Verónica muttered something that I couldn’t hear and went to help a neighbor who had come to the store. She wasn’t happy, but what could I do? I had a deadline to enter the blouse in a competition.
I made a lot of progress that afternoon. After the three pieces of the blouse were done, I ran my hands over the many small red diamonds that covered half of the front of the blouse. Later, when Verónica came in to see how I was doing, she had forgotten her anger and liked what she saw.
“It’s beautiful!” she said. “When you weave, you’re not afraid to experiment or recover old things that people have forgotten or don’t care about anymore.”
I was encouraged by my daughter’s words and thought I would teach her a little bit about the blouse. So I asked, “Did you know that these pieces have names?”
“No, what are their names?”
“Well, they say that the middle piece is called ‘its mother’ and the side pieces are called ‘its arms.’ It’s a living thing, you know. When a woman wears it, she stands in the center of the universe where the ancient ceiba tree stood. There she has power to speak to the saints, God, and all the spiritual beings on behalf of our people.”
“That’s what it says in my book of designs too!” Verónica was excited that her book and my stories were the same.
“We can talk now,” I told her. “I’m going to sew the pieces together tomorrow.”
“What are you going to talk about today, Mother?” she asked.
“I’m going to tell you about the time of struggle.”
“What do you mean? Hasn’t Lucia’s life been one long struggle?”
Verónica couldn’t imagine more struggle than she had already heard me talk about, but I explained that the struggle I was about to describe was not just Lucia’s, but the struggle of many people.
“Oh, so you’re going to tell me about when the Zapatistas rose up against the government in 1994 when I was just two years old. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard about the day the Zapatistas arrived in Lokan, Mother! You’ve told me a million times how they gathered the Believers together to explain that they were indigenous people too, that they had been organizing for many years far away in the jungles of Chiapas, and that everyone needed to work together to make the bad government listen to our demands. I don’t want to hear the basics again! I want to hear more details.”
“Daughter, trust me. I’m not going to tell you that again. No. I’m going to tell you about what happened when Lucia and I joined the Zapatistas and how our lives changed after that.”
“All right, Mother. That’s something I don’t know about.”
My shawl was tightly drawn across my chest, and my arms were folded around my waist when Verónica returned with her tape recorder and notebook. I think I looked like a butterfly wrapped up in a cocoon as I told my daughter about becoming a Zapatista.
I was at home with you on January 1st when my mother stopped by after going to San Cristóbal to buy some thread. She looked scared and began to talk in a very agitated way even before she sat down.
She said, “When I got off the bus in San Cristóbal the streets were silent. I couldn’t find anyone to buy thread from. I tried to stop a Chamula woman who was running with a load of charcoal on her back, but she didn’t stop when I asked her where all the people were. She just cried out, ‘They’re killing people in San Cristóbal, there’s a war going on! Get back to your homes as fast as you can!’
“I became very worried and ran back to the market to find a ride to Lokan. On the way home, many people were talking about what they had heard. They said that a group of people called Zapatistas stormed into the city hall at dawn and threw all the papers over the balcony onto the street. They shouted many things from the balcony, but no one knew what they said. They were dressed all in black, and they wore masks and some carried guns. Others carried sticks made to look like guns. And some of them were women dressed in pants just like men!
“Daughter, I don’t understand this. What does it mean? Will it come to Lokan?”
I made my mother some chamomile tea to calm her down. She was very agitated. I felt nervous too, thinking about what she had told me. I wished that Victorio was home so he could help us understand what was happening. But he might not know any more than we did.
After your grandmother had finished her tea, she said she needed to go home to tell your grandfather. So she left me there nursing you and trying not to worry about what was happening.
Your father came home early with half a load of firewood because someone had told him what was happening in San Cristóbal. While we were talking about what we knew, a neighbor came to tell us that there was a meeting in the church about the situation. So your father got his hat and left quickly. I stayed by the fire with you waiting for your brothers to come home from school. I didn’t want to be alone in those moments of fear, with many, many questions.
It wasn’t long before we had answers. Just two days later a group of Zapatistas came to Lokan to tell us who they were and why they had taken up arms. They invited everyone to the meeting, even women and boys and girls over fifteen years old. Many people came from neighboring communities.
I went with your father and listened to everything. Not just Zapatista men came to talk with us. Women came too. Lucia sat with her mother, my parents, and me. Not many Presbyterians or Evangelicals came. They said that they didn’t have to struggle on earth for salvation, because it was waiting for them in heaven. But it didn’t take long before some of them understood why we have to struggle on earth, and they joined us.
I know you don’t want to hear everything the Zapatista representatives said. But I can tell you that it was as if they were saying the things that we had been guarding in our hearts without saying them. We decided that we had to join them.
They told us that we could gather ourselves together and form a support base. At our first meeting we would elect representatives, equal numbers of women and men. Four men and four women. I remember Lucia and I looked at each other when we heard this because we couldn’t think of even one woman who could take a cargo. Everyone was too busy with many children to take care of.
