Amatan to Palenque to Altamirano

We left at 3am for Amatan after the velocity box in Julio’s pick-up was fixed. I slept on his mattress in the truck bed as we wound our way back around and up the mountains into Amatan. During the day, I saw a few patients with Marie and she gave me the peso tour of Amatan. Basically, there are 5 roads that run parallel to each other along the horizontal plane of a steep mountain. We climb along the intersecting roads past banana trees with their wide lush green leaves that are easily 6 feet tall, orange trees (have no illusions – oranges are green down here), lime trees, lemon trees (they are green too) and stranger local fruits. Along the path, small lizards 2-8 inches long run by us, chickens run by us, coffee beans are laid out in the sun to dry. The air is hot and humid and my clothing quickly sticks like a leotard in a cheap gym with lazy fans. Children sit by the steep roadsides while their mothers work. Houses are made of wooden slats with too many spaces between them. Roofs are aluminum (aluminium, Ines!). I ask Marie if they keep the pigs in the small wood-slatted shelters I see lined up as they had done in the Jungle. No, she says, those are the bathrooms. A simple hole in the ground covered by a shelter the size and height of a doghouse, I cannot help but wonder about the propinquity of the toilet holes to the water supply.

She shows me the clinic in town as well. The Mexican government has established a system whereby healthcare is free (or nearly so) if you go the clinic for frequent check-ups, and attend all of their education sessions which can be as often as weekly. Unfortunately, with the struggle to support themselves, attending regular meetings is very difficult if you live outside of town and they lose their free healthcare privileges quickly. These are a people who will wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and walk for several hours to where they are harvesting corn on mountainsides too steep for me to ski down. Some walk for hours just to come to the clinic. Amatan is not simply those five roads, it is a central district of all the neighboring communities.

Back at the clinic, I am ready for my first Amatan shower. I wait for 30 minutes while Marie heats up a pot of water. Not knowing how I’m supposed to mix it or which pot was for what, I take another pot and fill it with cold water. Then, bending over because I cannot stand up in the bathroom under the church, I take the bowl and dip it in the hot water, then in the cold water, and then throw it on myself. One bowl at a time, I slowly get wet. Somehow still, my time alone in the bathroom is peaceful. I find the bowl dipping method quite methodical and meditative at that. I will not be in Amatan for the next few months because of a compromise I struck in the health workers whereby I work in a hospital to gain the clinical experience I had been looking for and to improve my Spanish and then I return for a few months in Amatan to go out into the communities with the health promoters but at least showering when they have water will not be so terrible.

The next day, Marie and I took 3 buses to get to Palenque, a hotter and more humid place where I walk around constantly feeling like the walls of a hot bathhouse. I quickly accept a supersized pineapple water from a trusted place and we go off to find the famous Mayan ruins. I will be back there in two weeks when my mother visits so I don’t really pay much attention to the tourist stuff. Later we go out with Marie’s medical friends, a fun group all of whom are doing their mandatory year of service in clinics around Chiapas. About 50% of the class from Mexico City is sent to Chiapas, a sheer indication of the poverty and needs of this state. Amatan is a fairly lucky post as some of her friends don’t have electricity or have to ride in kayaks to their communities.

In the hotel in Palenque for $7.50 USD each I enjoy my first night in a bed since arriving in Chiapas, my first hot shower, and my first swim in their pool. All of these luxurious I look forward to indulging in when my mother arrives and then later in November when Ines comes down. The next day, I leave for my new home, Altamirano. I am staying tonight in a “hotel,” sharing a bathroom with at least a family of ants. I have a black and white tv that receives zero channels, but a bed, a light, an outlet, and a promise of hot water. I appear to be the only foreigner in a town that did not make it into the guidebooks. It is a small town in the dust of central Chiapas, and yet still much more luxurious than Amatan. Tomorrow I will make my plea in my best Spanish to help out at the hospital. This is a referral hospital for all the clinics within several hours away and should be a good experience if I feel I can help as well. Then I will look for a room to rent.

Weekend at Comandante Marcos´ House

I just came back from 4 days in the jungle (la selva) with the Zapatistas attending a very important meeting called "La Sexta reunion de los Zapatistas, La Otra Compaña." Over a thousand people showed up from all over the world to show their support for the Zapatista movement´s brilliant idea to listen to the people before they re-organize and take a 6 month tour of the nation not to preach but to listen. Their campaign has done something unique in history by using the internet and by opening itself up to its the needs of its people. With strong support for both indigenous people and women, the Zapatistas, under Comandante Marcos, held this forum as a summation of 6 others this summer, showing up without weapons of any kind. They are truly a brilliant organization and completely different than the image that anyone reading this from the United States may have of them. Indeed, over the 4 days of music, dancing, and listening, all alcohol and drugs were strictly forbidden.

We camped out among a sea of tents, some bearing communist flags, others no more than tarps. Hammocks and sleeping bags filled the church and barn buildings in their small jungle camp. Local people served food, there were a lot of Che and Marcos (with black mask and his pipe) tee shirts, a lot of folk music, a pretty strong reggae scene, and even a few capoeira dancers. It rained every day, several times per day and the ground quickly became more muddy than the Dartmouth campus in early spring. My formerly white sneakers and my one pair of clean pants have suffered a great loss.

