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Announcements
Posted by: perry on 04/15/2008 02:55 PM
Updated by: perry on 04/15/2008 02:55 PM
Expires: 01/01/2013 12:00 AM
Oventic Language School
We left the sun and sand of the Oaxacan coast to catch a bus to San Cristobal in Chiapas before going to our first and only appointment of our trip. We had all applied and gotten accepted to the Oventic Language School in the Zapatista controlled area of Chiapas.
After a couple nights in San Cristobal we headed off into the mountain highlands of Chiapas looking for a place called Oventic, which is not on any maps. It was actually quite a nice ride, and I was far ahead of Austin and Ariel when the road came to a split. I decided to wait for them, but 45 minutes went by. I had no idea what could be taking them so long. But I decided to go on ahead and about a 15 minute ride later I was at a place where I would have to wait for them. About another 45 minutes later they arrived and Austin had a bandage wrapped around his arm. He spilled while taking a turn going downhill.
Well, we all carried on and hauled our bikes up and down a few more mountains when we finally arrived in Oventic. Oventic is a Caracol (or snail) or resistance. Actually it's more of a municipal region representing many surrounding villages and providing secondary education along with artisan cooperatives and (for us) the center of language. School wouldn't start until the next day. So, first we had to find out how to get into the Caracol (it's fenced off and guarded by viligantes). Well, we ended up having to meet with the Junta before being permitted to stay (but first we had to wait outside in the rain under a small awning for about 30 minutes). Then we got general directions to the language school and somehow found the dorms. A quick tour to show us where the toilets and drinking water were.
Austin and I took the beginner course which wasn't really organized to teach us spanish. For the first couple days we sat with our teacher and just pointed at things to find out what they were called. We also had class with another teacher, and he actually taught us a few grammar rules which made spaish make A LOT more sence. In the evenings there was a cultural activity including videos, weaving, meeting with the women's cooperative, hiking in the mountains, and more. It was also nice that we had a lot of spare time where we could lay in the sun or go on a walk to the nearby waterfall to go swimming.
But the biggest thing about the language school was the communication with the Zapatista community. The Caracol is a big social project designed to help support the indiginous community which has been repressed by the Mexican government for a long time and more recently by NAFTA. It was interesting to learn some of the history of the Zapatistas and about their current projects.
But some things I had trouble to accept. For example, they are trying to be as anti-capitalist as they can, but they still get coca-cola. Also they use a LOT of plastic and we found out that they just end up burning it every weekend. We tried to explain to them that it was bad to do, but they just turned around and said that it was the fucking capitalist's garbage and so it was their fault. My spanish was just not good enough to argue against them but I really hope that someday they will realize that nobody is forcing them to use so much plastic or to burn it either.
I was in Oventic for one weekend. Most of the other students went to San Cristobal for the weekend but Ariel and Austin stayed there with me. It was really quiet in the Caracol. All the students were gone. I ended up reading quite a lot and just relaxing.
Overall it was a lot of fun. Austin and I decided not to continue into our third week. We both agreed that it would be better if we knew better spanish before returning. Ariel decided to stay for an additional two weeks and we'll meet up with her later.
So we've been back in San Cristobal for a past few days. Over the weekend we met up with some of the other students from the school and went out for dinner. We also took part in the Critical Mass on Sunday. Gina will be joining us in on Saturday. Austin and I will meet her in Tuxtla then we will cycling together back to Oventic to pick up Ariel then we will head out, who knows where.
Peace,
Perry
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