At the Zapatista Caracol - Nasim Chatha

A part of the travel seminar that I keep coming back to mentally was the visit to the Zapatista Caracol, the location of their Junta de Buen Gobierno in Morelia. Like much of the things we did we just piled in to the vans and went, unsure what to expect. We had studied Zapatistas but were unsure how to actually talk to them, unsure what daily life as a Zapatista could be like.

When we arrived we started to write a list of questions for the Zapatistas. In general they were very theoretical and about international capitalism, militarism, Women In the Movement, or the future of the movement. There were about twenty of these, things I really in fact thought would be nice to know. I didn't know how to engage with the Zapatistas in any other way, either, because all of our prior experience was from reading documents and articles. I thought that the Zapatistas talked the way the articles were written. With a heavy hint from our teacher we came to understand that the Zapatistas would really not want to authoritatively answer these things, and that they probably did not spend lots of time thinking about them. This didn't mean that they were not the experts of their experiences, or that they were not theorizing about the movement. We moved to asking more questions about life. How has the life of the Zapatista woman changed since 1994? How does the school system work? What kinds of questions mostly come up in the junta?

When we sent these questions to them, they took 3 hours to decide collectively how to answer. I was very honored that they took so long. For me it's a rare experience to have someone deliver very carefully considered and collective words to me. The collective nature of the messages they delivered was especially interesting- nobody was the sole representative, they were all speaking for each other. This turned simple speech into a serious and worthwhile act of communication. Through their answers, I also began to understand more about what daily life in a movement is like. The common denominators seem to be simply staying nonhierarchical and peaceful, eating, and holding territory. They also talked a lot about problem solving- which was their particular area of expertise as the junta.

For me, the most beautiful and strange part of the platica was when the tables were turned on us. We offered to answer their questions, and when they asked us what we had learned from them, we glanced at each other unsure what to say. They gave us overnight to decide how to answer collectively, and a couple more questions. We wanted to answer them as well and honestly as possible, and so we spent time talking about our ideas, then dividing responsibility, and then the speakers practiced. The end result was some combination of collective effort and spontaneity. The Zapatistas didn't speak perfect Spanish and neither did most of us. The whole thing came to be about slowness and reciprocation for me. Slowness, in particular. Julio Cesar, our guide, told us the story of the snail, or caracol. The snail used to be a messenger, because he was so speedy. He ran to and fro, without any chance to look to either side. When he finally stopped, he saw the whole world had changed. Now the snail is slow, as are the Zapatistas, so he really pays attention to what is happening around him.