Talk thirty one.
San Cristóbal de las Casas, 10thFebruary
- It was a good start in Mexico, wasn’t it? Far away from our destination – San Cristóbal de las Casas, and we still have so much to see! Palenque[6]. The Mayan ruins, the Misol-Ha[7] cascade and the cascades of Aqua Azul[8] (Blue Water)!
- Unfortunately the weather was not good – it was raining almost all day.
- I didn’t mind it at all. Those great ruins in the mist and drizzle looked particularly mysterious.
- It’s a pity the pictures came out gray and dun.
- For we make photos with an amateur camera. Why didn’t you want to carry around a camera with a barrel a metre long!
- Our unprofessional sony does a very good job for our needs, anyway.
- Did you read the information table with all the languages which the Maya used?
- One wouldn’t do for them?
- For the record: These are the eight Mayan languages: tsetal, tzotzil, tojolabak, chol, lacandón, chuj and zoque.
- Yes, I’d find one of them quite nice. (in Polish, one of the above words means a masculine organ in slang)
- You missed my conversation with our driver and guide. It was very informative. By way of introduction, I’m going to remind you the history of the revolutionary movement in this poorest Mexican state of Chiapas. Unresolved social problems for decades found their outlet on 1 January 1994 when an uprising of the marginalized indigenous people went off. The uprising in known as the Zapatistas movement of the people who fought for their dignity, rights and the ability to survive in fossilized structure of land ownership. The conflict lasted mainly at a time when the president was Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León. After the change of the president an agreement was signed and a fragile balance with the government was achieved. Despite the government promises, further social tension in Chiapas is still there and still unresolved problems remain. Successive president cynically promise changes in the treatment of these people, but soon they do the same as their predecessors. For tourists a visible result of this situation is unlikely militarization of the country at the expense of the nation.
- While boring, I must admit that the story is important to understand the atmosphere in the state, especially the presence of the Zapatistas - their own revolutionary police, in addition to other forces.
- The objectives of the police were noble, but now they are primarily to collect additional fees for entering into the land that they control.
- This way the corruption field has expanded.
- I just talked about it with our guide. He tried to explain that the corruption killed his business because the prices rose along with the bribes he had to distribute!! The corruption breaks up the society – he’d say – and at the same time he was paying a Zapatistas police representative who was charging us for entering their land, only a half of what he was supposed to pay for ten passengers. He broke the other half into two parts giving one of them to the collector, keeping the other one to himself.
- Did you see it?
- Yes, I did. Immediately, I reacted with a question what he would call what he had just done. He answered that it was a life necessity.
- And that’s how it’s spinning.
- I can hardly see any chance for changes. You can still see a lot of misery in Chiapas, which mainly concerns the Indian people.
- Travelling through three Mexican states of Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas was an experience for itself. The bus was luxurious. Polish carriers are far from such standards, but the state of the roads in Mexico!
- The road all the time was mountainous, very winding, narrow and had a fatal surface, and on top of all that, there was no road surface at all. The reason was due to landslides after heavy rainfalls a few months before. Nothing is being done for months to get the holes fixed. For most of the route I pretended to be asleep so as not to experience what was happening on the road. Well, in the end we also had our bus break down.
- Which our smart drivers fixed within half an hour cleaning the fuel filter.
- Finally, we arrived safely to San Cristóbal de las Casas[9] – a city located in the central part of Chiapas. This is the cultural capital of the state and one of the most beautiful cities in Mexico. It’s named by The Mexican Ministry of Tourism Pueblo Mágico (Magic Place).
- Now I know that the name Cristóbal de las Casas comes from the name of the first Spaniard who fought for the rights of the indigenous people.
- And he was acclaimed a saint. The full name of the city is San Cristóbal de las Casas. There’s one more interesting thing why we came here all the way so far south.
- Because you wanted to go to Guatemala where you hadn’t yet been.
- This, too. We came here to visit Monika, your close cousin, who with her Mexican partner Rodolfo, runs a youth hostel. They have a great son – a year and a half old Emiliano, and lot of problems with running the business.
- Nothing is easy in Mexico. However, starting an own company takes less time than in Poland.
- Nevertheless, you have to take into account the requirements of the local corruption and lifestyle. There’s no reason ever to hurry. Time is not the most important factor. Staying cool is the most important. No meeting would start at the agreed time.
- You can either accept it and do the same or go crazy.
- Or die of hunger when you are invited to dinner, say, at 7pm.
- To such dinner, or rather a grill party, we left home with Monika and Rudy at 8. There was no hurry, though.
- You didn’t see it, but when we arrived around 9pm, the meat was just taken out of the freezer and there was something crucial missing for the grill itself.
- We had to go and find it in town. And then try to get the stubborn grill stared.
- It took about two hours. Without anything to eat before, I was starving.
- I saw you were helping yourself to the wine.
- I tried to cheat my hunger.
- Well after midnight the meat was served. It was burned for my taste and didn’t look inviting.
- No. It didn’t look too bad. It had one drawback. It was undercooked. Just hard. For me, inedible. In the kitchen there was a pretty decent oven in which I could’ve made excellent steaks within less than an hour.
- But your conversations were engaging.
- Yes, we met four friends whose political views were totally separate. So were their ideas of how to solve unresolved social problems in Mexico.
- Which doesn’t spoil their friendship. We learned a lot from them about the country. And thanks to Monika, and especially to Rudy, we saw some of the Indian life in the town of San Juan Chamula[10].
- The Indians form the Tzotzil tribe.
- You must play the wise!
- You wouldn’t know otherwise! Oh, sorry, you would. You would look into your Internet and read it all! But I had books as my chore.
- And destroyed forests for paper! Not fair, not good! Not ecological!
