Direct Dutch

One of the things I had already learned a little in England, but have learned a lot more here is: what a direct culture I come from. An Englishman once told me:
¨If an English friend asks me if I want a cup of tea, I will always answers no at first. The question is then repeated once or twice `Are you sure you don`t want a cup of tea?` Then I would answer: `Well, if you were going to make some for yourself...´ or ´Well, if it is not too much of a hassle...´ and reluctantly accept.
If a Dutch friend asks me if I want a cup of tea and I answer, no. I will be left without a drink.¨

Here people are way more polite and diplomatic in their ways of expression. Compared to Spain, you hear a lot of Usted (U) and a lot more `Por favor` (Please). If you leave a room before other or want to pass by, you say `Con permiso (with permission)´ and the others will answer `Permiso proprio´.

The cautiousness in discussing politics is something I still find hard. Especially from foreigners giving opinions on national matters is not appreciated by everyone. I have felt this much more though with the middle class studied youth than with people in the communities. It seems to me they have a been taught that the ¨Western¨ or so-called developed countries are superior and this causes a low self-esteem. This low self-esteem is rebelling with their proudness existing at the same time. When a simple opinion (in the Dutch tradition discussions are open to everyone) is voiced it is felt like an attack, by one of those `Europeans that always know better, but look at your own country etc.´ Therefore I always add examples of things that are negative in my country when we start to talk about corruption, health service or anything else. Trying to make comparisons, trying to convey very much that there are positive and negative things both here and there, but that we can hopefully learn from each other...

Another point I have especially struggled with during my research, is the evasiveness in answering questions. During my lessons in tseltal, I came across the following example.
In tseltal, but I later understood also in Mexican-Spanish a common answer to ´Who are you looking for?´ is ´I am looking for somebody´. This is an indirect way to say that you do not want to say who you are looking for. To my Dutch ears this sounds ridiculous, the closest that I can think of for a logical answer would be ¨Mm, not someone you know¨.
When I asked people: ¨Have a lot of things changed during the last years here in the community?¨
Reply: ¨Oh yes, very much¨.
I: ¨So what has changed then?¨
Reply: ¨Yes, much has changed.¨
I: ¨But what has changed?¨
Reply: ¨Yes.¨
And I swear, that was not just my poor Spanish or tseltal!
So I had to make a lot of effort to make my questions very concrete (best being in the field!) or being very creative in making them talk. I obtained most of my information from stories. The story telling requires some trust and it was nice to see how that was build up.

A last example shows the difficulty of intercultural relationships, when in the two cultures the relation between what you say and what you mean is a little different:
If a Mexican woman tells you she never wants to hear of you anymore, please do not take that literally! Damn European men that respect such wishes ;-)

Medicina

I have been working in Fundacion Leon XIII for two weeks now. The first week I felt a bit lonely, longing back to La Selva, to Carolina, Virginia and you guys. Now I feel happy again, made new friends and my hands wear the lovely smell of compost and dung...

This first week was spent on introduction and I got to see something of the work of most of the employees here. That led to some beautiful oral history talks again like the one of Don Alfredo. I also very much enjoyed my talk with my ´tocallo´ (naamgenoot) Juanito, the herbal doctor here who explained me how he obtained his knowledge on medicinal plants:
¨Since the age of 11 I have dreamed with plants. In the dreams it was revealed to me how to use each of these plants. I later checked this knowledge with my mother and the ancianos, the eldest, and it was all true. That is how knowledge comes to some of us in our communities. It is a gift, like the hueseros (ones that can repair bones), who have not medical education, but know as a little boy or girl already how to touch and manipulate the bones so that they heal.
Later I studied allopathic medicine with the nuns. The church and government have tried to destroy our ancient knowledge, making us dependent on chemicals. But I try to combine the best of two worlds and want to make sure our knowledge is not forgotten. So I give workshops, first in my community and now in many. Although the people have become divided or have been replaced from their lands by the government, they have brought the knowledge that we gave them with them. Knowledge on plants, but also on how to prevent illness by cleaning the water tanks and the garbage¨.
In the weekend I got to know Isaid, the other volunteer better and we went to the Museum on Maya Medicine. Traditional midwifes know how to massage the mother´s belly to change the position of the baby. ¨Modern¨ doctors conduct many ceseareans nowadays that might not be necessary…

