Corruption on Queensday

Today I went for my visa extension to the Guatemalan border. Somewhat nervous. Preparing me for a long day of patience, politeness and endurance and a little bit of... corruption to set matters quickly.
Isaid warned me ´don´t ask them right-out how much they want, just say ´como nos areglamos, how do we settle/arrange things?´

First the Mexican immigration takes in my old visa. ´How long do you stay in Guatemala?´. ´I don´t know yet´, I answer to prevent him from telling me that I cannot get a new visa with only staying one hour at the other side of the border. Hope they change guards at midday.
In Guatemala I make friends with Jeronimo, a Guatemalan money changer, who shares my anxiousness for my ´legal fate´ and waiting time with pleasant conversations. Between the gringo US tourists, hardly able to pronouce a word of spanish, I feel more confident, even though my hands are still nervously trembling when filling out my forms. Trouble starts when they check my earlier stamps, I miss the one of the entry to Guatemala in December and that is worth a fine. I am invited behind the corner. Trying to fake innocence, charming smiles (I know it is disgusting, but it works here...), politeness etc. I speak with the employees. Find out they played a trick on me when leaving Guatemala last time, asking me money when they should not.
¨You have a problem, we have to fine you. And how long do you want to stay in Guatemala?¨
I opt for honesty: ¨I love Guatemala very much, would love to stay more time, but unfortunately have to leave as soon as possible, because I have to get back to work in Chiapas.¨
Guy:¨Mmm, you have to stay at least three days, before I can give you another stamp. But you are pretty, we might be able to help you, I could give you the stamp tomorrow¨.
I: ¨Mmm ok, if that is the only possibility.. do you know a cheap hostel, I am short of money?¨
Guy: ¨Ah a cheap place to sleep, you can sleep here with us, no problem. You now go to change 200 Quetzal and I talk with my collegue´.
Change my money with Jeronimo, try to keep my smiling face and say the words:
¨How do we arrange matters with that fine and getting those stamps´
Guy: ¨Mmm you are pretty and friendly, chatting with us. We will help you, but you should not tell anyone. The fine you should pay at the bank, but you can pay with us. Then you stay for lunch and I give you the stamps.¨ Laughing.
I hand over the 200 Quetzales, but his collegue says it is just 100 for me.
I hang around a little and they give me my stamps.

Relieved I go outside, chatter away to Jeronimo, when one of the guys comes after me. ¨Come in again, follow me¨. We go to a small room and I am afraid for extra payments or indecent proposals. But he says: ¨You still do not have that entry stamp of December. I am going to give it to you, so that you don´t have problems next time. But dont tell anyone.¨
He turns back the stamp machine. When I look at my stamp later on, I see I have entered Guatemala 26th of December 2007. Mmmm amateuristic fraud...

A man asks me in american english about the price of the taxis, he turns out to be Dutch (weird I normally recognize them from km´s distance). ¨Oh that is easy, we can talk in Dutch then¨. Well not that easy for me!!! The first 10 min. I sound like ´an immigrant´...
They guy from Roterdam is on a year around the world trip with his wife and ten year old daughter. I realise how I have got used to other realities than the Dutch, because at first it does not surprise me that the girl does not attend school for a year. Then they explain me how much trouble it costs them with the authorities, as in the Netherlands it is illegal to take your child from school and teach it yourself. It is nice speaking my mother tongue on Queensday, when all Holland will be orange coloured. It is nice to chat to the girl.
They do not really want to return to the Netherlands, think of starting a restaurant in Cambodja. We talk about the (dis)advantages of our homeland and I say that I long back to it, even though it is not perfect, it is my home. With family, friends and normal food.
But when after three hours we say goodbye and they give me the Dutch don´t-come-any-closer handshake, I start doubting. Prefer the Mexican kiss (the Dutch three ones are also unconfortable) or the intense ´may you be well, may God bless you, Juanita´ after only a small encounter...
Besides, even saying my own Dutch name again, seems odd. I feel more Juanita than Jenneke.