- You don’t even have to take pictures nowadays. You can find them in the Internet Wikipedia.
- You aren’t in the Internet, you don’t exist.
- I don’t like it. It’s terrible! San Juan Chamula is famous for the Indian folklore, a mixture of Catholicism and pre-Columbian pagan traditions. Their spiritual centre is the church San Juan Chamula which is situated in the market square.
- The visit in the church left me really impressed. First, the floor covered with some grass or needles, then the charred walls and strong smell of smoke from numerous candles on the floor, eventually the sight of groups of Indians sitting on the floor among them.
- Whole families gather to pray to their saints and drink homemade alcohol called posh in a gesture similar to the toast.
- They’d also drink Coca-Cola, Fanta and some other stuff.
- For me, their prayers were amazing, spoken individually or by the whole group rhythmically, aloud, while rocking steadily.
- It looked like a trance.
- Their zeal won respect, didn’t it?
- But the sacrifice of live animals was an exaggeration.
- They are allowed to practice that only in this particular church. Killing animals, mostly chickens, in the holy sacrifice, serves obtaining the health by the prayers for some family member. The killed chicken is supposed to take over the illness. After the ceremony the poor chicken is buried along with his "new disease “.
- They murder the chicken by wringing its neck.
- I managed to hear something crunching in the hands of the Indian woman.
- In Chamula, their local police, dressed in sheep skins, control the order and see to the fees tourist have to pay. Under no circumstances should you take photos of them. Anyway, in the church nobody was allowed to photograph Indians while celebrating their ritual prayers.
- The poor Indians reluctantly look at the tourists despite the fact that many of them live off them. The reluctance has its roots in the history of the land whose indivisible owners the Mayans used to be. And ever since the Spanish Conquest they have unsuccessfully been fighting for their rights.
- What rights did your friends have to you at the time when we met? I got the impression they could afford a lot.
- You must be right. I needed them badly not to stay alone and not to do something foolish.
- Meeting me and making me join that group was something like that?
- I was only getting friendly warnings not to take any hasty decision so that there was no repetition. However, from a certain point, their "power" over me ceased to play any role.
- And this is where I see the beginning of their unwillingness to me.
- You’re exaggerating. If at all we’re talking here about that unwillingness to you, then it appeared much later.
- What was that I did?
- You? I assure you that you did not do anything wrong. You showed up in the Galery on New Year’s Eve 1999/2000, and an hour before midnight my life got changed. The thing was, that I didn’t realize that then.
- What could I know?
- Not much. Coming back to my arrangements with friends, I must explain that it was I who was the object of their jealousy. For it was jealousy of a friend. Misunderstood jealousy. Misunderstood friendship. Possessive and selfish. As a result, you've become a victim and in part the target of their attacks. Their grudge to me got transferred onto you. I hope we’ll be able to unravel the reasons of the ending of our/my friendship with them in our successive talks. But let’s go back to the Galery and the repetition party on New Year’s Day. Why did you agree to stay on and then accept my proposal of going with me to Sweden where I was about to travel to, in business?
- I stayed on because I felt fine in the company of you all, and then something happened which urged me to make up my mind. During that evening, someone appeared in the Galery. It was my alleged boyfriend – Przemek with his buddies. He treated me with a cold and usual „Hi” – and ignored me completely. He was the last person I wanted to see that evening. He managed to spoil my mood which got passed onto you as well.
- I totally did not realize it, because I did not pay attention to them.
- The appearance of Przemek in the Galery on New Year’s Day killed me. He and I were supposed to spend the New Year’s Eve together but he didn’t show up at the railway station to join me on the train going to Jelenia Góra. That was the end. I was alone again.
- That’s why you were on your own in the Galery.
- I agreed to go to Sweden, because I hadn’t been there and I enjoyed the idea of driving your Volvo. You told me you needed a driver, didn’t you?
- It was not a bait! The car had Polish registration plates and according to the Swedish customs regulations I was not supposed to drive such a car in Sweden as I was a holder of a permanent residency card.
- Ha, ha. After a night ferry voyage from Świnoujście to Ystad, it was you who drove off the ferry and was driving that car all the way to Göteborg!
- Guess why. I was so confused... No, I’ll be frank, I was so enchanted, so that everything was happening without my control, without logical thinking.
- You behaved bravely. You showed no signs of insanity or disease.
- Mock me now. It’s your right. Then I had a hum in my head and only one question was buzzing in it. “Do I have a chance?”
- What chance?
- To make you interested. To induce in you a feeling to which I can refer building contacts between us.
- I was a greenhorn. Everything seemed so natural to me. I was walking into your life with great strides. I wasn’t sure I was able to embrace it all.
- I knew you were „freshy”.
- What slang is that?
- It’s my own neologism for the needs of the situation. I didn’t want to spoil anything. It wasn’t just an adventure for me. I wondered what to do so that it wouldn’t be an adventure for you either.
- Someone had to do some thinking. You managed to do it, I think.
- You think? We’ve been together for twelve years now. Today is our anniversary, and you’re saying that I managed to do it?!
- Keep cool. We both know that out of the two of us, you are more sentimental. It’s you who attaches importance to anniversaries, you get sensitive in different situations, in which I do not react, you shed tears in the movie s,you are concerned about the fate of others ...
- Don’t play a tough guy. It’s you who remembers about birthdays of everybody in our families and acquaint-tances.
- My mobile phone reminder helps me in that!!
[1] Palenque
[2] Misol-Ha Waterfall
[3] Agua Azul Palenque
[4] San Cristóbal de las Casas
[5] San Juan Chamula
[6] Palenque
[7] Misol-Ha Waterfall
[8] Agua Azul Palenque
[9] San Cristóbal de las Casas
[10] San Juan Chamulav
