Growing up

Anouk and me are trying hard to grow up. Or at least we think we should be trying hard.
Now that we are the eldest in the house, with the new students coming in. Now that our co-students have finished their studies and are looking for jobs.

Taking responsability, becoming 'realistic', leaving behind our silly girl's doubts and endless chatting about princes on white horses.

Within three weeks we both feel wrecked, tired, depressed. With pain in my shoulders trying to write application letters for jobs I don't even like. With a boyfriend that besides being a great friend.... well there is just no beside.
"Well, it might not be so exciting, but he is caring and it seems he is... responsible...and Dutch and it seems that it might have a future "
I hear her think "for once".
"And he is going to be a farmer, isn't that what you want?".

I decide to only send one of the application letters, for a job with the lowest salary, that I probably lack the technical knowledge for, but seems to be adventureous.
I give him the universal early break-up riddle "I think it might be better if we just stay friends".
And Anouk and me dance till dawn... becaus life ain't life, when lived without passion.


"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution".

Campesina en transito

Como ya estoy aca donde hablan mi idioma materna y de por si el ingles solo fue para llegar a dos de mis mundos al mismo tiempo, he decido continuar este blog en "castilla" como dicen los indigenas de Chiapas.
Necessito escribir en este idioma, que para mi es la idioma de la lucha y del amor. Parte de mi ya no se sabe expresar sin este idioma, porque es la parte de mi que nacio hablandola. Es la alegria y la melancolia. Siento mucho melancolia estos dias. Nada mas una cancion, un solo palabra, un imagen, un correo, un sueño y estoy mas alla que aca, mas antes que ahora.

Celebramos la fiesta mayor de Droevendaal y cuando cierro los ojos ya estoy bailando en una calle de Barcelona. Empiezo mis dias a horas que otros van a dormir, intento ser buena trabajadora de oficina mientras el juez me condena por haber 'puesto en peligro el trafico aereo' hace un año (que parece un siglo).
Otro dia, desde un campo holandes, plano y con lluvia, donde escavamos el suelo con los agricultores, vuelo a la milpa de Don Chebo. El autobus me lleva de regreso desde 'algun lugar en las montañas del Sureste mexicana' a Droevendaal donde empiezan mis noches en mi camita. Es la media hora en que gozo la soledad y se juntan mis 'yos'. Despues, soñando debajo el mosquitero, mas rapido viajo todavia.

Es bonita estar en muchos mundos a la vez. Es dificil estar en muchos mundos a la vez. Es dificil querer mucho, es peor no amar. Es dificil saber de muchas lagrimas y hasta las risas - si lontanas - a veces duelen, pero el corazon es grande si una lo alimenta.
Tengo miedo de estrellar un dia con tantas emociones. Tengo miedo de ya no sentirlas.
Es mi deseo. Es mi vida. Es lo que me agobia. Pero me siento fuerte y siento tranquila, sabiendo que puedo caer, pero que ya cai lo sufficiente veces para saber que el pozo no es tan hondo que voy a quedar al fondo. Siempre podré escalar despues del descanso, que sí puedo elegir de tomar...

Dice el Campesino que esta enamorado conmigo, pero cuando busco sus brazos y sus manos endurecidos y siempre con tierra, se tiene que huir.
Dice mi corazon que quiere paz... y se lanza de nuevo al viento. Es posible vivir sin pasión?

"Porque tambien somos lo que hemos perdido"

Desalojos/ Ontruimingen

Para quienes no muy entienden el holandes: quiero compartir con ustedes el dolor, la tristeza y la coraje sobre el destino de mis hermanos y hermanas en los poblados desalojados (los dias 18 y 19 de Augosto) y amenzados de ser echasados de la Reserva Montes Azules, Selva Lacandona, Chiapas. Es la misma gente que me han recibido tan bien hace poco tiempo y es muy dificil para mi no estar a su lado en este momento. Por favor, les pido de informar a todos y todas los que se preocupan por la justicia, de estas nuevas agresiones del malgobierno Mexicano. Aqui les mando tambien los comunicados escrittos por ellos (debajo de la traducion holandesa) y otros links.
http://www.cuarto-poder.com.mx/
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/denuncias/795