Dancing / Girls

The next evening I celebrate my birthday with Isaid and Kasten, a canadian hippie working on farms. Dancing, after all these months! Was a bit fed up with the continuos flirting I face in any bar here (hahah how Anouk and I always nag that no-one pays us any attention when we go to Unitas. It is never ok...) and always reggea or salsa. But I am up to it again.
A Mexican guy wants to teach me how to dance and thinks I don´t understand his spanish when he give me recommendations... it is not the spanish, I don´t understand any other dancing than my own freestyle, slightly anarchistic way. But we have fun together (when I look after an hour I see Isaid and Kasten are not enjoying quite as much. oeps).
´When do I see you again? Tommorow, where..?¨ the guy asks. ¨Well, San Cristobal is small, sure we meet again by chance¨ I respond, knowing that with me living far from the centre and returning to the jungle in a week, the chance is not too big.

On our walk back we run into wonderful catalan Maria again, I feel warm inside when she huggs and kisses me rapidly but strongly before we step into the taxi... Why am I so shy whith girls I fancy? Why are guys so much easier? They at least know it when I like them, with girls I always remain in ´how nice that we are such good friends´. And with guys I am not so terribly afraid they´ll think I´m boring or dumb. Would like to have the guts to approach her, at least ask her to go for a coffee together. Mmm who knows... it is comfortable being cowardice (but a little frustrating sometimes).

Verjaardag/cumpleaños in Matezano

I ¨celebrated¨ my 24th birth day in a Matezano, a community two and half hours driving from San Cristobal. The car we drove away with at 7 in the morning, hit a stone and the oilpan started leeking: we got stuck in Matezano. Marcelino and Alfonso spend all day trying to get the car back to the nearest town and provisionally repaired.

We hold a workshop on nutrition: with pictures (start getting a bit more creative to work with analfabetics...) for the people to show what is eaten, what they produce and buy. We show how to prepare nopales, a cactus that grows in the community, but is not eaten yet by the people. The women laughing silently, speaking in tsotsil. Their dresses have two splits viewing their nipples, ready for their children to start drinking whenever they want. Their bellies always round, either because they are pregnant or because they have been so so many times, combined with parasites causing colitis (swollen intestines) and oedemia.

José Luis, 4 or 5, is happily playing his ¨guitar¨, a piece of wood with strings.

It is hot, very dry and windy. The grass is singing. Men, plants, animals all waiting for the rain. Some say it will rain with Santa Cruz, 3 d of May. But it may take another few weeks.
For a lack of water, no mushrooms are being sown. No vegetables. Not even bread baked in the newly build oven. But most of the small fruit trees seem to survive, Rúben gives them a few drops of water every day.
About sixty liters of water (of poor quality like all unbottled water here) a day per large family are distributed. For drinking, cooking, washing, the chicken, the mule. In contrary, to every other community where I have been, hands are not washed before starting the meal. We are the only ones offered a glass of water with the meal, which we leave untouched.

The school teacher says ´whe are progressing like a turtle, slow but secure´, about his job to teach some twenty children from the first to the sixth grade in one small class room.

I buy honey, where do the bees find flowers here?

We start the long walk back through the heat. When we arrive at the car mecanic in town, he goes ´Guerita, can you help me translate the manual, I don´t understand English´. He tells how his little son often cries at night, hitten by the ´bad eye´, which can be cured by passing a chicken egg over the body.

Finally when the sun is already setting, the others sing me the ´Mañanitas´, the traditional birth day song, with whom you wake up the celebrated person. In the car, we sing along with the Northern music. I love my little family. Alfonso, puts on another sleasy birthday song for me. ´When we get back to town let´s go for a beer to celebrate´. When we finally arrive at 11 o´clock we only long for food and our beds. I don´t resent it, because with Alfonso (Poncho they nickname all Alfonsos here) it is never one beer. And after a few he becomes a little tragic and very romantic. Not very womenfriendly, or very friendly in his eyes.

For those who started getting slightly nervous after last posted entry (Mam..), I posted my application letter for an internship to work with farmers in the Netherlands this coming autumn/winter.

