Hello friends and family, I hope you are well and your christmas holidays
passed were as jolly as ever.

I realize that it has been only a few days (a week perhaps) since you
last heard from me, but already there is so much to tell. I am in Chiapas,
Mexico (or chiaPAZ, as some of the people here prefer), a mexican state
made famous by the resistance of its indiginous communities to
^development^ projects (I put development in quotations because the only
thing they are meant to develop is the profit margin of large
multinationals) such as Plan Puebla Panama and al TLC (of cafta, as we
call it in the states). As a result, Chiapas has become a sort of icon for
the world, a symbol of resistance to the opression inherent in the system
and of a reclamation of rights and a struggle for justice between the most
powerful people in the world and the least. That spirit is very much alive
here, you can see it in the faces of the people, hear the quiet conviction
in thier voices when they speak of the atrocities they have witnesses and
how they will never permit them to happen again.

Chiapas is perhas the most beautiful place that I have ever seen....it
looks alot like oregon in the summer, with beautiful green hills,
sunshine, and mountains in the distance. San Cristobal de las Casas is
also a f***ing cool little city...fantastic music scene, great people,
colorful houses and elaborate markets, the whole deal. I´m having a love
affair with this part of the world....even though I have to leave soon,
there is no doubt in my mind that I will be back again someday.

I met a rowdy and kind-spirited pack of travelers...artisans and musicians
from chile, mexico, and spain, and we have formed an inseparable group
called informally `el bando.` We have been playing music and spinning fire
in the streets in the early evening to fund our nightime activities.

Saturday night, we were doing out usual thing when out of nowhere came a
pack of poliece demanding that the fire and music stop. We complied as far
as the fire and drumming goes, but the gutarist and fluitist continued to
play. The police kept getting closer, shouting and demanding that the
music stop, but the musicians held thier ground and continued to
excercise thier right to play music quietly. The crowd was shouting its
approval in vairios forms, from òtra, otras^ to pinche policia, no nos
joda, but still, the police continued to come closer, yelling and
screaming in the faces of my friends, who calmly continued to play, even
as the police were dragging them away. I cant describe to you how it made
me feel as I watched four cops descend on my friend dante, sitting on the
ground in the lotus position, playing the flute with utter serenity even
aas they took out thier clubs and used force, the only thing they know, to
try and kill this thing so threatining. It wasn´t the music, it was what
the music represented...the idea that we the people, no matter how hard
the state tries to innoculate us with fear of authority, subdue us with tv
and video games, distract us with petty entertainment, are more than cogs
in the great corporate machine...we are free. Free to love, free to
disagree, free to make music and art and share ideas and that is NOTHING
that the state can EVER take from us.
My friends ended up having to spend 4 hours in jail that night--four
hours, for playing the f***ing flute. The cops wanted several hundred
dollars in morditas (bribes), but we stood fast to our claim that they
were arrested without cause. Luckily, there was a lawyer in the crowd who
represented us in the conversation with the authorities, and after 4 hours
of buracratic bulls***, they confirmed what we already knew....that our
friends were arrested wuithout good cause and they were released.
We were all very afraid that word would get around about what happened and
the musicians and preformers would stay inside, but the next night there
was more than ever, many with signs reading things like ^no one can own
our music^ and ^the streets are for the people.^
I was so proud of my friends for not giving in to poliece intimidation
and abuse of power, and also for not yelling or fighting back. They stood
fast, but thier quiet statement was much stronger than anything any
violence could have achieved. It was heartbreaking to see such a flagrant
abuse of power, but more that anything it was inspiring to see the
perserverence even in the face of personal danger, and most of all to
witness the overwhelming support of the crowd as my friends were dragged
away.
Luckily for us, they were released that night, because the next morning we
headed to a tiny Zapatista town called 24 de diciembre--the day of our
arrival, not coincidently. The town (village is a better word) is suchly
named because it was on the 24th of December that the group of 30 family
arrived in the spot that was to become the town, after several days of
walking after having been kicked off thier land to make room to build a
highway the more easlily facilitae the shipping of goods from sweatshoops
to the US. They were forced to leave everyhting behind...homes, animals,
everything, and start anew in a new place. For this, on Christmas eve and
chirsmas day the town held a Zapatista rally, with speakers, games,
singing, dancing, and comradarie, which we were fortunate enough to be
able to attend. It was an incredible experience, not only to hear the
inspirational messages of poeple who have had enough (ya basta!) and are
prepared to give up everything thier lives included in the sttrugle for
justice, but also just to live amongst people with lives to simple, to
whom rice is a feast and the death of only one of your children is a
blessing and learn lessions of joy and happiness. Never in my life have I
met such warm, genuine people, people who would literaly take the coat off
thier backs and give it to you, people who would starve so that you could
eat. People who allow thier children to play and cry and laugh unmolested,
even during the church service. Imagaine it....children allowed to be
children. People who´s faces are cragged and marked with laugh lines,
whose simple games brought uproarious laughter, to whom a puppet show is
the event of the year. Imagine it, how could these people be so happy? It
is inexplicable, yet it is the joy that comes from the heart, different
from how we americans feel after getting a s***load of cool stuff for
christmas.....the kind of joy that we, the most ¨well off people in the
world¨ are lacking. It was an incredibly humbling experience for me, more
than I could possibly explain.

Today I am back in San Cristobal, getting things together for tomorrow,
when I will go to the encuentro, which is a huge zapatista conference that
brings people from all around the world in support of human rights. More
to come soon friends. I love you dearly.

hailee