¡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!!!
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.
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.
posted by Tepescuintle @ 6:00 PM
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