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...

News that is much more local to me: I heard the following from someone I met at Junax, the hostel for volunteers where I was staying: She went to Roberto Barrios, which is one of the 5 Caracoles, the seats of Zapatista Good Government. This community, unlike Oventic where I was, is mixed Zapatista and non-Zapatista (usually this means supporters of the PRI, the political party that ruled Mexico for 71 years till Fox took office). In many Zapatista areas they need foreign activists to be there as observers so that the Army or the paramilitaries don't commit human rights abuses. These volunteers are called 'Campamentistas.'

Anyway, usually it is muy tranquillo at these campamentos. The volunteers sit all day and watch the road and count how many army or police vehicles and personnel go by. If the authorities try to talk to them, they are supposed to act like the're just dumb tourists. Then they come back to San Cristobal and report what they saw. Usually it's boring, but comes with a good feeling, I'm told, that you're helping prevent further violence against Zapatista communities.

Usually. I was told, however, that last wednesday in Roberto Barrios a foreign campamentista was on her way to the bathrooms when some non-zapatista villager pointed a gun at her and told her they weren't wanted there. Later during the night a mob of villagers were throwing rocks at the house where the dozen or so volunteers were trying to sleep, and shouting threats.

Obviously the PRIstas don't want the campamentistas around, because they're stopping the paramilitaries and army from doing nasty stuff to the Zapatista people there. I think this is a new kind of thing going on in Chiapas. I haven't heard of peace campers being threatened before. My friend arrived a couple days after this happened. She and the other volunteers were told by Zapatista security that they should never go anywhere alone. Even when going to the bathrooms they should go in big groups. After a day or so she and several other volunteers there decided to leave.

A few others stayed. I hope they are alright.

While travelling its often hard to keep updated on world events, especially the admitedly somewhat obscure (for the U.S.) subjects that I try to keep track of when I'm home. But lately Bolivia has been erupting into action again, again mostly about the hydrocarbon policies - really really serious stuff going on there, and being in Latin America you get more news of Latin America. I've been following things as best I can for the last few days online, and today La Journada, the leading left-leaning national paper in Mexico, has a front page above the fold story about Bolivia. The situation is getting steadily more intense. Blockades are up in La Paz and now Cochabamaba. Military officers are getting fired by the army for saying in public on televison that the president should resign... I don't know if anyone has much of an idea what will happen, but big changes are afoot soon, I would say. So keep looking at Bolivia Indymedia (if you know spanish), or Jim Schultz's Democracy Center Blog, or Narco News, where mi amigo Luis Gomez is reporting from La Paz pretty regularly.

On the Chiapas Indymedia site is an english translation of the latest from El Sup, Subcommandante Marcos, responding to the football (soccer) team from Milan, Italy, which has accepted his challenge of a game with the Zapatista team. At the bottom of the page is the letter from Italy.

I've been reading almost nothing but Marcos' writing for the last week and this latest is in perfect form with his style of the last 11 years. He uses the letter as an excuse to make biting criticisms of Mexico's government, the U.S. base in Cuba, and even Governor Arnold in California. And he mentions his constant beetle companion, Durito, who wants the team's players arranged in single file instead of 3 ranks. Hilarious.

I hope this tournament really happens.