September 2001

In August and September of 2001 I spent three weeks in a Zapatista community fairly close to the Guatemalan border. As much as I had read up on the Zapatistas, I don't think anything quite compares to actually being out in the communities and soaking up zapatismo through something other than a book or website. Especially because the Zapatistas have been mystified through much of the coverage they have received and converted into postmodern counterculture superheroes; in reality they are not idols but rather humble, honest people. Being there, getting to know them on a personal level, replaced my romanticized preconceived notions with a deep respect and a much more grounded sense of just what they are struggling against.

The journey through the mountains alone is quite eye opening. We needed 4 days to travel 80 miles (130 km). The first day we went to the regional Aguascalientes, the seat of the governing council of that autonomous municipality, to get our three letters of introduction stamped by the milicianos, or full-time soldiers, of the EZLN. We presented these letters to the responsables, or people responsible for visitors, of each community we stayed in as an introduction and authorization of our presence there.

The next day we left the road behind, hiking up the side of a very steep mountain through dense jungle and clouds. We passed through the clouds and came out above them to a breathtaking view of lush blue-green mountains draped in mists, one ridge rolling out in front of another as far as the eye could see. Our guides, even though they were carrying our big backpacks, spent most of their time waiting on us to catch up (Here it is important to note that although we were always accompanied on our journey after we left the road, no money was ever exchanged.). We saw various kinds of butterflies and birds and hiked through mud up to our knees. That day we stopped at a community halfway between the road and our destination, exhausted from the ascent and mud.

As luck would have it, the next day was the feast day of that particular community so we stayed to watch the festivities, which consisted of a Catholic mass, a potluck and a dance at which only the adolescents braved the undivided attention of everyone present to actually move to the music. On the fourth day we finally arrived at our destination and were welcomed by the other campamentistas (peace campers) already there.

Our daily routine consisted of waking up around 7am, making some coffee, reading until around noon, going to the spring to bathe, coming back and cooking our big meal of the day, cleaning up and reading more until around 5pm, when the men of the community started showing up to chat with us and play volleyball. Daily chores included fetching water from the cave and chopping firewood. One day we were able to accompany the men to the frijolar, the collective bean field, to pick beans, which wasn't hard work until the sun came out. We were also able to partake in a temazcal, a traditional Mayan steam bath, which consists of crawling into a tiny mud-walled structure, pouring water onto the hot rocks (in the dark!) to produce steam and then being lightly beaten with palm leaves to exfoliate the skin and help absorb the herb-infused steam. They use the temazcal as part of a system of preventative medicine. The health promoter in this community had been trained in acupuncture because it is a treatment that is not dependent on pharmaceutical drugs which are hard to come by in these poor, isolated communities. Acupuncture is a good example of the kind of solutions the EZLN is coming up with because it does not require much equipment or ongoing external support.

The level of organization and self-reliance in the communities is really impressive. It seemed like every other day the men were having meetings to decide matters that concerned the community. They have some communal fields of beans and corn that are shared among the community and with the EZLN milicianos in the mountains. They were also holding workshops on traditional Mayan religion as part of an effort to reinforce their cultural identity in the face of the low-intensity counterinsurgency war being waged against them by the Mexican government.

The counterinsurgency war did not fit into my preconceived notions of what war is because it is so diffuse and confusing, the violence insinuates itself into their daily lives from so many different directions. In this particular community there had not been any aggressions in quite a while and things were relatively peaceful, but they are still suffering from the instability caused by the military presence so nearby. When I first arrived I was surprised at how quiet it was during the day, the silence interrupted only by crowing roosters, children playing, the occasional neighing of a donkey. Then the "flyovers" began. Usually at least once a day a helicopter or plane passed over the community on its way to the military base nearby, accessible only by air. In a community like this, so isolated and peaceful out in the middle of nowhere, the noise and implicit danger suggested by the military aircraft was incredibly disruptive and disturbing.

Most of the time they just flew by, but one day we heard a different kind of helicopter. At first all we could hear was the threatening sound made by the beating of the propellers, so loud I thought surely it would be visible, but the helicopter was flying so low to the ground that only when it broke over the trees a few meters away from us did it we see it. Then it hovered right above us, a dark untouchable menace, pausing long enough to make sure we knew we were being watched (and probably videotaped and photographed) and then slowly moving away, the sound lingering long after it was out of sight.

One Sunday a couple of ladina (non-indigenous) women came into the community to buy canned tuna at the store. Later the people told me they were soldiers, and that often soldiers from the military base located 15 minutes away come into the community on their days off dressed as civilians to take advantage of the better prices at the Zapatista stores (the stores in the PRIista community by the base charge the soldiers inflated prices because they know they are paid well). I couldn't believe the Zapatistas would let soldiers into their community at all, even if they were off-duty and there hadn't been aggressions in this community in so many months, much less cut them a deal on tuna. They told me they let the soldiers buy things at the store, but keep a close eye on them. That is the kind of thing I still don't quite understand, how they can live alongside the same people who are committing so much of the violence against them. All the people in the PRIista community by the military base were relatives or former neighbors of the Zapatista sympathizers in this community, and were the same people who had been converted into paramilitaries and terrorized the Zapatista sympathizers.

Staying in the community for those few weeks I also saw many unexpected things. I had no idea how religious they are, and how much their Catholic faith inspires their struggle. More than once in church I heard references to the Israelites. I was also surprised at how much gender separation there was and how quiet the women were, given the EZLN's strong emphasis on feminist education, but I also realized that my Western notions of what counts as women's liberation were not particularly relevant to this community. I was also really surprised at the interest they showed in our belongings, always asking how much things cost, where we bought them, who gave them to us, how they worked, whether or not we wanted to exchange. At first this bothered me, I was offended that they wanted to talk so much about inflatable sleeping pads, leathermans, digital watches, headlamp flashlights and not about politics or culture. But after a while I decided that I couldn't judge them for their interest in those objects, that it was natural human behavior despite the lingering stereotypes in the back of my mind of indigenous people as non-materialistic.

All of these unexpected behaviors really turned my preconceived notions on their proverbial heads: my (admittedly shallow) assumption that deeply religious Catholics are blind unquestioning followers, that gender separation always equals gender oppression, that materialism corrupts peoples' sense of responsibility to each other. Not to mention that they did not fit at all with the image in my mind of the Zapatistas as postmodern revolutionary superheroes. But no one could have filled those shoes, and instead I was presented with a much more human portrait of their strength and determination in the face of so much poverty, repression and violence.