Inmiddels ben ik al weer een maandje in Nederland, maar Chiapas is inmiddels onderdeel van mij. Daarom deel ik met jullie mijn kwaadheid en verdriet over wat er op dit moment weer gebeurt in Chiapas: twee "illegale" nederzettingen van Tseltal-indianen in het natuurreservaat Montes Azules, La Selva Lacandona, zijn ontruimd en vijf andere worden bedreigd met ontruiming. Ik ken deze mensen goed door met hen te hebben samengeleefd en je hart krimpt wel even ineen als je hoort hoe mannen, vrouwen en kinderen hun schamele boeltje al bijeen hebben gepakt om het oerwoud in te vluchten bij iedere helikopter die overvliegt.
http://www.cuarto-poder.com.mx/ (doorklikken naar 'desalojo Montes Azules') Jacintha, de vrouw op de foto, zit nog steeds vast en ook van veel anderen is niet bekend waar zij zich bevinden. De mensen uit haar gehuchtje kregen niet eens tijd om hun spullen te pakken, de mannen werden als eerste in de helikopters geduwd en de huisjes zijn meteen verwoest met hun weinige bezittingen erin.
Deze mensen hebben al vaak geld aangeboden gekregen om hun grond te verlaten, maar zij willen niet weg, een onzeker bestaan in de stad te gemoet of in een andere streek met slechte landbouwgrond. Zij preferen dit leven in het oerwoud boven een leven met meer gemakken (niet meer dagen hoeven lopen naar de eerste stad, hun wordt aangeboden gas, water, licht, aansluiting gratis, maar lopende kosten niet...), maar waarbij familie en gemeenschapstructuren uit elkaar zullen vallen, de indiaanse cultuur verloren gaat en zij niet meer zelfvoorzienend kunnen produceren... Zij zijn bereid nieuwe landbouwtechnieken te leren en zijn daar al enige jaren mee bezig: minder branden (branden heeft soms een ecologische functie), geen nieuw bos kappen, groenbemesters in zetten, voederbanken om de koeien te voeren met eiwitrijk gewas inplaats van weer een hectare bos om etc... Ze willen zelfs herbebossen, maar de regering geeft heen geen enkele steun hierbij. Hun kinderen krijgen bovendien zo allerbelabberdst onderwijs, dat voor hen de enige plek voor een veilig toekomst toch weer in het bos ligt... waar zeer laag opgeleiden vrouwen nog altijd veel kindertjes krijgen.
Jammer dat de regering nooit zo streng optrad tegen houtkapbedrijven. Jammer dat de indianen niet veel eerder grond hebben gekregen omdat de regering liever ze in het oerwoud zag verdwijnen, dan dat men de grootgrondbezitters aan wilde pakken... (De grootvaders en vaders van de huidige bewoners waren loonslaven op grote landbouwbedrijven, die vluchten naar een beter leven en eigen grond in het oerwoud, waar hun voorouders op hun beurt enkele eeuwen ervoor weer uit waren gehaald door de Spanjaarden om in makkelijker controleerbare dorpen te gaan wonen). En zou de olie die is aangetroffen onder het regenwoud, in de toekomst daar echter onder blijven zitten om het woud te beschermen??
Natuurbescherming is een groot goed, maar dat moet toch ook kunnen op een harmonieuzere wijze???? Daar is creativiteit en compassie met de allerarmsten voor nodig. Goed onderwijs en ruime beurzen voor de kinderen uit de dorpen in het reservaat. Hulp bij herbebossing, technische assistentie om te leren hoe op een natuurvriendelijke manier landbouw kan worden bedreven en om te zoeken naar nieuwe bronnen van inkomen.
Voor wie spaans kan, hieronder de link naar de aanklacht van de Zapatisten tegen deze nieuwe ontruimingen, het machtsvertoon van Calderon.
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/denuncias/795

A los Defensores de los Derechos Humanos
A los Medios de Comunicación Independientes

Hermanas y hermanos

El día 18 de Agosto de 2007 a las 8 de la mañana aterrizaron los helicópteros con elementos de diferentes corporaciones policíacas para desalojar a nuestros compañeros de la comunidad San Manuel; donde fueron juntadas todas las compañeras y sus hijos en el Centro de la Comunidad y luego fueron llevadas del pelo, a golpes y subidos a los helicópteros. Los elementos policíacos se llevaron todas las pertenencias de nuestros compañeros y destruyeron todas sus casas, rompieron puertas y ventas con sus armas. Tenemos información que el mal gobierno va a desalojar a otras comunidades de la región.