Next they told us that we would receive information from the Zapatista leaders from time to time, and we would meet to talk about it in terms of what made sense and was important to us.
Their way of working was a lot like how the madres taught us to read the Bible: to consider what the words say about our lives and then act on what we thought was right. Word of God meetings were like support bases, so it didn’t seem that different, what the Zapatistas described.
Most of us didn’t know about guns, though, but the Zapatistas explained that we would not be armed. Instead we would focus on the needs in our communities by organizing economic projects. This way we would no longer be dependent on government handouts.
We immediately knew what they were talking about because the Believers had already run a cooperative store. I belonged to a weaving group. We were already in the resistance, we just didn’t call it that.
On the way home Lucia and I talked about the requirement to have both women and men representatives. I was really worried about it and told Lucia so.
“How could any woman in Lokan be a representative? Almost everyone is married with young children. Only a single woman or a widow would have time to attend meetings. But young women don’t know that much yet and lack experience and wisdom. And many widows never went to school and don’t speak Spanish. It would help if the representative knows a little Spanish. Can you think of anyone who could be a good representative?”
“You would be, Comadre,” Lucia said.
“Me? How could I do that with my work in the weaving co-op and all my responsibilities at home?’
“I know it would be hard. I just said this because you’re wise and have experience organizing cooperatives.”
“How about you, Lucia? You’re very intelligent, and you have a lot of experience settling problems th
rough prayer. You speak Spanish well. People respect you.”
“But you know how I was in the past. Maybe the work will be too hard for me, and I’ll fall again.”
“But you’ve been sober for a long time. And you won’t be the only woman representative. We’ll choose other single woman, and if they’re younger than you, you can help them learn how to lead. You’ll have important work to do.”
“We’re talking here like we’re the committee to choose the women representatives!” Lucia said. We laughed. We realized we were jumping way ahead of the process that we would have to follow to choose the women representatives. It would have to be democratic. Everything we would do from that time on had to be democratic.
The day for the meeting to choose our representatives came, and there were a lot of people there, about sixty or seventy, mostly men. About twenty women came. We knew almost everyone because of how our families have intermarried. Lucia and I looked around, and we could see that there were only two or maybe three women who might be willing to take a cargo as representative.
Your father started the nomination process. I had already told him that in no way would I consider being a representative. He had already suggested Lucia, and I agreed. Now it was up to the whole group to decide who our representatives would be.
We took a long time that afternoon to come to an agreement. To my horror I was nominated! I had to tell everyone that I had too many responsibilities to take a cargo, but that I would attend meetings and support the base in every way I could. The people accepted my explanation, but they didn’t seem happy about it.
The next person nominated was Lucia. When her name was announced she looked a little worried, but she spoke in a confident voice. “I accept the nomination. I would be honored to serve my people in this way. If I’m chosen it may be a little hard for me being a healer and having to help my mother, but I will do my best.”
Everyone nodded. It was as if a big sigh of relief came up from the people gathered there. Everyone could see that it was going to be very hard to find four women representatives, and that we might have to be satisfied with only two.
There was a long silence until finally Lucia raised her hand and nominated a young woman named Ramona. I knew her from the courses at Yabteclum. I had told Lucia about her because she had taken over reading the Bible verses like Lucia had done before her. Ramona showed a lot of respect to people. Thanks to God, Ramona accepted. Then we voted on the two women, and it was unanimous. Everyone accepted Lucia and Ramona as our first women representatives in the support base.
Then four men were nominated and voted on. That was easy as many men wanted to serve. Your father was chosen to be one of the representatives. We also chose a young man, Ángel de Jesús, who was active in the Word of God with your father and me. I was glad about all our choices, because even though I couldn’t be a representative, I knew that Victorio and Lucia would tell me everything that was going on, and I could help them with any problems that might come up.
On our way home from the meeting Lucia walked with us. Before we parted, I took her hand and said, “It has come, Comadre, the time that the Moon Virgin foretold in your dream. Your cargo has been revealed to you, the way you will serve our people, the people of Chiapas, and the world.”
Lucia opened her eyes wide as if to take in the meaning of my words. She put her other hand on mine and said, “Comadre, will you help me? I will need your help and my compadre’s help too.”
Your father heard Lucia and said, “Comadre, we’ll do everything together. You won’t be alone.”
ÁNGEL DE JESÚS
VERÓNICA WANTED ME TO TALK ABOUT what it was like when the Mexican army came to Chenalhó and set up roadblocks and bases. She doesn’t remember those years because she was still little. Just before she asked me to talk about this time, she found a box of our families’ things under my bed, and in it were some drawings that Abolino and Sebastian had made after the uprising. On those tattered sheets of paper were the things that had frightened people so much, seen through the eyes of my sons, still in primary school.
