The Pear-Shaped Pete

revolutionary politics

"las elecciones no han terminado" is painted on many walls in xoxo. this is not the work of grafiteros.  there murals were paid for by the PRD, the partido revolucionario democratico, after the state elections in august.  usually they also say something about a planned mega march that happened back in august or they renounce the general electoral fraud.  their bright yellow colour envokes the ongoing protests and political action taken by the federal PRD, led by their presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

many walls in oaxaca continue to shout declarations of political and revolutionary victory over the government of Ulises Ruiz.  the posters - this winter very professionally designed and painted - for the November 25th march are the colour red; one is of a raised clenched fist.  graffitti on one wall in the centre reads: "el pueblo unido jamas sera vencido".

perhaps this alone, is what a casual visitor to oaxaca sees.  and certainly, for hte foreign tourists who have begun to flock to oaxaca, much in the same way they were attracted to chiapas, the revolutionary spirit in the state seems strong.

Mexico has spent 71 years under a one party state (for all intensive purposes), 34 years under a much despised dictator, and who knows who many years under a unified aztec bureaucracy.  democracy is honestly not something that comes naturally in this coutnry.  and, as a solution to the constant concentration of power, real and complete revolution has not been particularly successful either.

las sunday in las lomas de san nazareno our neighbours put up a tianguis.  the individual puestos were marked out with rocks and women brought tables and umbrellas to sell their goods.  sparkly stars, poinsettias, garlands and carol-playing lights predominated. although there were a few grocery items, atole to warm up shoppers in the morning, and memelas and tacos when mid morning hunger struck.  no one was there to shop but rather to gather.

on the road in front three or four men were building speed bumps into the dirt road leading into the neighbourhood.  here people do not petition the government for things - much less something as trivial as a tope to slow traffic.

so the community has a street meeting and decicdes to build topes, and how to organize the tianguis market, or where the taxis can stop and wait for passengers.  One street bought a gate to close off traffic - most do not own cars - when there were more problems with theft and vagrancy.  a couple of days ago i saw one of our street leaders talking with a sheherd explaining where exactly his animals are unwanted.

maybe this is why only 30% of elegible oaxacans voted in the august elections, and why, i think, APPO has very little dedicated popular support.  politics in mexico are corrupt and when underhanded dealings are exposed no one seems to care.  people do not place their faith in the political process.

voting in mexico has been explained to me as a choice of who will do the least.  generally people don't seem to trust their elected representatives to change anything or to do what they are asked to do.  the mysterious political activities that go on in state and federal houses of government are disregarded in favour of the community organization.  a person's neighbours whose names, faces, and family history are known are trusted to get something done.  and here, as in most places, small organizations form the strongest opposition to politicians.  political parties are too big to be trusted and APPO is too diverse to be trusted to offer an alternative.

on the highway to arrazola, and thus on the way to las lomas, there is a bar.  this area is full of construction businesses:  supply stores, equiptment rentals, tablaroca (concrete brick) makers, and the contractors and labourers.   the bar that we pass daily is call "el sindicato' - the union - and i have never seen it open. this is not a union prepared to drop everything to shut down the oaxacan economy, although collectively or individually it's members may have participated in the barricades last summer. 

is in such a place as this, with the people who presumably congregate, where the heart of oaxacan political strength lies. the PRD will continue to scream electoral fraud until the next elections (during which campaign they will presumeably remind voters of the corruption), APPO will continue to poster the streets and hold occasional marches until it loses all remaining cohesion, seccion 22 and 59 will continue to squabble over rights to schools, missing money, unfufilled promises, and which section holds the moral authority, and the PRI will continue to blithely assume political dominancy.

none of this ultimately matters.  it is my community organization to which i must ultimately answer in most things and to which i must go if i want change.