Por lo que exigimos al mal gobierno:

Primero: Que cese el hostigamiento a las comunidades que sufren el intento de desalojo en Montes Azules

Segundo: Se permita a los pobladores de San Manuel el retorno inmediato

Tercero: Libertad inmediata a nuestros compañeros: Mario López Gómez, Feliciano López Hernández, Juan López Gómez, Tomás López Gómez, Daniel Gordillo Trejo y Jesús Gordillo Trejo que se encuentran detenidos injustamente por defender su tierra.

Ante todo esto, convocamos a todos y todas los y las compañeros y compañeros adherentes a la Otra Campaña para:

Primero: Que se organicen en sus regiones para realizar todo tipo de acciones para frenar esta represión en contra de nuestras comunidades.

Segundo: Solicitamos su presencia de manera urgente en nuestra región para proteger a nuestras comunidades para esto, hemos pedido al Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas nos apoyen a coordinar las delegaciones por eso les solicitamos se comuniquen con ellos lo antes posible.



Rancho Salvador Allende, Ocosingo Chiapas
A 20 de agosto de 2007

Comunicado a defensores de derechos humanos, organizaciones no gubernamentales, organizaciones sociales, observadores y sociedad civil estatales, nacionales e internacionales.

Los días 18 y 19 de agosto del presente año se desalojaron ilegal y violentamente los poblados de San Manuel y El Buen Samaritano que han estado viviendo durante diez años en la Reserva de la Biosfera Montes Azules. Estos desalojos fueron realizados sin previo notificación ni aviso y en el caso de San Manuel sin previo contacto de las autoridades competentes (CONANP y SRA) de que su situación fuera irregular. En estos desalojos en los que mujeres y niños fueron separados de sus esposos ( que se encontraban fuera de las comunidades en ese momento), se destrozaron ventanas y puertas de casas, se destruyeron potreros, se robaron dinero y en Buen Samaritano personas de Palestina sacaron ganado en presencia de los militares. Aun más grave no dejaron que la gente desalojada se llevará sus pertenencias (por lo menos ropa) ni papeles de identificación.

Lo anterior es hasta el momento lo que nosotros sabemos. En estos momentos otras poblaciones irregulares de las que formamos parte (algunas en proceso de negociación desde hace más de veinte años), estamos asustados de que en cualquier momento nos puedan desalojar sin previo aviso. Escuchamos y vemos helicópteros pasando muy bajo y los niños se ponen a llorar o salen huyendo a la montaña porque piensan que nos puede ocurrir lo mismo. No podemos ir a trabajar a la milpa, ni dormir por estar pendientes.

Hasta la fecha no sabemos qué paso con los desalojados, dónde están, y si se encuentran bien. Sus familiares, esposos hermanos y padres no tenemos ninguna noticia de ellos.

Por lo anterior les pedimos a todos que intervengan:
Demandando información al gobierno sobre los desalojados y que permita la comunicación con sus familiares y su liberación inmediata
Demandando al gobierno una soluciòn justa (sin presiones por tener personas encerradas ilegalmente) y favorable para los pobladores de San Manuel y el Buen Samaritano
Viniendo a la región Candelaria como observadores y como defensores de derechos humanos para que sean testigos y voz de los abusos del gobierno
Demandando al gobierno evitar el uso de desalojos violentos como éstos para las otras comunidades irregulares y que en lugar de ellos dialogue y negocie con nosotros que al final de cuentas también somos mexicanos

"Beam me up, Scotty"

I have come home and it is a fairy tale land. With water that you can drink from the tap, tomatoes that do not have to be desinfected before you eat them and bikes on which you can go anywhere. And no-one stares at you, I am free and I even love the rain.
Like in fairy tales there are also evil events and people, but I keep my world small, just as small as I can handle for the moment, although you cannot escape all of it. The photo camera shop does not want to open my camera to see what is wrong with it. "It is a nice camera but it is more costly to repair than to buy a new one." Culture-shock? Throw-away society? A new one costs a lot of material and a months salary, well in Chiapas. But in Chiapas they would open my camera, and simply try. Poverty makes creative and that is what I most miss.

I am happy to see my friends and family, very happy. But at the same time have to be on my own a lot. I sometimes still feel like a scene from Startrek "Beam me up, Scotty", but part of me was left somewhere in Chiapas, and part of me seems to be lost in air above the Atlantic Ocean. I notice at night, when all is still and I look at my blurred photos (all of them failed as there still was water in my camera), that my body and mind are still trying to reassemble bits and pieces. It is a physical experience and it scares me.
But then again, I am probably not made for the modernity of rapid transnational flights.
I want to plant some cabbage plants in my garden, if they root, maybe I root again aswell.

