Wow, if someone ever told me I'd be spending 2 nights alone in Chihuahua City, Mexico a few years ago I would have been baffled. There is a reason I am here that I will get to in a moment. But seeing it, you would understand why I wouldn't have expected to ever go here, unless you thought I was really into cowboy boots - there are about 200 boot stores here, supposedly one of the best places in Mexico to buy cowboy boots - there just is not really any tourististic reason to be here at all. Actually, it is the terminus of the Copper Canyon rail line, so people are probably passing throuh. But there's very little that caters to foreign visitors.

It's not an unpleasant town. There are several very nice plazas in el Centro, and a pedestrian walkway a few blocks long, though it has virtually no benches to sit on, and no coffee culture presence or any other sidewalk sit-and-hang-out restaurants or bars or whatever. Here in Chihuahua eople seem to like to buy ice cream and walk with it, rather than sip lattes while sitting at sidewalk tables. In fact in the whole downtown area I only found one coffee place where you can sit down and drink real coffee and relax. This is specifically Chihuahense, or maybe of el norte, because in D.F. and in San Cristobal there was definitely a coffee culture, even apart from tourism.

Anyway, the reason I AM here is to interview people regarding the femicides of Juarez and Chihuahua. About 5 hours south of Juarez, this city, capital of the state of Chihuahua, has seen similar killings of young women, and an activist group called Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters) has arisen and is based here. Late afternoon yesterday I rolled into town on a bus 17 hours or so out from Mazatlan and checked my email. Macrina from Mexico Solidarity Network had come through for me and had arranged with Alma Gomez, one of the leaders of Justicia Para, for me to do some interviews. So I called up Alma and we have made plans to meet at her house. Two mothers of victims from here, and also perhaps another woman who is a main leader of the group, Lucha Castro, will meet us there.

So I'm pretty pleased. 3, maybe 4 interviews in one day. Now I just have to find my way to Alma's house, which is outside of el centro.

There's so many other things I'd like to blog, so many thoughts and observations, but I think its best to start with just what's going on, and if I have time, after checking my email and other tasks, maybe I'll blog again with some other random themes. hasta loo...

Jacob has been trying to comment on my blog and my antispam module keeps rejecting him. I can't figure out why. So, I'm going to post what he tried to say, which he just emailed to me:

Hey, I only paid 600 pesos!
Hope you're travels are going well Steev. The night you left, we went a
cafe where Karlitos and someone else from CML were going to do a poetry
reading. Well, the smug dryness of the place mixed with the damp
inebrity of ourselves made for a quite a hilarious night. Karlitos ended
up reciting his poetry from the second floor, meanwhile some others were
throwing down biting anti-bourgeous criticisms at the other 'poets.' We
got thrown out. Just another day in the Ciudad Monstruo.

Some other things you left out (and i haven't written anything in a
while): The amazing pyramids of Teotihuacan, the phat dj-funk party in
that hotel, the wireless hacking adventures, and more. Really, I love
this city. Te amo Mexico.

Say hi to the border for me. She misses me.

Jacob also recently posted the radio show he produced last week which is centered around an interview he did with me in San Cristobal. He's been remotely doing this weekly radio show as he travels, for broadcast on Radioactive, the San Diego IMC web radio station. I'm listening right now and I sort of sound like a spaced out dork for most of the interview. I think I was distracted by the beautiful garden we were sitting in at the time. oh well.

Anyway, more about me. I made it onto a bus last night that knifed its way across Mexico and 18 hours later deposited me here in Mazatlan. All air-conditioned buses in Latin America are TOO air-conditioned, to the point that its always a good idea to bring at least an extra layer with you to your seat. This bus, though, was the worst ever in that sense. It was so cold I should have brought 3 extra layers. Or a down quilt or something. It was crazy. especially when the bus was stopped for awhile. It sucked.