snapshots 2

looking out of the window while travelling on the periferico i young man steps down the pedestrian overpass.  he carries a shovel but is not dressed in what normally passes for work clothes here.  he is clearly from the sierra: shorter than those in the valley with dark skin - maybe the coast? his eyes are startled. he looks new to the city.  i can see his lips moving and i struggle to pick out words; if he is even speaking a language i understand.  he stands waiting for an urbano to take him somewhere.  he hesitates when a bus stops at the lights, talks a little more to himself and makes slight movements in the direction of the permenantly open door. just as the light changes he leaps aboard.

i am buying honey in the benito juarez market.  we stand near the fishmonger's section and a familiar song reaches my ears.  the man who serves up seafood cocteles is sitting without customers.  on the wall is a handwritten list of options: camarones, pescado, pulpo, vuelve a la vida.  i smile when he continues to sing, and as we pass, honey in my shopping basket, i can't help joining in.  "por que cantando se alegran, cielito lindo, los corazones."

i walk down the street towards the church in huayapam; it is there that one can grab a taxi or an urbano back into the centre. i see an old man walking towards me on the opposite side of the street. from behind one of the walls that line the street i can hear an unhappy cat making that special middle of the night cat unpleasant noise.  i wonder if he wants out, and then if it is a she and that she might be in heat.  the sound echoes off the concrete walls and i cannot fix on the particular house that contains the cat. i suddenly realize that the old man is carrying a feed sac, the kind that are made into cheap market bags here. the caterwauling is coming from the bag which i also realize is moving.  he turns to me as we pass, "buenas tardes, comadre," he politely says to me.

snapshots

1. a man on a blue moto is driving down my street. he doesn´t wear a helmet, half the men on motos here don´t. i get a curious glance - as usual, being the only extranjera in this colonia. he gets a curious glance from me. balanced in his hand is a kilo or more of unwrapped masa to make tortillas. he stops at one house, rings the bell and expects the door to open; no one comes. now what does he do with the masa? was he sent out to buy the dough by a wife? a mother? his lover? and why does she not answer? he sits on his moto, masa still in hand, waiting.

 

2. i sit in a patio in the centre of an old colonial house. it is night. i know that, unseen, wandering around in the stacked bricks, broken concrete and crumbling walls are cucarachas, ratones, and other night creatures. nonetheless it is beautiful. water streams off of one rooftop into the wating laundry sink. the over-flow falls into a ten gallon bucket. facing me, against the wall, are dozens of buckets already full of water. they will be used in february and march when the centre no longer has water of it´s own and pipes must be bought and trucked in from the mountains. against the opposite wall is a mountain of various things: old bicycles, a bedframe, typewriters, books, a pile of old quarry stone now dust, empty spools of wire. in each corner of the old house four seperate families have their homes. each with three rooms: a kitchen, a living/dining room, and a bedroom. one neighbour is a school teacher, one a small business owner (with a drunken husband), one a clown. this is the oaxacan middle class.

 

3. at night in front of santo domingo young people gather. i sit with chema near a pair of sisters who frequent santo domingo to sell candy, rebozos, and bracelets with their children. six year-old esperanza once sold me a bracelet for LJT. i hassel her about it, "niña, tus purselas no valen la pena. ¿por qué no vendes mescal?" she just laughs me off as another crazy extranjero. she and her cousin and LJT run around like coyotes terrorizing the kids hanging out. near the church is a young woman all dressed up in what, here in oaxaca, passes for televisa fashion. she looks rediculous. she is lit by a large light atop a television camera, another young woman tries to fix her hair and is shooed away. i am briefly secure in the knowledge that as a foreigner i will not be bothered by this canal 5 crew. except that i'm with oaxacans. she wants to know my opinion on multiculturalism. well she doesn't, someone higher up who makes the decisions based on recent opinion polls does. she doesn't even know what multiculturalism means. where to start? i've clearly been picked because of who i am and who i'm with. i'm not good at the 10 second sound bytes that canal 5 needs. there are many cultures here, i say, but not much multiculturalism. i get a blank stare.

