memeserve

The Life of Tina

2008-05-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

The Life of Tina

Introduction

This the true story of a Nicaraguan woman, Florentina Perez Calderon. It is a remarkable record of strength and courage in the face of adversity.

Tina wants her story to be read as widely as possible for the sake of peoples in struggle everywhere. Read it, and pass it on!

Produced by C.M.Z.P. (Co-operativa Maria Zunilda Perez). Copyright 1994

The CMZP is named in honour of Tina's daughter who was killed by the Contra on 31st December 1984. We have been working with Tina's community in Nicaragua since 1987 to promote co-operative development and fair trade.

For more information and/or more copies of this book, ( 1.50 english pounds inclusive of postage and packing), please contact:

C.M.Z.P.
25 Hamilton Gardens
London NW8 9PU
Tel: 071 286 3483
Fax: 081 969 7527

My name is Florentina Perez Calderon. I was born on June 20 1948 in the village of La Danta, Municipality of San Juan de Limay, Department of Esteli, Nicaragua. I am the third child in a family of nine children. I carry my mother's last name due to the Nicaraguan custom that children of an unmarried couple can only use their mother's last name.

Sometimes when I look back over my life, at all of the suffering I've had, I think there is nothing else that would shake me. Sometimes I now think I won't die.

My first suffering occurred when I was one year old. My mother had sent my sister for firewood. I still couldn't walk very well but I followed her. Along the way I fell into an oven which was used to process sugar cane. My hands and feet were severely burned by the time my mother got to me. She put my feet into a bucket of water and they got huge blisters on them. After three days a neighbour came to our house and told my parents that I needed to see a doctor or I would die. They took me to Limay where there was a doctor. By this time my feet were infected and it had spread all the way up my legs. The man slashed open the blisters, which were like water bags. Off came the blisters along with all the skin off of my feet and my toenails. I cried and cried day and night and didn't sleep for days. My mother put oil of Burillo on my feet and wrapped them in grape leaves. Then I started to improve. After several months they bought me a pair of shoes and filled them with cotton so that I could start to walk again. I was the only child with shoes because my parents didn't have money to buy us all shoes.

My parents were very poor. We lived way out in the countryside in precarious conditions and extreme poverty. Our house was made of sticks. As a child, I never had the opportunity to go to school. At that time the country was run by the Somoza family, fascists, who never cared about schools for the rural areas. Neither my parents nor any of us children went to school. We were all illiterate.

Looking back, my first memory of the Sandinista Front was when I was about ten years old. A group of guerillas passed through our village asking for the way to Esteli. My mother showed them the way and they left. But the next day every one was talking about it. They had left bags of medicine, blankets, everything they were leaving along the way because they were exhausted and needed to lighten their load. We asked my mother who they were and she told us not to say a word - to be silent because if the Guardia got word that they had passed through, they would come to interrogate us and might take my father and put him in jail. My father went away to hide for a few days in case the Guardia came. We were very frightened. The Guardia came and collected all they had left behind but they didn't come to our house. They found one of the guerillas in a house nearby and fired on him with heavy weapons. Sometimes we saw planes overhead and heard guns. My mother explained to us about war. She was very frightened.

When I was 15, I met Jose Angel Perez, my husband, companero for life. We were married in 1963. In 1964 my first daughter was born, Maria Zunilda. When she was two and a half she got polio. It was a struggle to save her but she survived, though her leg was impaired.

I had had my second child, Osmar, by then. Osmar died at age six due to an overdose of anasthesia, leaving me with two children, Maria Zunilda and Chema. After Osmar died I was so sad. I dreamt of him all the time. I would see him in the caminos and say, "What are you doing here? You died." I was always so happy when I saw him. I would see him in the pasture bringing in the cows. Every night I dreamt of him. I cried and cried and couldn't eat. I felt like I was going to die. One day I said to Jose Angel, "I can't stand this any longer, I'm going to die." He said, "Ask God to help you. Ask the Virgin to take away these dreams." Then one night I dreamt that I came to an abandoned house. It was full of broken, discarded things. In the midst of all that was my son, lying on a bed. I ran to him and took his head in my hands. I felt how soft his hair was. Then I felt something strong pulling me - pulling hard and fast. It was a force, something much bigger than him. I got very scared and screamed for it to let go of me. I woke up very frightened. That was my cure. That was the last dream I had of Osmar.

In 1975 my fourth child was born. We named him Osmar to replace my dead son. My fifth child was a girl, Julia Marina, who was born with measles, but she survived. Then I suffered two miscarriages, making a total of five miscarriages. Later in 1981 I had my last daughter, Anaccli de la Conception.

When I was growing up, and even the first few years that Jose Angel and I were married, people way out in the campo like us didn't know how things were in Nicaragua. We knew that Somoza was the President and that was fine with us. We knew we were poor, that life was always a struggle, but that's just the way things were. But then in the 1970's things started to change. There was a young priest in Achuapa, Gustavo Martinez. He was working with the people, doing workshops, organizing, conscientizing. Many people were going. Jose Angel started to go to the workshops and came home talking about Carlos Fonseca. At that time we didn't even know who he was! All we knew was what the radio said, that he was a bandit and had been killed. But Jose Angel explained who he was, what he struggled for, and that there were groups organized who were working for the same cause. We had heard about these groups on the radio - that they were communist, very bad, sent from Cuba where they ate children and killed old people. We believed all of that! The workshops clarified all of that and helped us to understand things the way they really were. We were understanding more and more. I still remember the day we pulled a poster of Somoza that we had out from under the bed - one left over from an electoral campaign - and we burnt it.

By 1978 guerilla groups were all over. We had a cousin who was a delegate of the word like Jose Angel and Amancio and went to the workshops with them. He had formed the guerillas and gave them word that they could trust us, so they started to come. Soon we were collaborators of the guerillas of the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (F.S.L.N.). We referred to them as "Los Muchachos" (The Boys) because for the most part they were young people. At this time the dictator had unleashed a harsh wave of repression. It was a great risk to collaborate.

The guerillas had a camp in La Aceituna, several hours from our house in Las Lajas, and wanted to form a new one in La Flor, close to our house. They were moving deeper into the mountain, to start working in this area. I remember the first night they came. There were three of them. They asked if we would cook for them and take them food to where they were hiding in the mountain. I was very nervous because it was the first time but we said yes, I knew we had to help. That was the only way things were going to change.

The next night there were twenty-two "Muchachos." Jose Angel and I were sleeping when we heard them outside. They had coffee with them so I mad ethem coffee. There was a woman with them and she came to help me. She asked me what I thought of their struggle, if I was afraid. I said I was afraid of the Guardia. She told me to be very careful. She said, "Tomorrow make sure you bury all those coffee grounds and sweep up any cigarette butts that they leave on the ground. If the Guardia see that they'll know you're collaborating." She also said to be very careful of the Guardia informants. She said if we knew of one to let them know so they could take care of it. I didn't even wait until morning. In the middle of the night I was out there collecting cigarette butts and erasing their tracks.

We were sending them food every day. They couldn't cook in the mountain because the fire would reveal their position to the Guardia. But it didn't end there. The next thing I knew, Jose Angel says they're going to bring some cloth for him to make bandanas. "Oh, no!" I thought, "What are we going to do with a bunch of red and black cloths in the house?" Jose Angel said, "Don't worry. We're going to do it at night and they'll surround the house with lookouts to warn us if anything happens."

One day a friend of ours came to the house and said that the Guardia were coming because they had detected the guerillas' camp in the mountain. No sooner had she left then we heard the first planes, flying very low. There were five planes. We could hear heavy combat and decided we'd better leave the house. We got the children and headed for my sister-in-law's house. But along the way we ran into the "Muchachos" evacuating. The Guardia had divided into two groups and mistakenly opened fire on each other. The combat was amongst themselves and the "Muchachos" got away.

After having discovered the camp, the Guardia conducted what they called "limpieza" (clean up operation). They sent in lots of Guardia to patrol the whole mountain. If they found anyone there they killed them. We never left the house for fear of running into the Guardia. It was a very frightening time. And just then, of all times, Julia got a kernel of corn stuck in her nose. We tried everything but we couldn't get it out. There was nothing to do but to take her to Achuapa. I decided to go on horseback. When I got there everything was very tense. People said the guerillas were all around and that the Guardia were coming. We could already hear the planes. In the midst of all this I was trying to get a corn kernel out of Julia's nose and was only successful in getting it lodged further up the nostril. Well, then I was determined to at least take advantage of the trip to purchase some provisions. Everyone was telling me to go home but I went into a store and ordered my provisions. I was standing at the counter paying the bill when suddenly a huge crate came crashing through the roof! It broke a huge hole. The Guardia were dropping crates of ammunition to the troops in Achuapa. I gathered up my provision and got out of Achuapa just in time. By the time I reached Las Lajas I could hear the combat back in Achuapa. It was Easter week. A few days later the guerillas came to our house and I learned that one of the "Muchachos" that I had been feeding was killed in the combat. The guerillas continued their attacks on the Guardia in all of the towns around until one by one they were liberated. My house continued to be a safe house throughout the war for liberation.

After many long nights of fear, death threats and suffering, one day something happened which filled us with joy. After having repressed the people for 40 years the tyrant Anastasio Somoza Debayle fled the country. In Nicaragua it was incredible to everyone that Somoza could be defeated. But it was true. Somoza had been forced to flee due to popular pressure, a prolonged war and the unity of the people to achieve a common objective: the end of Somocismo, the end of Somoza. Somoza fled on July 17, 1979. Two days later we achieved the total triumph when the rest of Somoza's assassins fled.

With the triumph of the revolution on July 19, 1979 extraordinary things began to happen in our lives. One of the most important was the Literacy Crusade. Huge numbers of young people from the cities were mobilised to the countryside. A young man from Leon, Isidiro Rojas, came to my house and he taught us to read and write. The Literacy Crusade lifted us out of the darkness in which we were submerged. It was at this time, however, that all over Nicaragua the counter-revolution began to break out. The Literacy brigadistas were the first targets. On March 24 the contras murdered Georgino Andrade, the first Martyr of the Crusade. We were very firghtened that the Contra would come to our community to kill us and our brigadistas. Fortunately, nothing happened in our village and the crusade finished with success and one of our most beautiful dreams came true - to learn to read and write.

Soon Cuban teachers began to arrive in Nicaragua. They were noble people whose objective was to realise the dreams of Carlos Fonseca and Che Guevara - to educate our children. They opened the first school in the history of Las Lajas.

In 1983 my husband Jose Angel travelled to our sister republic of Cuba. He was sent by the National Union of Agricultural and Cattle Workers (U.N.A.G.) to receive a course on cooperatives. While he was away, a Cuban teacher, Ismael Fernandez, stayed in my home. I was very frightened because the Contra looked for Cubans to kill them. My husband was away for three months. During this time, the cooperative "Santiago Arauz Reyes" was officially formed. My husband had been one of the principal promoters of this cooperative. By the time Jose Angel returned from Cuba the first members of the cooperative had moved on to the lands of Lagartillo. Before the triumph this land had belonged to a Guardia lieutenant, Antonio Palacios. However, the revolution made it available to the many landless campesinos in our area.

Upon his return, Jose Angel was very happy to see that people were really committed to working together in a cooperative. He travelled three kilometers from our home in Las Lajas to Lagartillo every day. He went back and forth for almost two years because there were no houses in Lagartillo. But by November of 1984 the Contra war, sponsored by the United States, had become very serious. The United States had organised the Contra into a mercenary force and placed an economic embargo on Nicaragua. In response to the U.S. aggression, the Nicaraguan people organised themselves in all aspects: in the C.D.S., A.M.N.L.A.E., Milicias Populares, A.T.C., Juventud Sandinista... We were involved in all of these organisations in order to defend our interests and our lives. These were years of very heavy struggle and arduous work. The Contra were a criminal force, killing many people.

In November of 1984, the Contra passed through Las Lajas where we lived and kidnapped some campesinos. They left death threats for us. This made us think seriously about moving to the cooperative in order to be better protected. We decided to move to Lagartillo where we would live in the school, which had been built of wood. We moved in with another family. We had a lot of difficulties but we had hope and we believed in the cooperative. In order to protect ourselves we dug bomb shelters and trenches. We kept watch 24 hours a day, often going without sleep and the men went to work with rifles on their shoulders. The Contra were very close, moving like a pack of bloody dogs, wanting to kill all of the campesinos.

Christmas that year was very tense. We were receiving lots of threats from the Contra. Several days after Christmas I had a dream that the Contra were coming to attack us. In the dream, I was alone and very frightened. I went to wake up Jose Angel and Amancio because they had fallen asleep but I couldn't wake them. Then the Contra attacked us.

Three days later, on December 31, at about 8:00 a.m., we were warned that the Contra were coming. That's when the most horrible tragedy began - so horrible it's almost impossible to describe. The warning arrived just five minutes before the Contra were upon us. The Contra caught us literally off guard. There were only a few arms in the cooperative. Amancio was in Achuapa. When we realised what was hapening, Zunilda said she was going to fight. She grabbed a gun and went to take a position. Valentin was assigned to guide the women and children down to Achuapa. We hadn't been in the cooperative very long and didn't know the routes well. Valentin headed us all off near where Zunilda was positioned. I stopped in my tracks. In my dream, that was exactly where the Contra had attacked from. I held back with Osmar and Coni and tried to tell the others not to go that way. Within minutes the combat opened. Valentin had walked right into them. They came running back to where I was and we headed off another way, through a place we call the Inferno. It was a very treacherous pass, huge boulders and steep drops. It was like hell - women and children screaming, crying, we didn't know where we were going. There were drops so steep that we had to drop the children to people waiting below.

When Zunilda had grabbed the rifle I had yelled to her, "Don't go to the southern end of the cooperative - that's where they're going to enter." But she took her combat position in the South. The Contra were firing with artillery, bombs, rockets and mortars. It was so terrible. As we ran, we imagined that all of our companeros were dead. The combat was so heavy and there were only fourteen people defending the cooperative - and 150 Contra.

After three hours we arrived in Achuapa. Everyone went into town but I didn't want to go in. I stayed by the river. I didn't want anyone to ask me anything. I was full of anguish - imagining everyone dead. We waited all day. By 2:00, the first wounded came in - my nephew and a friend. Finally, at about 5:00, a companero came with the report. I ran out to meet him. "How many dead are there?" I asked. "Jose Angel and Zunilda are dead," he told me. Twenty minutes later a truck arrived with the cadavers. I followed it to the health center where they cleaned the bodies. At that moment I felt such pain, such anguish. Then my screams turned into anger, fury against all of the people there since many of them were Contra sympathisers. There were six dead from the cooperative: three adults, Jose Angel, Rameiro Bravo and Encarnacion Palma, two fourteen year old boys: Reynaldo Ramirez and Javier Perez (my nephew), and my daughter Zunilda, 20 years old. We laid all of our dead out in the church. It hurt my very soul to see little Javier with his head split open.

The Contra destroyed the school where we had been living. They burnt everything. All I had left was the clothing on my back and my children. We buried our dead on January 1st, 1985. The war worsened and the Sandinista Army came in to fight the Contra until they retreated.

I remained in Achuapa for a year - I had no food, no clothes, nothing. The cooperative had been destroyed. Most of all, our dreams and hopes and projects had been smashed. So many years of struggle reduced to ashes. I was alone, without my husband, without my daughter and with my heart broken into a thousand pieces. I was so alone. I didn't know what to do, where to turn.