The local indigenous population of Tzetzals was a constant reminder of the importance of the Zapatista voice and struggle. The children all were barefoot, had no idea of their own ages, and had no bathroom to use. They bathe in the river and although there is a school, there is no teacher so none of them learn how to read or write. Pigs roamed freely, as did chickens from their straw huts, and as always down here, clean water and food beyond corn and beans is a continual problem. For sure, we were feasting with our tortillas with salt and rice and occasional chicken.
Chiapas is state rich in natural resources (it produces 60% of the electricity for all of Mexico!), rich in minerals, in oil, and with plenty of water, but it is very poor for lack of all the basic rights and liberties guarunteed to the Mexican people. For this reason, people from all ages and groups came to speak and continue their fight for what ought to be in all of our moral values a basic freedom - health, education, nutrition, and clean water. You have to drive faster than the unpaved roads allow to romantacize the lives of these indigenous Mayan people. That is just to say that when we have a vision of a better world, we cannot stop at the edge of our driveway´s recylcling bin. We can only start there.

I look forward to your comments and again, promise to post pics when I return to Amatan.

living the great life in chiapas

Hola! So after four airports and three bag searches, I made it to Villahermosa. One of the main health workers, Leonel, a very friendly man with a big mustache met me with a sign that said "David, Clinica de Amatan" and we drove for 3 hours through the banana plantations of Tabasco and around the curves of the mountains of Chiapas to Amatan. The clinic is very simple and the unfinished "church" where the bathroom sits has only two walls. Indeed, you can look through the windowless windows up at the stars while sitting among the weeds where the floor may oneday be. Maria, a very sympathetic Mexican medical student serving a mandatory year at the clinic gave me cinco peso tour and the next morning at 4 am, Leonel and I (along with 2 others in the front of Leonel´s pick-up) left for San Cristobal de las Casas.

The highway between Amatan and San Cristobal has not been completed so it is a 6-7 hour drive along the winding mountainous carreteras to San Cristobal. Along the way, wild dogs line the roadside, little girls holding babies and many people can be seen in the various towns and countryside. The mountains are a lush green, incredibly beautiful with the clouds settling among them, and speckled with corn and coffee bean crops along steep hillsides. Buzzards circle above us and we watch for big boulders that actually do sit in the road here and there.

San Cristobal is a very pleasant city. I am staying at the office here, sleeping on a mound of rugs, and have really enjoyed the hospitality of Leonel and Dagmar, another healthworker. So far, I have been eating over there and I don´t know how to thank them enough. Today, however, I played tourist to as a necessary prophylaxis against culture shock and went with a group of germans to Canyon del Sumidero. There we rode in a boat between 1000 foot high canyon walls and saw many pelicans, crocodiles, and other birds.

There is no phone in Amatan, but there is internet, and i will be in San Cristobal with phone and internet until the 21st. I am really going to enjoy my stay here. Although there is no hot water or amenities that i am used to, it is a beautiful town with many museums and of course, many tourists that allow me to feel more like a backpacker at times than a new resident.

I will post pictures when i return to amatan because, yeah, i forgot the cable. Ay! My address here for letters or algo mas is:
Ryan David
Calle Francisco Leon #76
Barrio de Guadalupe
C.P. 29250
San Cristobal de las Casas
Chiapas Mexico

Vale, ciao!

I don't know!

Tomorrow I leave for chiapas. I’m sure there is something I’m forgetting already. So far, however, the thought of forgetting a bathing suit pales in comparison to my fear of not being able to understand the Chiapan people. And I’m late already with regard to chloroquine anti-malarial prophylaxis. I was supposed to start taking them 2 weeks ago but did not want potential side effects to ruin my vacation with Ines or my concentration during my medical licensing exam so I need to be particularly careful not to bite any mosquitoes for a couple of weeks. I must admit shopping has been fun though. Recent purchases include the Katadyn filter, mosquito netting, some cool outdoors clothing, and a leatherman 329 in 1 tool.
Despite having gear for all potential circumstances of survival and looking like an REI advertisement, I have to admit, I have no idea what I’ll be doing on Saturday or Sunday or any other day. I’ve gotten as far as knowing that a man with a big mustache will be meeting me at the airport with a sign saying “Ryan David, Amatan clinic.” People keep asking me what I will be doing or what I will be responsible for – will there be surgeries to do? babies to deliver? hundreds of patients or just a paltry few? All good questions, but I Don’t Know! And the more people ask, the more nervous I get. It's gotten so bad that I am no longer able to talk about it over meals. I don’t even know where I’ll be staying. No one has ever been at this clinic for as long as I’ll be there. The last student who was there left for Mexico City under the threat of a Zapatista rebellion and the rest of the summer students found other placement. The last medical student down there stayed for only a few weeks and slept on the exam room table after the patients left. I can tell you I don’t plan on doing that. At least not for long!
I have learned there is an unpredictable occasional sometime internet service in Amatan – that is, by the way, unreliable. My next posting will be from my new home town. I will try to post at least once every week from now on.