This week in Oventic there was a large group of high school students from Montana, led by their very radical (anarchist/Wobbly) Spanish teacher named Jay. It was pretty inspiring to me that he got tenure desite the overt nature of his politics and the way he instills them in his students. He told me that it is easiest to be an overtly radical teacher in fields other than history, because you have to do a certain amount of teaching about culture; he encouraged me to follow my plan to be an art teacher because I could frame art history as related to revolutionary movements and contextualize it in fighting capitalism or supporting it, etc. So that was good. The Montana kids were nice to have around because it was inspiring to see youth in the US adopt revolutionary ideals, except they were also very distracting from learning Spanish since most of them could only speak English and wanted to hear all about New York. Jay had me explain to them the whole dynamics of the Jewish community surrounding Israel and Palestine. I wish I knew more about the issue to explain it to them but I think I did alright. It's great that they are staying for two more weeks. Imagine experiencing 3 weeks of Zapatismo when you were 16! I wonder how that would have influenced my decisions for organizing and whatnot if I came to Oventic so early.
Other things:
-I am getting a little tired of Mexican food and have fallen in love with four-cheese-penne at this Italian place.
-I gave myself a haircut today. Glad I brought those scissors. I had to stand on a chair to see the mirror. I guess Tom hung the mirror... there is no way in hell it is low enough for the Zapatista women that stay in the house when they work at the women's collective store in Cafe TierrAdentro
-I ran into some high school kids from LA who are on the same program Max was on last year. They'd been in Oventic but I saw them on the street in San Cris and yelled "LOS ANGELES" and was like "Do you know my friend Max?" teehee they thought our band name was funny.
-We made a friend named Anne Marie who is travelling through. She briefly worked at Carlos's bookstore in Guatemala. Last weekend I walked into TierrAdentro and found Anne Marie and her friend being lectured by a super drunk guy about the Selva Lacandona (The Lacandon Jungle). Very entertaining, until he made sexual advances on us, and then got bored and left.
-On Thursday I had spanish class on the roof of the bibleoteca. We had an amazing view of the mountains! I didn't get a picture because I was in class.
-Yesterday before we left, the Promotores sang a song that a student had written about Tom, our professor, the chorus of which was "Pinche Tom, Pinche Tom, Pinche TOM TOM TOM!" (Fuckin Tom) LOLzz. It is now stuck in all our heads.
-A direct quote from Tom: The person who finished the water jug without replacing it should be hung" WTFF?? he was so mad at us about that. How were we supposed to know where to get it?
-today Jorge, Pablo and I watched the "Thriller"music video on a TV in a little hole in the wall restaurant over a round of cokes (which are way better outside of the US, by the way.) It was hilarious and amazing. RIP MJ
A photo of the students at the secondary school in Oventic... How's this for a class photo? So badass in their paliacates and pasa de montañas (bandanas and ski masks).
Pablo with his amor, Penguino Zapatista. I'm going to miss both of them a lot. Supposedly Subcomandante Marcos named a rooster "Penguino Zapatista" because it looked like a penguin and therefore was a metaphor for the Zapatista struggle. Not sure.
Me and el Penguino. (Behind this door was where I slept the first two weeks, before the Montana kids got there.)
One of the murals in our room the third week. "We are equal because we are different." How hilarious is the picture of the lesbian? She is the only barefoot one, and also too freethinking to look at the viewer.
This stencil that is in the second room says "Green is the color of hope". For a while I thought that "esperanza" meant both hope and spring so I thought it was like "DUH green is the color of spring..." but it is way more badass than I realized.
Me and el Penguino. (Behind this door was where I slept the first two weeks, before the Montana kids got there.)
One of the murals in our room the third week. "We are equal because we are different." How hilarious is the picture of the lesbian? She is the only barefoot one, and also too freethinking to look at the viewer.
This stencil that is in the second room says "Green is the color of hope". For a while I thought that "esperanza" meant both hope and spring so I thought it was like "DUH green is the color of spring..." but it is way more badass than I realized.
Some of the folks from Montana in Cafe TierrAdentro, our home away from home in San Cristobal. This week I had the pleasure of cutting Katie's hair (in the middle)... it had been past her shoulders or so before. Pablo says that I shouldn't have tried to indoctrinate her into the Ideology of Dykey Haircuts despite the oohs and aahs from her and the other Montana girls. Whatever, at least now she can brag that she got a free haircut from a real live New York Jewish Hipster Dyke. Katie is going to stop by SLC on her college tours and maybe stay over! Perhaps she really will be indoctrinated into New York radical or hipster or dyke culture.
Closeup. Note the sideburns. I'm proud of those.
My new Zapatista shoes. They have a special EZLN stamp on the side. Badass.
A mural. BM=World Bank, ALCA=Free Trade Area of the Americas (?), and FMI= International Monetary Fund.
More murals, and a small Milpa of cilantro, corn, etc.Bye for now! Must go eat dinner.
this voyage seems to be really doing wonders for you, bethy bunny. i love these updates, keep 'em coming. we need to have dykey artsy-fartsy parties/beer guzzlin' when you return to the land of the white devils.
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