Regreso de la selva

The day before yesterday we came back from the forest. A bit earlier than planned, to help out some girls who needed to go to the city. Well and maybe better for me, because today the doctor confirmed that I have caught a bronchitis: probably due to the humidity and the extreme temperature changes (cold nights, hot middays). No worries, I will take care of myself here in San Cristobal and take my antibiotica.

We entered the Selva 4 days late, because of the bad weather, but we spend them well in the company of a young farmer by the name of Santiago who later took excellent care of us in his village Amador-Hernandez. I thus started my investigation early with my talks to him and that was a good thing, because in the communidades I often was too tired to ask all that I wanted to ask.
But what an experience it has been!!!!!!!!!! Have to say that the first day of arrival I did get a bit scared and thrown back (not to say longing for home sweet home!) by all the people staring at me, laughing at me, pointing at me... But I got acostumed to their jokes, shameless staring and laughing and the kids touching my hair, white skin and raincoat entendered me. I and to a lesser extent Carolina are their diversion/ animation where no TV nor playstation is present.
That night, the shell was blown and the people gathered for their meetings and we were given the opportunity to present us. So I became compañera Juanita, the guera (white woman) from a faraway country across the grand sea, called Holland, where there are no mountains and many black and white-coloured cows. They applauded.

Next day I entered as a participant in our three day course on veterinary and learned so much!!! How to diagnose the cow, by looking at the colour of the nose, eyelids, texture of the tongue, taking temperature etc. How to check whether the cow was pregnant by putting our gloved arms inside of her (and the cows are rather "unbehaved" here, so I was a little scared it would break my arm!). Since we did not have enough needles, I did not learn to inject, vacunate or auto-vacunate. But we studied the main tropical diseases and found out the importance of the teek/garrapata in causing these diseases...

Carolina did not like the animals to much, but I felt my fathers and grandfathers´ blood in my veins. You are right, Pap, they are really nice animals!! (untill you are running for the bull!!)

My contribution to the course was ofcourse little although I could add some remarks on food-and-mouth disease, hygiene, burning of bones, growth hormones (in which the farmers are really interested.... well for the moment they cannot afford them and lets hope they see their dangers). More impact made my ´energizer´of "hoofd, schouders, knie en teen" which garantize laughs wherever you go.

Luckily I did not get sick with the stomach, although I just had to eat all they gave me (which is normally boiled or fried and coffee instead of water), but also had to drink untreated water once or twice. The food was good, maize and beans, beans and maize, sometimes rice and chicken if lucky. And I ate tepescuintle, recently chased, with the maize of the milpa still inside his intestines... The only thing I did not get acostumed to and still makes me revolt is the pozol or matz: maize massa with water!! uhh... I escaped several times...

The last days I had to stay arest since I my lungs gave up a bit. Then I did feel a little homesick!! But the people treated me well and were all worried about me. How I wish I had a bit stronger health!!!!!!!!!! If I could change one thing in my life, it would probably be that one, because it limits me so often.

What a beautiful dreams when I close my eyes:
The colourful dresses of the women, the dark eyes of the children staring at me, laughing timidly...
The music in the evening all the girls were dancing and stopped dancing when I was invited to dance by the school teacher...
Eating tortillas, beans and camarones (shrimps) in Santiago´s place, prepared by his wife Claudia who with two years older than me already gave birth to five kids...
Their suprise and laughs at the story of European women marrying at 32 and having only two kids.
The green mountains, the butterflies, the milpas (where maize, beans are grown), the cows, eating sugar cane, riding the mule through the mud...
The men around the fire telling about their time in the mountains, when they were still Zapatistas.

Genetica

Carolina explaining Santiago the process of crossing maize:
"Well, the maize, have a feminine part and a masculine part. The male (macho) when you do not cover it, spreads its seeds all over the place, fertilizing several females (hembras). The female, when not covered, will be fertilized by several males. You then do not know which variety is the father and who was the mother of the maize ear (mazorca) and cannot decide it characteristics".
Farmers gathered find the sexual character of the storey very amusing, especially when Carolina adds: "Companero Chebo tried to make a cross between his amarillo (yellow) and his chaparro (short) maize, but they got a disease. Since he did not cover them well, he says it might be AIDS/SIDA, what do you think?"

Explaining hybrids to the farmers:
"Suppose we want a tall plant that resist the heat, we could then compare the process of hybridization to the following. We take Jenneke who is very tall and let here marry her brother, thus enhancing the tallness. If her daughter marries her brother too and this for many generations, we get grand-grand children that have many defects, but are very tall. On the other side we take Armando who is very resistant to the tropical heat and let him marry his sister. Their son marries their daughter and so on. We than have grand children with many defects, but heat resistant.
Now we marry the grand'grand daughter of Jenneke with the grand grand son of Armando and we have a hybrid. The first generation will have the desired traits (heat'resistant and tall) and do very well in other areas aswell, as the defects are gone by the mixture of these very different parents. However when they again get children, we find some with very good and some with very bad traits, but nothing like a stable offspring... ¨
Farmers laughing.

