2nd Birthday and PAUSE

Slingshot Hip Hop screening in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas (Mexico, Earth)

The zapagringo blog's 2nd birthday finds us back in zapatista territory. It's been 2.5 years since I was last in Mexico, covering the Other Campaign in Oaxaca for The Narco News Bulletin. Today I am back with my partner who works with the Palestine Education Project and we are screening Slingshot Hip Hop here in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas. This is one small step in a longer process of finding effective vehicles for networking struggles in the Levant with struggles here on Turtle Island (remember that we need our own Calendars and Geographies)...

Here in San Cris, it's exciting to see how some of the zapatista, Other Campaign, and Zezta Internazional infrastructure has grown and developed since the release of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle a little over 3 years ago...

CIDECI (Centro Indígena de Capacitación Integral) has become an impressive zapatista-inspired university that is free for indigenous peoples.

Just a few blocks off of the zocalo (city center) is TierrAdentro - a large and beautiful café where the zapatista cooperatives sell their goods, all kinds of literature can be found, and La Vía Campesina and CAPISE have offices in their as well. As Carwil James points out in our interview with him in September of last year, creating venues for the zapatistas to sell their products with dignity is essential solidarity work. The National and International Caravan of Observation and Solidarity with the Zapatista Communities of Chiapas, which CAPISE helped to inspire and organize, is getting ready to begin on July 28th with around 300 registered participants.

Here at zapagringo I'll be taking a pause in terms of blogging to put more energy into my work with Regeneración Childcare NYC as we continue organizing, amongst other things, the Children's Program for the Critical Resistance 10 conference coming up at the end of September. I'm also deepening my work in the Men's Collaborative of Generation Five - seeking transformative justice responses to child sexual abuse while specifically challenging male supremacy. I see both of these pieces of work as part of that call to "Be a zapatista wherever you are." The Another Politics is Possible study group and participation on the board of directors of the Brecht Forum will support the networking across struggles necessary to sustain and build our movements.

I'm also just looking at ways to be "sustainable" in this work... realizing that I'm down to my last few hundred dollars -period- and that I want to start taking better care of my health. Looking for more secure paid work and possibly even going back to school - who knows? I know there must be ways to do this that move the work forward...

Just like the 1st Birthday, I'll have a summary of this second year of zapagringo up in about a month. And I'll still post from time to time but no longer at the one post a week pace I've been maintaining for the past two years.

It's been such a gift to be able to connect with so many people from so many different places through this space. Please stay in touch or get in touch - and if you would like an update every once in awhile on what zapatista-related stuff has come my way then let me know and I'll send it along as it comes. Much love to all who have committed to transforming the world, our communities and ourselves...

Vivan Los Comunidades Zapatistas en Resistencia!
Viva La Otra Campaña!
Viva La Zezta Internazional!
All Zapagringos in the Struggle!