My heart and soul feel divided over an old love that should by now be a new friendship. It drains away all the energy and illusion I felt about my new plans for my internship with Dutch farmers. I feel down and it seems like I am watching all day long to a repetition of a repetition of an elegant dancer on ice, knowing that she will fall on the moment she makes the triple piruette. Knowing it causes me pain and an enormous tiredness and I should have stopped watching by now. I cannot. Maybe because some very little part in me hopes that this time she will make it, as I love her as a part of me, but it is a sad, tragic form of love. I even sometimes wonder if the taped dancer died already in real life, but I dont check the date of the video. Maybe she never really existed. The best thing would be that by her own magic she would convert herself in the dove she has always been and fly away. Set us free, both of us.

To not leave you and me sad, I wanted to give us a tale. It has nothing to do with us, but it makes me laugh like most of Marcos' writing.

http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/eventos/783/

Last days in Mexico

I have to admit that already for three weeks I think and dream of little more than my closeby return to the Netherlands.

After returning to my other ´home´ San Cristobal (see photo above), I passed a moment of melancholy and doubts under the heavy afternoon rains. Had I taken enough out of my stay here? Would I leave this place forever? Would I be able to adept again to the Dutch rythm? Do I want to? Maybe I have changed, maybe you have changed - maybe we do not get along anymore?

My eyes red and swollen by the dermatitis everyone stares even more at me than normally. I want to hide, to disapear. I manage to a little, by reading The lord of the rings, even taking it with me to the bar, to the restaurant where I sit in the darkest corner. I feel bad for not doing anything useful, a very North-West European addiction.

Returning to Fundacion Leon XIII is mixed. A few people in the office are annoyed with my informalism, my coming and going. The people that matter to me are mostly happy to see me. Braulio, a young guy from a community, comes to me:

¨Juanita, como estas? Look, we are at war, with those guys from the office. They want to stop the courses on medicinal plants, can you believe it? We had to do an exam and yes, many failed, but I got 8.6... The new docter says that we have to practise more in our communities, but how can we if we do not have the equipment? And how can they expect us all to pass at once, not everyone can study with such ease. Many of the women have not finished their primary education, but that does not mean that they are stuped, we just need more time!

But I will stand stand up and say my word. Aren´t we the basis of the Fundacion, I thought it was set up to help us!¨

Indeed, sometimes this development organization seems to be set up rather to provide people with work in a comfortable office. Don Juan, the herbal medic (I wrote on him in February or March ¨Medicina¨): ¨It is just that some people have other ideas on their mind. The people are enthusiastic, come every month for two days, pay their own transport, bring their own food. But see the office people think otherwise. But don´t worry, Juanita, the work will go on, with or without the Fundacion. It is my mission to pass on the old knowledge to my people.¨

On Monday I can tell Braulio and Gaspar (25 and 23, Gaspar having shared a few weeks with me in the Fundacion, sharing and exchanging our lifes experiences, he with a family of two already...) that our project for a small health house in their community has been approved: a space for their herbal medicine consultory, a place for the midwifes, equipment to prepare herbal medicines. Financed by Grassroots projects in the Netherlands (http://www.grassrootsprojects.com/). The people are happy, want to start right away and I start taking up money untill my daily limit. Mexican banks are cheating horribly on us: it is so expensive to take up money even for Mexican themselves. They even have to pay for having it on their account, so most of them do not have an account...

I get nervous, but manage to arrange transactions for the rest of the money, passing via Carolina with her Dutch and Mexican accounts and via Marcelino, my collegeau, who has become a dear friend. After we managed to forget again that we could be lovers. After our little history the amor de contrabanda (smokkelaarsliefde). Such a beautiful word, for a such a confusing thing.

On thursday I assist at the primary school graduation of Lazaro Jimenez Ruiz, a boy I do not know himself, but is a son of Sebastian from Rancho Salvador Allende, La Selva. To my surprise, not just Sebastian is there, but also Javier, Manuella and their kids (two of them at the same internado/ internaat) from Corozal and they seem happy to see me. These children have left their homes at about ten years old, staying so far away from their families in this internado in San Cristobal together with other kids from other communities.

The ceremony is very Mexican, including a lot of marching (yes, all Mexican children learn to march before they can even read well...), reciting at the flag, dancing, singing, naming the best students etc.