In 1986 they started building houses in Lagartillo. I moved back up to the cooperative. I began to feel a little better. A doctor told me I should talk to people and to get out of the country for a while if possible. I laughed at that - how would I ever dream of leaving the country. Never did I imagine that that year Witness for Peace would ask me to do a speaking tour in the United States. I travelled with my friend Chantal Blanche, whose husband Mauricio Demeiere was assassinated by the Contra in 1985 in Somotillo. The objective of our trip was to publicise, at the international level, the atrocities committed by Ronald Reagan's mercenaries who have assassinated my husband, my daughter, my nephew and my friend, and so many thousands of Nicaraguans. A second purpose of the trip was to help me overcome the nervous crisis which I was suffering as a result of the tragedy.

We made an extensive trip throughout the United States, telling our story, denouncing all we could. We did all we could in the interest of stopping the war that we could live in peace and dignity. The trip helped me very much emotionally. Telling my story, sharing my tragedy over and over again was helpful. It also helped me feel that their deaths would not go unnoticed. I was going to tell as many people as possible of the tragedy in my country.

I returned to Nicaragua on October 19, 1986 and went directly to my house in the cooperative. There were many European brigadistas there - part of a Brigade which was formed in solidarity with Nicaragua and which took the name of my daughter Maria Zunilda. My life was changing little by little. I was coming back to life. The support of the people was so great. My daughter Coni developed a nervous condition as a result of the war which she has never overcome.

The cooperative began to advance little by little through our efforts and with international assistance. A new school was built, 15 houses, a water system was installed, the men began to work the fields more as the war moved to other areas of the country, and the women to milk the cows. Our children were studying and things were advancing.

In 1989 we began to prepare for the second free elections in Nicaragua. I had great hopes that the FSLN would win the elections so that the revolutionary project, which had helped us in so many ways, would continue. We worked very hard in the electoral campaign, but the result was terrible. The FSLN lost the elections and the disgraceful UNO coalition won - directed and financed by the United States. For me, this was the worst blow in the entire struggle for liberation. It was even worse than when I lost my family because their deaths were my personal loss; the loss of the revolution was the loss of freedom for my entire country. We were so shocked and traumatised. At first we couldn't even get up out of bed, didn't know what to do, what was going to happen, where to take the next step. All we had struggled and sacrificed for was gone. But little by little we began to find our way again. Our martyrs help a lot at these times of despair. I remember one day when I was sitting in the doorway of a friend's house, resting from a trip. I was very quiet, dozing, thinking about all that had hapened over all these years. In that moment I saw Maria Zunilda. She looked beautiful and I was so happy to see her. I sad, "Zunilda, I miss you so much. You look so beautiful - how can you be here, you are dead. We bury the dead and that's the end, that's what people say." She said to me, "That's a little lie Mommy. I'm fine except that we work so hard." "What do you mean, work so hard Zunilda?" I asked her. "We work for the revolution Mommy." Our martyrs show us that even when all hopes seem to be destroyed, gone, that our struggle continues. I dream of Jose Angel often. He comes to visit me, the children, I have a very definite sense that he has been with me. I feel that they are somewhere and I will see them again. I look forward to that.

Thy Will Be Done

2008-05-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

Thy Will Be Done by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett

INTRODUCTION

The dark, comforting silence of the confessional shattered as the tiny sliding door rapped open, spraying light through a small screen.
"Yes, my son?" encouraged the priest when the male voice, whispering, faltered.
Then, out of the shadows it came, a torrent of crimes so overpowering that Father Edgar smith's vow of silence shook to its Jesuit foundations.
Murder, the man explained, mass murder had been committed, and he, Ataide Pereira, had taken part. He could no longer live with his conscience. Besides, he had not been paid the $15 he was promised.
The victims were Cintas Largas, a small Indian tribe in the Brazilian Amazon. Named for the broad belts of bark that were their only clothing, this group of some 400 souls had lived for centuries along the Aripuana River, hunting and fishing with arrows dipped in curare, successfully resisting all intruders. But now Brazilian and foreign companies coveted their lands. The Indians were marked for removal. Since Brazilian law technically protected the Indians as wards of the state, only surreptitious violence could be used.
It was a common enough solution. The general overseer of a local rubber company, Francisco de Brito, had already earned the local title of Champion Indian Killer by taking any Indians he captured on a "visit to the dentist": the victim was forced to "open wide" and shot through the mouth with a pistol. But one band of Cintas Largas had eluded the final solution by living deep in the jungle. Fortunately for de Brito, a man was found who knew enough of the culture of Cintas Largas to tell him the precise day when most of the people of this village were likely to gather. The occasion would be deceptively joyful: their annual family reunion. The Indians would gather in the center of the village to pray, feast, and consult ancestral spirits represented by masquerading dancers.
De Brito concluded that the ceremony would be the perfect target for an aerial bombing. He hired a pilot and a commercial Cessna that flew over the village on the holy day, dropping sugar on the first pass and dynamite on the second. To hunt down the survivors seen fleeing into the jungle, de Brito turned to his underling, Chico, a man with a fondness for the machete. Pereira was one of Chico's recruits.
"We went by launch up the Juruena River," Pereira said.

There were six of us, men of experience, commanded by Chico, who used to shove his tommy gun in your direction whenever he gave you an order.
It took a good many days upstream to the Serra do Norte. After that we lost ourselves in the woods, although Chico had brought a Japanese compass with us. In the end the plane found us.
It was the same plane they used to massacre the Indians, and they threw us down some provisions and ammunition. After that we went on for five days. Then we ran out of food again.
We came across an Indian village that had to be wiped out... and we dug up some of the Indians' manioc for food and caught a few small fish. By this time we were fed up and some of us wanted to go back, but Chico said he'd kill anybody who tried to desert. It was another five days after that before we saw any smoke. Even then the Cintas Largas were days away.
We were all pretty scared of one another. In this kind of place people shoot each other and get shot, you might say, without knowing why. When they drill a hole in you, they have this habit of sticking an Indian arrow in the wound, to put the blame on the Indians.

The men hacked their way through the jungle, fighting off hordes of insects, enduring heat and downpurs. "We were handpicked for the job, as quiet as any Indian party when it came to slipping in and out of trees.
"When we got to Cintas Largas country, there were no more fires and no more talking. As soon as we spotted their village, we made a stop for the night. We got up before dawn, then we dragged ourselves yard by yard through the underbrush until we were in range, and after that we waited for the sun to come up."
The clamor of the jungle night hushed as dawn broke over the village. A young Indian boy of about five had just stepped out to watch his elders work on the new huts they were building, when a murderous barrage of bullets poured on the village, cutting the mend down where they stood. Armed whites appeared among the huts, firing their weapons indiscriminately, until only the boy and a young Indian girl (to whom he had fled for safety) were left. The terrified child was "yelling his head off." Pereira tried to stop Chico when he moved on the children, but Chico shrugged him off.
Chico shot the boy through the head. Pereira pleaded for the girl's life, reminding Chico of de Brito's penchant for prostituting Indian girls and of their own sexual appetites. Chico was unmoved. He gained sexual satisfaction through violence.
"We all thought he'd gone off his head," Pereira said, and we were pretty scared of him. He tied the Indian girl up and hung her head downward from a tree, legs apart, and chopped her in half right down the middle with his machete. Almost with a single stroke I'd say. The village was like a slaughterhouse.
He calmed down after he'd cut the woman up, and told us to burn down all the huts and throw the bodies into the river. After that we grabbed out things and started back. We kept going after nightfall, and we took care to cover our tracks... It took us six weeks to find the Cintas Largas, and about a week to get back.

When they arrived at Aripuana, a tropical Dodge City, Chico brought samples of ore he found in th earea to de Brito "to keep the company pleased."

Father Smith kept his head. Using all the powers of absolution at his command, he prevailed on Pereira to repeat his story on tape. "I want to say now that personally I've nothing against the Indians," Pereira claimed. But the Indians' lands were rich in gold, diamonds, and rare minerals. "The fact is the Indians are sitting on valuable land and doing nothing with it. They've got a way of finding the best plantation land, and there's all these valuable minerals about, too. They have to be persuaded to go, and if all else fails, well, then it has to be force." (1)
Father Smith turned over the tape to local authorities, demanding an investigation, but for years the 1963 massacre of the Cintas Largas was covered up. Three prosecutors had withdrawn from the case, claiming conflicts of interest. Only when a congressional outcry over the growing sales of Amazonian lands to foreign companies prompted revelations in 1968 by the interior minister of widespread Indian genocide did the attorney general press for a trial. The Cintas Largas massacre turned out not to be an exceptional case.
More than $62 million worth of Indian property had been stolen in the previous decade, and at least 1,000 crimes -- ranging from embezzlement to muder -- were laid at the doorstep of the government's world-acclaimed Indian agency, the Service for the Protection of the Indian (SPI). A special commission had spent fifty-eight days traveling 10,000 miles to survey the Indian tribes, visiting more than 130 posts.
The evidence of genocide was overwhelming. Twenty volumes of evidence had been collected, documenting the destruction of whole tribes. Attacks by outsiders using everything from poisoned food to clothing infected with smallpox had resulted in Indian deaths by the tens of thousands. Anthropologists' estimates of the Indian population in Brazil ranged from just below 100,000 to a high of 200,000 Indians in 1957.(2) By 1968, these estimates had been cut by 50 percent(3): anywhere from 40,000 to as many as 100,000 men, women, and children had died. The Indians north of the Amazon River had suffered particularly after 1964, when a military coup overthrew the elected government. Now nationalist army officers, led by General Albuquerque Lima, the interior minister, wanted the holocault stopped--along with the foreign corporate penetration of the Amazon that, they claimed, had fanned the flames.
By then, however, most of the witnesses of the Cintas Largas massacre, as well as Father Smith, either had disappeared or were dead. The archives of the SPI had been destroyed in a mysteroius fire. Finally, guns and tanks intervened. A military coup in December 1968, the second in four years, deposed the nationalist attorney general and the interior minister. None of the 134 SPI officials charged with crimes would ever stand trial. The attorney general's charge that SPI had been corrupted by starvation of government resources and "the disastrous impact of missionary activity" remained officially ignored. So did the claim of Jornal do Brasil in 1968 that "in reality, those in command of these Indian Protection posts are North American missionaries--they are in all the posts--and they disfigure the original Indian culture and enforce the acceptance of Protestantism."(4) But officials of the American Fundamentalist missionary organization that worked with the SPI among the tribes--the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), known in the United States by its less scientific alias, the Wycliffe Bible Translators--denied that any genocide took place. The head of SIL's branch in Brazil disclaimed all reports of genocide,(5) and the founder of SIL, William Cameron Townsend, denied any knowledge of the massacres at all.(6)
The Cintas Largas case--and the Indians themselves--seemed slated for oblivion until The Sunday Times of London resurrected the genocide the charge in 1969. Norman Lewis again raised the specter of foreign companies moving into the Brazilian Amazon. He reported that "deposits of rare metals were being found in the area [of the Cintas Largas[. What these metals were was not clear. Some sort of security blackout had been imposed, only fitfully penetrated by vague reports of the activities of American and European companies, and of the smuggling of planeloads of the said rare metals back to the U.S.A."(7)
A little over a year later, the International Police Academy, a school in Washington sponsored by the Agency for International Development (AID) but actually run by the CIA,(8) would report that a new Indian Guard was being trained in Brazil.(9) The Indian Guard, modeled after the Tribal Police of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), was placed under the authority of the regime's hurried replacement for the disgraced SPI, the National Foundation for the Indian (known in Brazil by its Portuguese acronym, FUNAI). FUNAI, in turn, was placed under the command of the former chief of military intelligence. It woudl take another two years before a top FUNAI agent would reveal that the Indian Guard was rounding up resisting Indians for "reeducation" at a concentration camp at Crenaque in the mining state of Minas Gerais.(10) "I am tired of being a gravedigger of the Indians," the agent stated on resigning from FUNAI. "I do not intend to contribute to the enrichment of economic groups at the cost of the extinction of primitive cultures."(11) By then, FUNAI had adopted the BIA's policy of leasing Indian lands to mining companies, while its military superiors in the interior ministry in Brasilia were cooperating with the U.S. Geological Survey in an AID-sponsored aerial survey of the Amazon.(12)
Among the American companies that would be allowed to enter the Cintas Largas reservation to explore for cassiterite, a vital component in tin production, was a firm partly controlled by a friend of Nelson Rockefeller.

In June 1969, a huge silver jet bearing the words "The United States of America" descended toward the airport of Brasilia, the nation's futuristic capital in the Amazon basin. As the airliner's shadow passed over the shining steel and glass buildings that symbolized Brazil's pledge to conquer its wild interior, thousands of soldiers surrounded the ultramodern airport and lined the streets. Air Force Two landed with a screech and rolled toward the crowd of dignitaries waiting near the terminal. A door swung out and a man, his familiar square jaw cradling a wide smile, stepped briskly down the ramp. Nelson Rockefeller had arrived.
To most of the American Embassy staff, Rockefeller was just another powerful politician who happened to be a very wealthy man. He was the Republican governor of New York who had twice failed to win his party's presidential nomination. By all accounts, he was not through yet. His presence here on a presidential fact-finding tour left little room for doubt about his political ambitions.
But to many of the Brazilian dignitaries on hand, Nelson Rockefeller was much more than rich politician. He was, to a degree, a personification of their fondest hopes in a troubled world. Perhaps more important, he was also a living symbol of the past, beginning thirty years before when they knew him simply as the Coordinator.
These Brazilians were aware of another, much less public Rockefeller: the Latin American Rockefeller. During World War II, as U.S. Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, he had waged relentless economic and psychological warfare across the hemisphere against striking Indian workers and Nazi sympathizers with seemingly equal zeal. Then, as Franklin Roosevelt's assistant secretary of state for Latin America, he had launched the Cold War before it had even been declared, fusing hemispheric unity against the Soviets at the Pan American Conference in 1945 and that year's founding conference of the United Nations. His success in laying the legal foundation for a regional military pact paved the way for the Organization of American States (OAS), for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and for the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which became the raison d'etre for the war in Vietnam. Here was a proven ally against communists, whether homegrown or foreign.
He was also a valued economic ally. His personal sense of mission, inherited from his family's religious traditions and their unswerving Calvinistic belief in the uplifting capacities of capitalism, had been tempered by a respect for Latin culture rare among North Americans. His almost evangelical enthusiasm for developing capitalism in the Third World had been vital in launching America's foreign aid programs, especially Harry Truman's Point Four program. Under Dwight Eisenhower, he took this commitment to unparalleled if hidden heights as the president's personal liaison with the CIA as special assistant for Cold War strategy and psychological warfare. Long a confidant to presidents and business leaders throughout Latin America, Rockefeller was a trusted partner and quiet owner of vast ranches, giant banks, mines, and even--through IBEC, one of the hemisphere's largest diversified corporations--supermarkets. An heir to oil holdings in Central and South America, he was also brother of David Rockefeller, chairman of one of the region's prime sources of capital, Chase Manhattan Bank.
Nelson Rockefeller was, in short, Richard Nixon's perfect emissary to the southern American hemisphere's most powerful circles. He was a vigorous enthusiast schooled in the mutual subtleties of high finance and foreign aid, steeped in the rich cultural and political life of Latin America, and privy to the most secret U.S. intelligence operations in the region--an insider among insiders on the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. All this power, in turn, stemmed from the wealth created by Standard Oil, the firm his legendary grandfather had founded and steered toward its eventual dominance over Latin America's oil trade.
It was to his grandfather tht Nelson owed his presence in Brazil this day. John D. Rockefeller, Sr., was th esoruce of his power and inspiration of his life. Strategically poised like a medieval robber baron at the crossroads of an industrializing world, the elder Rockefeller had extracted a personal treasure larger than anything th eworld had ever seen and--in relative terms--would probably ever see or allow again. From his steel will an empire had been forged, stretching along rail lines across America and then beyond, to the oil seeps of Latin America and the markets of the world.
Oil had brought Nelson Rockefeller to Brazil decades before, and the country had always been one of his favorites. Its vast Amazonian heartland held the shining dream of a new frontier for the Western world, much as the American West had captured the imagination of his grandfather's generation. The challege of the West, symbolized by the Indians and the virgin lands they defended, had been met not just by troops and railroads; the religious missionaries funded by Grandfather and the secular missionaries sent out by Grandfather's great foundation had played vital roles. Now the missionary zeal powered Nelson's drive into the Amazon. And for his zeal, Nelson owed a great debt to his childhood memories of the world of his fathers.