Don Chebo (Rancho Salvador Allende) told us earlier how his son Sebastian possesses the gift of huesero. When Chebo once fell of a horse during a drunken man`s race with his compadre, he fractured his knee. The eleven year old Sebastian started manipulating the fractured bones causing a lot of pain, but the knee recovered well.
However the people also warn us for bad healers: brujos malos or witches.
In the Museum there was also explanation on the rituals to clean body and soul. In DF (Mexico City) on the Zocola (main square) I had already seen the performance of these `purification rituals`, involving a lot of smoke of copal (a sort of incense) and prayers. In the church of San Juan Chamula (see: Tzotziles) eggs and a lot of candles are used. A doctor complained to me that these rituals can actually cost the patients life: they sometimes take up to three days whilst which the patient is not allowed to leave the house, then it is too late to bring the patient to the hospital…
In general doctors (I happen to meet quite a lot …) complain that patients often come late to them, when illnesses or deliveries have already complicated.
In general it is not easy for doctors coming from a completely different reality, although within the same country, to work here. First of all there are the language barriers. Not only do many of the patients (especially women) have difficulty to express themselves in Spanish (or Castiya as they say), but the way of explaining health issues is different as well. Patient: ¨Yesterday I was on the street when a wind blew by. It came to my belly that started hurting. The badness reached my blood who took it to my heart, which now hurts as well¨.
Secondly there is a lack of medicines in nearly all the public health centres. (In the communities in La Selva Lacandona this is even worse). People are often unwilling (since they feel it should be provided to them for free) or unable to buy medicines from the pharmacies. Ignacio used to take medicines with him to San Quentin: ¨If I do not bring medicines myself, I cannot do my work properly. During my studies, I was part of a group called Humanitarian Doctors. We used to go to the communities. Because of the lack of medicines, we started contacting big pharmaceutic companies to ask them for donations. I still use those contacts to obtain medicines. Even the many soldiers that are located here in San Quentin from 1994 do not have enough medicines. I sometimes bring some to them, they are also humans, not always having had a choice for another career and some have become friends. But I do not take of my Zapatista t-shirt when I enter the base.¨
For another doctor it is frustrating to see how the porridge provided to children who suffer malnutrition (African style blown up bellies you hardly come across, but yes children are small, sometimes with white stains on the skin etc.), are later fed to the pigs and dogs. Maybe the nasty taste is one of the reasons? But of course it is hard to see how later money is spend on a children´s diet that is mainly based on Coca-Cola and totis (sweet crisps), even though you have explained a millon times how bad this is for the kid…
Workshops are organised on hygiene in schools and communities, but often the teachings are not followed. On the other hand access to clean water is often limited especially to women: so bathing and washing hands becomes a luxury. (In La Selva this is not the case and people bathed more often then I did: every day. Brr... in the cold river. They always pointed out to us where the water was to clean our hands before the meals and rinse our mouth afterwards.)

Aguacatenango

¨Where I come from, they call Aguacatenango, a tseltal community in Los Altos de Chiapas. In our community there is a lot of division. Missionaries have kept arriving for years. We were catholics, but later some of us became part of the ´other religion´. They left going to our church and they started talking badly about us. So we congregated and decided that they better leave. So they left for Teopisca, were people of their religion gave them houses. But Teopisca is a town, there is no land to grow anything, so everything is bought. So they came back after three years and started a new colony on the other side of the road. The catholics let them build their houses, but did not want to give them land to cultivate. So those of the ´other religion´ started fencing of land for their milpas (maize fields) and cattle. This is not our custom, we used to have all land in common use. So the catholics went over to them and took away the fences. Maybe they spoke badly, I don´t know since I wasn´t there because I work in San Cristobal for la Fundacion. But at some moment, the señores of the other religion lost their temper and started shooting in the air and then at the people. My uncle died after eight days, because of his wounds and also another man died.
Other divisions are with the catechists and the Zapatistas. Some catechists started not only talking about the Word of God, but they became rebellious and started talking politics as well. They build a new church and some of them became friends with the Zapatistas.