From the Selva comes worrying news. Doña Mica seems better now. But the army has entered Israel, entered San Gregorio and found `everything´, as Sebastian and Javier say. Everything means all the narco-traffico going on, including the air plane providing them with gasoline (from the same company we fly with... there is no other). Let´s hope it is the right people getting punished, those who make the money. Not nearby communities like Corozal, that are not involved, a fact that can easily be ignored by a government looking for any good excuse to evict them....

In the end of the week, I ´risk´ a one-day trip to Palenque the beautiful ruins and some waterfalls closeby. By tourist bus, as the docter says ¨I do not want you to go to these warm humid areas anymore than is strictly necessary.¨ I pay with a tearing, red eye, but it was well worth it.

Then it is time to go up North, finally. By sheer chance I have bought the same ticket as Marcelino and Gaspar who are going to give a workshop in San Luis Potosí. Hours never last so long in company, although most of them are past in half sleepy state. Goodbye is warm with hugs, thank you for everything, please take care of yourself, you too and of your families, guys. They promise to check their newly made email accounts (a rainy afternoon workshop I gave them), once in a while.

Visiting Puebla in a few hours, is like Michel says: ¨Nice those colonial cities, but not that special when you have seen Granada...¨ Being on my own, my eyes still hurting from the airco, I don´t really enjoy it. I go on to Tehuacan that same day and suddenly cannot take all the ¨güera, güera, hello, goodbye love¨, stares and hisses anymore. I feel strange and alone and count the days.

After eating in a (for me) too posh restaurant (where are the little eating stands?), I feel asleep deadly tired in the most expensive hostel I have staid in in my entire stay in Mexico: 9 euros. The cucarachas/ kakkerlakken walk over the floor.

But the next day is another day. I easily find the office for information on the Biosfera de Tehuacan-Cuicatlan and at 10 I walk in a beautiful cactus landscape. A friendly guide explains me that a cactus is not just a cactus, but that there are so many different shapes and names. And that you can eat them, can use them to make long trips through the desert (there are already given courses to illegal immigrants to survive their ´cross´ to the USA through the desert), that they have all kind of medicinal properties. And hallocunogenous, but think before you try them, because the most famous one el peyote is going in extinction!

What a respect grows in me towards them when I hear how slowly they grow: a few centimeters a year. So I am walking through a forest of a few hundred years old, some plants reaching 1000 years!!! And they survive with a few rains a year, and could do without them for a few years.

The world is still full of wonders.

In the evening I find the eating places on the market, so much more cosy. Lucy who attends me wants to go to the Netherlands, because she loves tulips. She will sell tortillas, enchiladas, enmoladas when she comes there. I like her dream...

Still hungry I eat salad in a more hygienic place. But when I eat an elote for dessert later in the street, the lady passes a small cloth over my corn ear to dry it. It looks as if it has a lot of bacteria, but I don´t have the heart to say anything. I am white and therefore too nice, too much in need of being accepted probably. I will chew some probiotics before going to bed tonight. These days, I consume family packs of them anyhow.

Tomorrow I will go to Mexico, my last destination. Have a look at the museums, staying with Carolina´s family (although she herself is away for a course). And then....

HOME!!!

Goodbey to La Selva: conflicting realities/dreams

In Salvador Allende, I experience once again conflicts in realities and generations.
Tono, one of Don Chebo´s son-in-laws, has come back after more than two years of working in the States. He brings back a huge music stereo tower. His family still does not have a toilet, not even a compost one. Talking about priorities. He would have brought a car, he says, but there is no road.
Tono, used to be promoter in agro-ecology. He was a good promoter, enthusiastically working the non-burned milpa and sharing his knowledge with the community.
But Tono looks lost now. ¨Did the community change while you were away?¨ I ask him.
¨Yes, it looks sadder¨.
¨But is it the community that has become sadder or do you see it as such?¨
¨I don´t know. When I went away I was happy, full of illusion, now that I see the village again...¨
While we see his colourful wife, his laughing children running around freely, the beautiful trees, the men joking around. His eyes are full of other realities, of cars, of cities, of restaurants, of 24 hours-shops, of movies, of going out, of his friends (male ánd female as he emphasises).
When he accompanies us to the milpa he says he does not like this work anymore. ¨I used to like it, but after working in a restaurant, this work seems so hard to me. I want to go back. I will go back. My wife does not want to come with me, but I want to go. I will ask her to send me some of the children, because education in the USA is free, even for us illegals. And maybe my Mexican boss can help me to obtain papers, then I will earn even more. ¨.

