Days 2 and 3: Atenco, Mexico & the Autonomous University of Mexico

Yesterday we went to Atenco. It was kind of an ordeal, involving the metro, 3 buses, and lots of people giving us bad directions and gross under-estimates of time to our destinations.

When we finally got there, just before our final stop, we asked the woman sitting in front of us about what Atenco is like, and what she thought about what happened there a couple months ago. She said, "nothing happened. Atenco is very peaceful." I realized soon after that she surely said this because she was with her young daughter. A couple minutes later, a guy with a swastika drawn on his bag got the bus. I found this a bit shocking, but I realized later, after seeing a poster that was fairly similar (and susanna pointed this out) People in Atenco take it so for granted that everyone in town is a radical leftist, that the swastika is sometimes actually used as an anti-facist symbol--they just take the circle with a line through it for granted!

We got off the bus in front of a big Zapatista mural




This guy who seemed delirious and homeless kept trying to lead us somewhere, but we wrote him off as crazy. How would he know where we want to go? He went away eventually. Then we asked some people where the Zapatista office was, and they sent us where the delirious homeless guy was trying to lead us. I felt like an ass.

The whole walk to the office was covered with Zapatista murals. Everyone was very friendly, and random people kept telling us where to go without us asking them. Very welcoming and nice. The murals were about how the people should rise up against the government with Machetes.







We got to the office and there were 4 or 5 people in a room with barely any furniture, watching video footage of police beating the people of this village. We started talking to them. If you didn't know, there was a serious incident in Atenco in May. We talked about that for a bit. We asked if we can talk to Subcommadante Marcos but they said that because of the current climate he isn't doing interviews, and they didn't know where he was anyways.
They told us that there was going to be a march at 5:00 pm. We thought this was very lucky that we happened to show up the same day as a march and decided to hang out for a couple hours while we waited for the march to start.

The group started getting bigger and some little kids were with them. Most of the people looked like they'd fit right in with Hard Times bike kids on the west bank in minneapolis. They dressed, smelled, and acted just like your typical anarchist punk kids from any place. Susanna was totally stunned to see that some of them had tongue piercings and had plenty of questions about it. She thought these kids looked mean and intimidating, but was pleasantly surprised to see how nice and polite everyone was, totally happy to answer our questions.

We sat patiently and talked, and a group of little kids came and befriended us.


We talked, gave them candy, and had a good time. They were very cute little kids. Susanna wanted to know what the day to day life of these kids was like, so we asked if we could go visit a little girl's house. She asked why (understandably). Susanna gestured that she wanted to wash her hands. Somehow that was convincing enough, so the girl took us to her house, which was really very nice and her family was very welcoming, but otherwise uninteresting. We left after Susanna washed her hands. Everyone told us to worry here, but so far everyone was incredibly friendly and nice. It was a lot like the little town my mom lives in in Israel, Arad, except everyone happens to be a radical leftist.

We walked back towards the center, where the office was, and there was now a big bus there. I asked where it was going and they said it was going to the march. We thought the march was going to be intown, but we wanted to see it, so we got on the bus. They were very welcoming.

Once on the bus, I asked where, exactly the march was, and they said Mexico City. Lucky us! a free ride back to Mexico City, with stops, no transfers, and no confusion! This was great! The bus ride itself was uneventful, but when we got to the City, the protest began. Everyone started brandishing machetes!





So this march happened, and then, just like every protest I've ever been to, it petered out peacefully and everyone went home. I would have figured throwing some machetes in the mix might bring at least a slightly different result, but I guess that's for another day...

Today we went to the Autonomous University of Mexico. We were given a tour by a friend of Susanna's, the brother of a photographer she met while covering Palestine. It was very pleasant and we got a clearer picture of what's going on with current Mexican politics through him, and I learned some new things about the history of revolutionary politics in Mexico, particularly the events of 1968 and 1999. I recommend you learn something about them too. Very interesting stuff. Also saw some great murals on the campus.






More soon!