In our community we have electric light for a long time now. Sometimes the bills are high especially for some houses that only have a few light bulbs, 30 up till 120 pesos every two months (less then 10 euros) But we never had a choice but to pay them for fear that they would cut off the electricity. We never went to complain, as many of us have difficulty expressing in Spanish and they are afraid that they will not understand the answers of the Electricity Comission. But when the Zapatistas arrived, they told us: ¨Stop paying for the electricity. In Chiapas a lot of damns are build to produce hydro-electricity, but it is sold to Guatemala. Why do we pay for something that is ours?¨
So we stopped paying for eight years. Then the Commission came by with someone from the government. They said: ¨Here we have a list of all your debts, if you guys pay half of it, the government will pay the other half and we will keep providing electricity.¨
In my neighbourhood, we sat together and decided that it was fair. We collected the money and they gave us a provision cable for our neighbourhood apart.
The other people are still not paying as the Zapatistas advised. Some time ago the electricity was cut off in a colony and they urged everyone to go there. Buses with Zapatistas arrived and they restored the electricity. Another time all the community was left without electricity and they came to our houses to grind their nixtamal (the maiz mass of which tortillas are prepared). Some of the people say they want to pay, but they are surrounded by Zapatistas. ¨If the light is cut off, we are going to suffer, so why pay if no-one is paying?¨
I do not agree. It is wrong if we pay too much, but we should then stand up and complain. We have complained with the Commission successfully. They came to check which lights or other machines we use and given us reductions. Or they told us to change the light bulbs so that we can save. But many do not know how to express themselves. Besides many think the electricity comes from the government, but that is not true, it is in the hands of a foreign company.
It is true that the electricity is produced in Chiapas, but not just for that it is ours. It is a service which has a cost and we have to pay for it. Moreover, many people do not realize that nowadays they are using quite a lot of energy, because they have televisions and machines to grind the nixtamal, and refrigerators. I have been thinking and calculating, and if you have no light, you have to buy candles. That costs you 3 pesos per night and then you only have a bad quality light, not the other machines. But the people do not think like this.¨

Don Alfredo, the maintenance man of Fundacion Leon XIII

Salvador Allende

Photo: Don Chebo and me sowing garlic. Let´s see if it grows in Salvador Allende, so that it can be used to combat plagues.
The 19 till 30th of January, we spent in Rancho Salvador Allende, Selva Lacandona, Chiapas. It is a very isolated community, at least 10 hours walking from San Quentin. The Rancho was started by the father of Don Chebo and some twenty years ago Don Chebo came to live here permenantly with his family and the family of his ¨compadre¨ Don Lazaro (godfather of one of his children, you normally have a ´chingo´ of godfathers , some two for every child). He cut down a lot of trees to keep cattle, grow his maize and beans and build houses.
Don Chebo is about my father´s age and together with Doña Michaela he has nine grown up sons and daughters, the youngest being Juanita with 23 (you can see her on earlier photos). Except for Juanita all of them have maried and have at least four, but up to twelve children each. In the whole community there are about seventy people, all ofspring of these two men (and some sons and daughters live in nearby communities). Sometimes it reminds me of the yearly family camping we used to do with the family of my maternal grandmother... but this is a permenant family camp.
Since children are often named after their grandparents or other family members, the diversity in names is small. One day I was looking for Chebo, and they pointed at several small boys in answer to my question. ¨No, no, tata Chebo - grandfather Chebo¨.

Now that I was in this community for the third time, I got to know a lot of the family members and their attitude to me changed. Although I am still something exotic, people now speak directly to me instead of looking at Carolina when they want to say something. I was present in two meetings (if you want to see direct democracy in place come to Chiapas!!), one of the regional promoters to define this years projects with CETAMEX and one with the community. They accepted my participation well, especially when they understood that I am looking for Dutch funding, but also when they understood I was interested in working with them on energy saving. In the last meeting by flash light, I had to explain about the toxicity of batteries and the project we want to write to build a solar and wood building stove. It was then translated to Tseltal for the women. It is so nice to be more involved, sharing their concerns!!

Since my lungs were behaving very well this stay, I had energy for what I love doing most:
Going to the field, harvesting beans, pruning the coffee shrubs, weeding the milpas and frijolar with the machete (kapmes) ¨Juana, juana, watch out for the snakes. What if you die here, I don´t want problems¨.
Cutting banana leaves to be used for the tamales (typical dish) for the party,
¨Juana, juana, please, you are the tallest, cut those big leaves up there¨
With Don Chebo chattering away all day long about his youth, about how he became orphan really young, about his life in the ranch, about how he would like to have a house in town, about all his novias (girlfriends). Yes, the double morale is certain: while women should marry as señoritas, virgins, the men often have other women besides their wife. Chebo: ¨I am a man¨.
On the other hand, divorces are rare, and there is also a strong morale that a man should maintain his wife and live with her for all their life.
Even though sometimes we do not listen anymore (he does not mind just chatters on), tired of his endless stream of words, we learn a whole lot about the customs, dreams and projects of Chebo and his family.