The God of Small Things

2008-04-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

The God of Small Things: A Novel
By Arundhati Roy

The History House.

Where, in the years that followed, the Terror (still-to-come) would be buried in a shallow grave. Hidden under the happy humming of hotel cooks. The humbling of old Communists. The slow death of dancers. The toy histories that rich tourists came to play with.

It was a beautiful house.

White-walled once. Red-roofed. But painted in weather-colors now. With brushes dipped in nature's palette. Mossgreen. Earthbrown. Crumbleblack. Making it look older than it really was. Like sunken treasure dredged up from the ocean bed. Whale-kissed and barnacled. Swaddled in silence. Breathing bubbles through its broken windows.

A deep verandah ran all around. The rooms themselves were recessed, buried in shadow. The tiled froof swept down the sides of an immense, upside-down boat. Rotting beams supported on once-white pillars had buckled at the center, leaving a yawning, gaping hole. A History-hole. A History-shaped Hole in the Universe through which, at twilight, dense clouds of silent bats billowed like factory smoke and drifted into the night.

They returned at dawn with news of the world. A gray haze in the rosy distance that suddenly coalesced and blackened over the house before it plummeted through the History-hold like smoke in a film running backwards.

All day they slept, the bats. Lining the roof like fur. Spattering the floors with shit.

They were, all three of them, wearing saris (old ones, torn in half) that day. Estha was the draping expert. He pleated Sophie Mol's pleats. Organized Rahel's pallu and settled his own. They had red bindis on their foreheads. In the process of trying to wash out Ammu's forbidden kohl, they had smudged it all over their eyes, and on the whole looked like three raccoons trying to pass off as Hindu ladies. ...

The next day Estha and Rahel took her with them to visit Velutha.

They visited him in saris, clumping gracelessly through red mud and long grass (nictitating ictitating tating ating ting ing) and introduced themselves as Mrs. Pillai, Mrs. Eapen and Mrs. Rajagopalan. Velutha introduced himself and his paralyzed brother Kuttappen (although he was fast asleep). He greeted them with the utmost courtesy. He addressed them all as Kochamma and gave them fresh coconut water to drink. He chatted to them about the weather. The river. The fact that in his opinion coconut trees were getting shorter by the year. As were the ladies in Ayemenem. He introduced them to his surly hen. He showed them his carpentry tools, and whittled them each a little wooden spoon.

It is only now, these years later, that Rahel with adult hindsight recognized the sweetness of that gesture. A grown man entertaining three raccoons, treating them like real ladies. Instinctively colluding in the conspiracy of their fiction, taking care not to decimate it with adult carelessness. Or affection.

It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain. To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do.

Let's head South by Orlando Nunez

2008-04-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

Let's head South; in alliance with the associations navigating in the democracy-social justice contradiction.

Orlando Nunez, sociologist and sandinista intellectual, joined today the public administration as an adviser of the program Zero Hunger, analyzed the tendencies of the new FSLN government, in a talk with Envio that we transcribed. April 2007 Translated from the spanish at http://envio.org.ni/articulo/3512

I'm going to point out the tendencies that I perceive in the new government and I'm going to do it as an analyst, not as a miliant of the Frente Sandinista o as a government functionary. It seems to me that this way I'll handle a compass much more adequately.

I see that in Nicaragua the state, in the last 16 years of neoliberal governments, has had a profile: government + transnational corporations. What profile is the the new state now taking? A profile between government + assocations. That is what I perceive. I don't want this to mean that corporations don't exist anymore nor that this government isn't going to have links with corporations. It means that we are in a government-associations-corporations triangle and that the government is prioritizing the link with the associations. I think that, if some new state will be born in Latin America, it will be a state that also constructs that profile, not prioritizing to the corporations, but to the associations. To all: to the political ones, the social ones, the cultural ones, the civil ones, the religious ones... All these associations are growing, developing and wearing new flags in Latin America. From my point of view, the most important to achieve transformations will be the associations. It's fundamental that in the assocations we encounter economic subjects that can substitute for corporations and private capital. I believe that if there's something attractive in the new government, something that can nourish our old hopes, is the relation between the government and the associations.

In the 20th century all of the social justice objectives were administrated from a government with a socialist state. The soviets -who could have been the associations, the advisors- never got started. They didn't walk. And socialism -the project to eliminate private capitalist property and the social difference- was administred from above. From the Executive Power. And the history and the experience has shown us in Nicaragua that, when the Presidency is lost, the Executive Power, reverts everything in a day. In a day everything is reverted to a state model. Including experiences longer than ours of market intervention, like that of the Soviet Union, which lasted 80 years, the day that they lost the Executive Power, they reverted everything, everything constructed in 80 years they lost in a day.

If we have already learned this lesson, we cannot place hope of substituting the capitalist relations and of constructing a new society only with the Executive Power. We have learned that that transformation depends on constructing new relations of production, constructing new economic subjects with the people organized in assocations. When there aren't new economic subjects there's not going to be new society. Every new society is new not because there's a new government, but because there's a new economic subject. In Nicaragua, first there were the encomenderos [Ref #1], afterwards the landowners, afterwards the national bourgeois, and lastly the transnational bourgeois. And today we are constructing the new economic subject, that is that which could give viability to this project: the small and medium producers association or the workers administrating enterprises.

Nicaragua is inserted in the new processes that are giving in Latin America. These processes originated with two orientations. Orientated towards the south. And orientated towards the associations. With the orientation towards the south it gives continuity to what were the movements of national liberation, to that autodetermination that we search for years ago and to which the Empire adapted. The new latin american governments are going towards the South and in the South they search for bigger markets, and they search for integration. And they do it resisting the great efforts that the United States has made to integrate the South into the North.

The new latin american governments also have an orientation towards the associations. They don't only search to link economically with the private sector large and medium, but also with the associations, whose development is going to depend not only on the political will of the government, but also on this new economic subject formed as such. Because if they dont exist, if they aren't formed, how would the government link with them? The links of the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity with the government of Venezuela are going in this direction. When I talk of "unity and national reconciliation" this means to take sandinismo out of the isolation that is has been in for 16 years, it means to remove the veto that weighs over the Sandinista Front to be an option of alternative power in Nicaragua. To speak of reconciliation is not to ignore the contradictions nor the class struggle. It is to take conscience that the reconciliation is necessary because the people politically organized in the Sandinista Front have been excluded and vetoed in Nicaragua. The reconciliation is a project so that the popular sectors join together. Because the contradiction with sandinismo is not only caused in Parliament. It is in the peasantry, the working class, in the workers for their own account. What we propose is the reconciliation of the popular sectors. Because if they are divided they are never going to be able to defend their interests.

The relation of the Sandinista Front with Venezuela was initiated before the November 5 electoral victory. And it originated precisely with an agreement between the government of Venezuela and a federation of nicaraguan cooperatives, the Nicaraocoop: they would import urea from Venezuela and sell it in the country at lower prices. The symbolic result that the relation with Venezuela had begun before the Front would take Executive Power and that Venezuala had not made this agreement with a corporation, but with an association of cooperatives, that enter the market and with the rules of the market enter to compete with the traditional economic agents. And they achieve and they win. And not because they're superior morally, politically or socially to the traditional entrepreneurs, but beacause they know how to do it with economic superiority.

A cooperative is not going to displace the capitalist system being morally superior, but for being competitive economically. And now, this economic subject that is Nicaraocoop, is selling the urea seven dollars less per 100kg, and has already displaced 50% of the private sector that commercializes urea in Nicaragua. And this is not a small thing, because the entrepreneurs of ANIFODA (Asociación Nicaragüense de Formuladores y Distribuidores de Agroquímicos) have had the monopoly on urea for 40 years and in so many years have only installed four points of distribution in all of the country. Today, these cooperatives, in less than one year of work, already have 50% of the market and 60 points of distribution and already begin to incorporate cooperatives from El Salvador. It is with that cooperation and solidarity, with that organization, that we can win the competition against private entrepreneurs.

We see then that the rotation towards the south is not only of the Sandinista Front and the government of unity and national reconciliation. Also rotating towards the south are the most progressive expressions of nicaraguan society, as the cooperatives. And they rotate for their own interests. Liberalism sold us the idea that private interests coincide with social interests. Adam smith said that the search of private interests would guarantee the social wellbeing. Today we see, in this case we see, that the interests of cooperatives -which aren't totally collective nor public- improve the conditions of the society together. It is a show of what the governement was already doing before the change, including with an opposing government. Because it must be remembered that Norman Caldera, the Chancellor of the government of Enrique Bolaños, affirmed that the venezuelan urea was to make explosives and that we were doing a "dumping" on the private entrepreneurs.

It's very interesting to see that, when the Sandinista Front arrived in government, they said to this fedaration of cooperatives that the State was going to administer the venezuelan urea project, we decided that the associations will continue administering. We privatize, then. We privatize also, as neoliberalism does. But not to favor the corporations, but to favor the associations. The capitalist system itself, which has favored privatizations in all of the world, has created the conditions for this rotation towards the collective privatization. That this orientation walks will not depend only on the political will of the sandinista government, but also that associations exist.

Today not all the development cooperation happens by the governments. Administrating development projects through private entities is already a tendency. The United States has given 172 million dollars to the departments of León and Chinandega from the Millenium Challenge account for the construction of Highways and streets. But they didn't do it through the presupposed, the State, the government, but to administer it, they created a foundation in which are mayors and associations. This example speaks to us of what seems to be a tendency and not an ideological matter. And it is an interesting tendency, because even though the collective is not everything we want, it opens a path towards that.

Another example prior to the change of government is that of literacy. Before the 5 of November a NGO was taking charge of a social task, the alphabetization of adults with the cuban method "Yo si puedo" [yes I can]. Now, the sandinista government is not going to take charge of that project. It will not be made public nor will it pass to the Ministry of Education, but it will be assigned to that NGO which initiated it. As they see, it has nothing to do with the profile of the state of the 80s. We have another example with the productive food bonus, delivered to campesina families a cow, a sow, hens, seeds, and a biodigestor. This project, which seeks to guarantee food security, has been administered for many years by a NGO, CIPRES. Now it will pass to be of State politics within the program Zero Hunger, but that same NGO will continue working with the project, now drawing into participation hundreds of other NGOs, which are already organizing. Thare are already 130 organized NGOs, with their selected families in Esteli, Madriz, Nuevo Segovia and in rural Managua.

These three or four examples show the tendency we are in: pass from a State with the profile Government + Corporations, to a State with the profile Government + Associations. The struggle to achieve it will not only be political but also economic and must be organized not only politically but also economically, including taking advantage of the rules imposed by the right in these years.

In Nicaragua we are in a transition whose principal contradiction is not only North-South but also Democracy-Social Justice. Democracy is a political form of managing society. If the society is capitalist, a good democracy will manage well that society. To be administrating well a capitalist society will not cheer us all, although the proceedings of that administration would be ethical, transparent, representative and governable. Because if the society is capitalist, the governability also will be capitalist. On the other hand there is social justice, which means to transform reality. Many years ago it wasn't important to us much how we transformed it, we prioritized the transformation. The social justice was the end and the means weren't important to us. Now, in this new government, we are trying to transform and do social justice, but from a more democratic perspective. But there are contradictions. Because if I ask and consult those of Managua if they are prepared to reduce their consumption of water so that there's more in Juigalpa or in Río Coco, they are going to tell me no. And if I say to the teachers that the budget to raise their salaries we are going to give to the campesinos, that they are poorer than them, they won't accept it. And if, although they aren't in agreement, I do it, in the name of social justice, I'm going to forsake democracy, I will compel the will of the people. But if I don't do it, social justice will recede, although they will call me a democrat. Sometimes democracy and social justice can coincide, but there will always be a tension. This is seen most clearly in the distribution of the national budget.

I'm involved in work with the productive food bonus. My proposal is that we start with the people from Río Coco and continue with the northern zone, Madriz and Nueva Segovia, and with rural Managua, the three poorest sectors of the countryside. That is my proposal, but if I consult Chinandega, they are goign to tell me them first, that they don't want to wait. That is what the mayors are telling me, the political secretaries of the Front, and all of rural Chinandega society. What do we do? If we opt for the poorest, I'm foresaking the principal that says we are all equal and I'm infuriating those who asked that we start with Chinandega and León. We will be in contradictions like this every day.

In Río Coco, a trip from Wiwilí to Waspan costs 1,700 dollars round trip, in a boat with outboard motor for four people. I met with the 40 NGOs of the coast to organize the productive food bonus and they told me that there they invest 8 million dollars, but little reached the population, because of all the transportation expenses. Then, what we did first was go to PETRONIC and proposed that they subsidize the transport in the Carribean Coast to guarantee the program Zero Hunger. "And how do we do that?" they asked me. Well, take away from the subsidy of transport of Managua, I told them. And they looked at me like I was crazy. "And they of Managua aren't in solidarity, they don't want social justice?" And if I consult the people of Managua, they are going to agree? The contradiction between social justice and democracy we will always have, and we are all in that contradiction.

The approval in Parliament of the productive food bonus was very positive, institutionalizing the project. But we won't always be able to do that nor will we always achieve it. We will have to learn to deal with the contradiction between respect for institutions and the measures of social justice. And of course we have to seek institutions. Because institutions generate consensus. And every project needs consensus. After the 20th century, its difficult to carry forward projects of social justice with minority politics. A project of revolutionary transformation needs majority politics.

Democracy is not an end, its a means. But democracy also transforms. We can't conform with a democracy that consists of permitting us to vote every five years. Or with a democracy where only the government executes the public budgets. We can't confuse the respect for institutions with the respect for institutions of yesterday. We must not fall in love with existing institutions because we could put the brake on social justice. We have to construct democratically other institutions. The law is made to be observed. But also to change. Besides, law is not justice. One must observe law because another doesn't remain, but we can change them, better. And the Constitution? The Constitution also expresses a type of society, but if I dont agree with that type of society, if it's a capitalist society, I have to seek how to change the constitution.

It's necessary that we get used to the contradiction between democracy and social justice, because we are going to navigate in it during these five years. Sometimes they are going to coincide and alot of times not. There's alot of people becoming enthusiastic with institutions. The current agenda of the right is institutions: that it passes in Parliament, that it passes in the Supreme Court of Justice, that it passes with the government, that it passes with Rosario Murillo... His agenda is not social justice, but that institutions function. But, which institutions? Those that give governability to this capitalist system.

As in this government we want to prioritize social justice, when we travel to Venezuela we present to the venezuelan government what Nicaragua needs most and we say: energy, construction and public investment and facing the problem of poverty. Energy, because the country was paralized. That's why the first agreement was to bring small plants, of emergency, to produce the 60 megavolt deficit that we have in the hours of major consumption. Those plants are worth 120 million dollars. It's an agreement that still has not been formalized and for not formalizing, we are forcing institutionality. But it was our priority to resolve the problem of energy.

