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aroraborealisI´m having my afternoon break, and I just can´t think any more in Spanish, so I´m getting my internet fix! I thought I wasn´t going to do this every day, but... I can´t help myself :) I´m not really reading email, mostly just lj comments, but if you have email you want me to see, send it to rosalcarson at yahoo.com
Today´s weather is much nicer than yesterday! Sunny and warm, but still not hot. Not much new to report, other than that it was fun to get a conversation on the phone with mom & dad (hi, mom & dad!) this morning.
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catya, I don´t have any care package requests, yet, but give me a couple of weeks and I bet I will! Unfortunately, a lot of them are likely to be perishable ;) I may ask folks to think about sending a package of things for a school down here, but since I´m still getting my feet wet, it´s a little early -- I don´t know what they need, etc.
dbang, I have not yet seen dogs on rooftops.
Yes,agaran, you´re right, I meant English :)
caitalainn, the traje is extremely varied. It´s always very colorful, usually involving a blouse with beautiful embroidery or lace, and dramatic woven colors, and a skirt that´s less elaborate but no less colorful. Sometimes they wear fancy-looking aprons on top of all. Mostly, it´s just the women who wear the traditional clothing, but occassionally men, or so I´m told -- I´ve only seen it on the women.
My host family is very friendly, if a little odd. I don´t remember what I´ve already described, but I´m in a house with my host mom, Blanca, her helper (daughter? I´m not sure), Susana, and 9 other students. At first, I was worried that this would be a problem for learning Spanish, but it turns out that they´re all Guatemalan students taking classes in the city, whose families are in the country. Dinner conversation is lively, often, and it´s hard for me to follow, but when people slow down, I catch a lot. They´re very interested in the US, and one of the students is a follower of the NY Yankees, so he knows the Boston Red Sox.
I really like my maestra of this week. She was involved as a guerrilla in the war (Guatemala had a 36 yr civil war, which ended in ´96, but they´re still working on the peace) and she has some amazing stories!
I hope to start using my camera more in the next few days, and I´ll send photos to someone who might be able to scan them to share with everyone else, if I get a chance... otherwise, you´ll all just have to wait until january :)
Today´s weather is much nicer than yesterday! Sunny and warm, but still not hot. Not much new to report, other than that it was fun to get a conversation on the phone with mom & dad (hi, mom & dad!) this morning.
catya, I don´t have any care package requests, yet, but give me a couple of weeks and I bet I will! Unfortunately, a lot of them are likely to be perishable ;) I may ask folks to think about sending a package of things for a school down here, but since I´m still getting my feet wet, it´s a little early -- I don´t know what they need, etc.dbang, I have not yet seen dogs on rooftops.Yes,
agaran, you´re right, I meant English :)caitalainn, the traje is extremely varied. It´s always very colorful, usually involving a blouse with beautiful embroidery or lace, and dramatic woven colors, and a skirt that´s less elaborate but no less colorful. Sometimes they wear fancy-looking aprons on top of all. Mostly, it´s just the women who wear the traditional clothing, but occassionally men, or so I´m told -- I´ve only seen it on the women.My host family is very friendly, if a little odd. I don´t remember what I´ve already described, but I´m in a house with my host mom, Blanca, her helper (daughter? I´m not sure), Susana, and 9 other students. At first, I was worried that this would be a problem for learning Spanish, but it turns out that they´re all Guatemalan students taking classes in the city, whose families are in the country. Dinner conversation is lively, often, and it´s hard for me to follow, but when people slow down, I catch a lot. They´re very interested in the US, and one of the students is a follower of the NY Yankees, so he knows the Boston Red Sox.
I really like my maestra of this week. She was involved as a guerrilla in the war (Guatemala had a 36 yr civil war, which ended in ´96, but they´re still working on the peace) and she has some amazing stories!
I hope to start using my camera more in the next few days, and I´ll send photos to someone who might be able to scan them to share with everyone else, if I get a chance... otherwise, you´ll all just have to wait until january :)
Tue
Date: 2003-09-09 07:14 pm (UTC)Rigoberta Menchu in Cancun, Urges More Learn Spanish
Date: 2003-09-12 06:21 am (UTC)This is the first time I've ever used LJ for anything, so I hope I've got this in the right place. Don't know if you are already getting stuff like this, but Stephen's posts from the WTO meeting are very informative. The part about Menchu made me think of you!