Sebastian, the catechist, and Juanita are expecting their 8th child. Another one, not intended but it will be received with love. Juanita has some one and half month to go, but she walks around all day, carries buckets of water etc. When I say that I admire her, Sebastian replies: ¨She is used to it and we have experienced that a woman who does not exercise will have difficulty in giving birth. Here the women give birth en cuclillas (op de hurken) supported by their husband, this way it never takes long.¨
Together with them lives Sebastian´s sister Guadeloupe, a single mother. The two women do everything together. The father of Guadeloupe´s children (of which she has been allowed to only keep one) Feliciano is married to her sister Jacintha and is expelled by Don Chebo to a Rancho nearby after having made Guadeloupe pregnant for the third time. In another village, Carolina hears speaking of Feliciano like ´un hombre chingon´ (een echte vent) and of Guadeloupe as a fallen woman. The typical Latin American double mentality.
Sebastian is not so enthusiastic about his brothers (two of them are still there) and nephew´s temporal migration to the States. ¨Look it depends a lot on the man. There is this young boy in Amador Hernandez, he left together with them in February. He is very responsable and does not drink. He has already sent back 20 thousand pesos, while having paid his debts. His father is a responsible man too and is administring his money well. When he gets back he will have some cows or can start a little business, especialy when the road is build. My brothers send money, but not so much. They bought a car there, they like the adventure. I hope they do not bring back diseases.¨

When Carolina goes to another farm for a few days in hotter areas, I stay in SA, not to make my dermatitis worse. They insist on me not sleeping on my own. ¨Are you not afraid?¨ They are surprised, maybe reaffirmed in their view that I am ´a lost girl, way to independant´. Here a woman never sleeps alone, first she sleeps with her parents, sisters, then with her husband and children.
My ´tokalla´ (naamgenoot) Juanita (23), thus keeps me company. She is pretty, hardworking and intelligent, although never given the opportunity to study beyond primary school. One afternoon I hear her explaining national politics to the other women in tseltal, while she is sewing clothes on her foot-driven machine, the other women listening somewhat incomprehensive, a child on each breast. At night in bed she explains why she has refused the plenty mariage offers so far: ¨I dont want to marry yet, I want to see places, like you! If you want to suffer you marry at 14, 15. If you want to enjoy life you wait. Women suffer a lot. No, not more, but less when their husbands are in the States. Because if he is there you have to serve him food and wash his clothes aswell. My boyfriend is in the States for 3 years now. He told me he has someone else, so I said that I have too. I like a boy in Ocosingo, he works as a taxi driver and his family has a fruit stand in the market place. I want to live in town too, I like it much more than the Rancho. He is respectful. He asked me to go and eat something together, but I told him I cannot go out with him, it is against our custom. He wants to marry in one year, but I want to wait another five year as I don´t want children yet. I may be able to go to women´s gatherings in other places.¨

Lazaro, her brother with thirteen children, starts what seems a confession, to me one evening. In the evening life centres around the ´living room´ of Don Chebo and Doña Mica, where the lamp on sunlight is installed and coffee served. ¨I am regretful.You know I had the opportunity to go out of here. They offered me a job for the government, I could get a higher education. I was out and about a lot. But I knew that if I would get that job, I would leave my wife and the five children we had back then. Because when you got money you buy a car, you start to drink, you see other women and one day you fall in love and forget your family which stays behind in misery. It was already happening, I liked other women. I got together with them for a year, half a year. We were almost going to seperate. But I decided that it would be better to stay. To buy good cows, to build up a better life, here. So I decided to have many children, so that they would retain me, they would tie me to the community, to my family. And when I am with them I am content, when I´m out I think of my wife.
But I am not happy in this place anymore and now I am stuck. I am disillusioned and regretful, because I thought I could change our live to the better here in the Selva, but I could not. Now the only thing left for me are to make sure my children go out of here, study and so get a better life. Here it ain´t life. This year I will send Remiglio [Lazaro´s child but brought up by his grandparents] out to study...¨

Next day, I find a crying Don Chebo for breakfast: ¨I overheard Lazaro yesterday, telling you that it ain´t life here. That he will send Remiglio to study, that he is now working too hard, is my servant. But we have given this child everything he needs, clothes, medicines, food. Yes he will go to study, but when he is a bit older. First I want him to know the life and work of the land. My son says we ain´t life here. Yes we have life, but it entails work, a lot of work. He does not like work, is a politician, that goes out if he gets the chance. I don´t know why my children leave, if here there is work enough. If you work you have a decent life. Ok, we do not eat meat everyday, but we have food.¨