 

4. there are cohetes going off. next door. usually they aren't so close. one explodes and i jump. finally after half an hour or so i get used to the noise and a series of 12 exploding doesn't even faze me. it is midday and today is the 25th of november. there is a march to commemorate the bloodiest day between the PFP and APPO, thousands are walking in pained enthusiasm demanding the return of the political prisoners, the fulfillment of government promises, and significant change in state politics. last year in the centre we closed our doors and windows to stop the tear gas from coming into our homes. they said that blood ran on the steps of santo domingo. this year i am drinking beer and eating strawberry shortcake with a friend. and flinching when, from behind me, gunpowder explodes in the air.

 

5. along the periferico the apartment buildings are reversed: the penthouses are on the first floor. first are the shops which are generally repair shops, concrete and building suppliers, camping equipment, and hotels. the first floors have concrete walls, balconies (for what i don't know given the air quality and noise along the periferico), and large windows. on the second and third floors the apartments are generally a little smaller but still with windows and maybe even a balcony. at the top the apartment has corregated steel walls and roof, is smaller still, has a balcony but no window. every balcony has pots and pots of geraniums.

unwanted men

i am back to trying to wrap my head around life here.  i know that i should just let go and it will all make sense, but, like meditating, the more you think about it the less likely i seem to be able to do it.  and so far i have not managed to just intuit.

some interconnected themes:

1. we went to mari and andres' house for lunch the other day.  mari made a tres leches cake.  we arrived to watch andres and mari finish decorating the cake.  they discussed the colour of the icing: whether it was pink enough, green enough, not pink enough, not green enough, whether there was enough marmelada de fresa in between the layers, enough leche. 

i painted nisaa's arm into a crocodile with LJT's face paints.  then the two of them painted my arm blue and white with splotches of grey and yellow.  washing it off with cold water inthe service sink was not so easy, my arm looked stained with bruises until i thought to use laundry soap.

while we ate pollo con salsa verde andres mentioned that he wouuldn't let men visit their house.  i think i must have blinked in response.  but he said 'perdon, pero soy muy grosero y no les doy entrada en mi casa'.  suddenly the birthday party last march makes complete sense.  at the time all that i could think was that either san martin had no men living in it and all the male population were working up north, or, that andres had quite a collection of mujeres and they all seemed to get along peacefully.

mari explained to me that sometimes men went visiting drunk out of their minds and ended up upsetting their hosts with incoherent ranting, loud threats and sometimes violence.  after speaking with adelina and chema one night about the whole thing it appears that andres and mari are not in the minority here; adelina agreed wholeheartedly and chema understood the reasoning but was put out just thinking about it.

2. in the centre the municipio plans to shut down two north/south streets to pedestrian traffic only.  much like north of the centre.  i presume this is to attract tourists to the area south of the centre which doesn't even appear in most travel guides despite the really interesting and beautiful stuff down here too (plus it's proximity to the Periferico and the Central).  the two streets in question are  Armenta y Lopez and Bustamante.

it isn't a popular decision here in the centre.   everywhere there are "no al cierre de los calles" signs especially in the markets. the signs are significantly absent on the two streets in question.  property values are goign to go up and pedestrian traffic will flow with lots of rich gringos to spread the money around. 

this of course will ruin the reasons why i like living down here.  there are actual families here, with little papelerias and tortillerias. neighbours sell tamales out of their front door on sunday mornings.  soon these will dissapear for overpriced artisan shoppes, gourmet oaxacan restaurants and art galleries.  gone will be the mothers running their children to kinder in the morning, instead we will have the SUV strollers seen north of the centre.

and here i thought i supported the road closures.  more pedestrian traffic in my mind is always a good thing.  the centre is over-congested and loud; if it isn't the urbanos barrelling down the street breathing out their toxic fumes it is bumper to bumper traffic in the evenings.  i want some moto taxis here in the centre.  that i can call to come pick us up and drop us at benito juarez.  or be able to walk along armenta y lopez to parque san fransisco eating fresh sandia.  i want the urbanos to stay out on the periferico and niños héroes where they belong.  i want people to admit that most people in the centre don't drive and the markets already uses mostly human powered transportation to get stuff into the puestos.   and it isn't like mina and aldama are being closed.

