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Since we have returned we are newly aware of how little information actually leaves Chiapas. The little that makes it into international press often misinforms and belittles the situation as a simple fued between "warring tribal communities". Of course this is to the benefit of both the US and Mexican governments, especially with all eyes on NAFTA. We are excited to be able to bring our first hand accounts back to the US and our communties. Following is a more in depth account of our journey.
Circo de Manos wove traditional circus with puppets and masks to create a show which entertained all ages regardless of culture or language barriers. Images included a stiltwalking horse, jaguars, a strongman, a trapeze artist, tap dancing birds and a "super abuela" or super-granny who raced against kids from the crowd with her son on her back. The circus told the tale of an evil ringmaster who hoarded everything and treated the members of the circus badly, He struggled with his whip and whistle to make them do tricks but they would only perform behind his back. With the aid of a revolutionary monkey the people of the circus joined together against the ringmaster to take the circus back for themselves. They celebrated by performing their tricks and laughing as the ringmaster became the clown, making fumbling attempts to perform their acts. Along with trapeze rig, puppets, instruments and always a guide or two, the Circo de Manos bus was also equipped with a kitchen for preparing and serving simple meals for up to 200 people, allowing us to end several shows with the sharing of food for the belly as well as the soul.
Upon arriving in San Cristobal on December 4, we met our local hosts from the Centro Derechos Humanos Fray de Bartolome, a church based human rights organization which aids in the indigenous struggle for basic human needs in more ways than one can list or imagine. The scope of their work is overwhelming and yet they accomplish a great deal everyday, from acting as a conduit for the international press, organizing international observers and detailing the activities of the military to scheduling our puppet circus tour.
Our first show was in San Andreas, the small town where the peace negotiations between the government and the Zapatistas were held in 1995. We arrived midday on a Sunday and performed our circus in the midst of the market just following mass for a huge crowd of indigenous and mestizo peoples. We were so well received we later were asked to lengthen our tour to include several towns in the area where people had heard about us.
The following morning we left for the Altamirano region under the guidance and planning of a truly incredible woman who has been working in the communties to create collectives and local economies for the past 15 years. After several stops by immigration police, including one where we were photographed beside the bus, we arrived in San Miguel Chiptic, a small community located several miles out a rough dirt road. Although it was already dark when we drove into the village (which consisted of a church, a large school/community building and many wood shack houses dispersed throughout farm lands) we were greeted by children and men following the bus, excited for our arrival and asking when we would be performing. Once we told them we would do a show that evening the women appeared to greet us as well, lining up, shaking hands with each one of us and welcoming us to their town with shy smiles and a few words of Spanish mixed with the local language - Tojolabal. We performed a traditional Inuit (alaskan native) shadow puppet tale by torch light on the basketball courts in front of the church, to a large crowd, which probably represented most of the town. We followed the show with fire swinging, dancing fire hands and lots of music sung and danced to by all.
The following day we rigged our trapeze next to the church and performed the circus to a bedazzled crowd of men women and children in bright clothes. After the circus we were asked to split into groups of two and three and go home with local families for dinner. It was at dinner that we learned of the life and struggle of these people, of how this land had been held by a padrone (a landowner - 20 families own over 80 million acres in Chiapas - of the best land of course) and had been taken back as communal land during the uprisings in 1994. Our host for dinner had enjoyed the show immensely and recognized the underlying story which supported their struggle. He wanted to know about indigenous struggles in the US and whether people here knew about and supported their struggle against the government and the reforms made by NAFTA which left them without rights to communal land. The most embarrassing thing that happened was when we first came in and they offered us a cup of water. Not wanting to offend but also knowing that if we drank the water we would be sick, we agreed to pretend we were drinking the water. Our host looked horrified after we did this and said don't you want to wash your hands? Later on we found out that everyone from our group had gone through some version of this! He and his family fed us beans and tortillas and an egg, an extravagance for them, and thanked us for coming and bringing their stories with us to people in the US.
The next day we traveled to the autonomous community of Diez de Avril. Upon arriving at the community we saw a sign which read "No Soldiers, No Drugs, Only Corn and Peace. "We were excited to enter one of the autonomous zones we had heard so much about ; Zapatista communities where no drugs or alcohol are allowed and where the army is not allowed to enter according to the peace agreements. This green hilly village also boasted a bilingual school teaching in Tzeltal and Spanish. We learned that everything here had been built in a short few years since the people came and claimed this land on April 10th 1994 during the Zapatista uprising. They had created so much from nothing under difficult circumstances. We performed the circus later that same day on the basketball courts to just about everyone who was in town that day. During the performance our guide overheard one man encouraging the audience to smile and laugh and enjoy because they cannot be sad and struggling always. At the end of the circus we described the story in the context of their struggle and invited the whole community up to our bus for coffee and cookies and a shadow puppet show later in the evening. Slowly but surely they came to our bus where we poured cups of hot coffee (with lots of sugar) and once again shared our instruments, attempting to sing along as they played their Zapatista hymn, purporting the invincibility of the battle fought with the heart of the people. We performed our shadow show and lingered with instruments and children for hours under a starry sky atop the hill leading into their town. As we packed up to go to bed they asked us to stay saying many had been away today and we should perform again tomorrow. It was definitely hard to keep our schedule and leave in the morning.
Our next two shows were in larger towns, cities in comparison to the places we had just been. In Ocosingo we performed on the soccer field to a crowd of mostly children, many of whom had no adult or family with them. The city is split between EZLN and PRI sympathizers and the tensions were apparent in the air. You could feel that the war was being fought there on an everyday basis. The children became so engrossed in the story that they became outraged at the evil ring master and they started throwing rocks at her! We performed in Yajalon on the day of the Virgin of Guadeloupe at a huge festival in the center of town and got out of the center just in time to make way for a procession, mass and of course a huge fireworks show.
