Duraznos y Coca

I´m about to start my last week on the project, and its so strange thinking that I probably won´t ever see this place again. I´ve learned so much and met so many interesting people throughout this summer. The last four toilets are continuing to proceed, although I´m sure I´ll have to leave a few of them for the albañil to finish without me. All the families have been participating with the mano de obra...as well as in the provision of duraznos (peaches) and Coca-Cola to the hungry engineer. In one of the families, the son Pedro is providing the mano de obra for his family. He is actually the same age as me, which sortof feels like putting a mirror up to myself. At the age of 19, he left his family, took the dangerous road to the U.S., and worked for 3 years doing brickwork in Atlanta, Georgia. So while I was busy studying (as well as some partying) at the University of Texas, he was building the arches to McDonalds. He returned this May, because he was missing his family, but thinks that he will have to return to the U.S. again, since he can´t get any good jobs in his home. I was rather surprised to find out how much it costs to travel to the U.S., the coyotes (the human transporters) actually ask for $2000 U.S. for the trip! That´s as much as 3 times more than my round trip ticket here! How long does someone have to work just to make up the amount of money they just spent on the trip alone?

Talking with the new albañil, Miguel, I found out an interesting part of the organization of the community. In this community, as well as in most Tzotzil communities, the members of the community have communal duties, called ´cargos´, that they have to do every week (by ´members´, I of course am only referring to male members of the community). The word for cargo in Tzotzil is ¨nichimal abtel¨, which means flowery or sacred work. It is considered a position of high respect to serve your community through cargos. The community appoints a person to their cargo for a full year, and if the person refuses, they have to pay a fine of $30,000 pesos ($3,000 U.S.). In Damasco, no one yet has refused to comply with their cargo. The different cargos in Damasco are Agente Municipal, Water Monitor, Highway Cleaning, Education Committee Chair, and 6 policeman. Miguel is currently the Water Monitor, which he was appointed to on May 2, which entails making sure the spring water is clean that feeds the piped water to the houses. All the people with cargos must be present at all the asambleas on every Saturday...although there seems to be more basketball than official business going on at these meetings. In the community of Chamula, the cargos involve a whole lot more drinking of trago (liqour), but I think since Damasco is mostly protestant converts, many who don´t drink, there is not as much trago at these asableas (although the community leader Mateo is drunk just about most of the time). Even though women traditionally do not have cargos in Tzotzil communities, it is not because they are not wanting to serve their community. In all the Zapatista bases, they have women in charge of cargos such as heading a weaving cooperative or a baking cooperative. I asked Miguel about women having cargos, and he replied that no women in Damasco have cargos. I didn´t probe the subject any further...I have to admit that I´m a little afraid to approach delicate subjects, being seen as the radical feminist foreign intigator.

Miguel was telling me that on Thursday his wife was going to San Cristóbal to receive poverty money from the government. This is one example of struggle between charity and justice, which sortof pulls strings between my heart and head. At the government offices of San Cristóbal, the government of Chiapas will give money to poor indigenous people. Every Thursday you can go look at the long line of women lined up going through the plaza, waiting for their money. In the case of Miguel´s family, they will receive $400 pesos (about $40 US), but the amount of money changes depending on how many kids the family has. Its so hard to have an opinion on the program. On the one hand, it is a pure charity project. It has at its aim to reduce poverty, but doesn´t do anthing to change the causes of povery, but rather just creates a dependence on the government(which I´m sure the government doesn´t mind). In fact, the way it is set up actually encourages people to have more kids (in order to get more money), which only means more malnourished children. On the other hand, it means that people like Miguel´s family will get to eat something other than beans and tortillas once in a while (not that I don´t absolutely love beans and tortillas, but you´ve gotta have more nutrition than that). I guess the question to answer is; are poor people better off because of the project? I think I would have to answer a tentative ´yes´, but I would think there has got to be a better way to use the money to aleviate poverty. But then again, it would be a government project, and the Mexican government sortof has the reverse Midas touch, where anything it touches turns to crap. It´s quite easy to criticize something without offering a solution (as a just did), but I don´t know of a solution. Its not like Miguel´s family isn´t trying to make a better life for themselves. In order to make ends meet, Miguel has worked in Florida has a gardner, away from his wife and family, day in and day out for three years. In fact, a son and a daughter of his even joined him up there to work as well. And now, Miguel is working for me for a measly $170 pesos ($17 US) a day... the $400 pesos a week adds up to more than 2 hard days of work for Miguel. And the problem of poverty has much deeper roots, in that indigenous people who have lived as sustinance farmers for centuries now have to compete on a world market with the scales heavily tilted against them. Perhaps a better use of the money would be to give low interest loans to people...or fund more weaving cooperatives. But there has gotta be some massive change before they can even think of reducing poverty...and until then, I don´t really see a problem in Miguel´s family getting to eat chicken on Friday.