But anyway, now I am in hot sunny coastal Mazatlan and it's beautiful. I've only been here a few hours so I havent been over to where the really nice beaches are, by the resorts. I'm staying downtown where its cheaper and more authentic. Tommorrow I will hit the beach, and I wish I coudl stay longer but then in the evening i plan to jump on another long distance bus and go to Chihuahua City, 16 hours away,where I will hopefully interview one of the activists involved with the fight for justice for the victims of the femicides there and in Ciudad Juarez.

In a few hours I will hopefully be on a bus heading comfortably northwest, toward Mazatlan, on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. I've been in Mexico City for 6 days, staying one longer than I had planned, mainly so I could go to El Chopo today.

El Chopo is an amazing punk/goth/metal/ska/whatever/counterculture market on Saturdays, where 4 blocks or so worth of booths materialize full of people selling music, dvds, t-shirts, patches, stickers, books, zines, etc. It is really quite amazing, especially since in a normal week in D.F. you might see like one or 2 people who look truly freaky or countercultural. Not that Mexicans are all conformist drones, I'm just saying that living in Portland and California for the last 10 years has really gotten me used to seeing weirdos with mohawks or leather or purple hair or whatever, and you just dont see that too often in Latin America, usually. (and don't you dare think I mean 'weirdo' to be a negative term. To me its positive, and a convenient handle for referring to those who dont conform to society's ideas of 'normality')

So El Chopo is pretty great. And I was extremely happy to find both discs by the Argentine band Entre Rios, who I LOVE but have not been able to find anything from, even in Buenos Aires. They are sort of like a Latin Portishead crossed with Bjork or something. Absolutely beautiful, and by asking around at several booths I found them. I am psyched.

Me and Jacob wandered around there for awhile and then took the metro downtown to find a good bookstore we'd been told of. There I found the new book about the Juarez femicides that I blogged about a few days ago, 'Cosecho de Mujeres'. Next we went to find the Plaza de Computacion, another huge market, but instead of countercultural paraphenalia it was all computer stuff. Jacob had dropped the power adapter to his laptop in water last week and had to find a new one. It was an incredible experience, wandering this giant maze of little glass cubicles full of high technology. Jacob asked around at like 8 different places, and then we met this guy who was like a freelance bargain hunter, who asked what we wanted and then went running off looking for it, and finally found it for a better price than we had found yet. Jacob ended up paying 650 pesos for it. Which I assured him was cheaper than what you would pay in the states, I'm sure.

We got a cheap but good mexican lunch next and then I had to figure out how to make a call to El Paso to talk to a video guy who might be helping me in Juarez. It was the first time I've had to call back to the States from Mexico so it was a challenge. They don't really have 'locutorios' or 'casetas de llamadas' here in D.F. like they do in lots of other places in Latin America, so I had to go find a place to buy a phone card, then find a card phone, then figure out what to dial to make an international call (001) to the States. Finally I got through. Things might be looking okay. We will see.

Okay, now to go pack, make my way to the bus station, and be on my way to a couple days to relax by the sea until i start work again on my Juarez film.

as PCASC has just said in an email to their list:

The Senate Finance Committee takes up CAFTA on Tues. June 14th!! This
is part of a process called a mock mark-up, which allows Senators to
state their positions and frame the debate, without actually starting
the CAFTA fast-track time clock ticking...

So, if a senator from your state is on the Finance Committee, call him up and tell him to vote against CAFTA. This is the time.

A new book is just out about the Juarez murders, called Cosecha de Mujeres (Harvest of Women), by Diana Washington Valdez, a reporter for the El Paso Times who has been following this subject for many years. Even though it's in Spanish only, I may get it, it sounds like an excellent analysis of the situation. And it would be good practice. Nothing like practicing reading spanish with something you're really motivated to read.

In other news, I made it Mexico City with no real troubles. I'm staying in the area of the city called Roma, at the Centro Medios Libres (Free Media Center), sort of like an indymedia center but different. I'll explain more when I understand more.