The end of my last stay in La Selva is full of conflict too. Doña Mica (Don Chebo´s wife) is seriously ill, her belly blown up, she refuses to eat more and gets weaker by the day. We are waiting for the small airplane to take her to the hospital, with all the women, men, children and grandchildren for three days in the landing lane. Boredom, worries, despair. Sudden jokes and playing chess. Carolina is filled with painful memories of the last weeks of her fathe´s life. I am secretly dreaming of my arrival to the Netherlands in three weeks, of eating bread with appelstroop, tahini, Dutch cheese, of riding my bike, of seeing all of you again.
No plane comes for us, as ´the weather is bad´ and one plane is decomposed, we here over the radio. However, the weather seems to be no problem, for the other airplane that circles around non-stop. The narco-trafficantes, as everyone knows, who find this weather safer to do their tricky business.
While waiting under a carpet for the heavy rain to stop, Miquel says ¨This is our reality¨.

La Selva: last episode

After five days of waves, waves and waves, turtles, delphins and pequeñas fiestas we returned to San Cristobal. Two weeks ago I said goodbye to Michel and Machteld and embarked on my last ´expedition´ to La Selva Lacandona.
To be sincere I was so afraid to fall ill again, that I already felt short of breath by the pure fear upon mere entering.
We entered by small airplane again, which always makes me feel guilty, although I know that I am not the one deciding and the plane would fly anyhow as Carolina goes. But it is so much money that could be used for other things and contamination. This time we enter to Corozal which would mean one day by pick-up truck and two days walking through the mud. Knowing that we loaded the plane full with all the people wanted us to bring makes me feel a little less bad: 25 kg of salt, 10 kg of soap, 10 kg of spikes, 25 kg of tubes, 30 kg of barbed wire, 40 kg of grass seeds, medicines, chimney pipes for the stoves I want to construct. They actually seem very happy not having to come for us and to have all the orders transported to them.
Corozal is a very small ´family village´, made up by ten families headed by ten brothers Gomez, funded in 1992 by their father looking for land for his sons. It finds itself in the midst of the Biosfera de Montes Azules and is thus threatened with eviction. The majority of the families of nearby Israel have already left in exchange for a substancive sum of money (but will it be enough to build up a decent life in another place, as in the city ¨everything is bought- puro comprado¨ as the people say here and as there are many more temptations once in the ´civilisized world´?).
This is the real rainforest with high old trees, here you hear the saraguatos (apes) roaring and yelling, the guacamayas (parrots, see photo) and loros (green small parrots) fly around. We bath in the beautiful river, that gives fishes, cangrejo/kreeft and caracol/slak to diversify the usual diet of beans and maize. We eat hierba mora, a spinache-like edible weed from the milpa (maize field) everyday and thus I miss the vegetables less this time. Even so, I will later in Salvador Allende be happy I have brought on my seeds, raisins, cookies and tea...
Like in the other communities, cattle are seen as the only cash option in Corozal and that means a big pressure on the rainforest: to keep cattle big meadows are opened up by cutting down the forest. The farmers understand they cannot go on with that forever, as they themselves can see the soil and water situation deteroriating (in some places rains stay out or the rivers fall dry) and more, they know that the government will not permit them to open up land again when their sons grow up. On the other hand, as I see teacher Alejandro, a lovely guy, but with very deficient spanish, not even having finished his secondary school (which should take up to 15/16), not knowing where Europe or even Mexico City lays, asking me with unbelieving eyes why it is seven hours later in the Netherlands, I wonder if the children he teaches will have any other future option that to become campesinos (peasants) as well or to migrate... Might improving education be the best way to convince people to leave the protected areas or at least make a more sustainable use of them? How many would stay if they were educated sufficiently to have interesting options for a life somewhere else? May sponsoring the education of one of these children be the biggest contribution a nature lover could make?
Anyhow, CETAMEX is trying to do its bit and Carolina gives a workshop on forage banks: a more intensive way of producing feed for the animals. The farmers here are used to feed their animals by pure grazing of African star grass (Cynodon nlemfluensis and C. plectostachyus), one of the grass species that my maternal grandfather studied on the African savannah some fifty years ago. It establishes well in a wide range of tropical areas and leaves little space to weeds. However, it does not produce well under shade, which means having to cut down nearly all trees. Besides feeding on star grass alone is not a balanced diet, and for this type of grazing you easily need one hectare per cow. If using a forage bank with some ten different species of grasses (including the very energetic sugar cane and maize sown close by, very strange for the people here to give maize to your cows instead of eating it yourself!), trees and