Before acquiring these plants, there was already an agreement with the government of Venezuela with the mayors -not with the government of Bolaños- to provide us petroleum under favorable conditions. That agreement has now been made concrete: 10 million barrels per year, the annual consumption of Nicaragua, 60% of that supply to be paid in three months -but we can pay it with products, which opens us an opportunity to export- and the other 40% to be paid in 25 years. After the electoral victory of the Sandinista Front we are in a discussion: This agreement stays in the hands of the mayors or passes to the State? I say that if it passes to the State and afterwards the state loses the Executive Power, everything will be privatized. But, on the other hand, we don't yet have new economic subjects to take charge of the agreement. 40 gas station owners from a cooperative arrived at the secretary of the Sandinista Front saying that they would take charge. But this deals with hundreds of millions of dollars. And there we see the contradiction: the new economic subjects aren't developed to take charge of the State.

Other agreements with Venezuela relating to energy are the technical and legal assistance to produce hydroelectric, geothermal, wind and biomass energy. With the objective of liberating ourselves from petroleum. And that great agreement that consists in the construction in Nicaragua of a refinery that exports venezuelan fuel refined here to the United States. The earnings, 7 dollars per barrel, would stay in Nicaragua. In energy, Venezuela is going to invest very much in Nicaragua. Only the refinery cost 2,500 million dollars. Those 10 million annual barrels of petroleum represent another 600 million dollars. And another 500 million in other projects. It is a cooperation of much significance, a level of cooperation with Nicaragua equivalent to all of the other countries in the next five years.

When one studies Economics, they teach that the two axis of accumulation are energy and construction, the horizontal -highways, ports, airports- as well as the vertical: houses, buildings. In construction, we requested from Chávez that the venezuelan army unite with the nicaraguan army to construct highways. And they accepted. The two armies are going to construct the highway from Bilwi to Río Blanco, with that which will complete the dream to unite the Pacific with the Atlantic. This year they are going to prioritize the twenty payments so that, at least, it can happen already. In construction, that is the main project and there are also projects to repair schools and other minor projects.

There are other venezuelan investments: aluminum factories, bag factories. They are investments of lesser costs. There is also cooperation in forms of credit: 37 million dollars to begin, through the Development Bank and the Bank of Foreign Trade of Venezuela, which will function in Nicaragua with a branch, under the laws of the Superintendent of Banks. That 37 million will come to construct that new model. 10 million isn't reimbursable and it was decided that it would go directly to education. And we're going to see how we'll do it without forcing the democratic institutionality. With the program Zero Hunger we don't force it. We proposed 180 million cordobas for the productive food bonus and the Parliament approved. There was a strong argument, but at the end they accepted.

Another 10 million of the 37 million in venezuelan credit will be for the associations of cooperatives. Credit at 5% for the cooperatives of small producers from the field, above all for the producers of sesame, for the cooperatives of Amerrisque [mountain range in Nicaragua], which are of milk, for those of CAFENICA, of coffee, and for institutions of credit like CARUNA and SIFINA. We know that the small credit in the field is always very expensive, but the venezuelan proposal is that the interest rate doesnt pass 5%. That is not a policy against the microfinancers, it's a policy in favor of the cooperatives.

These small producers have already went 16 years without access to credit. And they are important producers, because all of the sesame produced, processed and exported from Nicaragua comes 100% from those cooperatives. I mean, that to give them credit is not a only a matter of wilfulness. It's that the country is changing and those changes took place during the neoliberal governments and that signifies that the small producers went ahead all by themselves. These are the new economic subjects, that have been made superior to the old economic subjects, but not by arms nor by votes in Parliament nor by political tricks, but by the laws of economics.

The cooperatives of the 80s broke up because they were constructed from above. They must be constructed from below. The ones I'm talking about were made not only from below, but against all of the liberal governments and without credit. They struggled. And changed the country. The country is changing: producers with less than 5 manzanas already produce 100% of sesame. In coffee, the small producers produce 60%, in beans and corn 100%, in hill rice 40% and the percntage tends to grow because the big rice producers are converting into factories: they import the rice from the United States, remove the cazulla and sell it.

There were other agreements with Venezuela. For example, support for the commercialization of campesino products in cornerstores. We are working with all of the cornerstores in Managua affiliated with FNT -not because they're affiliated with FNT, but because they are the ones organized economically- so that they'll distribute campesino products.

With all of these agreements with Venezuela we are on route towards the south and on route towards the associations. On those routes we're going to encounter many contradictions, many problems. And we're going to commit alot of errors. But what's important is the direction of the project. It won't be easy in a society like ours, that's not made for that project. For example, there are campesinos that tell us: "They say you guys want to break don Tuto Navarro -who is a producer of urea-; and why do you all want to break him, poor guy? That is revanchismo [Ref 2]." And we explain to them that it's for the benefit of the cooperatives. But they don't always understand it. And the measures of social justice aren't always nice. And if they're measures of force they're unpleasant. I say that this is a sandinista government in a liberal society. Because the culture in Nicaragua is liberal and although the people are victims of liberalism, they still want it.

The companeros from Venezuela have their model. They call it 21st century socialism. It's a model mounted over a very political route, over the Councils. For me the security of a project is in the economic associations. But it seems that these Councils are also a tendency. One must remember that in these 16 years dozens of councils were created in Nicaragua, from the CONPES to the councils of departmental development, the councils of municipal development, councils of production in all of the ministries, councils of education... It seems that this is also a tendency everywhere. And the sandinista government, this government of unity and reconciliation, continues over that same route. There are contradictions: that that council works or doesn't work, that my councils are better... There are political arguments, but what's clear is that the culture of the councils is proceeding, that it was proceeding with neoliberalism and that its going to proceed with our project.

One must have in mind that in the South are also, of course, Cuba, Libia, Iran, that are the South, even though they aren't congenial with the West, but they are the South. We also get offers of cooperation from them. The Iranians are offering to construct agricultural machinary for all of Central America. Because Nicaragua is a very tiny market. They plan on Central America, they see Central America as an option. Likewise the Europeans, who are the "good guys". They also tell us: join together, if not, no business with you guys.

The integration is a global tendency, in the North as well as the South. It's a sign of our times that the South wants to integrate itself. That is the common denominator of the South in this hour. There are alot of analysts that compare the left of Bachelet, who is "good and civilized" -although a socialist government there, the one of Lagos, privatized the water-, who is "very congenial", with the left of Lula, who is "less congenial", and that of Chavez, who is "ugly". But, independently of how Bachelet's is, how is Lula and how is Chavez. All are for the integration. There are people that want to see contradictions between Chavez and Lula. For some Lula is lazy and for others Chaves is a dictator. But, which is the common denominator of both? Why don't we see the common denominators? I say that this government is going to have to govern with two hands, with the right and with the left, with the North and with the South. Because we have strong pressures. And because we have limits. As we had limits in the 80s, when we didn't respect a reality that was not transforming at the political velocity we wanted. When is the CAFTA-ALBA tension going to end? I believe that it will maintain. It is a contradiction that we're going to have to administrate. We have more sympathy for ALBA. And the major suport won't come to us from CAFTA, but from ALBA. But we see the reality and we administrate the contradiction. One must not hide the options and the contradictions that generate those options one must learn to administer.

Resuming: the orientation of this government is towards the South and towards the associations, always navigating in the contradiction between democracy and social justice. Through there we're going to advance. And we will advance more if we construct a project. We still don't have in Nicaragua a project. The mystical and the ethical are scarce. But neither the mystical nor the ethical are born alone, they're born when there is a project. Show me a project and I'll show you saints! Because when one finds a project they get excited and nothing matters. It's like when one is in love.

What is important now? That we construct a project so that we fall in love with that project. Not a party, but a project. The party is a mean, the government is a mean. The end is the project of the people. In politics the ends justify the means. And in the civilian world it's the reverse: the means count more than the ends, the ends are sacrificed for the means. That's why sometimes we like a well educated politician more than one poorly educated, although the ends of one will favor capital and the other will favor justice. Because in the field of the civilian what's important are the means, and in the political it's the ends. That is still the reality, even though we don't like it. We will also live with that contradiction over these five years. And we have to accept it, we have to understand it. And we have to learn to navigate in that contradiction.

Ref 1: Spanish colonist in charge of an encomienda and its Indian laborers.

Ref 2: coming from revancha, in french revanche, which means revenge. the english revanchist is "an advocate or supporter of a political policy of revanche, esp. in order to seek vengeance for a previous military defeat." and "A usually political policy, as of a nation or an ethnic group, intended to regain lost territory or standing." both from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/revanchism

last two weeks in guatemala

2007-11-05T13:09:00.001-08:00

I want to apologize to those of you that exposed yourselves to my
scream in the last post on La Union. I hope its apparent that I was not attacking you, the reader, without attacking myself. I know nobody likes a negative nelly, and that we all prefer inspirational tracts that offer easy solutions, or atleast a solution. But maybe that is the problem, and to show that may be my purpose. That we ought to search for solutions, that we ought to create our own space and develop our own ideas, rather than merely consume the schemes of others to save the planet. I did not want my scream to silence ya'll, but to aggravate you to the point where you will stand up and scream back. But nobody did. So I thought maybe I'm screaming to the wrong crowd, maybe I should appeal to those who dwell in the aldeas for help, maybe I should ask the people we want to help about how we should help them. And I will do that, right after I improve my spanish. But I don't want to do it alone. We want to build bridges, to connect cultures (hat tip to La Limonada), so we know where we want to go (and if we can't choose that then what does it mean to be human?). It's not a one person job, and that's why we need your help. I need to know you're there, that you care, otherwise we might give up, we might be something less than human, less than free. Our pocketbooks and bank accounts are already well connected by a multitude of NGOs, GOs, and MNCs. But what about our minds, our hearts, our (social) movements? We won't make the world better with more money, you can't save the children with $20/month. What ever happened to thinking, to trying, to communicating? I'm not (necessarily) talking about volunteering, or interning. I'm not talking about seeking new titles, new letters after our name, and more credibility just for the sake of more credibility (or is it the bigger salary). What about creating new space, imagining new opportunities? I guess we could leave it to somebody else. Look around, and see where that's gotten us. Is it safe to wake? Can we scream in this dream?

LA LIMONADA

The other night a hostel employee said if you want to see the real guatemala go to La Limonada (the lemonade), a barrio of guatemala city. I had already been there on a visit to a school called Plantio de Jehova. I heard about it because a girl in a masters program in international development was at the hostel where her boyfriend was staying on a visit. She is volunteering there for Build a Bridge International for her masters progam, living with the directora of the school and doing art therapy with the kids. She mentioned that one time she asked the kids to draw what made them happy, and a seven year old drew a gun.

The first thing I saw when I arrived (with the directora) was a group of five or six teenage boys sitting down sniffing glue from plastic bags. The directora, who knew most of them on a first-name basis, pointed one out to me and said he had recently killed a woman during a robbery. I asked why he wasn't in jail and she said "welcome to guatemala". The first house we visited had recently suffered structural damage due to a mudslide. The kids in the family do not go to her school, and I dont know how her funding works, but she bought them new materials to repair the place.

So check out the pics. Particularly interesting was a miracle the directora almost forgot to point out to me. This is an opportunity for you engineering (or not) students to do something right from your computer. Between the mudslides that already happened and the eventual landslide right under the foundation of the school, what can be done to prevent and avert such disasters? Is there already a group that addresses such problems, perhaps engineers without borders? Would it help to alert them to the challenges La Limonada is facing with these problems? I haven't done so, maybe you can.

GUATEMALA CITY DUMP

The next place I visited was the guatemala city cemetary and dump. They are adjacent to each other. The cemetary was quite enchanting. Somebody told me that when nobody comes to pay rent for the gravesite they throw the casket into the dump. You know you're near the dump when you see an enormous flock of vultures circling in the air. They all roost in one section of the cemetary near the dump. One of the boys I met was particularly interesting. His mom worked in the dump and his dad worked as a security guard (who are armed to the teeth here in Guatemala, most have shotguns and some even carry oozies) in one of the rich zones. He's been working in the dump since he was 7, and up until last year was also going to school. He had to stop going to school for financial reasons. He was being supported by Potters House, but they couldn't support him anymore for lack of funds, as he told me, so he can't go to college but he would like to. I couldn't find anywhere on the Potters House website where they mentioned they had to cut programs for lack of funds. Oh well, and so it goes.

Several people in the dump told me they aim to make $100 Quetzales a day, with which they are happy. They told me they work there because its more money than other work. No children were present, and this is enforced by police at the front gate who ask people for IDs. There used to be children there, but I'm not sure how long ago. Now the children of workers spend the day with Camino Seguro, a charity that Laura Bush once visited, and supposedly offers tours and whatnot. A friend of the girl that volunteers for Plantio de Jehova, from the same masters program, is doing her internship with Camino Seguro. Soon a 19 year old offered to take me on a tour. He said up until about 6 or 7 months ago there used be big groups of gringos walking around quite often, but not anymore. I asked him if it was OK to take pictures and he said sure, so I started taking a bunch. Soon enough the cops came and told me to go with them. They asked me for what I was taking the pictures, and told me they aren't permitted. Then they made me delete the ones of the dump. I guess I should be happy they didn't confiscate the camera. I recovered most of the pictures with a shareware program, which left the watermarks on some of the images in the album.

La Union Otra Vez

I took two bus trips to La Union from Gualan in total this time. On the first one I was seated next to a woman with an unusually lethargic baby (who did not appear to wake up once during the extremely uncomfortable and noisy bus ride) with thin hair. She had a cell phone. I didn't ask her what she did. On the next one I was seated next to a lady with a daughter who appeared to be about 10, so actually was probably closer to 12. This girl had a bloated stomach, a probable sign of parasites. I asked her what they did in Gualan, and she said they sold oranges. They bought the oranges from somebody else's farm in La Union, and sold them in Gualan, on a good day netting (after the costs) 50 or 60 quetzales. Her husband is a coffee farmer. I don't know if she had a cell phone.

I also learned a bit about the rural school system in La Union. It turns out that if a child comes to school with parasites (which a teacher told me happened "all the time" in one of the aldeas she had worked at), they will send him/her to the health center, and the teachers will also give the child worm medications that they receive from the health center themselves (there's no nurse on staff). The worms always come back because the conditions in the home don't change. A school of 250 children will have 4 or 5 teachers (who are paid $1800 Q per month, btw). Of those 250 only 180 come to school. The rest never do because they live so far away, and have to walk up to two hours to get to school. One time a professor (teachers who teach high school) went with some of the teachers to visit the children who live real far away, to try and convince the fathers to send the kids to school. The fathers threatened them bodily harm if they returned. The school year starts on Jan 14, but the students don't start coming to school until February, after the coffee harvest is over. The kids get brunch midway through the day, which is made by a rotating team of volunteer mothers. One other thing, remember Incaparina, the nutritional supplement distributed by the nutrition center and manufactured exclusively in Guatemala by contract-holding Cerveceria Centroamericana? I saw a commercial for it when I was on my way to La Union. There was a guy struggling on a pull-up bar, until a girl walks by and he starts counting loudly in the mid-70s range. The scene cuts and they show a package of Incaparina. So I guess it works equally well for getting buff and alieving child malnutrition. Remember that the Castillo Cordova foundation, a social project of Cerveceria Centroamericana, was appealing for donations of Incaparina? A social project of a beer company appealing for donations of a product manufactured by its own beer company (exclusively, by contract with the government). I could say that three more times and still want to say it again.