The sons of Chebo are very interesting persons, all with their own personality, having in common their inteligence, political consciousness and proudness.
Lazaro is the ´politician´, who is an authority in the region (appointed by his people) and gives revolutionary speeches at every occasion. His voice is like Don Chebo´s, always a little too loud, shouting what sounds like orders to the women and children. He was fighting with the Zapatista for the longest time and is now strongly involved in ´la otra campaña´ (an attempt of the EZLN to line up with allied groups throughout the country) as a member of the ARIC. He also is health promoter, although of reproductory health he seems to know little: with 34 his wife is expecting her 12th child. Don Chebo and his brother Sebastian think he ought to stop, but as Lazaro says: ¨More children, means more people for the struggle, the rebellion against the government, the fight for our land.¨The women are sometimes scared to go to the doctor in San Quentin for information on birth regulation, as women have been sterilised without their permission in the past...
(And as Nacho told me, some of his collegues continue this practise...)

Sebastian is the ´promoter of religion´, a very intellectual and tranquil man, who likes to read. His father did not let him go to secondary school, as there was no money and he was too proud to accept help for his son or maybe he could not miss the work force... Sebastian is leading the church services. These are normally short, with some prayers, reading of the bible, a reflection on the text by whomever wants. The small church is on the hill in between the two families and after the bible reading, community issues like the time schedule of the next party are discussed. In this region, progressive priests have played an important role in raising awareness of the people´s situation by their Theology of Liberation. By educating critical diaconans like Sebastian, they helped organising their resistance.
Sebastian likes to remember old stories, and Carolina will try to help him write a book with these local stories so that they do not get forgotten. In the same way it would be nice to record Don Chebo´s flute tunes. There are tunes to ask for the rain, sun or peace.

The two youngest sons dream of other places than their fathers´ ranch. Chebo junior and Hilario undertook the dangerous travel through the desert to work as an illegal migrant worker in the USA. After three intents they managed to cross the border, some Guatemaltecos in their group were left behind when they could not follow anymore because of thirst and agotation and have probably died. The coyotes (mensensmokkelaar) often leave people behind... Hilario had to return after a few months when he fell ill, but is determined to try it again, the dollars and adventure calling. ¨And if I were single, I would stay there.¨

Don Chebo is angry with his youngest sons ¨Is there anything they do not have: clothes, food, a horse, we are poor, but we eat. Why do they go and work in the North, leave their mother crying and me with all the work?¨ Don Chebo is very interested in the Dutch situation that sometimes occurs so odd that I have trouble explaining it. Hearing of my uncles with more than 200 cows, it is hard for Chebo to understand that they have problems to sustain their farms, being indebted, all their capital invested in land and machinery. Don Chebo considers himself a campesino (peasant), but is surprised that I do not know any farmer in Holland with more terrain than his: 400 hectares!! (Ok, big part of it is Selva, but still you can extract wild plants and animals from it.)
That in my ´rich´ country, most children grow up not knowing that milk comes from a cow and eggs are not produced in factories. That I have two friends that are looking everywhere to buy a small terrain to start a farm. That many small farmers have had to give up farming, that weekly 10 farmers stop... That being a farmer has become a luxury, and at the same time has remained a hard job even with all the machinery.
We talk about richness, and how many people would like to have the space, earth, fresh air and tranquil environment that he lives in. But the big difference is, that for us, it would be a choice, amongst many others. For them it is not a choice, and don´t we humans dream of what we do not have? Besides, probably we would not want to have the other part of his story: yes, the place, but being able to go whenever we want, when we are ill or simply get tired of admiring the trees...