We left for Chilon in the morning where we were greeted with open arms by a priest who had once been involved in street theater and who loved our project. We performed in a beautiful grassy field in front of thechurch and were hosted by the women of the church to a lunch and talk about the local women's organic coffee and weaving collectives. Chilon was covered in pro Zapatista and pro Indigenous graffiti. Later that same day we performed nearby in Bachajon, another small town with a mix of indigenous and mestizo (mixed blood) peoples and a split in political sympathies. In both Chilon and Bachajon our circus was watched by many military men with guns in hand, several of whom stood backstage throughout most of our Bachajon show.
Palenque was our next stop, where we performed once again in front of the church to a mixed crowd. After a day off to catch up with our exhaustion we left to perform in Salto de Agua which we soon found out was a hot spot, crawling with military. While setting up our show a woman asked us what we were doing. When we replied that we were going to perform a circus her eyes lit up and she said "Here? Nobody comes here to perform... wait! I've got to go get everyone I know!" In Salto de Agua we were detained by the immigration police immediatly after our show and told we had to stay in town the night and report into immigration before leaving.
On December 18th we performed in San Cristobal in the plaza to a large crowd of mainly indigenous women and children from surrounding villages who come there to sell their handicrafts. On the 20th we performed at Huichipan and the following moreing in Simojovel two towns of mixed sympathies not far from the county of Chenahlo. The 21st we drove to El Bosque where we performed to a crowd of mostly indigenous Tzotzil families. Again we were received with excitement and hospitality by the church and community. We learned a great deal from the sisterhood of nuns who hosted us about the tensions between the mestizos and indigenous families because many mestizos have been monetarily coerced to join with the PRI or paramilitary groups. We were also told of the devastation of cultures and communities in the area caused by a war which is not acknowledged by the government. They had tried to make plans for us to perform in a nearby village where the women no longer danced and the children seldom laughed but we could not go because the coffee harvest was happening and the people were in the fields from dawn into the night with no breaks.
The following morning, December 22, we were to leave for Chenahlo where we had planned to do a show and serve a meal to the displaced people at a refugee camp near Acteal. We were unable to make our contact with the priest so we stayed put in El Bosque an extra day. It was on this morning that the massacre occurred in Acteal, a town 15 km from El Bosque in Chenahlo. Our extra day in El Bosque not only saved us from being in the midst of the massacre, but we spent the day teaching mask making and shadow puppet workshops to a young women's group and performing our shadow show on the church altar as part of their Posada, a town procession and celebration.
The following morning we left for Oventic, an autonomous zone which invited us to perform after hearing of our shows. We were stopped and questioned by immigration officials and after about an hour our tourist cards were taken from us and we were sent directly to San Cristobal to try to retrieve them. After hearing of the massacre we stopped in Oventic to drop off the food we had prepared for the Chenahlo refugees first aid supplies and a bicycle donated by the yellow bike project in Austin, Texas. Unfortunately due to our immigration problem only a few miles up the road and the devastating news of the massacre we were not able to perform in Oventic but our brief tour of the community affected us all deeply. The wooden shacks were covered with beautiful murals and graffiti purporting the strength of the people and the importance of women as the heart of the revolution. Our favorite quote "the valiant woman is the brave heart of the revolution" was written there. Since the women in Chiapas are the backbone of the revolution and of the communities trying to survive in the midst of it all, our expedition of all women and a child was received as not only an exciting respite and chance to laugh but also as a symbol of solidarity and empowerment.
The following day was Christmas eve and we spent our time at the immigration office making a failed attempt at getting our tourist cards back and in the Zocalo of San Cristobal where a candle light vigil was held in front of the main church. The Bishop Samuel Ruiz (who had just had an survived an assassination attempt around thanksgiving) denounced the violence in Chenalho. The refugee families gathered with international observers and left to try to retrieve their dead for burial (the government attempted to deny them this basic human right). Information was disseminated through speeches, video and news articles read during the vigil. While on our way there we encountered a military caravan of tanks, hummers and truckloads of troops entering the city. There was a strong military presence surrounding the plaza throughout the evening. At the vigil we met up with friends who were traveling with a peace caravan from Mexico City and heard their accounts of spending the day taking eye witness testimonies from the massacre victims in the local hospitals. They had grave stories to tell along with press releases about the lack of care given to the victims, some of whom survived only by hiding under the dead bodies of other family members. Many of the survivors had been untreated and were still covered in blood three days later.
On Christmas day, after finally retrieving our tourist cards, we prepared and served a meal for approximately 20 refugee families who had just returned from burying their dead. An encampment was being set up for them at the same church center where we had been staying. The following morning we served breakfast to the hungry families as they told us their stories of losing their homes, family members, everything. They had no food or change of clothes, no blankets, many of their houses had been burned down and most were wearing light cotton clothes and no shoes in the cold wet nights of the highland winter. That afternoon we performed the circus for the final time (twice actually at the request of village elders) for about 30 families as well as two young girls with bullet wounds in their legs who had lost their entire families. Seeing one of them smile briefly a few times was the greatest reward of the journey. After the show we again served hot food to all present including 20 more families who had just arrived at the encampment.
Throughout our experience in Chiapas we were struck with the invaluable work being done by the Catholic church and it's affiliates in the Chiapas region. Their belief in liberation theology puts the needs of people struggling for basic human rights at the forefront of their work. We were continually taken in and hosted by local priests and nuns who were all heavily involved in the local struggle. It was a pleasure to work with these committed people and a lesson for many of us.
We would like to take this chance to thank all those who supported this vision financially and in so many other ways and Clowns without Borders and Moshe Cohen for facilitating the tour.
Amy Christian for Wise Fool and Circo de Manos
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