leguminous (like the Leucaena leucocephala that you can see on the photo, here called xaxib or goax, and after which the state of Oaxaca is named, where they call the trea huaje) for cutting or light grazing only one hectare will be needed to feed a cow sufficiently. This more intensive way of forage production costs more time, but a lot less space and will result in fatter cows. Since the soil nutrients in one place are used more intensively, it does require fertilisation with cow dung. So common in our lands, so uncommon in the tropics: as tropical areas with their high humidity and temperatures have such a high regeneration, fertilisation is warranted by natural biomass growth if used extensively. So the next workshop will be the construction of a wheel barrow to transport the dung...The brothers Gomez had already prepared a piece of land to establish their bank, but they had not realized that walking nearly an hour back and forth each day crossing a hill to go cutting the fodder (which in a good bank can be up to 40 kg a day!) and bringing back the cow dung, will not be very likely. When we explain we want a bank not for decoration but to be used daily, some discussion takes places (the place seemed to suit Javier as he was thinking of establising his meadow near the bank, although it was meant to be collective...) and it is decided to prepare another piece of land closer to the comunal meadow. I would invite anyone who shouts that farmers should stop practising slash-and-burn-agriculture to come along and help in the clearing with a machete once! This was an easy terrain as we took only half a day, but I still had a blister on my hand even though I had hardly advanced. Carolina´s experimental milpa (try-out of some forty different land races from the region and from outside) is sown in Salvador Allende after clearing a five year old acahual (secondary forest growing back when the land is lain fallow). Clearing this quarter hectare took several men working several days to clear and walking around in the milpa is a true adventure: you either fall over trunks or suddenly sink away in a big heap of humus. But Don Chebo remains optimistic: this year not even half of the maize sown established (as some places are so burried in trunks and branches that the maize cannot sprout) but next year you should see how well it grows with all this natural fertilisation.
I am in Carolina´s work shop to give feedback and conduct the evaluation with the farmers, but all of them are working happily and with great enthusiasm. Besides, I am once again the entertainment of the village and rediscover with them again the wonderful nature of this world: how it is possible that the sun shines here, while the moon comes up in the Netherlands; that there are waters so big you need several weeks to cross them by boat; that there are homes so far away that it takes you up to a day to fly there and that the plane does not stop to take your meal; that there are places where maiz is given to the cows, where they do not eat pozol (maiz drink that I still struggle with drinking); that there actually exists a medicine against those itching fungi on your feet...
Ocasionally we are asked for help in writing letters, official documents or to make some calculations.
At night my stomach aches and I have to find my way several times in the banana field by flashlight, scared to cross with a snake or even a jaguar (they just killled one, because it started to enter the houses). I am a startled by the skinny, scruffy dog who follows me as soon as I seem to go to the toilet, since one of their favourit food is... yes its disgusting. These are the moments I dream most of being back home or at least in the ´civilized world´, excusez-le-mot.

After some days we go on to Salvador Allende which I know so well know. After one day in the milpa my eyes swell up, the dermatitis atopica (sounds more impressing than eczeem doesn´t it?) colours my eyelids red and scruffy, my nose is leaking and my bronchis protest. You travel half the world, thinking you might have found a completely different vegetation, but you are hit by ordinary hay fever once again ;-)
Still I can help Carolina a bit with counting here maize plants and more important talk to the people about the stoves and battery project. Even though the last stove we made was a disaster, the base still stands and several are still interested (others have only firmed their disbelief) in trying out an hopefully improved model with brick stones and the mixture one of the woman used to build a little bread oven (with earth from another part of the rancho). Unfortunately, there are no brick stones in the next village and we have to order them, so that we cannot start building while I am there. Now I just have to trust I have given them the ´building stones´ (ideas, some instruction and financial means) and that now it is up to them. In the end it is their development not mine! And they can always ask help again through one of Carolina´s contacts .
What a good experience for me to lead this tiny development project and struggle in practise with the things I studied in theory! Themes of trust, convincing power, the danger of financial incentives, the failure of a mere tranfer of technology by a so-called expert against the necessity for participatory technology building (needing the local knowledge of the women, to see what the right building materials are for this place and climate) etc.

to be continued