Zapatista y la Madre Tierra

Due to sudden bad weather conditions (wind, rain, clouds, but not really cold for me) the airplain could not leave today. So there we were struck with the three of us (Carolina and Armando the young veterinarian who will give the workshop and speaks tseltal), farmer-promoter Santiago who arrived at the hotel at 7 o´clock, our luggage and a total of 20 kg of beans for Juan and Manuel. Also Diego another farmer-promoter passed by and we spend all day talking.
For me a great opportunity to get to know them already before going to the villages and they also seem to enjoy it (maybe because we invite them for meals?) and ask continous questions on Holland. They cannot believe we can survive without tortillas, eating so much bread. We speak about cows, wooden shoes, organisation of the people, their struggle for the right on their land etc. Diego decides that Holand must be a poor country, because we do not have selva, real forest left. And when he hears the Dutch language with its many g´s he finally admits that I am different than the gringo´s... Being coquet as he is, he then suggest I come and stay here and live in the forest like their queen.

Well yesterday I already got very well introduced in the very complex reality of this place: the Zapatista struggles and the internal division of the two regions (Amador-Hernandez and Candelaria) in which we work and who were one untill last October. But maybe we have to go back a little in history to grasp some of it:
The tzeltal people we are working with have come to the selva (forest) only in the 1940. Before they worked for the land owners and they were offered the possibility to find their own fields in the forest. Much later the government declared the area a Natural Biosphere of the Monte Azules and the people were pressed to leave their new lands - but where to go? Still many of them do not have the rights over their lands.
In 1994 there was the Zapatista uprising of the EZLN and many of "our" farmers participated. The stance of the EZLN is not to allow any government intervention (with good reasons!), so they decided recruiting their own promoters for health, education, agriculture, cattle and throw out the governmental teachers, doctors etc. They could do this with the help of the international support they received (and some say that nowadays also because of narco-traffic...).
However the region where we work is very isolated and received little of this support... therefore they now are slowly accepting government help, often through NGOs that usually have good intentions. This does however create internal struggles with the EZLN.

It has created a split between the regions we are working in, as one of them has allowed state teachers to the village. Only to state teaching do children receive diplomas that they can use to go studying on elsewhere. Also the village does not have enough money to educate his own teachers.
So Lazaro and Diego (the same) of ARIC came by to our breakfast to impress us with a revolutionary talk and to state the official stance that our NGO CETAMEX has two choose loyalty to one of the two regions. And also that they belong to the group who refuses any goverment intervention. CETAMEX receives his funds from several sources, one of them being the government. For this reason they want to reconsider in their reunions and assambleas (which are a beautiful example of popular democracy but also of all its problems of slowness and rivalry!) our work.
Carolina was already worying about not being able to continue working and defended herself by saying that "All I am doing is playing around with the maize, looking with the farmers at how they can select and make their crops grow better and how to cure their animals. Even though you are divided, you are all interested in that are not you?". The responses were very ambivalent, on the one hand reinforcing the official stance with a lot of rethoric, but on the other hand showing that they liked Carolina as a person and really wanted her to keep coming to give workshops, that actually there was no problem...
Can imagine that it makes her nervous at times!!

Afterwards, Manuel, came in talking about another workshop to be organised on green manure and soil conservation, while meanwhile trying to see if he could somehow get a bit of money from us, or at least a camara and a radio that he was "ofcourse going to need, being the coordinator".

In the afternoon I had the chance for a longer talk with Santiago alone and he spoke to me beautifully about La Madre Tierra and how he stopped burning and is now using mulching and green manures to help her to recuperate. He compares her to ourselves: when young we can resist a lot and work hard, when older we loose our energy, we then need to rest and be feeded.
He tells me that he is sure that he is much happier here in the forest than he would be in the city, because here he can decide which days to work and which days to rest. "In the city, when you do not work, you do not eat - here the forest always provides us with something to eat". Besides his oldest son (8) can come with him to the field or any other place to help him working and learn by doing.

Waiting all day we decided to take a walk to a nearby university and see if they had anything to offer to us and our farmers. What followed was a typical formal economical scientist versus subsistence farmer (campesino) interaction or better said: lack of interaction.
The guy used a lot of difficult terms to explain their support projects for farmers who want to start a negocio, small business. Santiago seemed to want to leave as soon as possible and Diego when asked for questions, could only mutter: "uhm, yes, no, well, you see on one side... uhm¨.
So I asked the guy to give us examples so that we could understand it better. Diego was quite interested in the idea of eco-tourism (for gringitas like Jenneke!) or selling coffee, but knew it is almost impossible in their isolated place... Besides when he heard that it was actually a lend of which payback had to be guaranteed by capital or land that could be sold, he was definite: I will never risk my land!!!
The farmer and his land are here, like in every place in the world (and maybe even more here where so much blood is spend on defending it), very strongly connected...

After our walk "ai ies guinal", or ¨I am hungry¨and we decided to eat in the market place, to save a bit of money (with us paying for everyone... farmers being good eaters..). I eated fish, since it was either that or meat. And do not try to explain your reasons for being vegetarian to a farmer of the forest, they look at me as though I am half crazy and then just decide to ignore the subject...

I am very happy to be able to talk to them this well (although it will still be hard to ask them questions for the research, since their answers are often not directly connected to the question...) and that they seem to accept me at least as a person to talk and joke with. In Ocosingo there are hardly any other foreigners and Carolina says she will be rich if receiving a peso for every time I am jelled at, fluiten/silvar at, laughed or looked at "gringa, gringita"!

Chiapas es padre!

