Friday, May 11, 2007
Forgive me, I'm 'way behind in keeping up my blog. So what's been happening?
My Municipality, Nueva Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, has been having its Hatfields vs McCoys drama with the neighboring Municipality over water and land rights. About a month ago, it reached the point of fighting, and eight men were hospitalized with machete wounds. (I stay far away from any of these troubles - the battles are in outlying communties.) The army was called in on that one, and we had soldiers patrolling the town for a couple of days. Since then, the National Police have been invited back - they were kicked out about a year ago when they beat up a teenager seemingly without cause - and we now have a Police Substation here.
The whole fracas goes back 150 years, to a fight between two community leaders over a woman (what else?), and half the Municipality seceded. People here say the difficulties could be ended if there were a clear boundary between the two Municipalities. But that cannot happen, because the communities are completely intermixed. Most communities along the "border" have two centers, each owing allegiance to its own Municipality.
But the Hatfield/McCoy thing is on the back burner for now. We now have our own internal problem to deal with.
In response to Hurricane Mitch, the Municipal Center moved from its beautiful but dangerous site to its current new site in 2000. It is now a planned community on a mountaintop, with little water or firewood and a very unpleasant (cold, cloudy) climate. It is called "Alaska" for a reason. But it is much safer, and the new houses built by International Aid groups are solid, if simple.
The few people who did not transfer, supported by their very active local priest who bitterly opposed the move (and still does, he hasn't gotten over it) still live there in their sinking houses with cracked walls. There is even some new building going on. Recently they decided to become an autonomous indigenous community, essentially seceding yet again from the Municipality.
The old community still has a very impressive church, but inside it is full of steel bracing, and the walls are canted out at about 5 degrees, with wide cracks in the walls.
This has all given rise to a series of empassioned meetings in front of the Alcaldia here, with much shouting and waving of arms. The secesion is bitterly opposed by most of the surrounding communities.
About two weeks ago a contingent of people went to the old community and destroyed their signs proclaiming the new Indigenous Municipality. This is the previous Alcaldia with the Municipalidad Indigena Santa Catarina painted out. They now have chains and guards at the entrance to their community.
Posters proclaiming the Rights of Indigenous Peoples featuring pictures of Eva Morales (the indigenous President of Bolivia) are prominent beside the door of the Alcaldia.
It is tough to get your hands around this bruhaha. The current Mayor (Alcalde) and all the Municipal staff are already indigenous, so what is the big deal? It seems to involve an autonomy issue, where the government has agreed to allow some indigenous communities freedom to control land and discipline malcreants by traditional (unspecified) Mayan customs. But nobody will come right out and say that even when asked, and it is not clear what it means in any case.
Well, this doesn't have much to do with why I am here but it does keep life interesting.
Since I have not been able to generate much support for creating a local organization that can prepare for and respond to natural disasters, I am mostly engaged in GPS mapping of the communities. I now have the coordinates of about 30 of the 106 communities in the Municipality. And I do what I can to disseminate the excellent government public service announcements to local radio stations, organize the official data on the communities for the Municipality, stuff like that.
And I am increasingly thinking about what I need to do when my Guatemala service ends, on June 30th. That looks like Seattle for our family reunion and some personal maintenance tasks, then Pennsylvania (the Poconos and Philadelphia) and the midwest for several weeks of visiting relatives and friends, then catching up with Matt and his family camping through the West. Finally, if all goes well, I expect to return to Mexico in October for another period of service with the Peace Corps there.
My Municipality, Nueva Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, has been having its Hatfields vs McCoys drama with the neighboring Municipality over water and land rights. About a month ago, it reached the point of fighting, and eight men were hospitalized with machete wounds. (I stay far away from any of these troubles - the battles are in outlying communties.) The army was called in on that one, and we had soldiers patrolling the town for a couple of days. Since then, the National Police have been invited back - they were kicked out about a year ago when they beat up a teenager seemingly without cause - and we now have a Police Substation here.
The whole fracas goes back 150 years, to a fight between two community leaders over a woman (what else?), and half the Municipality seceded. People here say the difficulties could be ended if there were a clear boundary between the two Municipalities. But that cannot happen, because the communities are completely intermixed. Most communities along the "border" have two centers, each owing allegiance to its own Municipality.
But the Hatfield/McCoy thing is on the back burner for now. We now have our own internal problem to deal with.
In response to Hurricane Mitch, the Municipal Center moved from its beautiful but dangerous site to its current new site in 2000. It is now a planned community on a mountaintop, with little water or firewood and a very unpleasant (cold, cloudy) climate. It is called "Alaska" for a reason. But it is much safer, and the new houses built by International Aid groups are solid, if simple.
The few people who did not transfer, supported by their very active local priest who bitterly opposed the move (and still does, he hasn't gotten over it) still live there in their sinking houses with cracked walls. There is even some new building going on. Recently they decided to become an autonomous indigenous community, essentially seceding yet again from the Municipality.
The old community still has a very impressive church, but inside it is full of steel bracing, and the walls are canted out at about 5 degrees, with wide cracks in the walls.
This has all given rise to a series of empassioned meetings in front of the Alcaldia here, with much shouting and waving of arms. The secesion is bitterly opposed by most of the surrounding communities.
About two weeks ago a contingent of people went to the old community and destroyed their signs proclaiming the new Indigenous Municipality. This is the previous Alcaldia with the Municipalidad Indigena Santa Catarina painted out. They now have chains and guards at the entrance to their community.
Posters proclaiming the Rights of Indigenous Peoples featuring pictures of Eva Morales (the indigenous President of Bolivia) are prominent beside the door of the Alcaldia.
It is tough to get your hands around this bruhaha. The current Mayor (Alcalde) and all the Municipal staff are already indigenous, so what is the big deal? It seems to involve an autonomy issue, where the government has agreed to allow some indigenous communities freedom to control land and discipline malcreants by traditional (unspecified) Mayan customs. But nobody will come right out and say that even when asked, and it is not clear what it means in any case.
Well, this doesn't have much to do with why I am here but it does keep life interesting.
Since I have not been able to generate much support for creating a local organization that can prepare for and respond to natural disasters, I am mostly engaged in GPS mapping of the communities. I now have the coordinates of about 30 of the 106 communities in the Municipality. And I do what I can to disseminate the excellent government public service announcements to local radio stations, organize the official data on the communities for the Municipality, stuff like that.
And I am increasingly thinking about what I need to do when my Guatemala service ends, on June 30th. That looks like Seattle for our family reunion and some personal maintenance tasks, then Pennsylvania (the Poconos and Philadelphia) and the midwest for several weeks of visiting relatives and friends, then catching up with Matt and his family camping through the West. Finally, if all goes well, I expect to return to Mexico in October for another period of service with the Peace Corps there.