oh like i know anything about urban planning.  but it does seem that the business people here prefer the traffic to people walking on the streets.

ya llegé

six months pass so incredibly quickly. as we drove out of the city on the bus LJT turned to me and said "i remember this place".  six months passing in el DF translates for us into more traffic, more green, more sun, and more feeling aplastado by the city.

on the highway to oaxaca i lay back, tried to ignore the movies, and let LJT sleep with his feverish head on my lap.  i watched the day turn once again into night.  as always i could see pico de orizaba away in the distance. this time it was covered in snow and stood out strikingly against the rosy lilac sky.

a dicho, a mexicanism came to me as i sat there.  something that has been running through my head for months unspoken but nonetheless pestering my peace of mind.  all my thoughts during my time in toronto came into focus, and i was even suddenly presented with a filter for examining my relationships. 

they say: Sólo en la agonía de despedirnos somos capaces de comprender la profundidad de nuestro amor.

once past puebla and all through our first full day here all the little reasons for loving mexico came back to me.  seatbelts on the buses, burros on the side of the highway, concrete structures set up to sell tacos y tortas y cocas to travellers, their love of children, honest staring (or, for that matter, interest in the people around them), the general willingness to sit and do nothing but enjoy the morning and watch the world, the welcome back, the laughter.

elections

"El abstencionismo marcó la jornada electoral y al alcanzó el 65.73 por ciento, por lo que en los comicios solamente votaron tres de cada 10 oaxaqueños."
    -La Jornada

PRI won, in the 25 districts.

la guelaguetza oficial

a new video has come into my sphere of reference.  as rumoured the governor of oaxaca, ulises ruiz paid people to attend the official production.  i can't remember the numbers but most of the seats for the guelaguetza are free on a first come basis.  then the 200 pesos notes began to be handed out, during the performance.

que fracaso.  the rest of the spectators apparently were policia and family, uro supporters, and priistas, most of whom received free tickets to go. to put it in context, 200 pesos is half a month's rent for most people.  there was also rumour of bus-loads of children from the sierra beign brought in (and then presumably being given money to attend).

The fool clapping off-time is URO, beside him is his wife.  later i will upload an amusing foto of URO on vacation during easter.

from mal de ojo:

OAXACA_SorJuana-Guelaguetza-03VIII07.mp4

los gringos, los appistas y los priistas

 

i blame the unapologetic mexican.

which isn´t fair, but then things rarely are. really the fault lies with politics, points of view and perhaps even hopes and dreams. everything started with some stupid comments that are going around (yet again) within the expat community in oaxaca.

**let us pause here to mention that i am not in oaxaca right now, although i do have constant and current contact with many oaxaqueños**

what drives me absolutely up the wall are the many many expats who live in oaxaca but do not bother to make it home.  who, after years of residence, hardly speak a phrase of spanish and whose main contact with "actual mexicans" as i heard one woman say, are english fluent upper-class chilangos (or not - let me not be accused of generalizations). they move to oaxaca and expect north american conveniences and privileges.  when the gigante in reforma stocks a fairly obscure quebecois beer difficult to find here in canada, one begins to wonder about the presence of extranjeros.  slowly they are invading mexico, an imperialism of entitlement is spreading across the country.

one oaxaqueño likened their presence to killer bees, which is harsh.  really they are mostly well-meaning liberals, retirees, who came to oaxaca because the place is beautiful, the food amazing, and the culture vibrant.  maybe these are the same desires sought by the bees but i think not.  however i can see their point when, as was pointed out to me, many have a tendency to marry a oaxacan, drop the anglo last name, make sure to dress themselves as traditionally as possible (a la frida kahlo), and subtly avoid the topic of nationality.  granted that these extranjeros generally manage to reach a state of fluency in the language.