There we are again, this time in Ocosingo. The last two days I spend in San Cristobal, where we arrived after 14 hours bus ride.
Chiapas is beautiful, genial, padre! (por fin encontre este equivalento de "guai"!) The beautiful green mountains with tropical vegetation in the valleys and pinos (dennen) in the higher sites like around San Cristobal. And the people are just as colourful. Although it feels strange to be strange (I cannot hide being different with my white skin, altitude and funny way of speaking!), I feel very happy here at the moment!
And how good do we breathe having left the contamination of DF behind us. During the mornings the sun shines and warms us, in the afternoons it rains heavily (in San Cristobal it got a bit chilly then) or is hot and humid here in the lower Ocosingo. Who said it would be cold here? Well, winter has not yet started...
Today I met the first farmers that Carolina is working with. We went by ARIC, the political organization of the region and they have send out radio messages to the communities that we will be arriving. This weekend there will be a workshop on how to cure animals with traditional plant medicines.
This evening we had dinner with Santiago one of the young promoter-farmers who came to ask for a free passage with us in the small airplain we will use this time. He started telling stories about how he came here with his sister-in-law to have a caesarian for her first-born: a boy but the name will only be announced in two or three months at baptism. He also told us about one of his cows that died giving birth.
He speaks the spanish a bit like me, as his first language is tzeltal and sometimes he does not understand our questions or we do not understand his answers. He spoke about his four children, three boys and two girls. Well, that is probably just a mistake, but other misunderstandings seem to have to do also with the way we ask questions. For example, I wanted to know if it happens often that the cows in the village die while calving and he repeated that his cow died. Also when asking about people that die, answers are about specific people, not about generalized data.
It leads Carolina and me to a talk about the scientists in us and the human in us that lives everyday life. To the human/person Jenneke what is important is that she was vomiting last week and she will remember that it happened to her two times before in Spain and in England. What is important to me is that I felt miserable at the time and I will tell about that when asked. But the question: how often have people in your village vomited during the last year? makes no sense to me.

La guerilla

I only heard yesterday about the atentados (aanslagen) of Monday in south DF. It was funny how five different groups of guerilleros all claimed it had been them, who placed them in defence of the people of Oaxaca. Luckily no'one was wounded (and Mom, do not worry they are targeted very well government offices where I will not be).
Carolina tells about two companeros of Chapingo, who both were in the guerilla, one of the ending up in prison (where through all the paper work, it was practically impossible to pay him a visit) and the other choosing the more pacifist road of enthusiast dedication to progressive local governance. However lately, she has been told he works in a petrol station, since "I also have to think of raising my kids".
Can violence ever be the way to justice? When do you have no options left? And what do you sacrifice for your ideals?

Carolina tells me about a darker side of the Zapatistas. The communities where we would go have been part of the Zapatista area, and they were obliged to sell half of their cattle to contribute to the revolution. If one of the villagers did not want to join the Zapatistas he was thrown off his land.
Well, I will certainly get back to this.

The hybrid culture of Mexico

One of the most interesting aspects of Mexican culture is probably its mix of European and indigenous culture. Yesterday we went to visit the huge modern Basilique, the old one and the ofrendas (offerings) for the Dia de los Muertos. It is such as strange mix of Catholicism with its crucifix and icons with indigenous practices of honouring of ancestors, the crazy skeleton puppets and offerings of maize ears and popcorn. In front of the church, traditional dances are presented, before entering mass (misa).
So is the story of the Virgin of Guadaloupe, which is a dark'skinned Virgin that appeared to an indian and told him to go to the Arch Bishop to ask him to construct a temple for her. Of course he refused at first, saying that the Virgin would not appear to an indian...
Like always it leaves me with mixed feelings about religion and I share them with Carolina. She is a critical catholic, who believes but at the same time notes how religion has been so misused in the history of her country to conquer and supress the people. However, she explains that in Chiapas church organisations have often helped very hard to organize the people in their fight for the land. And in Oaxaca, the arch bishop is on the side of APO.

Another aspect can be seen in the health sector, where traditional medicines and rituals are practised sight by sight conventional western medicin. At the Zocola (central square) traditional medicine man, offer their services to the people to purify them with a lot of smoke and soft slashes with twiggs (often for free or only for donations).

El Topo

Yesterday had a very good ending after its bad start. We were invited by Ruben one of Carolinas many pretendentes (guys who fancy her) to go to the movies. Taking a whole hour to cross the city by car to go to a bit of an arty cinema in the south. It is crazy so many cars driving on very broad roads without any signalled lanes, I cannot understand how one manages to drive here! Ruben tells how you have to be all the time 100 % attentive and anticipate what the other cars are going to do. For me who cannot drive, it reminds me of cycling in Barcelona with the guys of Can Masdeu, constantly on the look out not to be crushed by a car or to crush a pedestrian, que miedo, but what an adrinaline rush!
Have to say it is probably the thing I miss most of my country, bikes! Bikes to me mean independence, freedom and easy endorphines... In cars I feel caught up, and I therefore welcome every change to walk, which the people here find crazy since "this is not a particularly beautiful area to walk".
And why not take the public transport? Ok ok, the connections are not always great, and you are bound to change your concept of full once entered the Mexican metro at peak hour, but still at least you are close to the people (well, free massage and sauna included) and spying them makes it less dull than the car...
Although the smell in the morning... it reminds me of what Stella Blue once said in her weblog "why do men have to have to smell so bad? Is it not enough that there is hardly any air in this train, for me to have to stand their revolting masculinity?"

But ok, we arrive to the Conaculta, Cineteca Nacional and while eating palomitas (pop corn) see one of the weirdest movies ever: El Topo by Jodorowsky. Combination of western (shot in the north of Mexico), comic, zen philosofy, science fiction. Absurd and surrealistic, with quite a lot of shooting. Go see it for yourself, if interested.
Oh, yeah and for the stingy, economical Dutch and Catalans, I will add that cinemas are reallly cheap here, 2 euro for students, 3 for others.