Some bosses from the foundation were at the center one of the days I visited. One was wearing a shirt with the logo of the foundation as well as a Gallo beer logo. I asked him how we could buy the shirts but he said we can't; too bad, they were kind of cool looking. Another guy was wearing the shirt, logoed windpants, and a Gallo hat. They were in town because they were taking some of the community leaders from the aldeas to learn from a site in a different department where the foundation has a project on diversifying the agriculture, so I guess they're good guys after all.

At the nutrition center the full time nurse is local to the city, went to nursing school in Zacapa (the biggest city in the department of Zacapa), and her dad works in a nursery in the U.S. The doctoras and the nutritionist (who everybody calls doctor just the same) are from other cities. In the week I wasnt there almost half of the children had already returned home, with 10 remaining. One of the brothers of a child that was being treated at the center, a baby who was at the center with the mother (but not for treatment), died soon after, I heard, but they didn't know the cause. The mother and those two children went back after the father came to get them, because there was nobody around the house to do the cooking and chores. Also during that week they visited a certain aldea and out of 20 something children they identified 5 with severe malnutrition. They wanted all five to come to the center but only 2 did. To the rest they distributed the worm medicine, which they were authorized to so by the father because it was a donation from the father (as opposed to the Castillo Cordova foundation), but will only do so to that aldea because otherwise they would run out too fast. I asked the doctors about what it would take to stop the cycle of reinfection with the parasites. They trusted the mothers to give them the worm medicine correctly (it only takes about three doses to kill them). They also said they try to talk to them, to tell them about washing their hands and other hygiene practices. I asked about the other 3 families that didn't send the kids to the center, about what they could do if they change their mind. They said they had phones and could call, and could get money for the bus ride from the center.

I brought it up a different time and words like dejados (dejar is to leave, so dejados would be somebody that leaves things for another time, a procrastinator) and lazy were used. When I got the back to the hostel in the capital I had another discussion along the same lines with a girl from El Salvador. I don't want to try and speak for her, we were discussing bloated bellies (the health system), poverty, and ignorance. Often the words poor and ignorant were used in the same sentence. She said she's seen families with money that have kids with parasites, because "they don't care" or because they are ignorant. She claimed that she wasn't rich, that she was middle class. She said she used to live in a dirt home, then also lived in a brick home, but continued to live between both. Very late in the conversation it came up that her parents had hired a domestic to work for them.

So I don´t know. Whole books have addressed the topic of why white men have to go to third world countries and help them out (such as The White Man's Burden of recent, and Tears of the White Man: Compassion As Contempt of old). The class difference was not so prominent in Mexico City, but in Guatemala it is extreme and overt. I told that girl that in the U.S. I've never seen a child with a bloated belly. Didn't take long in centroamerica. How can people get so rich next to piss-poor poverty that stays entrenched? Obviously it helps to blame the victim. But even though the U.S. may not have endemic intestine parasites, homelessness is abhorrid, even relative to the third world.

The last place I went to in Guatemala was San Juan Sacatepequez. I had read some articles about a fireworks cottage industry, in which many child laborers slave away making fireworks in backyard sheds. I went on a Sunday and made it to the city. I left the market district in the center and ventured to the outskirts in search of the homes of poor people, and asked one of the first guys I saw near my age about people that work making fireworks. He himself worked as a house painter, earning about $70 quetzales on a good day. He said they don't make fireworks in the city, but in the outlying villages, in the aldeas. He mentioned the name of a different municipality (a town/city rather than an aldea) 8 KM away of San Raymundo, where they make fireworks right in the muni. On the way out I got approached two different times by girls hawking two-colored ball point pens. From the first one I bought one. It was a two-for-ten deal. I paid 10 quetzales and she tried hard to give me two, but I left with only one. I looked back at quite a distance away and she was still staring at the remaining pen, with a priceless confused look on her face. Right after that I got approached by the second girl. I told her I already bought one, found out they work as a team, that they have a supervisora (woman) who pays them $300 Q weekly, as long as they sell three boxes of pens a day.

So I arrived in San Raymundo and saw stores labelled as fireworks vendors (closed, this is on a sunday remember). I asked around and finally found a place that makes them with the help of a taxi driver (except its a three-wheeled red thing, much cuter and cheaper than the cars) who had spent three years in the U.S. We went there and apparently I was right next to the workshop, which was right next to a soccer field (people were playing), but I didnt see anything because the boss wasnt there and nobody was working anyways because it was Sunday. Atleast they aren't working seven days a week. I wonder if the same holds true in the aldeas.

On the bus ride back to the capital I had a good conversation with a 19 year old high school graduate. He grew up in Chiquimula, mother died when he was 5, dad died 5 years ago (car wreck). His dad worked making crafts that were sold to tourists. Now the boy was working in a sewing factory, making $70 quetzales on a good day (they pay piece rate). He said he wanted to go to college, but couldn't (no money). He offered to take me with him to Chiqui sometime soon, but I had my itinerary to stick to. He asked me what I thought about guatemala. I said the biggest difference between it and the U.S. I've noticed are the street vendors. They completely cover the sidewalk so often there's no place to walk on them. I've seen people on the bus pushing everything from gummy bears, pens with lights, to cure-all medicinal plant extracts. One time, when I was with another american I asked who lets those people set up on the sidewalks, and wondered to whom they pay rent. She thought the stands on the sidewalks belonged to the stores behind them, but I had my reasons to doubt that, there is a more complex relationship if any. In the rich zones in Guatemala City there are almost no street vendors, just a few people selling gum and candy or music and movie CDs. I'm not sure if its illegal in those parts or just bad business. Street salesmen sell things like gloves, blenders, cell phone cases, toothbrushes, whatever. Of course food as well. Anyway the point is in America if you want to buy something you have to go into a store to get it. You have to remember that you want to buy something and then make the effort to obtain it. Down here you are reminded by street vendors calling out what they are selling. It is as though in the states its a sellers market, not a lot of goods but alot of money, so the burden is on the customer. Down here its a buyers market, a shitload of shit but not alot of customers and money (just other streetvendors), so jobs are created for streetvendors to seek out the buyers and push their wares evermore aggressively.

Alot of the jobs for streetvendors down here have their counterparts in the U.S. They are done by the homeless people there. Selling flowers, shoeshiners, magazines, and alot of candy and peanuts (though I now wonder why I dont seem to remember homeless candy pushers in the states), to say nothing of the recyclers. But down here they aren't recognized as homeless, nor as unemployed. They have houses, probably with tin roofs, maybe with cement walls, and maybe with tile floors, depending on the luck of their inheritance and family relations. There are relatively few people just sitting their begging, looking very rough and very pathetic, which is very common in the states. Up there you are constantly pestered with beggers with a dirty, open hand, or an empty fast food cup, often unable to even vocalize their plea. Down here you are constantly pestered with people pushing bullcrap, small items you'd find in the dollar store, exploiting opportunities for self-employment with a low start-up capital. You almost don't see beggars, pathetic lifeless slugs, unkept and slumped against a wall mumbling to themselves. But atleast in the states there's very few street vendors, though they don't bother me much, often add entertainment, bring food cheaper, and are as convenient as they are inconvenient. Why is that? Is it because down here people can find places to squat, to secure a house where they can stash a surplus of wares, not to mention their children (who would've long ago been snatched up by child services in the states), if they can't pay their bills within the formal economy, whereas in the states you are relegated to the shelters? Or is that down here there's little to no free health services, and those poor disgusting homeless drug addicts kept alive in the states by a welfare system would've long ago died in the third world?

Sympathy is a funny thing. I cannot accept the reasons the local well-off people gave me for why the parasites remain endemic here in guatemala (and el salvador, apparently). I want to blame the system; they see it more as fault of the victims. But when it comes to the homeless population in the U.S., which many middle/upper class people from third world countries will comment on (with sympathy I would guess), I am less sympathetic for them, more ready to blame those victims (not so much the drugs, but thats merely a personal view and a moot distinction anyway) for their own demise. Is it because when we grow up within the culture something prevents the sympathy, and the results are emphasized as consequences of personal choices? But when outsiders come in, they offer more sympathy, placing more emphasis on systemic structures that affect the personal choices they never had to make in an environment they've never lived in.

The other thing thats different is the bar scene down here. It doesn't matter what day it is or what time of day, noon on monday or 9 p.m. on saturday, there will be men passed out drunk a few feet from the entrance to the bar. Often you will see people leaving the place with the help of a friend who has to hold them up while they walk. There doesn't seem to be people who just drink until they're drunk, they all go way overboard. So much overboard that they remain harmless all in all, unable to pester you for their inability to follow you. Sometimes they try to jump on the ladders of the transportation vans to get a short ride (common thing done by sober people looking to hitch a ride) and the driver has to get out and push them off for their own safety. People in the U.S. would get arrested if they wandered the streets like that, and the bars would've long since refused to give them more drinks and kicked them out. I was told the family stays home starving.

week in Zacapa, Guatemala

2007-10-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

The encendedor for this visit was a radio interview with Hearts in Motion founder Karen Scheeringa (interview at HIM site, and the Chicago Public Radio Worldview program is excellent so check that out, including a most recent program on the geopolitics of drugs). I sent them an email, without explaining who I am, before I left saying I'd like to visit some of their sites. Karen responded and, without asking who I am, explained that the group would be staying at Hotel Atlantico in Santa Cruz, Zacapa on Oct. 19-27 and I was welcome to catch them there and leave with them in the morning (even though I hadn't gone through the formal process of registering as a volunteer or paying the fee). Already I was surprised by such an open response, in comparison with emails I had received in responses from other charities/NGOs.

So on the advice from an employee at the Xamanek student Inn in Guatemala city, I got on a bus headed to Puerto Barrios, and was the only one to step off half-way in Santa Cruz, Zacapa. I walked into the hotel and said I was looking for people from "Hearts in Motion", which the receptionist understood even though I didn't use the spanish translation "Corazones en Movimiento". They weren't yet back, so I came back later and without saying anything again to the receptionist she called Karen who came down with her daughter a few moments later. After introducing myself and explaining my project (or lack thereof), a limping man (beneficiary of Karen's work) and his wife and daughter (named Karen) walked up, Karen (the big one) introduced them, invited me to a pizza party that night and to leave with the group in the morning (the last day of their stay), and departed with the family.

The morning started with a visit to a nutrition center (what they call places where they put the starving kids to fatten em up) in the next town over, Teculután. The sign does not mention HIM, though it is said to be supported by them. The entire volunteer group passed through, the kids performed a dance. This center, with a capacity of 30 (24 or 25 there at the time) is run by nuns and the way it works is that the kids live their for three weeks a month and then go home for the last week before returning again. One little girl was particularly memorable. The day we went was the last day for the month, and family was there to pick up the kids. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the families in the waiting room while the volunteers were watching the play and holding all the babies (I, like everybody else, was taking pics of the kids in the playroom, but then walked past the families in the waiting room without so much as an adios), even though, because I being the only one with a hat was asked to collect the donations in the doorway on their way out, was in the unusual position to observe the waiting families on my left and the volunteers interacting with the children on the right. As time goes on hopefully I will get braver with my camera, but I will say that the families there did not look any different from others I saw about the town, only some of the children. After we left the families got a health lecture before going home with the kids. Before we could leave the bus the volunteers were going to take broke down and everybody was left standing while they called to get another van so they could pile everybody into the two. From behind the fence one of the old fathers was watching this debacle and I was able to find out that he was a farmer and made 1 Quetzal per hour (7.75 quetzals make one dollar on the official market, 7 on the street), which seems very low compared to later estimates I was getting. Hopefully I´m remembering incorrectly or misunderstood and he actually told me two or three quetzals, but either way...

From there one van went to the hospital and the other to the construction site of a new center in a village (whose name now escapes me) outside of Gualan. It was described as a nutrition center/day care/school. Later that night one of the volunteers told Karen of his desire to install modern sports facilities at the site of the center. I suppose it will make a tasteful juxtaposition with the constant stream of bloated bellies.

The next stop (or maybe not, by now I´ve forgotten the order) was a fire station (HIM is involved with the training of firemen and supporting the stations in other ways, as you´ll hear on the interview) where we unloaded a trailer (the big, 18-wheeler kind) full of stuff from Kansas: old tredmills and exercise equipment, used clothing, old computer equipment. During this the solidarity with guatemalans really came to the surface, the gringos mostly taking the stuff off the truck, them taking it from our hands and stacking it up in the storage room. Another stop was a hospital, rehabilitation center, and prosthetics lab. The prosthetics lab is run by the Range of Motion Project, whose co-founder I spoke with the night before at the pizza party. He was a very inspiring man (with a prosthetic leg himself) who expresses his passion to help people by making custom prosthetics with donated parts in like-new condition. He's also recently opened a private practice in Ecuador (for rich people there so they don't have to travel to the U.S. for routine improvements), from which he earns his salary to support his time in Guatemala, and for which he recently hired one of the main employees from his competition after a fall-out between him and the boss (the employee was doing most of the work but not getting a cut). I was lucky to hear in person (over some Gallo beers, if I remember correctly) his story of how the lab came together, which I assume is repeated in his interview on Worldview's global activism series.

We passed by a free daycare center (utilized by many mothers who, I was told, are melon pickers) built by HIM but absent of any acknowledgement of the fact, which did not bother Karen at all. She said it was only important that it gets done and is there, not that everybody knows HIM did it. From there we went to a school with a computer lab, outside of which was standing a child of the sun. This school was a secondary school (high school), and I asked the teacher if there were opportunities for the students to continue on to college afterwards. His response was a stark "no mucho". He said that out of a class of 20 kids maybe 1 or 2 go on to college.

We went back to an HIM house (for college student volunteers), where resides a parrot (or something like it) living outside with no cage and unclipped wings, but who was not in the mood for any kind of interaction. One of the last discussions I had with Karen was about the elections coming up in Guatemala. The political propaganda here is alot more prominent than it is in the states, fliers, signs, and murals are everywhere but the TV commercials may be fewer than they would be in the states. I guessed that she would vote for Colom, whose ads feature doves and the slogan "life, development, and peace" would probably resonate with more women than his opponent Molina's "security and employment" with a prominent fist underwritten with "Mano Dura", or "hard hand", as in "iron fist". Her response was that Colom is a communist, and she wanted Molina to win. She's met both prospective first ladies, who she would be obligated to work with, and said Colom's wife was a bitch (though she actually used the word horrible, but with her facial expression and hesitation it was clear she wanted to say bitch), but Molina's wife was nice. One of the last stops before going back to the hotel was the same family with the daughter named Karen, where she (big Karen) dropped of a wheelchair (for some other person not in the family). Then that night at the going-away party (before a weekend of rest in Antigua) I ate like the rest, received a t-shirt, and even ended up in the group photo, despite the fact that I was only there for the last day of the volunteers' time, did no volunteer registration and paid no fee. So throughout the trip there were many hints of the fact that Karen and HIM's focus is on getting things done and not on formal bureaucratic procedures, a trait very difficult to encounter these days but very preferable to the other way around.