The worst thing about getting there was the metro here in D.F. It's actually a really nice, modern transit system, but its insanely crowded, especially when I got to town, which was about 9am, rush hour. Trying to fit me and my bags on a train absolutely full to bursting with people was not fun. I waited till the rush started dying down and finally made it.

Anyway, so far D.F. is way nicer than I expected. I had visions of a pollution-choked hellhole but the air quality, at least today, is not that bad, and the central part of the city is pretty pleasant. I visted the Palacio Nacional this afternoon, where a bunch of Diego Rivera's famous murals are. Really great.

There's a story from yesterday's El Paso newspaper that's sort of interesting about the new special Juarez prosecutor, Mireille Roccatti Vel

I'm tommorrow heading to what foreigners call Mexico City and what Mexicans call simply Mexico, or D.F., Distrito Federal. I'm all set to meet several Indymedia Mexico people there, and I've also been asked to speak at a gallery there called H4tch about Detritus.net and related things, at 7pm on Wednesday the 8th. That will be fun. Apparently on the next evening there will be the first in a long time meeting of a bunch of Mexico City Indymedia folks, which I can hopefully attend.

I finally met Jacob from San Diego IMC when he showed up here in San Cristobal again yesterday. Last night we hung out with Luz and Timo from Chiapas Indymedia and had lots of good chats about indymedia and various projects, here, in Guatemala, in Tijuana, and elsewhere...

It was funny that at one point I got frustrated with my ineptitude at speaking espa

If you don't know what's been going in Bolivia, and/or you don't know why, if you haven't been following it, or even if you have but you don't really understand the recent historical reasons for recent events, you have to read Jim Schultz's latest blog entry. Everything he posts is excellent, but this one in particular is great because he goes back and explains the foreign pressures that have really been the cause of the uprisings going on now. And its an excellent summary case study of how the neoliberal, nondemocratic institutions which rule our world operate. They apply invisible fists to get their way, and when the people rise up and say they don't like it, others from outside who don't know about the invisible fists look and see a violent mob disrupting peaceful life. But who created the conditions that made that 'mob' get so desparate and pissed off? The IMF. The World Bank. Etcetera.

I'm tired of sitting at this computer and its an absolutely beautiful day outside, but I figure I should post something, since its been a little while.

(Speaking of tired what does it mean that the spanish word for tired, cansado, is so similar to the work for married, casado? hmmm....)

Anyway. This week I've been going to a spanish school here in San Cristobal called El Puente (the bridge). It's really good. My teacher Cecila is very competent and nice and I'm learning a lot. A lot of what we've been doing is going over and 'cementing' stuff I learned some of before but haven't practiced enough. From her I'm also getting more used to how fast Mexicans talk and how they pronounce stuff (there's more of that 'j' for 'y' thing here) compared to Guatemalans. Its also really interesting how teachers vary, in their styles and accents but also in what they consider proper. The biggest difference was Efrain in Oventic, with his Zapatista philosophies of how to communicate, but there are smaller examples that I've been noticing.

I'm staying with a family headed by a mother who has been working with the school for about 10 years and has hosted over 400 students in that time. wow. Her house is really nice, clean, and beautiful, and she prepares wonderul meals and is super friendly. There's a courtyard in the middle of the house, as is the norm here, with a really beautiful garden with lime and peach trees and flowers and lizards. The bedroom is the nicest place i've slept for 2 months.

Anyway, I've only got a few days left in San Cristobal. I have a few gifts to purchase and some preparations to make and then I head far to the north to Mexico City. I'm looking forward to my first visit to the second largest city in the world. Actually according to some, I've already been there, to Sao Paulo, and Mexico City is only 8th. But I thought it was Tokyo, then Mexico City, then Sao Paulo. Actually according to that same site the 3 largest urban areas, rather than cities, are New York, then Mexico City, then L.A. Then Mumbai, Calcutta, etc... hmm. Its all how you count it, I guess...