Afterwards we have a drink (of course as a real pretendend Ruben pays everything for us) in the alternative barrio where Frida Kahlo had her house. It is still mild and many people are gathered on the teraces of the many bars, and an incredible amount of young lovers are kissing on the park benches (where do they hide normally?). And I am just feeling so happy to be here, to feel part of this city, to watch the people and talk about simple things with Ruben and Carolina...
Nothing is so changeable as my moods, you see.

Carolina finally tells me that Antonio is maybe not coming to work with her anymore, he was probably annoyed that I was also coming, although we do not even cross in time! It feels strange, what did I do wrong, to change from a new friend into an enemy and why not just talk things over? But we decide that it is his problem now, not ours. (Speaking about the devil... By chance, she hears from him for the first time since leaving NL the next day that yes, he will come but in March)

When coming home, we eat more palomitas (ah did I tell that i saw an offering to the Virgin of Guadalope ' patrone of the country ' made up entirely of pop corn? maize is sssoooo important here) and talk about men. She explains me about the Mexican culture in which a man conquers a woman and often insists for years, taking her out, writing her poems and letters. As a woman{s no means maybe, and maybe means yes, and a yes means you are too easy to get, the men will not be off set easily. Grown up in such a culture, what to think of Dutch men who do not open doors for you, easily let you carry as much as they do (being afraid to be called macho or sexist by emancipated women) or an Englishman who takes it literally when you see you "never again want to see him"?

When waking up still happy in the morning, I can only laugh when first thing I do is breaking the lamp of my literna-zaklamp. It has rained, which has cleaned the air a bit and makes it a lot easier to breath today. So I go the park to do some springtouwen (jumping with a cord), uhm yeah it does sound stupid but it is the only sport I could think of that did not require taking extra luggage and can be practised anywhere: to boost my endorphins and clear my lungs.

For your information, we leave to San Cristobal tonight (14 hours by bus, because I objected to flying), but will not enter the communities untill Thursday. We will go to meet Jose, a veterinary specialist, working in EcoSur University, to see if we can organize workshops with him. I will have to try to do some more interviews with people working in other participatory agricultural projects I guess, although there will be time when coming back from the communities too and I want to take it a bit easy now to not overload myself. Through observation and daily talks, I already learn a lot i guess.

My struggle with technology and with me

Today I woke up early again and discovered two things that are on world scale not important, but can for me make a difference between a good morning and one less fine. Both my photo camera and my discman decided to give me troubles. Now for all who know me a little in relation to technology: it is not a happy relationship. With technology I feel like the beaten up woman in the movie that Carolinas mother saw yesterday, who never knows why she is going to be beaten up again, but knows she will be and cannot do anything to defend herself.
Yes, it may sound a little exagerated I know, but that is my relationship to technology. At best, I am enjoying its services, but always anxiously knowing that it is not going to last for long...
Then it also gives me anger, as nowadays tools are designed in such a way, that you cannot repair them either. At best you can send them to let them be repaired for you, but it will almost never be worth the money and I feel really bad about throwing away things.
At last, I decided that it is probably not the lense of the camara, but just the part through which you look that has some scratches on it, and that anyhow I always forget to make photos, so that was settled. Second, I will borrow a disman from Carolinas mother so that I can play me the music that helps me feel at home.
But I had already entered in "bad head space" as my friend Hugh would say. I started thinking about why these machines never last long in my hands, that for sure I do something to them. That now I was going to have to by even more batteries, that are bad for the environment etc. etc. Of course ending up with the thought that I was only spoiling this earth, not contributing anything. That why on earth did I come to this country, not being able to do anything useful here, just being a burden.... that I was probably never going to do anything useful, that anyhow all my efforts would be undone again by others....

Luckily, I know this struggle with myself too good by now to let me be caught up in it entirely. So I listen to Sopa de Cabra, cry and think of all the people that love me and support me, think of how I am very young and have all the time ahead of me to learn... Think of my little niece Lucia and how she gets up happily every time she falls, trying very hard to walk steadily.
Think of that cold, lonely winter in Spain two years ago, about how I was staying with all these same feelings of guilt and uselesness. And how I woke up one morning then to the blossoming almond trees, and felt that maybe we do not need such big reasons for living. That maybe I should think of me as one of those trees, that do not question their existence and simply live...

And so I went out on the street and saw how the happy dead skeletons at the ofrendas of the Day of the Deaths se burlaban de mi (mocked me?). And I bought rubber boots for the Chapalean mud, tickets for the bus of tomorrow night to San Cristobal and gave my biggest smile to boy behind the desk.

La venganza de Moctezuma

venganza de Moctezuma. (De Moctezuma II, 1466-1520, emperador azteca en la época de la Conquista de México por los españoles.) f. Diarrea contraída por un turista extranjero. Compárese turista.

Today its Thursday and we are still in DF. Yesterday I passed all day throwing up, being dizzy and I almost fainted (seemed really similar to what I passed in Barcelona last Christmas). So we decided I was not fit for traveling. Carolina would go tonight, but her appointment in Villa Hermosa was cancelled, so we will take it relaxed and travel Saturday during daytime to San Cristobal.
Trying to retrack where I would have contracted my bad condition, we could only think of some salad or a milkshake eaten in Chapingo University, which we ate both, but as Carolina says: its Moctezumas revenge!
Moctezuma, was the last Aztec emperor, conquered by the Spanish. And now when tourists get ill in Mexico, they say it is his revenge.
However, the family doctor (all the family thought I had to see a doctor, although it seemed to me it just had to pass, not being really surprised by my illness… but in the end they made me have a phone consult) thought I did not have a food infection, since I was only throwing up, not having diarrea. He thought it more an irritation of the stomach, probably by eating mole and many chile and recommended me taking ranitidina.
It does make me a bit afraid of going to the villages, where the food conditions are much less hygienic, will I resist? But the doctor told us not to worry, it is normal for foreigners… And as Carolina says, we will just have to try, if I do not resist, I can come back to San Cristobal and interview people there… of course not what I want, but we will see!!