trust me, for those who know me well, i have considered that the real source of my hostility towards these residents of oaxaca is the fact that it is impossible for me to live permanently there myself, and perhaps it is just a case of unabashed unobscured jealousy.  i´m pretty sure this isn´t the case because they irritate me in other parts of the world too.

what happens within this community is a confusion of understanding.  not becoming of a place, not truly internalizing what it means to be oaxaqueño, (and yes i used that term intentionally for surely if someone has lived in a place for 20 or more years they have the right to consider themselves citizens), and unfamiliarity with the language leads to a general misunderstanding regarding what drives people, why events occur, and even most basically what is going on. 

in oaxaca, as elsewhere in mexico and the globe, must of what is discussed is passed along orally.  chisme is critical for the town to follow current events and to form opinions about them.  the trouble is is that it can take days for a situation to clarify.  as an example, last november there was a particularly harsh clash between los appistas and los pfpistas.

the city gossip reported that there were hundreds arrested and 8 dead as of the morning after.  one friend i spoke with repeated what she had heard: the dead and the blood had been cleaned off the steps of santo domingo before breakfast that morning.  that afternoon the news was perhaps 4 or 5 dead, not so many arrested, certainly hundreds beaten.  even more fascinating were the reports of the PFP using slingshots and marbles to retaliate from the rooftops around the zocalo. and then in the evening, 2 dead (or not), 50 or so arrested,  and dozens attacked. days later the numbers were  reduced again until finally the story dropped away as more current events were happening.  i still don´t really know that day despite my fotos and video and what i managed to see with my two eyes.

this is spanish gossip, among oaxaqueños, on the streets, the market and homes.

on the other hand the hysterical wondering of the expat community (through our neighbour) was hysterical.  not one knew what was going on in the slightest, all were alarmed and insecure.  those that still remained in the city that is and had not fled to the coast, the capital or back "home". i wondered if they intentionally avoided the oaxaqueño papers or television as if preferring to believe that armageddon was upon us.

which brings me to my concluding thought about all this.  what comes of this aloofness is an incendiary politics whereby imagined promises of social change long abandoned in north america (within the expat´s sphere of reference) are now happening on their doorsteps. how exciting. how novel. how revolutionary.

ufff. me molesta tanto. 

what the gringos like to think is that they are "witnessing history".  a common enough expression i suppose but ignorent and misleading.  and the news stories sent back to the north that speak of countless dead, brutal oppression and a unified state are not only misleading but dangerous.

there is no unity in oaxaca except to say that "here are the borders, the carreteras, the cites and the pueblos".   what is happening in oaxaca is tremendously complicated, that (según yo) no opinion can be made as of yet. this is not a case of zapatistas being united. this is a state made up of 18 languages, over 90 dialects and cultural groups, 570 municipalities, 2 political systems, 3 land ownership systems, et cetera. and, like everything it ultimately comes down to money. the leaders on both sides are fighting for control of money.

one of my favourite hysterics from an expat (nancy davies to be specific) was when she said back in november of 2006, "they [los appistas] keep saying they're on the brink of winning, and I tend to believe them. The state is ungovernable, that's for sure." the state was never ungovernable.  the city perhaps to many was frightening and unmanageable, but the state no.  as i said back in february, there seems to be no communality of feeling even among appistas, or i suppose for that matter priistas. close to the centre, withing the valley of oaxaca i never sat at a table where the people showed strong support unconditionally for APPO.

even friends who marched to show support for the prisoners and to demand change are ambivalent.  "me puso muy cabronado" said one, "i got really pissed off".  their business lost money, their lives were disrupted, relatives in hiding; yet essentially to their core they wanted to support the struggle and see social change happen.

change is slow in mexico.  i would say even slower in oaxaca.  the casualness with which people generally approach everything in life means that even a 'crisis' is treated as something that can wait one more day.  and as citizens of oaxaca have lives to attend to i think the general attitude of los politicos to wait usually pays off in the end.  people lose interest (everywhere not just in mexico) because life must go on, and since no change is coming in the meantime we need to feed our families.