Cross-cultural shock

Culture shock is a term used to describe the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, disorientation, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within an entirely different culture or social environment a different country.
Culture shock can be described in stages. When a person first encounters the new culture, feelings of excitement may dominate. However, negative perceptions of the culture and its people may soon intensify, leading to feelings of withdrawal from the environment. For example, the traveler may spend excessive time alone or with people of the familiar culture. Feelings of emptiness abound during this low period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock#External_links

When I first arrived to Mexico, I did not experience any cross-cultural shocks. On the contrary, I thougth it looked too much like Europe, like Spain. Now that I think back on it, my first days in La Selva Lacandona did have something of a culture shock: I did not know how to behave at all, felt scared and timid, felt completely ´apart and strange´, not knowing why I had come here, and rather would stay in my bed than wake up to these new world.
When I found out people are just people, I started enjoying my encounter. But everytime when returning to the other Mexico of the cities or in the houses of the rich, I experience another small culture shock. Mostly with mild feelings with anger and criticism: how is it possible to complain about not being able to buy the newest car, when at one hours drive, people do not even have toilets (not even the dry compost ones)? I am suprised with myself, when I am so annoyed with the rich children, who nag about the slow performance of their playstation, I´d would like to hit the spoiled brats. How much better the simple children of the communities...
Idealization is also part of culture shocks?

But ok, this happens to me in the Netherlands as well. After an afternoon talking to `illegal´ immigrants, I cannot even enter an average supermarket without feeling completely out of place.

When I go back to the Netherlands I will probably experience the reverste culture shock,
of boredom, restlessnes, reverse homesickness, not understanding why on earth Dutch people work unrelaxed etc. I know this a little from coming back from Spain two years ago, and then I still took part of Spain with me home ;-)
It is not for nothing that I still have not posted my application letter for an internship in the Netherlands. I secretly dream of doing an intership in Uganda or Ethiopia. WAaaaaaaaawww..... where is the girl of two monts ago, that longed back home, determined to be in the Netherlands for a while? Be there when ther new niece or nephew is born, thinking how good a Dutch intership would be to open up job possibilities, that I should finally finish my studies... That I should try to contribute something to my own country´s problem causing behaviour, instead of telling others what to do...
Mmm they say life is long (why do I always feel I am in a hurry then?) and that Uganda and Ethiopia will not walk away. Could at least try out to stay half a year in my little ´frog´ country, I suppose. Or at least, untill all parasites have gone ;-)

La hora de Dios

When going from San Cristobal (my home base) to a community one hour driving away, you can arrive at the same time you left. When we leave at eight o´clock summer time, we arive at eight their time or as Avelino says ´8 o´clock God´s time´. At that time, he just comes back from his milpa where he has work for some hours before the sun starts burning too wildly.

In the communities they do not feel bounded by a government decision to change forth their clocks. Why would you if you always awake with the light of a new day?

Vrouwen / Mujeres

Echte aanrader om je lekker ouderwets kwaad te maken op nieuwerwetse praktijken is de goede documentaire op onderstaande site!!! Wist ik veel dat alle vrouwen in tijdschriften tegenwoordig gefotoshopt zijn (taile, borsten etc. aangepast)? Belachelijk alle onzekerheid en jaloezie die ons wordt aangepraat en waar daarna grof geld aan wordt verdiend. Blijkt dat maar twee procent van de vrouwen wereldwijd zich mooi vind en dat we ons door de jaren heen collectief steeds lelijker zijn gaan voelen (ondanks dat we geen rottende gebitten etc. meer hebben).
Het meest ziek zijn wel de schaamlipcorrecties. Maar ook mooi zijn de bespiegelen over wat nog normaal is en waarom rimpels niet meer mogen.
http://www.beperkthoudbaar.info

Omdat ik ik ben, word ik na het zien van deze film weer opstandig feministisch. Heb daarom maar weer vrede gesloten met mijn kleine maar zoals mijn moeder eens zei vrolijke borsten. (Bovendien zegt Ignacio dat plastic exemplaren er wel mooi uitzien, maar absoluut niet hetzelfde voelen. En hij kan het weten want hij ´maakte´ ze een half jaar lang iedere dag, voor naar het oerwoud te vluchten op zoek naar een wat zinvollere tijdsbesteding dan het snijden in gezonde lichamen).
En laat mijn oksels voorlopig lekker ongeschoren. Om van schaamstreek maar niet te spreken. (ik ben toch geen meisje van 10!). Zo.


