children come and go chasing "mongrels" or who come for a cookie, a spotless blue sky begins to fill clouds as you approach the afternoon and, when least expected, drops and a flood that continues until dawn.
And so, barely lit by a candle on another swarms ranging, try to recover our dreams.
Sometimes, hanging in our hammocks, we started talking about anything and come to light aloud ideas and plans that we urgently needed once we have advantage of these streams. Exchanged
jokes and we understand more signs than words. I guess we started to understand that to live in La Realidad.
week
third (broken-down time) By the time they left the electricians arrived by the Japanese commander Tacho. One of them was taking a bath and went to look at the river while the other was preparing cameras, batteries, audio and video tapes.
Mallku When I informed him that at last it was time, water came from a jump, or even put on his boots, darted towards the long-awaited interview.
had already lost all hope for this was his last day in the community and not late in coming the driver to take them back to Las Margaritas.
returned almost to late at night, happy happy, so much that they forgot what they had left up in the House Ejido. Almost all were eaten, I put things in bags and delivered them to a Don Max. (The same thing I do when you leave: leave hammock, sleeping bag, camera and recorder ...)
The focus of the community were the Japanese. The children came each time to play or talk with them. Norihide that Pope did not speak English when he arrived, end up being better than anyone, even learned a few phrases in tojolabal.
Mallku (whose real name is Ota) experienced a time in Mexico City, so his English is "very chilango" (unless you really understand the puns), in his long "hold", worked in a Japanese translation of the EZLN communiqués. Left some craft books, precious, for the library
Aguascalientes.
Now everything happens more slowly.
Days after the same thing happened with the English: they gave the interview the same afternoon that they planned to go back. Strategy "to keep as long as possible to journalists in the community? Namely, as they say here ... the truth is that there is every once in these lands, and broken clocks and calendars because they never seem to fit with what one expects or intends. The only permanent clock is the "no war."
Partying
One evening began to get groups of people from nearby communities. I guess they spent the night in the cabins of Aguascalientes
. The next morning met at the blue hut and makes church whose altar holds a Guadalupana, yes, his face covered by a balaclava. If not because they were in Mass, I could have sworn that the earth opened up to cast their older pain, but tinged with an air of angelic and cheerful, as if it were possible to mix fortune and misfortune in a single musical tone. Thanks to your prayers I discovered the joys of being sad.
A couple of hours later gathered in a circle and began to question familiar topics: how to solve food shortages, the invasion of land by the Army and the low production of coffee ... among other problems. In the meantime, Don Max asked us we were in the House Ejidal us to help you lift the seats and removing the cement bags that were stored there:
"It's gonna be a party ...
As we took our things, he immediately went into a group of young people, laughing and fanfare, began to "arm" a huge marimba and thick timber. They set up chairs and lights attached to the walls longer. Just was evening, the girls appeared in small groups with their brightly colored dresses and red bows. They sat and waited almost in silence the arrival of the boys, in larger groups. On one side were the other women and men. All eyes were whispering and then threw talking, laughing, but not daring to cross the other side. The coming and going from shy or giggly glances seemed to have something deeper: the silence in which these people have been detained for centuries but even so, something as simple and everyday as feeling attracted to someone Moreover, it is notable form of resistance that has learned to "say silent." As the first notes began, all rushed to the center with the full assurance of who his partner, smoothly and without hesitation. The songs lasted for hours, several were repeated and no one showed the slightest fatigue or dislike it. Meanwhile, those who waited to finish the huateque, dormitábamos on the benches outside Ejidal House, which seemed to spring from a bright happy feet moving. Works
incomplete
There was a meeting of the Zapatista Front in Aguascalientes
and although I saw some familiar faces I was not in the mood to listen to these endless discussions that never lead to anything concrete and, as the breezes of earth, "leaving only dust and atrocious return confusion."
only thing that remains unchanged is my anchor in this book
(Papers in eighth. Incomplete Works of Franz Kafka) and the book goes beyond scribbles, erasures and other babbling. So over the seas of silence all I do is think and think until you no longer think or remember anything, I just get carried away by drowsiness and insects buzzing issue. And no dream that comes, but a kind of fever that robs consciousness.
a cloudy afternoon Major appears and tells me that everything was solved, which investigated: no doubt, and thus ended my arrest. I can leave the community at any time. Early morning
heads back and it seems that all things have agreed to make it happen: no more ink, paper, candles, food, batteries for the 'flashlights' currencies are accurate for the truck from pens ... So why do I like waiting for something?
Merchandising 
