By Naomi Briggs

Naomi recently spent 2 weeks as a human rights observer in the community of Las Abejas, Fracción Guadalupe. What follows is her personel reflection on the experience. Walking down an ordinary street in the ordinary Mexican mountain town of Pantehlò, you turn left down a washed out dirt road overgrown with garbage and are greeted with a sign that reads,

"Bienbenidos a campamiento de la Sociedad Civil Las Abejas, Fracción Guadalupe"

Welcome to the camp of the Civil Society of 'the Bees' Fracción Guadalupe. It's like entering a different world, a world I prefer to the gawking stares and incessant cat calls I encountered while venturing to the market in Pantehlo.

Sixteen displaced families call this 36x25 meter terrain in the side of the mountain home. The houses are at best, wooden shacks where up to nine people live in a single room 6x6 meters. This is where they cook, eat, sleep, make artesenia and care for their children. Smoke from the fire inside that is used for cooking and heat pours out the generous cracks in the house. Coffee trees are sprinkled around the area, providing enough for the community to drink. The earth is a kind of clay dirt and when it rained for four days it turned into three inches of muck. There is one cistern of water that fills up a few times a week for all the families to use. While we were there, for three and a half days there was no water for the community.

We observers stayed in the school, but don't be led astray by the word school. The wooden edifice measured 2x6 meters with a wall dividing it into two rooms. One room was for us to sleep and the other was used for storage of school supplies. Our bed was wooden boards supported by cement blocks, which I actually found more comfortable than my bed at the Peace House. Protruding out from this structure about 8 meters was a scrap medal roof supported by wooden poles and the bear clay earth. Under this roof were 3 long tables and chairs for the children’s school and a chalk board on one side. The school’s teacher is sponsored by CONAFE (National Council for the Promotion of Education) and comes Monday-Friday for 5 hours aday. CONAFE is a program funded by the Secretary of Education that offers education for children up to 8 years-old who are living in marginalized places.

The women took turns cooking for us everyday, which was a beautiful gesture of hospitality. Mostly beans, hand made tortillas and delicious sweet and mild coffee. Even though we brought other things for them to cook like pasta, lentils and vegetables, we rarely saw it and couldn’t know at what hour they would bring the food. It was a real feeling of helplessness not to be able to cook for myself and not to be in control of what I ate and when, but the fact of the matter was, the only thing I had control over was my attitude.

I spent most of my time playing with the kids. They were so cute and so dirty I just wanted to hug and bathe them. We had fun playing connect the dots, tic-tac-toe, and my compañera, Ursula, brought friendship bracelets and the game of Sorry. Living in such impoverished conditions, the children are forced to find new ways to amuse themselves, as they don’t have the luxury of new toys like many children in other parts of the world. They use their imagination and play with sticks or play house. They make trucks out of plastic soda bottles by cutting a hole in the top and then attaching caps as wheels and tying a string around it to haul dirt, rocks or whatever else they can find.

My favorite thing to do with them was create kites out of garbage. The kids were so clever, using two sticks, a plastic bag and some string and they’d fly those kites all day.

I was also struck by the tremendous amount of work the women do in the community. They take care of the kids, work for mestizos cleaning houses for less than a dollar a day, cook, wash clothes, rise early to make tortillas and make various kinds of artesenia. These women are also incredibly strong as they carry probably over 100 pounds of firewood on their back at a time (sometimes in addition to their children).

One day I had the opportunity to accompany them while they went to gather firewood. I went with six women and two boys, Juan and Miguel, 10 and 8 years respectively. We went down into the jungle like mountain. I couldn’t help cut the wood because I lacked a machete along with the necessary skill to use one. I also couldn’t help carry the wood because I didn’t have rope, but the boys were able to help with this.

So while the women were working, most barefoot or with cheap sandals, I played with the kids climbing mandarin orange trees and eating mandarins and bananas to my heart’s content. On the way back to community, Miguel fell down the mountain a little bit but he wasn’t hurt bad, but he didn’t feel good enough to carry his load. The fact that he couldn’t carry his load was fine with me because I wanted to help carry the firewood. So me with my child-sized load and fire ants in my socks, I made my way up the mountain and back to Fracción Guadalupe. The women don’t wear shoes or socks, the ants don’t bother them.

On the fifth night, the whole community came to the school, as it was one of the only dry common areas in the camp. They were finally going to tell us the story of their displacement and why our presence was requested in their community. After about an hour, the representative finally started the meeting. I introduced myself and then they got distracted and began talking amongst themselves in very loud Tsotsil (their indigenous language). This went on for about two hours while I just sat there as my headache and frustration increased.

Finally the story was told, and from my understanding, it went something like this. The community members used to cultivate coffee in a community called the "Paradise of San Clemente." When the Zapatista uprising began, the owner of the land fled and the government deeded the land over to these 33 families in the form of an ejido. At that time, paramilitary groups began to be more active in the area as well.

The representative of San Clemente, Juan Jimenez Gomez, started to form such a group and demanded financial cooperation from each family. When these demands reached over 830 pesos per family, many could no longer comply. Not long after, two people were murdered for refusing to cooperate and the rest of the families fled with only the clothes on their backs.

It was at this point that they joined Las Abejas, a pacifist group sympathetic to the demands of the Zapatistas but opposing the use of violence. They gave up their land in San Clemente with no compensation and will not receive any from the government, as it is the government who is indirectly responsible for their situation.

These families have been at Fracción Guadalupe for nearly six years now and still live in constant fear of Juan Jimenez Gomez and his armed group. They receive constant threats and the men are afraid to leave. According to the community members, Jimenez Gomez’s mother is sick and he blames the people of Fracción Guadalupe. He is threatening to kill everyone in the camp if she dies. But with the presence of international observers, the armed groups are afraid to take action, as the last thing they want is international attention.

They still owe 7,000 pesos on the loan they used to buy the land they’re now living on. They have dreams of a better life for themselves and their children. There is a vacant lot directly next to the terrain they are now living on that the wish to buy, in order to spread out. Currently with so many people living in such close quarters and no facilities to maintain good hygiene, sicknesses are rampant and everyone has a runny nose.

By our standards they have a low standard of living, but by no means does that mean a low standard of life. For hasn't God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith? No situation of poverty can oppress the dreams, imagination and spirit. And their spirits and dreams soar just as high as the kites.