Hola guapas,

q lastima q la docu q estoy recomendando es por la mayor parte en holandes. Habla de como todo la sociedad y las medias nos estan provocando tanta inseguridad sobre nuestro cuerpo. Hasta el punto q nos creemos fea y abnormal! Yo ingenua ni sabia q cambian con el compu todo los photos de las modelas de revistas (taille mas chica, tetas mas grande etc.)...
En todo el mundo solamente 2 % de las mujeres se considere bonita y durante los años nos hemos ido sintiendo cada vez mas fea (aunque ya tenemos menos dentaduras negras etc.).
Lo mas ´enfermo´, me parecen las operaciones cuales en USA ya son muy communes: reducir el tamaño de los labios de la vulva...

Despues de ver este docu y enojarme `como en los viejos tiempos´, volvi a ser una feminista rebelente. Entonces, firmé otra vez la paz con mis tetitas q aunq chicas, se dice q son alegres.(ademas Ignacio q trabajó media año en una clinica haciendo tetas cada dia, antes de refugiarse a una comunidad en busca de una ocupación mas util q cortar en cuerpos sanos, dice q se vean bonitas las tetas silicon, pero no se sienten en absoluto la misma).
Y voy a dejar mis axilias un bien rato sin depilar. Para no hablar del pubis (a poco soy una niña de 10?). Hah.

¡Zapata vive vive, la lucha sigue sigue!

Spoke to Carolina for the first time after weeks. Says they are awaiting my return in La Selva in May. I finally decided, that I do not want to go to Nicaragua nor Belize, that I actually want to do little more travel, more touristing, more ´pasear´. Only two weeks Oaxaca (one of them spending in the other centre of the Fundacion Leon XIII) and the Antropological Museum in Mexico City. That I am most happy and most interested in the community life.
So, that means one more official working week here in the Fundacion and the 30 th going to the border to see if they give me a visa. Or what the price is of ´settling´ (with the extra ´unofficial´ costs...). Then filling my free days here in the Fundacion and the rest with Don Chebo etc. in the forest awaiting the rains and mosquitos!!!

I am ssooo happy!!!!! That cannot be taken away by the days that are too hot, my aching back after a week of building stoves, or the sometimes frustratingly hierarchical or corruptional practises that take place in the Fundacion (like everywhere else...) . Knowing that I have less than three months left here, has put an end to my occasional homesickness.

Feeling useful, even if a little, and getting to know a culture / lifestyle so radically different from mine, makes me happy. Actually I believe, that doing something in which I really believe, something that I feel will make the world a little more beautiful, is the only way I will ever be happy. It is probably the only way anyone will be truly happy. I at least cannot believe, one can be truly happy, painting his world a little more black by exploiting nature and other living beings. Or by doing a job, that is random and useless, producing for the sake of economic growth, without serving real needs of real people.
Of course, what we achieve together with the community members is a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would not be there without the drops.

But the struggle is long, complicated and never as black and white as I would like to see it.
Nature conservation is great. But I am angry, when Carolina tells me that with the change of government, the coins seem to have changed for the worse for Don Chebo (Salvador Allende) and many of the other farmers I know in La Selva. Don Chebo was on the verge of finally obtaining the rights to his Rancho. Now I read in La Jornada how the government has declared that ¨These six villages are illegal and will remain so, they have to be evicted and the families reubicated. That some have been established 70 years ago, is no excuse; nature conservation is of the utmost importance.¨
It is a very sarcastic joke of history, that the government was not so worried about the rainforest when these farmers´ grandparents (fleeing from their existence as little more than slave workers on the big landowners fincas) entered the forest. That the government in those times saw it as a very convenient way out: opening up virgin land meant not having to redistribute the land of the rich. Neither were they very worried about biodiversity conservation, when the transnational enterprises took away the precious woods. And will the oil remain under the forest soil when the prices rise and huge profits can be made?