So if you listened to Karen's interview you would have heard that she mentioned a famine in a part of Zacapa called La Union. I told Dan (from HIM) about that and that I was going to go there to look for it and he said they had just done a clinic near there but he didn't see anything unusual, just skinny kids. So I looked up the spanish word for famine, did a search for it and guatemala, and the recent result that came up was this Sep 2 announcement on the Guatemala Solidarity Network from the U.K, which was an excerpt of this Aug 24 Prensa Libre article (google cache cause prensalibre.com doesn't seem reliable). 53 communities, 5,000 people, and 10 kids moved to a recuperation (nutrition) center. I'll (try to) translate two paragraphs from the article, use google.com/translate for the rest:

"Various factors have influenced the production of the crisis. The first is that the only type of work is the production of coffee, but workers are not needed until the end of october, when the harvest begins, and daily wages last until january and february. From march until september they supplement with local production of corn and beans, but this year they were affected by winter storms. In addition the quota of subsidized fertilizer was reduced. In 2006 they received 2,600,000 kilos, and this year only 500,000 kilos." [In Guatemala winter is when it rains, from April through September]

Ok two more:

"It gives me shame to admit, but it's the reality: we have a nourishment crisis, and all of the communities need food and our means are not sufficient", says Daniel Humberto Sosa, mayor of La Union. Since July 14, the municipality of La Union has informed various state institutions and private organizations about the situation, but until yesterday only the church ministry Esperanza de Vida and the foundation Castillo Córdova have brought assistance. The situation exceeds the municipal capacity, that's why we asked for help from the foundation and the church, because the people don't have nothing to eat," he said.

Another article that came up was
an Aug 27 Prensa Libre article, this time covering a press release by the Castillo Córdova foundation and doubling the estimate of the affected population. "Between 9 and 10 thousand are affected by malnutrition in La Unión, Zacapa, which surpasses the capacity of the Castillo Córdova foundation to distribute nourishments, and they urged people to make donations." ... "We are asking for Incarparina, beans, rice, corn, medicine, and clothing, among other stuff," detailed the director. Also this one.

The last recent thing on hunger in Zacapa I could find was this Aug 28 post ("I´m from Zacapa, and I am hungry") on the forum for a radio station (also published in Siglo XXI), by a host of the station who had recently interviewed Dr. Fernando Rivera of the Castillo Córdova foundation (and just recently interviewed Carlos Peña, Latin American idol, to give you an idea of what kind of radio program this is). "The breakfast is warm water, and like that they continue the whole day, the fathers put the children to bed early so they don't have to respond when the kids ask for something to eat." He put some photos of the crisis on a different post.

The only other recent stuff I could find on hunger in Guatemala was this Aug 8 forum post by a "professor of primary education and young person's committee leader", but it was about hunger in Tzununá de Santa Cruz la Laguna, Sololá, Guatemala. "In the past 15 days two kids have died of malnutrition and one more is dying in agony in the hospital." Maybe I should've made the effort to visit this guy (only secondarily the dying children).

So anyway that was all I knew, the name of Fundación Castillo Córdova and that I wanted to go to La Union, Zacapa. The webmaster for HIM, a guatemalan girl that spoke english like a native (told me she learned from TV, and indeed on guatemalan TV there are many channels that play english sitcoms with spanish subtitles), told me to get there I would take a bus from Santa Cruz to Rio Hondo (which I did not know how to spell at the time, only say), and from there to Gualan, and from there to La Union. After an incredibly winding stretch, that almost made me sick on the way back (such that I actually decided to close my eyes, even though I'm completely fearless when it comes to roller coasters), I landed in La Union without knowing a thing. Stepping off later than most of the others, because I didnt know where I wanted to go, I walked around for a bit before running into a well dressed guy from the same van trip who had sat facing me so that during the trip we had ample opportunity to make eye contact (hard to explain, let it be said that the vans that transport people in guatemala are almost always packed way overcapacity, such that it would be illegal in the U.S., but they charge the same price). I think he was looking for donations for a funeral, and I told him I had read something about "people that don't have food" and was looking for more information. He took me to the municipal building and interacted with the receptionist for me, who directed us upstairs to some dude's office with a laptop on the desk. Somebody else was already talking with him so I sat down, and though I thought he would wait for me the guy who took me there left without giving me a chance to make a donation. So I told this guy in the office the same and he didn't ask me any questions, but told somebody that was apparently an assistant to take me to the nutrition center. So this other guy took me there, a few blocks but many hills away, on a dirtbike (without helmets). We got there and by a stroke of luck there was a guy that spoke fluent english. Jacobo (or Jacob, if you speak english), has been the nutritionist there for three months. Before that he worked at some vegetable oil plant. He spent 4 years in Chicago with his Grandma, and went to school there at one of the smaller christian schools (can't remember the name and I can't remember if he graduated from there or not, but I do know that he graduated from a college in Guatemala City with a degree in nutrition). He has a 2007 Yamaha superbike which he rides on the track when he goes back to the city. He and the doctora, Isis (one of two, the other was on her weekend off), are both from the city. They work eleven days straight and then get 4 days off, which they spend in the city. Isis is one of 80 fresh guatemalan graduates from ELAM, and a single mom. I had previously heard about ELAM from articles like this one, so it was a quite a thrill to meet a graduate. She told me that all the other students at the school were annoyed by the american's spanish and constant requests for help with it. Both Isis and Jacobo are paid nine hundred something US dollars per month.

Jacob told me there used to be a nutrition center in La Union like 5 years ago, but he doesnt know why it closed down. This center (whose sign mentions Esperanza de Vida and the Cordova Foundation) just opened earlier this year, first in a building now used for storage and the living space for Jacob and the other two doctors a few blocks away. The old place had a capacity for 10 kids, and they expanded into the new one with a capacity of 17 (currently holding 14). This center is different than the one in Teculutan in that in this one the mothers (or Grandmother) come and stay with the child 24/7 the entire duration. Jacob was telling me that rumors float through the village that they want to take the kids to fatten 'em up and sell them, so the only way they can get kids into the center is to accept the mother too. As it is a new center perhaps it will take some time before they build up trust with the surrounding communities.

From there Jacob took me with him to make a preliminary visit to one of the communities. He explained that out of 58 communities, they had already visited 8. The communities, or villages, are all relatively close, but the distance is deceiving because the time it takes to reach them is significant, from half an hour up to two hours, for the rough and dangerous terrain (though it does make for an enjoyable, if not comforting, ride. We're talking hold-on-to-your-seat-your-on-the-edge-of-a-cliff). Four of us, a muni employee on a motorcycle, the driver of the truck, Jacob, and I visited only a few houses in what I'd say was one of the closest villages. A couple weeks later Jacob will go back early in the morning and take all day making stops at every house.

By now hopefully you've found the album. I took alot of pictures so there's no need for a blow-by-blow account of what happened, but I will mention a couple of things. We only visited three houses (more like clusters of houses) but one interesting thing at the second house, where a number of families from nearby houses had congregated, was the stance of the men, which is to say not at the forefront. They even managed to escape most of the pictures, though I thought I'd made a point to include them. They were sitting back on the side looking slightly disinterested in the procedures, making distrustful interjections once or twice during the discussions between Jacob and the women. I did approach however and was well received. They explained to me that they work year round, that they make around 30 quetzales per day during the harvest and 20 the rest of the year. Jacob spent most of the time trying to convince the women that their child needed help, that the bloated belly was not normal, even saying one time that without help the child would die in six months. Another time he used me as an example, saying this gentlement came all the way from the U.S. to see your situation, to emphasize the seriousness of their predicament. The mothers were reluctant to accept what he was saying, and repeated some of the rumors they'd heard about the purpose of the child going to the center. The children were as cheerful and playful as any children I've seen. It was delightful to watch them turn the situation into play, having great fun and intense curiousity between their bouts of innocent shyness, as children will always do if given half the chance. When Jacob asked for a volunteer to be examined, gobs of laughing children would run away and hide, and after the victim was chosen, they would all rush back close seeking a good view to see what he'd do. To counter this and make some for space for the embarassed child he would shoo them away, for example telling the boys "Get away! She has a boyfriend!!"

Another interesting coincidence that I didn't mention in the HIM part has to do with the mayor of Gualan. One of the volunteers with HIM, a 17 year old high school senior girl from Minnesota with Guatemalan parents, came on the trip at the initiation of her American friend. Three years ago her uncle had visited them in the U.S. and told them he was mayor back in Guatemala, but her mom refused to believe him and so she didn't think much of it. Now here she was on this trip to Zacapa with HIM, her first time in Guatemala, and she got the chance to visit him and receive some campaign paraphernalia, and his claim was proved. He had already collaborated with HIM before his niece had ever heard of it, donating the land for the new nutrition center. And she volunteered for HIM without hearing about it from him, instead from her best friend.

Another thing we should be aware of is that the bloated bellies are more a symptom of worms than the malnutrition. The presence of the worms will then exaggerate the malnutrition, if not be the cause outright. Jacob was telling me that as long the worms are there, the child would never be able to eat enough to get the nourishment. He said by the instructions of the foundation they cannot give medicine to people outside of the center, so in order to cure the worms they'd have to bring them into the center. As it is they only bring in kids with high levels (orange and red) of malnutrition, not the low ones (yellow and green). It was usually worms that he was checking for during the examinations, squeezing the belly, in order to feel them moving around.

The other child that will be hard to forget was this little boy. He was in the street when we got there, but his house was a bit of a ways up the hill, and when we went up he followed close behind. Then on the way back down he would take short cuts off the beaten path to arrive somewhere before us and wait, watch us pass by, then catch us again further down. I really kicked myself cause I forgot to say goodbye to him. When we got back to the center we ate dinner there, the same meal as the children, as Jacobo and Isis do every time.

Have you ever tried the Guatemalan beer Gallo? Its not bad. The name means Rooster (gallina is hen). It is made by Cerveceria Centroamericana, (cerveza is beer) the CEO of which happens to be Jacobo´s Father (How do you say CEO in spanish? I must ask Jacob when I see him again because my attempts to describe that I met the son of the "boss", "top boss", and "boss most high" do not convey the essence and implications of the fact that he is the CEO). Jacob said he doesn't know how much his dad makes, and that he doesn't talk about it with anybody. The Castillo Córdova foundation is a "social project of Cerveceria Centroamericana, and manufactures the Incaparina that Jacob gave to the families on the preliminary visit. They also make a malt drink especially for breastfeeding mothers, which Jacob compared to gatorade. It tastes much worse. Are we learning anything about commodity chains yet?

That's all I can think of for now. Obviously there's way more children with bloated bellies than the center has capacity for. Isis told me that the Cordova foundation was also buying seeds for vegetables for the farmers to plant this season (Oct 25 article found here). Is that to eat them or to sell them? These people built their houses out of the dirt, they aren't indigenous but they've had green thumbs for generations. If they could grow vegetables to alieve their food crisis why weren't they already doing it? One thing I wanted to get a picture of was clearly labeled Union building up in the highlands of that village we visited, and it would be nice to get even more information on the union of those coffee workers. The other thing we discussed was the feelings one has upon seeing such poverty for the first time. Isis told me she cried when she got back home the first time. I've cried before and blamed it on pictures of starving populations and the knowledge they exist, but of course emotions are fickle things and maybe the actual reason could've been something which I was experiencing more directly at the time like teenage heartache, or something else like chronic depression. Well during this experience of visiting that village, and seeing those people, the thing I noticed was my lack of feeling. It was a kind of "well, I heard about you, seen pictures of similar things, and now here you are in real life" matter of fact acquaintance. Here, lift your shirt up so that I can get a picture. Hey, face me, so I can get your face. Smile. Yup, those are some nasty sores, let me take a picture, this will surely gross people out. And there are several beautiful waterfalls, the whole place is an enchanting mountain forest. And the children are beautiful, playful, make me laugh and smile, all are beautiful, but some have disgusting sores, thinning hair and the discharacterized facial features of malnutrition which somehow only makes them cuter. And the whole while I don't really feel much, nothing out of the usual, I'm just kind of there seeing these people who couldn't be poorer unless they were completely abandoned and disconnected from the rest of the world (and then how would we would buy their coffee?), even their houses were made from natural materials found onsite, and trying to get good pictures. I guess I didn´t know what to feel, sadness sure but I didn't get sad. I was too much in awe of the entire experience, the newness of it all. Then when I finally laid down at the end of the day it was like I was trying to think about it, trying to _feel something_, anything, rather than the opposite situation in which I usually find myself, overwhelmed by feeling and trying desperately to think of something else.

I'm heading back to La Union for another week Monday (the first one of November), so, like the employees at the Muni told me, I'm "at your orders". Hopefully I'll get the chance to satisfy any requests you people can make, for more information, or whatever. We are not alone. That's probably as equally hard for the farmers I visited to accept as it for us to remember. Though I'm sure this page will receive a quick skim followed by an inaudible tab close, one of many to be browsed by you, the reader, one of billions browsed by millions. I forgot to mention that Jacob told me that besides some people with cameras from Esperanza de Vida, I'm the only stranger to have visited the nutrition center. So I´m possibly one of the only strangers to have taken more than a passing interest in the Zacapa, Guatemala FAMINE of all those who heard about it. That's what three articles in La Prensa Libre (which btw means free press, since you were probably too lazy to look it up yourself), one in Siglo XXI, and a radio interview will get you. We all just assume that somebody else is doing something about it.

P.S.
There have been other famines in Guatemala recently too.
2004 drought induced famine - affecting twenty thousand Guatemalans in the four departments of Suchitepéquez, Retalhulea, El Progreso, and Zacapa
2001-2002
2001 photos of Jocotan people.
Jan 2002 report on famine in centroamerica -
Blanche Petrich, correspondent for Mexico City’s La Jornada (Oct. 3), observed in a series of reports from Guatemala that “what is devastating Central America technically is not a ‘famine,’ the term that the experts use for the complete absence of foods in a region....From eastern Guatemala, across Honduras and El Salvador and all the way to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, the starving wander through well-stocked markets and beg alms along the roadside,” Petrich reported. About one-quarter of all municipalities in the region currently suffer high rates of “chronic malnutrition,” she writes, 60 percent in Guatemala alone.

