"When arriving at La Garrucha, the Zapatista Caracol that has jurisdiction over the rebel territories near Ocosingo, Chiapas, it hit me. Actually, two things hit me. The realization that I was standing in a Zapatista Caracol at the entrance to the Selva Lancandona, the very birthplace of the Zapatista movement, came first. The second thing that occurred to me was that I was in a normal indigenous village complete with a church and small stores just outside selling Coca-Cola and Doritos. At the time, these two images contrasted in a way that I found very hard to swallow. There is this view that some privileged United Statsian activists are burdened with. The idea that when we get to Mexico or Guatemala or Nicaragua, all of the indigenous and campesinos are going to have turned their backs on globalism and all its trappings. I loved that view, but here it was crumbling yet again, in the cradle of zapatismo. And then I waited. The familiar pace of life that I had become accustomed to in Guatemala reasserted its reign, and I waited.

The meeting with the Junta itself was an awe-inspiring experience, again. While sitting there in front of the three men and one woman (which is required at La Garrucha) there was already the thoughts of how great it would be to tell all my friends back home how it had felt sitting in front of a Junta de Buen Gobierno. It was an awkward meeting in the end and hard to read, but its obvious now that I had not yet opened my eyes at that point. The Junta wasn’t clad in balaclavas, there weren’t old model rifles slung across every back, there was bureaucracy. I was still (and still am to a large degree) the foreigner or gringa with foreign ideals and foreign expectations. When I did finally get on my way to my destination, Nuevo Rosario, the change started to come over me. Maybe it was the switch from the ‘Hora de Fox’ to the ‘Hora de Dios’ but it was indeed a different world than the one expected from those of us born on ‘El Otro Lado.’

As you crest the hill on the path to Nuevo Rosario, you are struck by the picturesque tranquility. It is pleasing. A small valley nestled in among majestic mountains. You can see tiny horses with tiny riders below you and miniature pale pink and blue and yellow houses with vibrant laundry strung between them blowing in the wind while the verdant maize stalks stand solemnly as a thread of aquamarine babbles along the edge of the village. Our house for the next two weeks was modest, but comfortable and best of all it had amazing views of the village below and the mountains rising just behind. The people were kind but quiet and there was a slight sense of ennui mixed with faint curiosity. We were obviously not the first gringos here and most likely not the last. I was ok with this, I had been in this situation before. It’s humbling, but comforting too. You blend in, but you’ll never fit in. I knew that I was there to do was human right observation, that’s why they asked me to come. It was not an invitation to become a part of their community.