When the government official is confronted with the failure of the reubications that already took place - people being assigned to very poor soil, or in places that were flood-prone, mixing up all ethnic groups etc. causing problems of migration, hopeless poverty, increase in alcoholism - the government official answers: ¨The reubications have not failed, because the people have not gone back.¨
Going back is nearly impossible, when (para) military are threatening your family.
Would it not be better to invest all this money in programs to stimulate sustainable agriculture and forest use? Strict rules would have to be accepted by the farmers. If they are equal for all!!

Even if the world would end tomorrow, I´d still plant a tree today.

So we just go on with our little projects with Salvador Allende: trying to build a more efficient wood stove, buy solar flash lights, build dry toilets... Knowing that it might still take years. Knowing that houses and stoves can be destroyed, but new knowledge and solidarity cannot.

¡Marbella, la mujer lagarta!

For two weeks ´La feria´ (kermis) is taking place in San Cristobal. All the neighbouring neighbourhoods can hear the announcement of ¨Marbella, la mujer lagarta! (the crocodile woman)¨ from the afternoon till midnight.
Isaid and I also go and we do not enjoy ourselves.
There are a huge amount of people (what did you expect).
The noise is too loud. People shouting as loud as possible, to convince us that their blankets are cheaper and more beautiful than the guy next to them who shouts at least as loud.
The games (rollercoasters etc.) make us sick, before even stepping on board.
The sweets do not taste well and Juanita suddenly becomes paranoic that they might bear bacteria.
I get irritated with Isaid holding my hand not to loose me. Isaid seems moody and sad.

But we see the crocodile woman (an optical illusion), the rabbit with two heads, the dog with five legs (although in frasks...), the smallest child in the world (in fact we do not see anything). Me wanting to see all these strange things and little, cruel wonders of nature that you cannot see anymore on Dutch fares.
And the next day, we can finally answer to the all week long questions ¨Have you been to the Feria?¨, ¨Yes, we have already been and we have seen the crocodile woman!¨

Untill, Ismael (11) asks me if I go with him, because his mother is afraid of roller coasters. A sigh of relief, when someone else offers to go along.

Here, there and everywhere

To show that life is not really that different at the other side of the earth:
I am trying to write some of my thesis work in my free hours (working hours are mainly filled with sowing, after which half of the plants die because of the drought - the reality of farming life here - and building stoves). This means:
First let´s go for some food
Well let´s open the MSN because I have not spoken to Pieter for at least a few days
Gossip gossip
Oh by the way I have to answer Richard´s lovely email
Hmm, I could at least open the thesis document
Cannot work without music
Why does the music not function on this computer?
Let´s change computer
Oh no this one is really slow
Hmm, where is my document
I could change these sub paragraphs around
Mmm, let´s change them back to how it was before
More gossip gossip to Pieter, have to know who is pregnant (it seems a virus...) and how many times Pieter fell on its head during his table dance lessons
MM they say that nowadays gossip goes quicker via Mexico than intra-Wageningen
OK I could write this in my report
Aaaaaaaaaaaah, we have a newborn princess? Have to look up how they named their sprout. Never so interested in the royal family as during thesis writing
By the way have to ask Carolina on solar battery chargers
better do it immediately before I forget it.
I am hungry again...
Have to find information on Belize, if i want to go there to extent my visa
Two hours later: it is really late, tomorrow I have to work in the garden
I´d better go to bed...

Anyhow I still believe that writing is a creative process, that cannot be forced ;-)
Doing other things, usually generates ideas.
Well I hope.
Happy not to be the only one, going through this
but yes it shows me that scientific writing is not my thing.
I might be good at it, looking at the end result
but I do not particularly enjoy it, nor feel that I am doing anything useful.
It is almost done!!! Coming home in July, I fix this report is two months time and up to the practise again!!
Besides it is a great excuse to be here in Chiapas.