The last one I have was unavailable from americas.org (if you go there you'll see why) and now seems to have disappeared even from the Google cache. So here is what I had clipped:

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:zgVm9_lrLfwJ:americas.org/item_7167+famine+zacapa&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us - Famine Kills 42 in East; According to the U.N. World Food Program (PMA), 42 people have died of malnutrition so far this year in eastern Guatemala as a result of a drought that has afflicted much of Central America; 13 of the victims were children. The eastern provinces of Chiquimula and Zacapa are the hardest hit. The PMA says it has begun distributing 127 tons of food to 7,546 people in 10 communities in Jocotán, Chiquimula, through the Soil Conservation Project, and that 49 tons of food will go 6,520 campesinos in four communities in Camotán. Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Switzerland are also sending food, the PMA announced in a September 6 communiqué. The Guatemalan government declared a “state of public disaster” on September 3 in response to the food crisis. (El Diario–La Prensa (NY) 9/7/01, from EFE, NYC)

President Alfonso Portillo of the rightwing Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) announced on September 1 that the famine justified his increase of the value-added tax (IVA, equivalent to a sales tax) to 12 percent from 10 percent. “Hunger is not just a Jocotán problem, it’s a problem for the country,” he said. “I’m surprised at the fuss that has been made [about Jocotán and Camotán], since the whole world knows that 80 percent of Guatemalans live in poverty . . .. The fiscal reform is for this purpose, to confront the problem.” One fourth of the IVA increase is earmarked for food programs for school and preschool children. There were massive demonstrations against the new tax rate after it went into effect on August 1. (Guatemala Hoy 9/3/01)"

Last thing, so after all this I just found out, after searching La Esperanza Vida and zacapa, that the USDA, through one front or another, donated a bunch of food in back in February, 20,000,000 kilos of food, with a value of $70 million (which would be about $10 million US if they meant Quetzals). Don't forget to look at the photos, click "ver fotos", and compare what you see with the meager stacks I found in the nutrition center at La Union. Says some of it was destined for Zacapa. This comes from elzacapaneco.com, a site of which I remember because it turned up often in my searches that included the word zacapa, notably its pages of photos of zacapanecas in bikinis, here's one from La Union in particular, from last year, also has lots of pics of La Union if you want to see what the city looks like. Where did all that food go? And why not to La Union, which would suffer a famine only 5 months later. I challenge you to try and find out more as hard as you would try to find that rare album, to spend as much time as you would in one day on myspace. The page got a lot of comments, I'll translate the third:

"LOOK AT THESE GRINGOS OF SHIT WITH ALL THEY'VE ROBBED FROM GUATEMALA THEY WANT TO DECEIVE US WITH A SACK OF RICE OR BEANS, AND THE SADDEST PART IS THAT THE SHITHEADS WE HAVE IN AUTHORITY IN ZACAPA ARE PLAYED AND LOOK LIKE LAP DOGS BEHIND THEM AND MOST DEPLORABLE THAT AT TIMES TO SOME NUMBER OF POOR THEY GIVE AND BESIDES THEY ROB AND SELL IN THE MARKET ONLY TO MAKE A BUNDLE OF MONEY, LETS GO PEOPLE OF ZACAPA WAKE UP ALREADY THOSE STILL SLEEPING. IN THESE ELECTIONS VOTE WITH INTELLIGENCE VOTE FOR LA GUACA [?] BECAUSE IT WOULD BE GOOD TO TRY A YOUNG BOY IN OFFICE, WELL I WILL VOTE FOR HIM"

Nezahualcóyotl, Mexico City

2007-10-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

I started my trip in what's said to be one of the most dangerous parts (Nezahualcoyotl, which I visited, is often mentioned along with Tepito) of the most dangerous city in the most dangerous country (for journalists in particular) on the hemisphere. Did I mention it also has the dirtiest air? Well, I absolutely loved the place. It seemed to have an absence of dominating advertisements and franchises seen in other big cities, and in the free space culture flourishes. For example, people hawk their favorite mix CDs (most of which was english music) on the subway for a dollar, and corner eateries ran by small-time chefs are more common than generic restaurants. Another thing, my first thought when I got on the subway was that these people are really poor, because the majority were wearing dress shoes so deteriorated that you wouldn't be able to find them on the racks at second-hand stores in the U.S. But this was so common that as time went on I started wondering if it was for fashion rather than necessity. I also want to mention that even though I don't think I saw another white person until I went back to the hostel, the people hardly ever batted an eyelash at me, and I felt completely comfortable everywhere I went.

Anyway, I went to Nezahualcoyotl, named after the philosopher poet-king with the intention of visiting the Neza dump, where families live and work sifting through newly brought trash for recyclables to sell. So, I got off at the Neza metro stop (which has a sweet logo, as seen above) and just started walking around, using a vague memory of the google satellite photo in which I thought I had located it as a mental guide. Not long afterwards, having passed other metro stations and by this time being more or less completely lost, I started noticing an increasing concentration of street dogs, most of which could have passed for purebred Komondors. Because of that I thought I might be getting closer to the trash dump, but it was not to be. I was, in any case, about to get up close and personal with a different face of the trash economy.

I got to the end of the street, rounded the dirt corner and stared down an immense drainage ditch, spotted with trash, its raunchy odor accentuated by the falling rain, extending into the horizon. Parallel to this was a dirt path, and at almost the first house from the end, I saw this guy. I told him I was interested in what he was doing, and he replied "what, chambeando?" He said he was employed six days a week by the owner of the house, earning a weekly salary of $1200 pesos (convert it yourself). Then his boss came out. Roberto told me that, right now, trash is the best business in mexico city. He runs his business, which he's had for 15 years, from behind his home where his family of wife and two daughters (both students, 15 and 17) live. While I was there, a couple of men came in a truck. The men are employed by the owner of the truck, who, according to Roberto, owns about four trucks and sits around all day. They collect all the trash from the streets, las calles, and said it takes about two days to fill it up. The other person that came with trash to sell was an adorable old lady. Everybody acted like long-time buddies, which they probably were. One of the last things I learned from Roberto was that business used to be better, not so much anymore, because there's a lot more people in it now. Finally taking leave with my original goal still on my mind, I asked Roberto about the basureros (basura = trash). He said that there were three, that they were guarded by police, and that I would not be able to walk in. But, he said, I could hitch a ride in on the garbage trucks. His rather complicated instructions for how to do this exceeded my spanish comprehension, but I did manage to catch the word "parque", for park, and paying close attention to the direction he was pointing, gave much thanks, said good-byes, and headed off in that direction.

Along the way I noticed a family working at a store. The man was consolidating the liquid from a bunch of old pop bottles into 3L bottles to be thrown away, with the empty bottles being recycled for one peso per kilogram. The husband, 26, was the only one on the payroll, earning a weekly salary of $600 pesos (convert yourself with link above), with his wife, 25, and son, Bruno, 9 months, only there to help him get done faster. Also in the family is a 5 year old daughter, at school. The price of school is about $100 pesos per year, $100 pesos for books each semester, and $180 pesos for a uniform. The family lives in the house of the mother of the wife, who owns the house, along with 3 other siblings (of 5) siblings of the wife. The husband had been at the job for a couple of weeks, and before that he was searching for work. They told me alot of jobs want papers, by which they mean high school diplomas or other educational certificates, which neither of them have (not that they would help much, as you'll see later). I asked them if they made enough money to eat, which was met with an uncomfortable hesitation, and I can't even remember whether they said yes or no. None of their family has been in the U.S., and they don´t know any coyotes or have the opportunity to go there. I donated 200 pesos to the children's schooling, in return for a smile.

I kept on walking, still looking for the basurero. I was hungry so stopped at a tamale stand and conversed with the girl (Sol, 22) running it. I found out she was actually a kindergarten teacher, having completed 2.5 years of college to get the certification. She left that work recently because her mom got sick, so she could be closer to take care of her during the day when needed (her mom, who works at a different food stand on the next corner up, visited her once while I was there). Her mom paid $1800 pesos a month , for all 2.5 years, for her college. Her job as a kindergarten teacher paid $500 pesos per week. I mentally compared with the return on investment for a college education in the states, with a conservative estimate of $5000 per year (for four years) to $30000 per year. I noticed a public library behind me, where I asked the librarian about the teacher's salaries and she corroborated what Sol had told me. She also told me that primary school is free in Mexico, but that some people do choose to pay to send their kids to a different school than the free gov. one. Full from only two of the three tamales I bought (for 6 pesos each), I continued walking as well as I could in the direction Roberto had pointed.

I ran into some railroad tracks, and remembering these from the satellite photo, walked down them. I stepped off them and took a right, between an airport on one side and a giant parque on the other. This was a long stretch, curving to the left, and by the time I got around the bend, to the entrance of the park, I had to use the bathroom. Here I want to give you advice, which I somehow missed in my months of preparation for the trip, about Mexico: always carry toilet paper. The toilet seat you can do without, but without paper you'll have to beg for it from others (keyword: papel higienico). If you do they might offer you a piece of the paper they use to wrap tamales in, which resembles construction paper, only heavier. Despite the absence of toilet paper and a toilet seat, the bathrooms themselves are sparkling clean. Note that all other toilets in mexico are pay toilets (3 pesos), which have one community roll located somewhere before you reach the stalls.

Now, when you go around the bend and pass the main entrance there will be an airport behind you, a barrio with some bad ass graffiti on the right (Neza graffiti), and the park on the left. On this road you should see some big garbage trucks, rather new and various shades of green, heading the same direction as yourself. When one is close, get his attention and ask if he's going to the basurero, and if he will take you with him. I did this, then climbed in. Despite my being an obvious foreigner, the driver was entirely casual and asked no questions. Up at the corner a well dressed (and quite pretty) lady with a toddler in her arms climbed in after me. At this point I was so confused as to why somebody like her would be entering a trash dump with men like ourselves that I decided to keep my mouth shut till she left. We crossed the police checkpoint and neared the plant, where the lady got out and I found out that she works there (in the separation plant). The truck driver sleeps in his truck and makes $4500 pesos per week. We got to the dump and it was completely ok for me to get out and interact with the workers.

I had entered the Texcoco dump. They explained to me that Texcoco is a federal dump, whereas the Neza dump is not. Nobody sleeps here, and the trucks only run during the day. I did not find out if the money they make is subsidized at all by the Gov., or if it is purely from their earnings of what they collect. Each worker collects his own stuff and earns according to what they collect. They told me that they make between $2000 and $4000 pesos per week. The ladies in the photo at the left are mother and daughter. The mother (who was kind of running things, but probably subordinate to the man whose back is visible) has worked there for 12 years, starting out as a pepenador, and the daughter having just started (as somebody keeping track of what the pepenadores bring in) 3 weeks ago. Most of the pepenadores I saw working that day were guys, mostly young. One of them was the boyfriend of the daughter, and they met each other before she started working there through the mother. The mother, Maria Luis, was extremely helpful. She asked me repeatedly what I wanted to know, and eventually I said I wanted to know what it was like at the other one, the Neza dump. She then said that she was getting off work and would take me there. So we hitched a ride on the trucks back to some cars, where she had a change of clothes in one of them, and then hitched another ride out of the place. On the way out I saw a line of trucks similar to the one at Roberto's, with the same logo, but they were going towards the plant.

We got off the truck at the same corner I got on, and then got on a combi at a different side. These haul you around for 3-6 pesos. They are extremely loud, and driven through the crowded city streets by a young guy with a lead foot and a crazy eye, who often makes change for the people paying while simultaneously managing the manual transmission through this stop-and-go traffic. They are very stylishly and personally decorated, another example of the flourishing culture of Mexico City. Find the side of the corner where the signs on the combis say they are going to Los Torres, then get on one of them. You will pass some colleges, a technological one and a police college, and then a maximum security prison, and immediately after is the the Neza dump (capitalism in a microcosm). At the entrance for the trucks is an office. Maria Luis decided to go with me to the office first to ask permission, giving a story about doing homework for school. Our request was denied until we provided more details to some other office, where we would get written permission to enter. We took a combi back, to eat and discuss strategy for going in. I explained that I wanted to go in by walking around the office, so I could talk to the workers without being guided by the office dudes. Apparently the cook at the place where we ate had an uncle or something that drove the trucks into Neza and it was suggested I could ride in with him. She said if I went in without permission they would grab me by my underwear (or something like that). I said I was going to enter anyway, tomorrow, and she gave me her number and told me to call her so she'd know I was ok. I gave her a hug and muchisimas gracias and we departed.

As I was walking back to who knows where I decided to enter the Neza dump right then. So I got back on the combi to Los Torres and got off before the dump. As I was completing the final stretch on foot I came across a family with one of those trucks, only broken down. There was a man, asleep at the wheel, a mother, a daughter of about 16, a couple of teenage boys and a little boy. They were all related, the most distant being a cousin. The girls were very pretty, but too shy to get their pictures taken, the mother saying she looked too ugly. One of the boys was painting with some paint he had found, and what he finished is pictured at the left. They said it takes two days to fill up the truck, and that they get $100 pesos for that ("a little bit, huh?"). They were waiting for the owner of the truck to come and fix it; I continued walking.

I passed the entrance with the office and then saw something up the hill. Only an empty dwelling, I descended again and kept on walking. I passed a dead dog. Then I saw a man walking on the level higher. I ascended again to meet him and shouted a "Que Onda?!" Without missing a step we both kept walking, and he said he was just heading back to his crew, and that they have a gang. I asked if they would rob me and he said no, and I said right you guys are workers aren't you. He nodded in agreement and by that time we had reached them. Six people, mostly young men in their early twenties, sat around a fire pit with a tent behind them and garbage strewn everywhere. About ten to 20 feet away was another tent and fire pit, where a few other older men, in extremely rough condition, were sitting and watching. Everybody was silent and I broke it with a "Como estan?" From then on I could sense no tension. It was like the conversation bubbled from the naturalness of the situation. They asked me where I was from, if everyone from the U.S. wears Nikes, when I got there and how long I'd be there, and I asked them how long they'd worked there. Those who answered said since they were little boys. Before I knew it they had pulled out a sack of weed (between 1/8 and 1/4, costing $35 pesos) and were rolling a joint with regular paper. We smoked down and discussed the same things anyone else might discuss as if they had been just been introduced by mutual friends: girls, immediate concerns, and discussing the props found in the immediate environment when conversation lagged (such as their pitbull, on which I comment how well-fed it is, indeed it is a very strong looking dog, and the various interesting items found in the trash that was lying around, like discarded children's toys). All the while, about 50 yards away, trucks are dumping trash and bulldozers are pushing it around, and a swarm of people are picking through it. I mentioned that I wanted to take some pictures but they said pictures were not allowed. I asked why not and they said because "no somos fotogenicos" (we're not photogenic). Also because photos are not permitted, and there's a guy with a reflective vest (who's job is to tell the trucks where to dump the new trash) who might be watching me. I say nobody will believe me that I met you guys unless I get pictures, and they said to wait until night. So they lit a campfire, rolled another joint, and we smoked down again. To relieve the munchies, old packets of shattered peanut-caramel crackel treats get passed around. I ask the person who gave it if he found it, "no, it was gifted to me." A jar of tequila gets passed around, I decline saying its because I still need to make it back to where I will sleep, and they say yes we understand and respect that. I try to bring the conversation to more serious topics of business, asking how much they make and how much they spend. Their attitude is carefree and inexact, giving the impression that they hardly worry about it, that when they don't have enough money, they work, and they work enough to have money for food, cigs, pot, liquor, and, well, what else does one need? Even I understand that. I´m amazed at how they are able to have all that from working here, and for this they are delighted. Night fell, but garbage trucks kept coming. Roberto told me they work day and night here. Workers were using lamps, and from 50 yards it looks like a frenzy of activity, bouncing lamps and the headlights of the machines reflecting off the vest of the garbage guider. The sound of the machines is continuous and has long ago faded into the background. I ask them what time they usually go to bed and they say "sometimes we don't go to bed all night!" The flies are becoming more agressive, we discuss where I am going to sleep that night and I snap two photos (here and here) (everybody looks at how they turn out on the camera) before heading off, agreeing to meet again early tomorrow morning. I walk to catch a combi in the dark, not even thinking about looking over my shoulder, fat wallet loosely suspended in my front pocket.

Having not slept at all the night before, I wake up late on Saturday and finally stumbled back onto that corner between the park and the barrio. I don't notice any combi with a sign to Los Torres until 30 seconds after hopping in a cab and directing him there (he has to consult with another cab driver to remember where it is). The cab fare costs me 40 "pesitos" (which is to say, little pesos), considerably more than the 6 I would've paid for the combi. I get out and go to the dump, and since I arrived at more like noon than the early hour I had told them, they said we thought you weren't going to come. No, I had to come.

On the way there this time I snap a pic of programa de separacion de basura", something I had previously read about in a Feb. 9 2006 article, which also mentioned that they had hoped to build a separation plant on the land by the end of that year. A July 10, 2007 article (with video, and notice the WalMart hat) said that the place would close in December, because of water issues, but also stated that it would not be a closure (I don't know, maybe its just my spanish comprehension). Before, in August, 2002, there was discussion of replacing it with an airport (and a gov. permit for the workers expiring in 2003). Did I mention that since last year, Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico owns the place, which he bought as a real estate investment, hoping to build a "shopping mall, two schools, a hospital and a park on the site" by 2010? Such plans create an income for the investor, not the workers, who won't have jobs without customers in the first place. Maybe somebody should tell him the place makes money for people willing to dig through and salvage trash, and when that source of income is gone there won't be any pocket cash for those people to go shopping, there won't be any customers for the new mall. I think that perhaps Neza is full of small businesses, rather than franchises and corporate brands, because only those willing to work for a small profit stick around. For example, in Tocalo, where the hostel I stayed at is located, McDonald's sells sandwiches for $49 pesos, while in Neza one can buy small chicken legs for $1 peso per leg. The Neza markets are full of used clothes and small-time vendors making their way in an ad hoc manner however they can. Is there room there for the efficiency of WalMarts, corporate business plans and blue chip consolidation? In Neza, the three R's are more than an empty slogan; they are a way of life, a question of survival.