Today, I am better and have been eating, although I still feel some pain in my stomach. Meanwhile, I am reading about maize varieties and forage plants.

Oh, and we will pass by Ocosingo, to hopefully find forms to apply for grants, as one of the farmer Juan´s 14 children would like to go to the university...

Tepescuintle

Mira aqui esta el Tepescuintle!

Mexico country of contrasts

Hola companeros!
¿Que onda?!

Ill write to you in English today, which all can read, so that i dont have to write two versions of spanish and dutch. And am seriously considering to start the website Anouk, since I write endless stories as a diary for myself anyway. Where can you start such a website?Oh and please dont feel obliged to read it all!

Mexico is a country of contrasts as Carolina explains to me and which i{m already noticing. First it is a country with many different climates. Even in Mexico DF we find difference between the dry north (where the house of the family Camacho Villa is situated) and the greener, humid South. The same goes for the country: being on the latitude of Marocco it should be all desert like, but the ocean influence on both sides, creates areas as humid as where I will go in the Selva Lacandona, Chiapas, where rain fall amounts to 3000 mm a year sustaining a green, abundant vegetation all year round and two instead of one maize cycle a year. Right now im enjoying autumn sun in Mex DF and max of 22 Celsius and today we will go to visit a nearby pyriamid in very dry, desert like region with almost the whole family.

Family is very important here, just as being social, something i already experienced in Spain especially in Andalusia, where I sometimes got really fed up with hardly being on my own. I know it is something of myself i have to respect and make respected, cause i{m getting in a bad mood if i dont have my time of reflection; a good challenge for me in sticking up for myself. Luckily i have been staying in host families before, and learn how to deal with that situation better and better: recomm. 1 is not to be overpolite, but to just say what you want, you are a foreigner, which is the perfect excuse to be different and by being assertive you are also less of a burden for the family.

The eldest son (end 30s) is still living at home, which is not unusual here, the others have also only left home when marrying. Carolina, the youngest of the family with 32, is the exception. Her father who passed away, was a lawyer and so are her 3 siblings. Grown up in the city, she decided to go to the province of Chapingo to study agronomy, because "i loved plants and was thinking of doing botany, but decided that agronomy would be the wise choice since unlike an unemployed biologist, an unemployed agronomist will never starve of hunger, since he{ll always be able to start his own farm".
In a restaurant in the city centre (we thought it better if i didnt immediately catch diarea by eating from the many street sellers of tacos y tamales) we spoke of our dreams yesterday. Carolina also has a dream of having her own rancho, but she now sees it more as something to start after retiring, because: "The sad reality," she says with a big smile, "is that i dont have the physical constitution for the hard farming work, but i do have the brains and like talking to the farmers."
After her agronomy study, specializing in phytotechnia, she worked in Yucatan with farmers and for the Environmental Department of the government. Then she did a Masters in plant genetics in Birmingham ("I never felt at home in England, where it was so cold and organized") and came back to Mexico to start a doctorate. She got very dissapointed by the fact that no'one seemed interested in her research here, even though the government would give her a grant to do a Phd in England, that would never benefit her own country! She then had the idea to set up an organic and farmers shop, as that would be the way to help sustainable development. But she stopped the project, realising that in her heart, she wasn{t happy sellling products, as her dream was to farm or to work with farmers in the field.That is how she came to do her doctorate in social sciences in Wageningen, where they would let her do a lot of practical work in the communities in Chiapas, which could benefit the farmers.

I feel relaxed with her and it is very interesting talking to her, I love her concernedness for her country, its people and nature. I recognize myself in her struggle to use your talents to contribute to making a better world, while also trying to make yourself happy. It will be good to travel with her, although it will inevitably be hard at times to be together so much time. I hope we will find ways to let the other person have its freedom aswell.We discovered yet another comparison: also Carolina suffered a break'up with a long distance love lately, but as she says: You{ll see, Mexico nos va a consolar, es lindo (Mex will console us, its beautiful).

When thinking about my research plans, I dont have much clarity yet, but i feel that i need time first to get more overview. Monday we will have a first meeting with the NGO (ONG) CETAMEX Carolina is working with, in the working area, mainly consistent of Angel a old man who has worked with the farmers for many years, temporally involved specialists (like Carolina in plant genetics and another guy in cattle) and the promotor-farmers. The promoters are chosen by their village (which have 70 till 3000 inhabitants) to participate in talleres-workshops: the idea is that they will experiment with the options they discover during the workshops on their own farms and diffund this knowledge to the others.