Again we were invited to a party. The community celebrated the ´Sentada del Niño Jesus´ with candles, fire works, a doll of the child Jesus, singing, dancing on the music of a band of guitars, violin and contrabass played by Zapatistas from the nearby community Pichucalco. I have a nice recording of them, but I do not know how to attach it :-(
All day long the preparations went on, with every one having a task designated to him or her. The men build up the party tent, set the tables and cut the banana leaves. The women are preparing the food, atole, and tamales. We help in making the tamales (maiz massa with chicken sauce rolled in banana leaves which is then cooked in vapour), and the women laugh a lot at our struggles with the massa and the leaves. Catalina holds up one of my tamales ¨Muc, muc (big, big)¨ for everyone to see the mega-tamale... Apperently they like them small.

At the end of the party, the child Jesus has gone missing. The ones who stole him, have to organize and pay the next party...


Photo: Preparation for the Fiesta de la Sentada del Niño, preparing atole, a sweet but heavy maize drink

Coming home

Yesterday I changed my visa, today my plane ticket and now it is for sure that I will come back to The Netherlands the 16th of July, arriving at 13:20 at Schiphol. I wanted to come back early July, but this was the first option, but I will for sure find a good use for these extra days. Sorry house mates for all the confusion!! And thanks so much for all the trouble you go through to find subrenters !!
But untill I come to my Dutch home, I want to leave something to my new, temporal home Chiapas that is leaving so much in me... (How nice to have homes in at least three parts of the world. How beautiful, how confusing sometimes. Sometimes I wonder at whether the rest of my life I will spend missing one home while feeling at home in yet another part...)

Therefore, I will start my volunteer work in Fundacion Leon XIII (www.fleonxiii.org.mx), even though I am a little scared or nervous to work with the Tsotsil farmers. (Well, let´s call it vertigo/hoogtevrees...)
Besides I am trying to acquire some Dutch funding for CETAMEX, the NGO Carolina is working for in la Selva Lacandona, and is aimed at finding farming ways that are more friendly to the forest.
Lastly, together with the community of Rancho Salvador Allende we defined some projects that interest them. One of them we will try to get funded by Alert:

Two workshops will be organised in the community Salvador Allende on sustainable energy use. Salvador Allende is situated in the Biosfera Montes Azules in the Selva Lacandona, Chiapas, Mexico. It is a very isolated community, not counting with services of electricity or roads and its vegetation is the highly threatened tropical rain forest. The youngsters from this community together with young people from other parts of Mexico and from the Netherlands identified together the following themes/activities as useful and important in safeguarding a sustainable future energy provision:

· The use of non-renewable batteries for flash-lights and radios is wide spread in the community. These batteries are thrown in the environment after use, where they contaminate soil and water. Besides the cost of bying the batteries is a burden on the family´s budget. The project wants to raise awareness on the contaminating nature of the batteries. It also wants to replace the use of non-rechargeable batteries by rechargeable batteries accompanied by solar flashlights and solar battery rechargers. In exchange, the community will commit themselves to collect the old batteries on-site to be brought to a recycle centre in DF or San Cristobal.

· Wood fires are used for preparing the food. Collecting wood means a heavy job for the men, women and children of the community. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough good wood for the fires. Besides the open fires generate a lot of smoke, which is affecting badly the health of the young women and children that spend a majority of their days in the kitchen. Respiratory diseases are common place. The project wants to organize a work shop to construct prototypes of two alternative ovens: Lorena oven and solar kitchen. The Lorena oven uses wood, but saves up to 50% in the amount of wood. Besides, through its design, the exposure to smoke is reduced considerably. The solar kitchen are easy designs that have proved their worth in other countries and the community would like to try out their usefulness for this area on sunny days.

I will be giving the workshop on solar kitchens!! Even more vertigo!! And I will have to try out how to make them beforehand, as I am so a-technical, but it will be an endeavour.

The community is also very much in need of solar panels and accus that are designed for the use with solar panels (not car accus, they last much less time). So for all of you: if you hear of any organisation that supports sustainable energy projects in developing countries and can provide us with contacts or even solar panels, please!!!!

Tramitar

Hardly acustomed to being in the noisy surrounding of the city once again after my last stay in la Selva, I had to learn a new Spanish word. These last two days I learned the signification of the spanish word ´tramitar´ or ´hacer tramites´, which is used for the process or action (and very much non-action...) of applying for any permission, government benefits, fundings etc.

Aim: Staying legally in Mexico untill the beginning of July. I was up for trying it the irregular way, but left the thought after several horror stories from ´ervaringsdeskundigen´ (experts by experience) about high fines including unofficial costs (corruption) and threats of not being able to leave the country.

