A short digression here along political lines. I’d read in the B&B packet they give to each room an article about the local water situation. This is a very dry area, and there are times before the rainy season starts when water is quite scarce.
In another version of the water wars of the American west (cf. LA and the Colorado river, for starters), the center of town, which is the main tourist area, is physically a little lower than the rest of the city. So, water drains down into it first. It also gets priority due to the tourist money flowing in, and so you see trucks with “Agua Para Uso Humano” driving around with hoses to till up various restaurants and clubs, etc. when levels are low. Only when this central area is taken care of do the outer areas of the city get any water, if there is any left, that is. And of course, it is the poorestd of the city who live in the outermost areas. At least per this article.
Anyway, two days ago, I was also reading The Other Game, written in 2008 by a Maryknoll missionary who has spent a lot of time “in service” to the Mixtec campesinos of the Valles Centrales. He was writing to make a case for what we in the First World can and must learn from the these workers of the earth down here in terms of values, use of the environment, priorities, etc. Included in this was how NAFTA has been disaster for rural farmers here in Mexico, how corn, e.g., is dumped at prices more than 20% below production value, forcing farmers out of business and sending many of them to the city or to attempts to cross the border to earn enough money to survive.
The Mexicans aren’t stupid, of course, and one Mexican analysis of this situation talks about how the Mexican governement and international corporations are trying to get rid of the campesinos (sowing discord, or, in Monsanto’s case, sterile seeds) to force them off their communally owned land, so that they can take over the land and extract the resrouces it holds, all for profit, as opposed to for the benefit of humankind. It’s not really news to me, except in the local details, but when you’re temporarily living here as we are, and you’ve left a Bigfoot-sized carbon footprint just to get here, reading and thinking about these dynamics is sobering.
There are some reaffirming descriptions in the book of the campesinos reclaiming their land and refusing to buckle in front of superior (often military) forces. And the tensions and deaths of 2006 are still present here, just not as visible to the foreigner as they were 5 years ago. And the president of the Oaxacan state, designated as corrupt by the federal government, is still in power, somehow. I have’t talked with anyone here about politics, being both a newbie, and not having command of the language, but the subject follows me around wherever I go traveling, either here or in the Balkans.