Ah, I was talking about the contrasts. Another one is in the people, who are all more or less a mixture of the indigenous population with the spanish (and some german, italian and french influences). Some more indigenous (esp in the south) and dark'skinned, in the north you even find tall, blond people with blue eyes they told me. Here all the people are shorter than me. But unlike when I was sixteen, visiting Cyprus, I do not feel embarassed at my tallness anymore, and it it practical when wanting to see a show or something in the street. Third contrast is the one in wealth and even though I haven{t seen the poorest yet, the difference does strike me. Staying in a middle class family, their life isnt much different of ours, their television bigger, their cars luxurious. But the houses in other parts of the city are much smaller and their inhabitants{ lives more precarious. In the city boys offer to wash your car, while waiting in the many traffic jams and there is loads of street vendors and beggars as well. When one wants to park its car in the centre, it is normal to hand over car and keys to someone to take care of it in exchange for a little money and Carolina tells me how she never did her laundry before coming to England, as it is cheaply done by this (informal sector).
My reaction of embarrasment when confronted with these situations is just as in the stories that fellow students told me when going to these countries, knowing that Mexico is not extreme in its poverty at all, but the sharp differences do make it sour. It makes me think of the relative egalitarian society i come from. Also I realize that it bewilders me to see that the poverty I have seen untill now (in the big cities of Spain, Italy and to a lesser extent in my own country) was mainly the lot of immigrants and gypsies, here it is the {normal{ population. Well here in DF, in general the indigenous peoples are of course poorest and can be seen as a different group...

All the family including children and a pregnant sister in law joined in the visit of the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon in Teonichan (or something like that, the names here are really complicated). Impressive structures from the 1'3 century after Cr., when you realise that although having an extensive irrigation network and good astronomic knowledge, these people had not yet discovered the wheel and didn{t have any drought animals (horses, cows, sheep where all brought to this contentinent by the spanish!). But they did possess slaves from conquested peoples. Little is known about them and their demise- why they abandoned the place long before the Mexicas and the Azteks came to this area. They did find human sacrifices mainly of foreign people in the temples, where the god of water and some others where worshiped. A very important god was Quetzalcoatl, the feathered snake. In Mexico the equinoxe is celebrated the 21 of March, when the day is just as long as the night and Quetzalcoatl come down to the field to water them so that they become fertile and the sowing can start.

6'11 Today used public transport for the first time, which gave me a sense of finally being part of this city. The autobuses are so crowded, that we normally have to let pass several untill we find one in which we manage to squeeze in: now i do feel this is a city of millions. Because although the city is massive, i do not really notice this when in the centre for example, which is not more crowded than Barcelona and thankfully has much less tourists. Yesterday i was also pleasantly surprised to see that most of the visitors to the pyriamids where Mexicans, seeing it as a nice way to spend their sunday with the family. Only very few Germans and some gringo{s. The term gringo, used for americans, but i will probably be called one too when going to the communities, comes from green'go! This was shouted at the american soldiers in their green uniforms which occupied the country for a while (dont ask me when).

In the meeting, I have to present plan and receive feedback. My first question is on "how can one work with small'scale farmers on the common aim of biodiverisity conservation- sustainable land use and development?", which I want to answer by observing the work of Carolina and other practioners. The second one will be "how can the experimental and learning behaviour of these farmers be characterized?". This means looking at whether they are trying out new things (varieties of maize, mulching, not burning, green fertilizers), why or why not, whether they adopt external advices or adopt them, where they obtain their knowledge from, how they conduct experiments etc.
Angel is interested in the results of my work and gives me many advices, on how to speak to the farmers (first of all apologising for not speaking tzeltal and a strange form of Spanish: with all my efforts to pronounce the c¿th in castellano, now i have to drop it again!!! and vosotros is a form not used, and not understood by these people whose spanish is often poor).
He explains me a lot about the slash'and'burn (roza'tumba'quema) system they used traditionally and which many are still using, burning part of the forest to convert it in agrarian field for a few years and then let it recuperate. A system that functions well when population is not dense and there is time enough for the forest to recuperate, it is efficient because after a few years the weed load is so big that it is better to leave the ground. Weeds together with the low fertility )or better said easy degradation= of the shallow soil are actually the most limiting factor for cultivation here in the humid tropics.Unluckily the fires sometimes get out of hand, loosing more forest than needed. The other threat is the cattle farming, which impoverishes the soil because the forest or the secundary vegetation (akahual: small trees and bushes) cannot recover and thus the ground lacks carbon.
The farmers however are really interested in keeping cattles on meadows (zakate=pasto) since selling one or two animals a year is the main source of cash. Therefore CETAMEX organized a workshop on forage banks, a form of cultivating fodder plants for the animals in a more intensive way than just meadows. The plants can then be cut, providing the cattle with protein and energy and less forest needs to be cut down, as less space is needed.

One of my themes could be: why do some farmers keep on burning while others arent? Angel explains how this is a socio'technical issue. All of the people in the community where we go are migrants from other parts of the province, moving to the Selva Lacandona in the 1940s and 1950s. Tzotzils come from the higher, colder areas of Chiapas, where burning was never practised. The tzetals that we are visiting come from the lower areas, where burning is the tradition. The way they keep cattle is like they have seen it being done on the big ranches where they were working as land labourers (peones).After they move into the Selva, the area has been declared National Parc by the government who is looking for reasons to throw them out or at least denies big part of them the rights of their land. Not burning can thus be a political issue as well: every burning gives an excuse to the government to throw them out.

I am very enthusiastic about the work in the communities and cannot wait to go there, even though life will not be easy there it will be a great experience... We are thinking of following an intensive course in tzeltal so that we can communicate better with the people, especially the women and also as a way to gain their confidence.