cynical and depressing certainly, it's not as if some change needs to happen.

finally, i think what bothered me most (which is where nez comes into all this, i usually avoid things that make me irritated) was george saltzman's recent comment: " As a foreigner your very presence here is an additional safeguard for the Oaxacans."  this arrogant and frustrating statement has been repeating in my brain since i read it.

here we see, ultimately, the results of the imperialism of entitlement. extranjeros in oaxaca do NOT make things safer for oaxaqueños, if anything a great deal of the reasons for struggle lie with increasing gringo residents. and this, which in my mind is a direct invitation to the gringo world to travel right now to oaxaca, furthers the conflict, makes it difficult to allow oaxaqueños to take control of their own future.  the most direct and absolute example of this was the death of Bradley Will, following which international pressure led to the invasion of the city by the PFP and further acts of brutality against the protesters.  Bradley Will was not an innocent vacationer, he was actively and honestly trying to disseminate news from one part of the world to another. nonetheless it was his presence that led to other deaths. 

on a wall in la colonia centro someone wrote,

tourists: pardon the civil unrest.  we are trying to overthrow an unjust governor.  things will eventually return to normal.

well spoken.  oaxaca is not disneyland.

2o Lunes del Cerro

Hace unos días que chema me mandó las fotos del guelaguetza.  ¿su comentario? fue padre.  sin crítica nada más.  no he ido entonces no puedo pláticar del tema, pero les presento sus fotos aquí para su placer.

--------------------------

For english readers,  last week chema sent me his fotos of his experience at the guelaguetza.  i asked how it was, he said "very cool".  and that was all.  i have never been so i can´t comment.  however, for your enjoyment, here they are.

from serenity to complexity

LJT and i went with Chema up to Hierve el Agua today.  it is not as difficult a trip as i have been led to believe for the past four months or so.  ridiculous really that i hadn't made the trip before.  it was just the sort of sunday activity needed after some rough weeks.  for some strange reason it smelled like prince edward county, made me want to see sand dunes and a huge expanse of water.  ni modo.  fantastic.  and i went swimming which is always a good thing.

(for those who are interested:  there is a new road built up to hierve el agua.  take the carretera past tlacolula, past mitla to a town called xaaga.  from there go through town and there is a road that veers off to the left up into the mountains, you can see the zigzag road from the highway.  follow that right into the town of roadigo and there you will find the springs)

on the way out to san martin today i was struck by how complicated commerce is here. nearly every job i have been able to witness is so multifaceted that i don't see how anyone could define precisely what it is that they do for work.  bus driving, for example, is not mere running a bus around in circles.  the driver takes the fare from passengers (and provides change if needed!!). 

he calculates how best to go about running his route to make the most money possible, skips some stops if there are too many buses there, drives slowly along others so that he can pick up as many fares as possible.

he can employ 'callers' who lean out the door and in jumbled street accented spanish yell out what stops that particular bus will make (this all depends on time and particular route, some buses don't use the system at all and others nearly all the time - perhaps for company)  some callers double-duty with the drivers (these are usually the young guys) who will each drive a particular section of the route while the other does the yelling.

today i witnessed something new with buses, a taxi driver flashed a 50 peso note at the driver, who nodded, then he jumped aboard to get change for his bill.

some drivers let snack sellers on to sell to the travellers, others won't.  some routes need to report to something like a punch clock at a certain part of the route, although the punch clock is human, others don't.  some routes accept bus passes, others don't.   for some reason i think all of the buses running out to Tule are painted yellow and maroon.

LJT and i went to a fun little birthday party at Andres and Mari's house tonight.  it dissolved into confetti and streamer throwing, but it was all in good fun.  tres leches cake, gelatina, pollo adobe.  mari is a good cook.  we came home with balloons and crepe paper flowers.