To prevent me from draining my creative energy, I started looking for one of my favourite song lyrics. Sorry it is in Dutch. Dedicated to all the free, daring, creative, crazy women I know. That when you look in the mirror, you may see a person at whom you like resembling ;-)

In de wolken (Klein Orkest)

Als iemand haar vraagt: "Hee, hoe laat is het?"
Dan zegt ze: "Dat weet ik niet, ik heb de tijd"

Ze staat op, doet de gordijnen open
Ze laat haar ligbad lekker vol met water lopen
Ze zet thee, lacht naar de wereld buiten
En zingt mee, als de ketel staat te fluiten
Ze pakt de post, de ochtendkrant
De koppen schreeuwen moord en brand, zoals altijd
Een folder, hee een leuke brief
De giro, ze staat negatief, zoals altijd

De vloer bezaaid, kousen, truien, rokken
Haar hele klerenkast al aan- en uitgetrokken
Ze maakt zich op haar nagels in twee kleuren
Lak aan alles, laat iedereen maar zeuren
En als ze in de spiegel kijkt
Dan ziet ze iemand waar ze graag op lijkt
Ze knikt, zo is het goed, ze lacht
Terwijl ze zacht nog een keer door haar haren strijkt

Water stroomt, zwemmen of verdrinken
Water stroomt, de hele wereld rond
En als ze droomt, even op een eiland
Haar hoofd in de wolken, voeten op de grond

Zoals ze kijkt brengt ze de stad tot leven
Ze loopt zo licht dat ze bijna lijkt te zweven
Ze heeft sjans, zelfs via winkelruiten
Maar weinig kans, ze kunnen naar haar fluiten
In de winkelende massa, die ritmisch rond de rinkelende kassa's deint
Staat ze in een hoek, ze pakt een boek
Dat geruisloos in haar tas verdwijnt

In de kroeg, jongens blijven jagen
Wat zijn je hobbies en meer van dat soort vragen
Ze heeft stijl, je hoeft bij haar niks te proberen
De botte bijl, die kan ze goed hanteren
Want elk vuurtje sigaret rijmt haar te vaak op straks naar bed
Bekijk 't maar
Ze valt alleen voor kwaliteit en als ze kiest heeft ze geen spijt
Da's niks voor haar

Water stroomt, zwemmen of verdrinken
Water stroomt, de hele wereld rond
En als ze droomt, even op een eiland
Haar hoofd in de wolken, voeten op de grond

Ze raakt alleen ontroerd als mensen alles geven
Als schoonheid haar ontvoerd komt ze helemaal tot leven
Als ze echt heel veel van iemand houdt
Nooit verstikkend, nooit benauwd
Als ze echt heel veel van iemand houdt
Krijg je het van zoveel warmte koud

Ze leent geld, haar allerlaatste actie
En bestelt een levensgrote taxi
Ze vliegt naar huis, de nacht maakt alles mooi
Geeft bij de deur de chauffeur een flinke fooi
En als ze in de spiegel kijkt
Dan ziet ze iemand waar ze nog steeds graag op lijkt
Ze valt in slaap, terwijl haar boek
Geruisloos uit haar handen op haar kussen glijdt

Water stroomt, zwemmen of verdrinken
Water stroomt, de hele wereld rond
En als ze droomt, even op een eiland
Haar hoofd in de wolken, voeten op de grond

Shigella spp.

(this is an old entree, that for some reason did not get published at the date it was written)

And the winner is..... :

Shigella spp!!!

She survived antiparasitic treatment, probably because she is a bacteria and she loves my stomach. Well, that is at least what the latest test reveils.
Another antibiotic for a former anti-antibiotic activist...

I to be honest am feeling more fine everyday. Have just returned from Easter holidays. Fourteen hours from here, we found beautiful Caribean beaches with white sand, blue water and many coconut palms. But what a shame, all the rubbish that people leave behind!!

I learned to sleep in a hammock to evade dangerous snakes, that never showed up. Nore did the jaguar that is said to go around in the nature reserve.
It was very close to Belize, how strange to see black people again after all these months (there are hardly any in Mexico, although the people are rather dark)...

(for your info: it seems that the Shigella has died... I am now trying out every single pro-biotic yoghurt they sell like a gringo health freak, although my father always told me, most of the bacteria in those yoghurts die in the stomach acids before ever reaching your intestines...
But it is worth trying, because I want to have good defences for entrying La Selva again in May... Carolina told me everyone is awaiting my return and Virginia will teach us all how to make cheese and cream!!)