Later on in the afternoon we met Carla, from the Infocentrum in Wageningen. She has been to several communities in Chiapas as well (amongst which La Realidad which Dani and Marieke where visiting some years ago), but not the inaccesable communities we will go to. As it seems now, this first time we will go in by a little airplane to the first one, as the NGO has some spare money, Carolina is still recovering from a leg fracture and we will take many goods with us (food, solar energy battery loaders). That saves us an eight hours walk this time, between the communities walks will be a few hours in the mud ' i{ll by myself some rubber boots, which i{ll leave for the farmers after my stay. We will stay three weeks up till a months in the comm, but not staying more than a maximum of five days in each, as we are in a way a burden for the families who prepare our food (even though we try to make an exchange, it is not possible to take all food with us...).
Carla was also in Oaxaca, where the situation is really tense since unions of teachers started protests five months ago and mainy joined them, fed up with the policies that only benefit the rich. An american journalist, with whom Carla worked got shot by paramilitarists. Really horrible, but it is important that they are there to show the world what is happening (people disapearing and being killed), as here in Mexico the news about it is really scarce and biased, saying that all of them are terorists, while these are normal people fighting for their rights to live a decent live. If you want to know more, please have a look at Indymedia (Netherlands, Spain, Chiapas).

Tomorrow we{ll go to Chapingo University and possibly to CIMMYT, institute for the Mejoramiento the Maiz y Trigo (improvement of maiz and wheat). Wednesday we{ll go to San Cristobal, where i might have time to check the internet. If not, you{ll hear of me in a month time!

Thanks alls for your emails!!!
kus,Jenneke

Arrival in the New World

ha iedereen,

hier begin ik mijn elektronisch dagboek, wat volgens Anouk een website had moeten worden, maar het lijkt me dat jullie zelf heel goed in staat zijn mailtjes te deleten waar je geen zin in hebt, dus typ ik raak op Rembrandts typebord )waarvan ze bij de douane ook al wilden weten wat het in s hemelsnaam was...= terwijl ik zo{n wat zou het zijn 4 km boven het aardoppervlak zweef en net Groenland gepasseerd ben.nou da was me een heel gestress om aan boord te komen, dat had ik niet verwacht. Heel wat spannender dan busreizen of liften. Het ophalen van het ticket duurde langer dan verwacht en toen kreeg ik doodleuk te horen dat het vliegtuig overboekt was en ik mogelijk niet mee kon. Dus. Blijkt heel normaal te zijn in deze voor mij vreemde wereld. In de schrik vergat ik dollars en batterijtjes te halen na de incheck-bagage'afgifte, maar goed ik neem aan dat ze beide ook wel op DF verkopen ' wel een raar idee om nu dus helemaal geen contant geld bij me te hebben.Uiteindelijk kwam alles nog prima goed en hoorde ik een half uur voor vertrek dat ik gewoon mee kon. In plekje naast het plekje aan het raam, maar recht boven de vleugel. Bij het opstijgen gingen we scheef en kon ik zo toch nog het polderlandschap, de duinen en de zee onder ons zien. AF en toe probeer ik te kijken, maar de jongen die naast me zit, denkt dan dat ik naar hem kijk dus dat wordt een beetje genant )bovendien heeft ie nu het raampje dicht gedaan, dem it=.Nou die 90 kanalen heb ik nog niet gezien hoor, Anouk en ook geen personal videoscreen, das alleen bij de business'class, maar ik ben ook al wel blij met de Trouw... ah wacht ze hebben een storing, maar nu ga zijn Pirates of the Carribean 2 opzetten, heb ik even geluk, niets beter dan te kijken naar mannen met oogpotlood... zwijmel..Wijntje en lekker maaltje erbij en nu het prachtige uitzicht over besneeuwde bergen van VS_ in de dikke wolkenlagen..En ik verder schrijvend aan mijn dagboekbrief aan Rafa. Ja he jongens, tiss al heel wat dat ik hem niet meer gebeld heb na maandag, afstand nemen, leer je ook beetje bij beetje, hahaha dat hoop ik dan maar. Wel heel moeilijk als je allebei nog zoveel van elkaar houdt en aan elkaar bent gehechtÑ lastig om dan toch de ratio voorop te stellen. Maar de frustraties komen zo ook eindelijk op papier en dat is goed dan word ik me er echt bewust van dat ik die energie nu in ieder geval moet omzetten naar actieÑ pa delante! op naar dit nieuw avontuur en nieuwe dromen, want wat de verdere toekomst brengt weten we toch niet...Heb er nu weer zin in nadat ik vanochtend toch vooral weleen beetje melancholisch en benauwd was maar ja dat hoort bij een afscheid. Nou moeders was je in iedergeval niet de enige die huilend afscheid nam. We zitten al op 10 km hoogte! Moet zeggen dat de laatste busreis comfortabeler was, daar had ik meer ruimte, kon je vaak eruit en hoefde je niet steeds je mede'passagiers te storen om even op te kunnen staan. Maar goed ik zeur niet... heb al een hoeveelheid vage snacks gekregen dat ik misselijk ben, maar ja tiss gratis he, dus als rechtgeaarde Nederlander.Allemaal trouwens bedankt voor jullie fijne gezelschap de afgelopen week, heerlijk om bij jullie mijn eindeloze verhalen kwijt te kunnen en dat jullie ook jullie dingen met me delenÑ ik zal het missen hoor!!! maar goed daarna weer des te meer verhalen ñ'= totdat jullie er horendol van worden.
We zien nog prachtige besneeuwde bergen van noord'Canada en vlieg midden over Amerika en als we aankomen is het nog steeds dag en zie ik de miljoenenstad van Mexico DF liggen, dat maakt wel een beetje indruk hoor, zo groot, wahhh maar gelukkig dat Carolina me op komt halen. De landing verloopt prima, bagage is er en ik word niet gecontroleerd )men controleert hier om en om de mensen met behulp van een rood'groen stoplicht=. We rijden door de verkeerschaos naar het grote huis van haar moeder en broers-zussen, vader is overleden. Gisteren was de dag van de doden, dus het huisaltaar met de bloemen, foto{s, dodenpoppetjes, brood voor de doden en veel icoontjes staat er nog. Een groot en westers huis )enorme tv= en ik krijg meteen alle plaatselijke fruit te eten met de superaardige moeder en Carolina, voel me wel op mijn gemak en val dan uitgeput in slaap, om jullie tijd half 4 snachts, hier half 9 s avonds. Ik word uiteraard vroeg wakker. Ga nu douchen en straks al de stad in, want Carolina heeft een druk programma )al zei ze al dat ik maar moest aangeven als ik te moe was=.4-11 vandaag al de halve stad gezien, want we moesten zaadjes gaan kopen van groenten voor die boeren, want wij gaan woensdag naar Chiapas. Gingen we dus ook maar even de katedraal kijken en het palacio nacional waar heel mooie wandschilderingen zijn van de geschiedenis van het land door Diego Rivero de man van Frido kalo weet je wel. Over de indiaanse bevolking, de verovering door de Spanjaarden, waarvan de indianen eerst dachten dat het goden waar Ook over de god die hen mais gaf, over de onafhankelijkheidsstrijd, de inquisitie en de revolutie van 1910 waarna de grond verdeeld werd.

