By Joy Truskowski

A human rights observer writes about her time in the conflict zone in eastern Chiapas.

I’m sitting on the church stoop this morning waiting for the sun to rise. Three cows just walked through my neighbor’s yard. Here the animals wander freely, just as the people do. Chickens pass by my feet as I am sitting outside eating. When I stroll to the outhouse I stroll past horses eating grass near their ponies. A gang of pigs will just pop out of the bushes randomly, snorting and searching for food.

The people rise with the sun here. As the sky turns to a bright orange in the east, people come out of their houses. The men head up the dirt road with bags slung over their shoulders, some of them on horses, for a long day of work in the milpas. The women stand in their yards and start to prepare things for another day of cooking, cleaning, and looking after the kids. Roosters continue crowing. (They’ve been crowing since 3am.) The cows lazily groan. Babies cry. The turkeys make their funny “gobble” sound which I never heard for real until I came to Mexico. This morning I smell the sweet, fresh scent of copal. A family passed by burning it last night and left it to burn all night. They walked together in the moonless darkness following the light of the flame. The moment was too solemn to ask them what they were doing or why.

I didn’t know what to expect when I came to this community in eastern Chiapas as a human rights observer. To tell the truth, I was a little scared. Would the people be cold or distrustful? Would they be resentful that I come from a country full of wealth and opportunity, a world that they are excluded from? Would the kids taunt us and throw rocks at us?

To my surprise, the people here opened their hearts and lives up to us completely. They shared stories with us, taught us some of their native language Tzeltal, invited us to dance in their Emiliano Zapata festival, played chess and soccer and football with us, swam in the river with us, and joked and laughed with us. It’s shocking how you can meet people from such a different background, culture, and lifestyle and then you realize that they are just as human as you are. They laugh and they fight and they struggle and they work and they want better lives, just like we all do. They love their children just as much as my mom loves me. And it was the children here who most deeply affected me.

It was just getting dark when Roman (my companion from Belgium) and I first arrived here. A handful of men were sitting on the front stoop of the Zapatista church, patiently waiting. As they each shook our hands and a man introduced us to the little one-room house we would be living in, children immediately appeared and shyly hovered around us. They stared and whispered to each other. I accidentally bumped a boy in the head with my hand as I was talking, then quickly apologized with, “¡Ay! Perdón.” Some of the kids snickered and mocked me. “¡Ay! ¡Perdón! ¡Ay! ¡Perdón!” So I repeated myself and made a game out of it, tapping random kids on the head and saying, “¡Ay! ¡Perdón!” They laughed and tapped me back, continuing to mimic me. I turned on my flashlight to see better in the growing darkness, and the kids gathered around my flashlight. I pointed the beam a few feet away from me, and they chased it.  Soon we were running and rolling on the ground, attacking the beam of light and laughing. We were already friends and I hadn’t learned a single name yet.

In the following two weeks, I spent most of my time with the kids. We made games out of bottle caps and orange peels. I taught them how to play UNO, and we often revised the game by just throwing the cards all over the place, screaming, “UNO!!” and laughing. Some of the young girls followed me to the river each time I bathed, saying, “¡Vamos a bañarnos!” and they swam with me. They taught me words in Tzeltal and I taught them words in English. They kids became my little friends, and I started to care deeply about them.

The kids of the community are precious and dirty and joyful and impatient and respectful and disrespectful and aware and selfish and shy and snot-ridden and sweet and wild and noisy and obnoxious and funny and creative and unique. They are brutally honest and the only time they pretend is when they are playing. They don’t demand Play Station to have fun, because they make games out of plastic Coke cartons, rocks, and sticks. They have horrible rotting teeth and are always sick. And they are every bit as beautiful as every kid in the whole world.

They would sometimes ask me to give them money or food. They would say, “You have a lot of money. Give me a peso.” The part that was most frustrating for me was that they were right. I do have a lot of money compared to them. I flew to Mexico in a plane and I am travelling and living off of my savings. I have more money than they could possibly imagine. Why couldn’t I just give each one a peso or a soda or a piece of candy? After all, we’re all friends, right? These kids are hungry, they are sick, and I have money and I can help them.

The most popular question among the men and women was how much money it would take for them to get to the United States to work. I never knew how to answer that exactly. I tried to explain that it was a dangerous journey and then if they ever actually made it to the States there’s no American dream just sitting there waiting for them. There is prejudice, workplace abuse, cruelty, and struggle. And then they are far away from their families and their community which are their only sense of support.

I returned to San Cristobal with bittersweet mixed feelings. I could still hear the voices in my mind, the way the language of Tzeltal gently rises and falls in triplets like a song. And every kid I saw selling bracelets or gum or polishing shoes in the Zocalo had the faces of the kids of that community.

Each and every one of us who comes from a “developed” country eventually reads about these people in rural places who make three dollars a day and live without electricity and indoor plumbing and adequate food and water. I met these people. And nothing makes the unjust reality of the imbalance of wealth in this world hit you harder than sharing a piece of your life with the people who are getting screwed over by the system. It makes you feel angry, sad, and helpless. It makes me feel guilty. Why is it that I make more money in one hour than they make in two weeks??? How is that fair in any remote sense???

I want to give everything I have to give a better life to them, and even that wouldn’t be enough.

Despite the guilt and frustration, I’m also left with a feeling of hope, tranquility, and a deep respect for the people I got to know during my time in community. Despite their sometimes dire circumstances they have a brilliant sense of humor, a love of laughter, a spirit to fight for justice, and a deep pride for who they are. They are open and brave and beautiful. I’m back in San Cristobal and soon I’ll be back in the States living the life of a privileged worker in a modern city. While I’m riding the train home from work in Chicago, the kids in community will still be playing by the river, scratching their tick bites, and making new jokes and games. And I’m pretty sure that I am going to miss those kids much more than they are going to miss me.