Answers to my question on how to reach my aim:
Pagina de Web de Embajade Mexicana en Holanda: Tourists will be given a visa for three months, which can be extended with three extra months. If wanting to stay longer, one has to consult the authorities.
Officina Nacional de Migracion in Cuatemoc when going to Guatemala in Decembre: ¨You will see so when your first visa expires. Since it is still valid at the moment, we will not take it from you and you return to Mexico with the same.¨
Officina Nacional de Migracion in Comitan, beginning of January: ¨You can apply for an extension untill the end of April. Then you have two options. To leave the country and return. When this is by plane, you will be allowed another three months. If by terestial transport, only 1 month, with a lot of luck 2 months, but we doubt it... The other option is to apply for a FM3, that will cost you 190 euro irrespective of staying 2 days or one year longer.¨
Officina Nacional de Migracion in San Cristobal, one day before my visa expires: ¨Oh no, we are not giving you anymore than 1 month extra from today on.¨ ¨But I am going to work as a volunteer¨. ¨Ok, than you have to apply for a FM3, for which you first have to bring me a letter of the organisation you are planning to work with. Only afterwards will I give you the list of requiries and only if you can bring me all of these requiries tomorrow - which I doubt - you do not have to pay twice.¨ ¨Can you give me the list now, so that I can make sure to be on time¨. ¨No, no, no, I first want to see the letter.¨
GRRRRRRRRRR.... I know no-one likes this kind of paper work, but I guess I am especially allergic to the authoritarian, bureacratic manners of sending from ´cupboard to wall and back again´ as we would say in Dutch. I find it so stupid, I have difficulty staying polite myself and start mixing up my Spanish in my frustracion... Point is, the same people are going to judge your application, so I´d better stay friends with them.

So I went running around all day, to obtain the letter from Fundacion Leon XII and arrange other papers. Together with Alma the volunteer coordinator we then tried to think of all the possible copies they could ask for. We decided that I would go to Tuxtla Gutierez (1 hour from San Cristobal) to ´tramitar´ the next day, as San Cristobal is notorious for its slow procedures (takes up to a year ´el tramite´ for the FM3) and inpolite handling of migrants.

Next day, I have made copies of every single document I can think of and have prepared mentally for a long day of waiting and above all staying polite. Before entering the office in Tuxtla, I think of taking off my Zapatista t-shirt (well, I doubt it got any better with only my tirantes/hempje revealing my unshaved armpits but ok, one only tries it best). And I put on what I hope is a very polite and friendly smile, determined to stay there. I enter the room of the Licenciado (mind the titles here in Mexico!!) Miguel Angel Roldan Davila, not sitting down untill he tells me so and after shaking hands. I state clearly my case and hope to impress him by handing over all the documents at once.
Officina Nacional de Migracion Tuxtla Gutierez: ¨Mmmm, yes, so you will only work in this organisation for three months. We normally do not give out FM3 for that. Besides your visa expired yesterday. Mmmm¨
¨Yes, but yesterday they told me it would be no problem to come today and besides (showing him the stamps) I have left the country in the meanwhile... ¨
¨Well let me check¨ (he leaves the room)
On return: ¨So how do you pronounce your name? Well, Jenneke, why do you not just stay on a tourist visa for three months more. Then you go to the frontier leave the country for 5 minutes and come back for another three months? Because of your Dutch nationality you will not have any problem. I will talk to my collegues in Cuatemoc, that they stop letting people go out of the country without taking back their visa and giving new ones on entering.¨
Pfieeeeeuwwww... after another three hours of going to the bank to pay for the visa (the waiting lines are always enormous here in the banks, especially on the days the state benefits arrive) and waiting for my stamps, I went out being a legal tourist again!
So it seems I am at save. The only bitter taste, are the Salvadorians that were ´tramitando´ with me and had much less luck...

Tomorrow I will change my plane ticket and Tuesday I will start my work in the Foundation Leon XII, making composts, learning how to keep mushrooms and work with chicken in the Centre and later with the people of the communities here in Los Altos de Chiapas. This means changing from Tseltal to Tsotsil, but they are a bit similar.
My favourite word in Tseltal, is Mayuc, which means ´No hay´ (There aint) and ´Nada´ (Nothing) and is used a lot.
Binti ya apas? What´s up? Mayuc!!!
Just found out I just have to change one letter to make it into Tsotsil
Mayuc = Muyuc