Overal in de stad ook nog de altaren met oranje bloemen en vrolijke poppen van skeletten voor Dia de los muertos. Op het centrale plein Zocola waar alle protesten plaatsvinden, zijn ook veel traditionele genezers die de mensen reinigen met veel rook en door ze te beslaan met takken.Ik eet veel nieuwe dingen met vreemde smaken, maar ik vergeet van de helft weer de naam. uhm quesadillas met pompoenbloemen en maisschimmels, tortillas , chile, snoep uit tamarinde, hibiscussap, allerlei fruit chinese granaatappel, bladeren van de cactus etcjetlag!!! probeer me nog even wakker te houden door jullie te schrijven, want eigenlijk ben ik al drie uur doodmoe terwijl het hier bij 21 uur is.Veel fotos gezien van de boeren die we gaan bezoeken en hun kinderen en vrouwen met prachtige jurken. iedereen wil op de foto, als je ze een copie geeft. Maar dat ik geen opname-apparatuur bij me heb is geen probleem, interviews daar hebben ze geen zin in.Hier in de stad voel ik me veel veiliger dan gedacht, doet me erg aan Barcelona denken alleen dan zonder alle vervelende toeristen.ok dat is het, morgen gaan we een pyramide bekijken

jenneke

Jatropha, tepescintle and the irrational side of science

Today we went to visit the University of Chapingo which looks a bit like Wageningen University, as it is agricultural as well, but is even more of a small vilage on its own. It combines a agricultural highschool with university and most of the students live onsite. Its premises are an old hacienda and some of the buildings are really nice, one of the full of murals of Diego Rivera (you can see him paint them in Frida Kahlo'movie) about mother earth as a woman and the germinating seeds of the revolution. In between the buildings are the experimental fields and the little botanical gardens.

Afterwards I have my first interview at CIMMYT (improvement of maize and wheat) and i am a little nervous, but we end up chatting the three of us, noticing that the expert John Hellin does not have the answers either, that we are actually entering an ungoing debate.
So we talk about where science ends and development work begins; what should be the role of a research institute in development; about the many degrees of participation. About what experimentation is about, and about the clash between its scientific conceptualization and farmers reality. The scientist trying to keep all environmental factors under control, and trying through realize generizable data through repition and control versus the farmer who lives the reality of a highly diversified context where variability and lack of control has to be taken for granted.
We also speak about how the course of your research project is often not decided by rationale considerations, but that toeval-casualidad, intuiton and personal like or dislike and human relationships are often decisive. But that this usually does not show in official publications...

I was also shown the enormous collection of maize varieties that they store in CIMMYT{s seed bank, where Carolina excecuted her internship several years ago. I do realise who little I know of plant taxanomy (names) and breeding, I do feel a little stupid every now and then, but of course one cannot know all and I am here to learn. Carolina says we will revise plants from the humid tropics before we go to the communities. We already saw the most common maize varieties of the villages today, with the beautiful names of Tepescintle and Tuxpeno (if i do not immediately write down names here, I forget them, its so hard! By the way, Tepescintle is not to be confused wity Tepescuintle, a little swine like animal living in the Selva Lacandona...)

While in the research area, we will also be on the look out for a tree-arbustle for Wageningen University!! We will check the presence of Jatrophe and take leaves and seeds with us if we find it. WUR is interested in it, as the seeds may be used to extract oil for biodiesel.

As you all notice I am walking around like a sponge (spons-esponja) as Rafa would say, absorbing every piece of information around me. It is a little tyring, but I am enjoying it so much! And the discussions with Carolina are wonderful, it gives me a lot of motivation to continue with my studies in this field and at the same time, makes me long for gaining a lot of practical experience in working with farmers and facilitating processes.

Only in the mornings when I still wake up early, I feel a little out of place and am scared- nervous for the things a head, during the day i am to occupied to worry and have to admit I feel strangely at home already! Well don{t yous worry, I miss you too and won{t stay in Mexico!

kiss,
Jenneke