So I tell them I heard they are going to close this place. They tell me yeah, they're going to, maybe next year like in may or something, when there's no room here anymore. "Then what?" Pointing, they say they'll just move over there, where they will reopen. Let me give you an idea of the landscape here. When you first enter the dump from the side, you have to climb up a series of levels, about 3, starting from ground level, and there is a dirt ledge, a walkway about 10 feet wide between each one, with vegetation overcoming the trash lying on the hillsides. At the far end is the prison, and close to that the office and driveway where the trucks come in. Between there and where the people are working right now is a rather desolate gray wasteland, mounds of dirt, rocks, grasses and sparse deposits of old garbage. Continuing on you reach the two bachelor tents where I spent most of my time, adjacent to the arriving garbage and center of work. Beyond that is a vast plane of perhaps a couple hundred yards, even and grassy, and reaching the end of that one descends into a village of hundreds of shacks, a gated community, with barbed wire fencing and some busy offices and all.

I thus understand that when they "close" the dump, it will reopen further down, closer to the shacks, and when that area is exhausted it will close again, and reopen yet closer, until finally they will return all the way back to other end, where the prison is, and start a new level.

It is still early in the day, some of the guys from the last night are chilling with me at the tent, some are working nearby, coming back with bags full of paper every now and then, then returning to work, and we are waiting for yet more others to return from the store with lunch. One of them mentions that they are no longer letting him shower at the office (where the trucks come in), so he will have to start doing it with a bucket. When they get back everybody stops working, and they nag me to eat yet another taco, and yet another, with tortilla, canned beans, and cheese. While we are eating, somebody brings a dead puppy and sets it in front of the pitbull. The dog, still tied up, sniffs the other one. They give the command "Come!" (pronounced cohm-ay) and untie him, and the dog devours the other one with gusto, first guts, then skin, slowly, deliberately, as if savoring the taste. They feed the dog the dead animals they find, and ask me what we feed dogs in the U.S. Another bag of marijuana appears, and to celebrate two joints are rolled, and passed around. One young guy around my age, who was not there last night, declines. His clothes are nicer and his skin is cleaner, he could easily pass for anyone else in the city and would not be out of place on the subway. I talk to him quite extensively, and he explains that he's been working there for a few years and does so because he makes more there than in other work. His wife, who he does not let work, stays with him in his grandpa's house, where he lives with his family, and they already have one 2 year old and are expecting another.

They ask me what I needed to cross the border, what I worked in the U.S., and about my parents. I tell them how I worked and lived earlier this year for 6 months with mexicans in Oxnard, California, picking strawberries and tomatoes, and that I've also worked construction, in a flower greenhouse, and in an amusement park. One guy tells me he had an opportunity last year to go to Fresno, California to work in the fields, but he turned it down, but he might go this year when he expects to get the opportunity again in February. One of the older men (30, I find out later) from the other tent comes by and sits down next to me, and the discussion turns political. He wants to know what I think about the Iraq war and the immigration of mexicans. They want to know about the jobs in the U.S. salvaging trash, and about the dumps there. I explain that nobody works in the dumps, trucks just drop it off. I somewhat regret telling them that the people who collect bottles from the streets are referred to as lazy bums, as this confuses them and they seem mildly offended, and I add that many times those same people also beg for money, but the topic is changed uncomfortably. A bunch of old toys are lying around, and they say they sell them in bulk. I mention that probably people would not throw away old toys in the U.S., and they jump in to ask me if they sell them from their garages, which I confirm. I also explain that alot of people in the U.S. collect old toys, and maybe they could sell them there over the internet. Also lying around are records, in particular a Footloose record in good condition. I explain that people in the U.S. would never throw out old records, especially if they are in good condition with the box, and wonder outloud about the opportunities to export these to the U.S. Lunch has ended, and people have already returned to work, searching through the mounds of refuse not 50 yards away.

In addition there are some new faces who have come from the mounds of the fresh garbage closer to the bachelor tents. Off to the side is a preteen girl sitting with who is probably her little sister, and who is probably their mother returning intermittently from the piles with her goods, to check on her children and collect there her findings. Closest to me meanders an older, heavyset woman, glancing in my direction as often as I glance in hers. Straight ahead between myself and the center of activity around the machines, a very beautiful young lady stares hard in my direction, face stern, and I return the gaze without making any gestures, until one of us breaks the eye contact and she returns to working with the stuff her husband, a very muscular short-statured fellow to whom I had already been introduced, is bringing her. I get up, leaving my bag near the without worry, and tell the couple of people remaining at the tent that I'm going to talk to the older woman, they say ok and they themselves head towards the incoming.

The older lady is dressed fairly nice, and seems to be well-kept. She has been working here 10 years, sometimes not, when her husband can find other work, but more or less continuously. This sounds right with what my other friends had told me, that various people do not come and go, that when people come its always an old face. She lives in the shacks on the other side of the hill, for which she does not pay rent, gracias a dios, but does pay for electricity. She has eight kids, who she pays for to go to school. She works full-time as a domestic, cleaning two houses and doing laundry for $100 pesos a day combined. One of the ladies for whom she cleans works in an office for Herbalife (a company which I remembered because one of my co-workers back in Oxnard once invited me to one of his sessions after work, where he would teach about the stuff, and, I'm sure, try to sell it). The kids who are old enough also work in the dump when they aren't going to school. I ask about the work, that they told me one can make more here than in other work, and if they earn good money. She responds solemnly without looking back, gazing towards the fuming stretch of basura, her and her children's lifeline for the past decade. "The poverty here is very deep." I mention the federal dumps, and how the people there said they were earning decent wages, and she said "all the good stuff goes over there, nothing comes here." I question about their ability to buy food, and she says yes, they do have enough to buy food, including meat for their meals. One of her older daughters, in the early 20s, is working in a job outside of the dump, but she earns "only a little bit". I ask if the kids work on their own accord or if sometimes they don't want to work, and this question is easily brushed off, yes, they themselves want to work. Her 15 year old son, a tall, chubby boy with a proud look and head held high, walks up and introduces himself. The first thing he asks me is if I'm going to chambear. He goes to school, but works when he's not there. He tells me that his dream is to go to my country, and I tell him about the wages we get paid there. As soon as the conversation slows we shake hands again and he returns to work. I return to his mother, who had wandered out of earshot to husband, and mention her son's plans. She said yes, he says he wants to go there and tells her that he will bring her there to live with him. She also said that one time somebody came talking about taking people to the U.S., but the only thing they took was people's money. Her husband, wetting stacks of cardboard and tying them together, is busy working and doesn't pay me much mind, but does not seem to be bothered, only concentrated. I ask him how long it took to collect all this cardboard, and his response was "only a rato, no more". They will transport the stuff on a rusty tricycle with a cart, which costs about $300 pesos, two of which are standing nearby, one belonging to the bachelor club and the other to this family. The mother tells me they recently repaired the tire on their's. People do come with trucks to buy stuff, but they can carry it to a different buyer nearby and sell it for more. I ask her how much the drivers of the machine make, and how much the guy with the vest makes, and she said she doesn't know, that they do not talk to them (this is in contrast o the bachelor club, who have a nickname they found hilarious for the guy who drives the machine that pushes around the garbage). I ask her about them closing it down, and she said yeah they will close it down and open it up over there, that they had already closed it down recently when it was over there (points in opposite direction) and opened it up here. I ask the mother if anyone from the government comes to visit the families, and she says no, "aqui estamos bien abandonados." We are here well-abandoned.

I stand nearby the husband and wife without much more to say, watching the husband work while the wife made suggestions about how to better wrap the cardboard. My thought is that it must be very different to raise a family off this work, than surviving as a bachelor. By this time the people in the garbage, near the machines, are looking in my direction and talking more than they were before, including with the guy in the vest, but nobody moves toward me. Without saying goodbye to the couple, I walk over to the young lady and my introduction is met with a smile. She is probably in her early twenties, and has worked there for 10 years, and has two kids, 5 and 3, who are with her mother. I ask her why she doesn't sell CDs on the metro, and she said because she likes this work. She pays for the oldest to go to school. I ask her why she doesnt send him to the free school, and she said because she wants him to move forward. The 30 year old guy who was very interested in my opinion on the political questions walks by and mumbles something about my not wanting to talk to him. Her husband comes back with more stuff and a smile and we exchange another friendly greeting. He leaves back to work, and I say thanks and express pleasure in meeting her, then return to the older bachelor camp to sit next to the 30 year old.

The man is drunk but motivated. Our progress in communicating comes in leaps rather than gradual. The youngers guys at the other tent are preparing to smoke another joint, and wave me over. The effect it has on me this time is one of anxiousness, and I repeatedly stand up to look around, then sit down again. One of them suggests that if I'm bored, I can go look at the rest of place, down the way, where all the horses are working. I say yeah, I want to, and the drunk 30 year old immediately offers to guide me there. I stop to say goodbye to the older lady, and we take off without a moment to lose, walking through the vast grassland and finally descending to the shacks below the plateau. We pass by somebody he knows and they exchange chit-chat without mentioning me. Passing by the shacks are many horse-drawn carts, the drivers of whom pay me little mind, but I'm not sure where they are going. Eventually we reach the front, where there are some offices, a gate, and what looks like security, but they do not stop us and I didn't look to see how interested they were in me.

We cross the street and enter another. It is again like the rest of Neza, cement buildings in a disorganized mixture of houses and businesses. He wants to take me to meet his family, and we walk for perhaps half an hour down the same street, and on the way he points out the school at which he got his primary education. I take one swig from the bottle he's carrying, from a container which I mistaked for being the original bottle for the orange liquid, and it is so strong that soon I quite buzzed, nearly drunk. We reach his family's house, a building in good condition of bright colors, but nobody answers the knock. We hear the phone ringing inside but nobody picks up. I come to understand that this building is owned by a guy from a church, and that about 10 other people stay there. He said he's been staying there three years. I ask him what the guy from the church says about his alcoholism, and he begins to try to explain but soon gives up. Part of the problem is that I do keep asking him to repeat himself. I asked him if he buys pussy and he said no, he conquers it. He said he has kids, but does not see them.

We sit down and wait for a while mostly staring at the ground, both of us trying to initiate conversations but somehow it never takes off. I keep telling him that I want to leave and go back to where we were, but he tells me to wait and I obey. Eventually a cheerful guy comes with a horse-drawn cart, and soon after another three guys arrive in a different one. Everyone is in a good mood, for the workday is over and now its party time. They detach the carts from the horses, feed them, pet them, and eventually lead them into the stable, which is right nextdoor. There is room in the stable for 11 horses, and it is full. There is also a shower there, which they use.

The first guy to arrive takes out some PVC cement, which he shares with the 30 year old man who brought me there. I ask to look at the bottle, and he asks if I want some, and I say no, I prefer mota (marijuana), which he soon also takes out and shows me, excited to have it, repeating "oh, you like this, huh?! you like this?!" almost teasing me with it. The oldest of the 2nd group rolls it in a candy bar wrapper, and we all share it.

The oldest of the three (pictured left), 23, has been working in the same work since he was 10, helping support his mother. He lives with his mom, and they do not pay rent where they live. I asked him if his mom did not support him to go to school, and if that why was he started working. He said his mom did support him when he was younger, and, that when he was older, it was his turn to work and support her. He said he (they) make about $1200 pesos per week, and they rent the horse and carriage for $120 pesos per day. I did not ask if they had already subtracted that rent from the amount they told me they make. Another guy, older twenties probably, came with a horse and carriage, but he was very well dressed, for his was a carriage used to transport people, probably tourists. Besides the taxis and combis, in Mexico City you also see people transporting people in tricycle-drawn carraiges, motorcycle/scooter-drawn ones, and horse-drawn. It was to this man that they paid their rent, but I do not know if he was the owner of the horses.

Of the three, only the youngest at 15 was still going to school. I asked him why and he said because he wants to learn stuff. I asked him what he wants to be, and he said a luchador, their word for big-time wrestler. And if not that, then he wants to go into the (mexican) army, in 3 years, for which he will need the papers from his school. I asked the oldest one if he wanted to continue in that work or do other work, and he said he wanted to continue in that, that it is chido (cool). I asked if he wanted to buy a car, or a house, or something like that, and he reacted by throwing his head back, saying the gavacho does not understand how hard it is to buy stuff like that here.

They started heading home, and since the 30 year old's family still hasn't arrived and it was getting late, I start walking back and he comes with me. On the way back I notice a center for treating alcoholism and drug addiction, and ask him why he doesn´t go there, but he just laughs and rolls his eyes. We stop to eat, he buys five pieces of chicken for five pesos, and I the same for me. He wants to sit down and eat, but it is going to get dark soon and I want to return to the camp before that to take some pictures on the way back (which did not turn out, as I took them while walking, sorry), so I keep walking and we say goodbye. Too bad I did not get to meet his family (maybe later). I get to the camp and they already know I've only come back to say goodbye. They invite me to come back again tomorrow, and I feel very sad to tell them that I must continue south in the morning, questioning my decision to stick to my itinerary when I feel so comfortable and already attached to these people. I ask them if they will be there in December and they say yes, so I tell them I will return then. To you readers I am sorry for not getting more pictures of the people I have described. For one, I already knew it was not permitted, and for two I had already asked permission from the front office to enter dump, which was denied, but I entered anyway, so I did not want to press my luck when I already knew they would recognize me. I could have managed to get pictures of people off-site, but pictures were not my priority at this early stage. I wish so much that you could all see how beautiful were the families, the people, how real. Pictures would help, but really you would have to go yourself. Time will pass and the office men will forget about me, and in December, when I return, I will put much more effort into getting more and better pictures, in addition to alot more information, and hopefully a much better understanding, for perhaps my spanish will be a bit better, so wait until then. Hopefully those news articles are wrong, that they will not wipe away this community and replace it with something more amenable to their tastes, by this December, or by 2010. The worker-residents certainly aren't expecting it, but it is they who will be affected by any plans, not Carlos Slim, who will only see changes in his accounting books. As the slogan for the resistance movement to the redevelopment of the Dhaka slum in Mumbai India says, "Develop people, not land!"

I hope that what I have shown you from two days of visits scratches the surface of the two-way mirror that connects our economies but shields us from each other, letting in enough light to show that there is a very deep experience for a very many people that remains obscured behind the view presented by the few paragraphs in press articles. These are not alien people in a foreign place, but are as comfortable around rich North Americans as anybody else. I visited the poorest of the poor and all they did was give, and asked for nothing in return. I did not give the pepenadores at the dump one cent, and they never once asked for anything. I hope that this light inspires you to consider the lives of others you might think has nothing to do with yours. Keep staring at them through that mirror, eventually you may see yourself through the reflection, refracted, but recognizable. Will you ignore yourself, close up, look in, and then look forward alone to your life ahead of you? Or can we open our eyes, our ears, our heart, so we can feel for them (in spanish the phrase for sorry is lo siento, "I feel it"), then look forward together to our lives ahead of us, for the poor will always be with us.

Here are some links with more information on the Mexico City trash economy which I didn't integrate into my post:

picture of a Neza dump pepenador here
The Donkey Sanctuary working in Mexico
Mexico City priest brings dignity to an off-limits flock
Learning to Heal In a Hellish Landscape
The Dagger - I voted