utopias

Chiapas Travel Report

by Grace Braley

Traveling into the Chiapas mountains, called Los Altos, one is treated to spectacular views of clouds slipping around high points and rich land planted with corn and other vegetables. Our team left at dawn riding in the back of a truck in order to spend time in a small indigenous community. We knew we'd be visiting people whose dignity is intact, whose traditions are strong, and who also happen to be among the world's poorest.

     We had come to start leveling a plot of land for the new health center. Approval had required a discussion and decision by the collective. Although the village is divided into political alliances, the population has managed to live together with minimal dispute and disruption. The current rented health office, a tiny, dark, adobe structure, is open to all residents of the area, as the new center will be when it is completed in December. The collective is sponsoring its construction, but everyone will be able to receive health care from the trained health promoters.

     The children peek at us curiously, giggling, in this village spread out across a slope on the skirts of Mut Vitz (Bird Mountain), a name associated with the quality coffee produced here. We were received graciously and dumped our sleeping bags in the small building designated as "home." Across the rutted, grassy road, two families let us use their latrine, washing and cooking facilities.

     To accompany people in mutual respect, gives opportunity to contemplate the meaning of life and work. We go to 6 p.m. prayers, a blend of Catholic and Maya traditions. Though the patrons and saints all appear to be Catholic, they are adorned with little mirrors of Maya significance. In every sacred spot, there are 3 blue crosses, Christian of course, but adorned with Maya symbols, hung with vermiliad. Then again, one of our team is Jewish, and we allow ourselves to be culturally/religiously as open as we can.

     It was both a privilege and hard work to put the first shovels, hoes and picks into the ground to level a sloping lot for the health center. With major sweat and laughter, and working in three languages, we made a good start on the project.  With so much earth to move, we rejoiced at the arrival of two wheelbarrows -- carterias -- to transport the soil from the high slope to become landfill below.

     According to Salvador, a health promoter, this is very welcome work, for the 10 x 10 rented adobe hut currently used as a clinic is totally inadequate. So there we all were on bright sunny days (it only rains in the afternoon), out on a piece of land, on the side of a mountain....a little piece of the third world, yet feeling familiar and content.

     The hill yields, one swing at a time. Diego and Benito arrive with 1 x 10s and start to build. There is a sort of yoke that two people pull from the front while several pushers leverage a load of dirt, dragged smoothly from one side to the other. 

      Later, it was a delight to listen to some of the children read and write in two languages. How many US children can write in two languages? Young women of the community now have the opportunity to study. It is usually only the men who have learned Spanish, and also the elites who refer to women as illiterate. Four -- Martha, Rosa, Manuela and Maria -- are learning to be teachers along with forty other women from the area.

     Teresa Ortiz has been providing workbooks and supporting the process. It is new for the men of the community to accept the education of the women, and a few come by to oversee. I've taken written words for granted all my life. Here I am witnessing the first steps of Tzotzil women as they repeat the Spanish vowels, eyes alert, faces alive. Everyone is engaged. Names are called for groups and each woman receives a pencil and paper to write her name. There is quiet concentration, a whisper of explanations in Tzotzil.