Saludos,
Ann
From: "Bartlett Stephen" <louisville402@yahoo.com.mx>
To: <bartlett-asenjo@mindspring.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 2:47 PM
Subject: A smell of death in the air at Cancun WTO
September 11 midday,
Cancun, Mexico
Cancun: Death at Kilometer Zero
Shame in the WTO
Friends and Colleagues:
Hara Kiri ritual performed at KM 0
Yesterday Kyung Hae Lee, a Korean farmer who has been
fighting the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a
decade or more, climbed up upon the barricade fence no
sooner had our great farmers´ march reached Kilometer
Zero in the baking midday heat. Hundreds of riot
police lined the far side of this seemingly
impenetrable wall. His fist in the air high above the
crowd, he gesticulated in great righteous anger.
Fellow Koreans began using the great funeral bower to
batter the fence, bending it gradually over. I
expected tear gas at any moment. Via Campesina
leaders and members were on the far right side
knocking down the fence at the same time.
Suddenly, the Korean man was no longer on top of the
fence, but others on top were shouting to clear away a
space, and calling for a medico, for a doctor, and
screaming about a wounded man. As the world later
learned, it was the Korean farmer who had stabbed
himself in the heart, a fatal blow, in the honorable
Asian tradition of Hara Kiri. Last night television
sets were shown the image repeatedly of the man
falling back, head flung back, dark blood flowing from
his perforated chest. Not suicide, say Asians to
journalists, not suicide, but the honorable Hara Kiri,
to kill oneself in the presence of one´s enemy.
Shortly after he was carried away by medics
accompanying the march, a cloud blocked out the sun
and it rained upon all present, a welcome relief from
the intense heat. People smiled in joy at the welcome
coolness of the rain.
The Via Campesina farmers and the students, who had
come to an agreement about tactics and coordination,
continued to work on the barricade. Unfortunately, a
group of unknown youth who appeared to be gang members
came with chains wrapped on their wrists and shopping
carts full of stones to pelt the riot police. They
even elbowed fellow demonstrators out of their way.
Their tactics, the hails of stones, impeded the
farmers from streaming through a gap they had created
in the fence. A retreat back from the fence was
called by campesino leaders.
The National Indigenous Congress brass band
struck up a tune back behind the fountain in the
middle of the large roundabout, drawing many in the
crowd back away from the barricade. All throughout we
expected tear gas, which never came. Perhaps for the
presence on both sides of the barricades of
international press?
Standing over the scene was a large billboard with
a photo of the Cancun peninsula of sand and sea and
hotels, which read: A Warm Welcome Visitors to
Cancun! Some welcome, eh?
(Con't in next post)
Rigoberta Menchu in Cancun, Urges More Learn Spanish
Date: 2003-09-12 06:25 am (UTC)Ann's attachment, con't:
Pirates of the Caribbean
Earlier in the final plenary of the farmers´
forum, Vandana Shiva had characterized the WTO as an
organization undertaking the Pirating of our seeds and
cultural inheritance. Pat Mooney, a Canadian GMO
researcher and anti-intellectual property advocate,
gave a well-received speech to the mostly Mexican
indigenous farmers in which he talked about the summer
movie Pirates of the Caribbean. He said that in the
movie the pirates had an unwritten code of conduct, so
too in the WTO there was an unwritten code of conduct.
As with the pirates the true rules of the game were
never told to anyone, and as with the pirates, the
rules continually changed according to the whims of
the most powerful pirates. Same in the WTO, said Pat
Mooney of ETC Group. He said the problem with the
pirates of the Caribbean at the WTO was they they did
not recognize that they have already been dead for 200
years, and that they had come here to meet among a
sort of cemetery, the headstones being the long lines
of tourist hotels planted in the sands of the Cancun
peninsula. The cadavers, he said, could be seen
baking in the sun on the sands. Our job, he said, was
to keep the dead buried and away from the living, that
is, us, the impoverished, the farmers and indigenous
peoples of the world barred entry into this cemetery
by police lines and barricades. The assembly loved
this speech, and made us North Americans present happy
too.
Networking/Media work at the Barricades
After the biggest fights at the barricades had calmed
down, I met some of the Korean Trade Unionists, who
informed me that they had raised half a million
dollars to bring their delegation of 250 Koreans,
representing about 200 organizations in Korea to
protest and bear witness at this convergence here in
Mexico. I was interviewed by journalists from Korea
reporting on the protests and who were astonished to
learn that most US farmers do not benefit from the
mammoth subsidy system, but continue to lose their
lands to corporate growers and transnational
corporations like Tyson, Purdue, Conagra, Cargill,
ADM, etc... and all the fast food industry which
profits from cheap, under the cost of production
foods. US citizens willing to make honest critiques
of our governments´policies continue to be welcome
wherever we go, and interviewed and received with open
arms.