They had drawn helicopters whirling over the heads of terrified people; a convoy of tanks, like giant ants moving along the road below our house; soldiers poking their helmet-covered heads through the holes in the top of the tanks. My sons also drew crowds of Zapatistas on the road confronting the tanks, shaking their fists at them and saying, “We don’t want you here!” They put the people’s words in bubbles above their heads like in comic books.
Sebastian made a lot of drawings of Zapatistas with ski masks and leaping in the air like ninjas! Abolino seemed to be most interested in drawing pictures of Subcommander Marcos smoking his pipe and saying things like, “Never again a Mexico without us!” At that time my sons didn’t understand much about Marcos or the Zapatistas or what it meant that we didn’t feel that we were a part of Mexico, but they were excited to have some action come to Lokan.
I’ve never shown much interest in my children’s drawings. It’s true. I always told my children, “If you want a picture of something, take a photo of it.” Of course we don’t have a camera, so that left my children with only drawings. But when Verónica took her brothers’ drawings out of the box and laid them on the table, they took me immediately back to the time of struggle.
Verónica pointed to a drawing of a tank and asked me if I remembered it. I nodded. Then she showed me one of Sebastian’s Zapatista ninjas. She burst out laughing at the drawing. When I didn’t laugh too, she asked me what was wrong.
“Nothing. I’m just remembering something, a very sad thing that happened to some boys.”
“Tell me, Mother. What boys? What happened to them?”
I laid the drawing on top of the others and looked into the fire and told her about what happened in 1996.
By 1996 the army and paramilitaries were in many communities of Chenalhó, but they didn’t try to come to Lokan. The paramilitaries made people pay a war tax. If people didn’t pay it, the paramilitaries tortured them or burned their houses. They forced people off their land and and stole their chickens and their coffee, if they had any.
We began to hear about refugee camps with hundreds of families suffering in the cold and rain. Many rumors of different kinds about suffering and violence spread throughout the township. Some of them seemed impossible to believe, but still I wondered if they could be true. Like the one about headcutters, men dressed all in black who came into houses or attacked people on the path and cut their heads off with machetes! Some said that they carried ropes to tie people up.
When we heard these rumors, we were terrified to walk at night on the paths. Lucia never stopped going to people’s houses to pray for them, but she was afraid too. To protect herself, she always carried wild tobacco with her. Thank God, nothing happened to Lucia or to any of our family or compañeros.
But something terrible happened that summer to seven young men who were staying at a hotel in the lum. We never found out exactly who they were, but it seems that they were just boys, studying and living together somewhere outside of San Cristóbal. I don’t know why they were in Chenalhó. Someone said they saw them leaping off of the bridge into the river, all dressed in black, like those ninjas in Sebastian’s drawings.
Many rumors started about them, but the one that led to their deaths accused them of being headcutters. One night a mob of people from the lum who believed this rumor went to the hotel and grabbed the boys out of their beds. They tied them up and carried them a long way from town to a deep crevice in the side of the mountain where the highway passes. I still shudder when I pass that spot because that’s where they threw the seven boys and left them there to die.
“Mother, how horrible. How terrible for the families of the boys, Verónica said.”
“Yes, many mothers were sad because of their sons. Not only mothers of boys who were killed, but mothers of boys who killed others. We couldn’t understand how boys who had grown up learning to help their fathers in the f
ields and to speak in the high voice to elders, could take a gun and kill someone! But that’s what happened. We heard that the men who trained the boys gave them these drugs that make people act crazy. We heard that they showed them films about men killing people and then eating a big meal together right after.”
“Oh, Mother, I’m so glad that Abolino and Sebastian didn’t do anything horrible like that.”
“No, thank God. As soon as Abolino turned fifteen, he joined the support base. In the base he started to learn about the struggle. The representatives gave him and the other young men cargos as sentries.
Abolino learned what a cargo was that year because he really suffered. Each night, at about 9 p.m., he would leave the house with a blanket and climb about a mile to a lookout spot on the mountain. Another young man who had the same cargo joined him. They took turns guarding and sleeping. They watched for strangers or men who looked like paramilitaries. They never saw any, but they were doing important work for us, guarding our community from possible threats.
About 4 a.m., Abolino and I would pass each other in the kitchen where I was starting to make tortillas. He came to drink his matz before joining Sebastian under the blankets to catch a few hours of sleep.
“Mother, now I remember something about that time! Early in the morning, after you would get up, I remember Abolino would get into bed. I was still half asleep, and it seemed like a dream. Until now, I didn’t know that Abolino had a cargo when he was still a boy. It seems that everyone had cargos when they were growing up except me!
“Tell me more about Lucia’s second cargo, Mother. How could she accept it on top of her work as a healer? I guess Lucia also wondered, or she wouldn’t have asked you and Father for help.”
When I continued, I told Verónica how Lucia was able to manage her cargo for a while, because the Moon Virgin sent her a helper.
“Oh, you mean Ramona, the other woman representative?”
When a Woman Rises Page 17