Hola Companeros!
Hey ya'll! I'm back in Seattle! My trip back was relatively uneventful (I barely made the plane at LAX) and I got into bed around 1am on Tuesday morning. It's good to be home and have access to a hot shower and mattress for the first time in a week!
I went to a meeting at UniTierra on Thursday night. The meeting was with representatives from farmers' (aka campesinos) movements in South Korea, the U.S., India and Brazil. They all talked about their struggles in their countries and afterwards Comandante Tacho, Comandante Moises and Subcomandante Marcos spoke a little bit, too. I have the transcripts from their talks if any of you are interested- The transcripts are in Spanish, though. We got to the meeting three hours early to get good seats and we ended up sitting in the very front! The meeting was really amazing and went for a good three hours- So by the end my mind was exploding from translating. I took some pictures of all the speakers (including Marcos)- They're in the newest album (the link is below).
On Friday and Saturday Liz and I went up to Oventic to the first two days of the Encuentro. There were SO MANY people there- Most of the "extranjeros" were from Europe but there were tons and tons of indigenous from the surrounding communities who talked about the projects, successes and challenges within their areas. It was really overwhelming to see Oventic, a place that I spent a month, so crowded with people. It was like a whole new place. I put some pictures up of the encuentro too, so you can see the crazy amount of people that were there.
Sunday I bummed around San Cristobal all day. It happened to be the feast day of San Cristobal, so there was all sorts of craziness! The funniest thing was seeing a line of taxis decorated with streamers and balloons driving through the city with their alarms on, honking. As it turns out, they were all parading up to the church on the top of the hill to get their cars blessed. In the evening there was a band playing in the central plaza and tons of food vendors. We opted to go to a good taco place, instead. The last night was just me, another girl from the program, two of the compaeras from Oventic who work at a local co-op, and two people from Basque who are really amazing, interesting people.
Now that I'm home I have the mental space to do some thinking about everything I learned and experienced in Chiapas. If any of you are interested in the goals of Zapatismo or more about the movement, feel free to let me know and I'll give you some good resources. Thank you all for reading my updates and I hope to see most of you now that I'm back in the US of A! I'll be in Seattle from the 24th of July through the 19th of August and I'll be back in Berkeley on the 20th of August. Hope to hear from ya'll!
The following albums have photos of my trip:
Oldest Album: http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2177801&l=e9617&id=1226304
Middle Album: http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2181297&l=b3db7&id=1226304
Newest Album: http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2187242&l=e610c&id=1226304
Portraits: http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2184516&l=af262&id=1226304
Hasta Luego,
Morgan Weinert
Hey ya'll! I'm back in Seattle! My trip back was relatively uneventful (I barely made the plane at LAX) and I got into bed around 1am on Tuesday morning. It's good to be home and have access to a hot shower and mattress for the first time in a week!
I went to a meeting at UniTierra on Thursday night. The meeting was with representatives from farmers' (aka campesinos) movements in South Korea, the U.S., India and Brazil. They all talked about their struggles in their countries and afterwards Comandante Tacho, Comandante Moises and Subcomandante Marcos spoke a little bit, too. I have the transcripts from their talks if any of you are interested- The transcripts are in Spanish, though. We got to the meeting three hours early to get good seats and we ended up sitting in the very front! The meeting was really amazing and went for a good three hours- So by the end my mind was exploding from translating. I took some pictures of all the speakers (including Marcos)- They're in the newest album (the link is below).
On Friday and Saturday Liz and I went up to Oventic to the first two days of the Encuentro. There were SO MANY people there- Most of the "extranjeros" were from Europe but there were tons and tons of indigenous from the surrounding communities who talked about the projects, successes and challenges within their areas. It was really overwhelming to see Oventic, a place that I spent a month, so crowded with people. It was like a whole new place. I put some pictures up of the encuentro too, so you can see the crazy amount of people that were there.
Sunday I bummed around San Cristobal all day. It happened to be the feast day of San Cristobal, so there was all sorts of craziness! The funniest thing was seeing a line of taxis decorated with streamers and balloons driving through the city with their alarms on, honking. As it turns out, they were all parading up to the church on the top of the hill to get their cars blessed. In the evening there was a band playing in the central plaza and tons of food vendors. We opted to go to a good taco place, instead. The last night was just me, another girl from the program, two of the compaeras from Oventic who work at a local co-op, and two people from Basque who are really amazing, interesting people.
Now that I'm home I have the mental space to do some thinking about everything I learned and experienced in Chiapas. If any of you are interested in the goals of Zapatismo or more about the movement, feel free to let me know and I'll give you some good resources. Thank you all for reading my updates and I hope to see most of you now that I'm back in the US of A! I'll be in Seattle from the 24th of July through the 19th of August and I'll be back in Berkeley on the 20th of August. Hope to hear from ya'll!
The following albums have photos of my trip:
Oldest Album: http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2177801&l=e9617&id=1226304
Middle Album: http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2181297&l=b3db7&id=1226304
Newest Album: http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2187242&l=e610c&id=1226304
Portraits: http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2184516&l=af262&id=1226304
Hasta Luego,
Morgan Weinert
- I like that area of the country (Seattle, that is...specifically west across the sound in Bremerton since I have relatives there
T&S were adorable live. Though I missed the first 40 minutes of their show due to them not having an opening band. I am a little in love with them right now. And yes, their new album is awesome, they played all their new songs. I need to get it.