Barricade turned into Modern Art
In the late afternoon after searching out some food up
the hill from the battle line, I returned with the two
Korean journalists, to find the remains of the fence,
now a miasma of twisted steel. A gap had been opened
in this modern sculpture to exclusion and people were
being allowed in or out, one at a time, employees from
the hotels who had walked kilometers from their places
of work, coming out little by little, and people with
proof of hotel reservations or WTO accreditations,
allowed to pass inside. In front of this spot corn
seeds had been spread on the pavement in the form of
the words NO OMC and two candles burned on either
side. The message is pretty obvious. The sacred
corn, threatened with extinction by the WTO and its
intellectual property and free trade agenda.
Rumors were beginning to circulate in the media
about the Korean, some said he was gravely wounded,
others that he was dead. Today, we all know he is
dead, and the Via Campesina and the Farmers forum and
students will all be marching in less than one hour
from this moment, from the camps down to the spot at
Kilometer Zero where the act was done. The Korean
delegates will be marching from their hotel on the
inside of the peninsula to meet up with the farmers
and youth in a large encampment at the roundabout,
where acts and ceremonies will take place.
(Con't in next and last post)
Rigoberta Menchu in Cancun, Urges More Learn Spanish
Date: 2003-09-12 06:26 am (UTC)Ann's attachment, con't:
Crossing the police line
I finally left those remaining at the barricade
and, showing my WTO accreditation cards, passed
through the line of riot police, and began the 4 mile
walk to the Fair Trade Exposition, and rejoined others
of the Rural Coalition delegation and our board
members and colleagues. Tired and extremely sticky, I
took a swim in the sea, had a beer and then dried off
and then went up the stairs to the Fair Trade
Reception, to hear, among others, the Nobel Laureat
Rigoberta Menchu, praise Fair Trade as the humane and
peaceful response to the trade of exploitation and
death represented by the WTO. She also exhorted more
people to learn Spanish.
Juan Martinez of the Beehive Collective was
present on the roof and we unfurled one of his large
Plan Colombia banners and began doing his popular
education talks there. Vandana Shiva remembered him
from the Cycling Caravan in St. Louis.
INSIDE WTO Action:
About the same time that our great campesino march
was taking place, inside the WTO, another act of
rebellion was taking place at the opening speech of
the president of the WTO, Supachai of Thailand. In
the middle of his speech, dozens of NGO delegates
stood up, some with tape over their mouths, all
holding signs, and faced the front of the room. Walden
Bello of the Philippines, Anuradha Mittal of Food
First and many others from US and European and other
NGOs with the required WTO accreditation had helped
organize this action. Their signs read WTO
Undemocratic, WTO Anti Development, WTO Obsolete.
After a moment, they began chanting: Shame, Shame,
Shame, shame... Some in the media, turning to film
them and interrupting the speech of Supachai, shouted
out questions to the protesters, and when they were
escorted out, they followed out too for interviews,
entirely disrupting the opening speech.
Friends, Wednesday, Sept 10 was a long, tragic, and
powerful day of resistance at the Cancun V
Ministerial. And to repeat what the Koreans and other
Asians present told the press: Do not use the word
suicide, this was Hara Kiri!
The encampment in Kyung´s honor will be massing this
afternoon at the former sight of the barricades at
Kilometer Zero. New barricades have been erected
about 50 yards back from yesterday´s line, with
hundreds of soldiers camping there for the duration as
well.
President Fox came and went yesterday in the WTO
meetings, pushing for an Agriculture Agreement, but we
feel certain that the Pirates of the Caribbean cannot
bury the living here at these ill-fated talks, nor can
they resuscitate the moribund colonial agenda of the
WTO.
From a cyber cafe on the mainland of Mexico (outside
the allegorical cemetery of hotels headstones),
Stephen (Esteban) Bartlett
Is there a better way to do this??
Date: 2003-09-12 06:29 am (UTC)Rosa - Sorry I didn't think to ask earlier - would you like to get occasional articles like the one I just clogged your LJ up with, and what's the best way to send them? I don't have your e-mail address; are you using it while you're away? Lo siento, pienso un poco lentamente hoy porque estoy rendida.
-Ann
Re: Is there a better way to do this??
Date: 2003-09-12 10:14 am (UTC)Thanks!