Chiapas

“Bech, bech, tolouk! Bech, bech, tolouk!”

Jose Adolfo, his two friends, and a very shy little girl smiled as they stood ready with their knees bent; waiting to run the minute I stepped into my role as nabalum – the jaguar. The routine was familiar; I had already drenched my shirt that morning chasing them around the community church, up the bank, and around a boulder in a lengthy game of tag. Playtime, it seemed, never ended in Tzajalchen. I took a deep breath, knowing my muscles would be crying later, raised my claws and ran once more in vicious circles.

In these hours of play, the impact of trade negotiations between our respective countries remained a distant thought, abandoned in the mountains or deposited alongside the twisting roads that brought us here. In my broken Spanish and newly-acquired Tsotsil (learned through a tri-lingual game of pictionary that morning) I would rumble “Nabalum tango mono!” and would chase the little monos (monkeys) until I cornered them near a pew or beside a church wall. After catching them, I pretended to devour them by tickling them mercilessly.

But when the children returned home, clunking in their little green gum boots, or when our group was called to meals, the realities of NAFTA returned. They emerged in our discussions over platefuls of handmade tortillas and smoky black beans, over the bottomless cups of fresh, organic coffee – harvest only a mere mile away – and over the stories of our mentors; Rob, Todd and Julio. They reminded us that the children of Tzajalchen will have little access to higher education, to medicine, to life outside of the community.

Later, the same thoughts would accompany us to our perch on top of the boulder. From one direction, the view captures the mountains … carpets of green and brown punctured sporadically with small clearings and houses with corrugated tin roofs. From another direction, you can see the community church, the schoolhouse, and the new recreation center built from fresh concrete. Last, if you turn completely around, you see the perimeter of the community, thinning as houses reach the slope of the mountainside, and resting along its edge is the village shop, decorated with a bright red sign and a wall of empty bottles sporting the corporate stamp of ‘Coca Cola ®’.

“Bech, bech, tolouk. Bech, bech, tolouk.”

I failed to understand this until our last day in Tzjalchen, but the phrase literally means “Bird, bird, turkey.” I had assumed it was a prelude to our daily game of tag, but in fact it was the Tsotsil translation for the game “Duck, duck, goose.” While we packed our bags to return to San Cristobal de la Casa, I smiled as we watched an adolescent girl, the latest tolouk in the morning’s game, sprint around the circle of children with an infant tied to her back. His little head bounced wildly as she raced to seat herself, and we collectively marveled at the child’s ability to withstand the ride without as much as a peep.

“Bech, bech, tolouk …”
Bird. Bird. Turkey. Who is the turkey in this great game of nations? Do we sit together – the United States, Canada and Mexico – under the semblance of a North American community in a circle of forged by trade agreements, transnational finance, and corporate interests? Do we wait, watching to see who will run the farthest to keep their seat in this ring of economic privilege? It is tempting to bestow the title of ‘bird’ to the U.S. and Canada, and to label Mexico as the awkward, struggling ‘turkey’. But somehow I feel it is the other way around. Mexico and Canada watch as the U.S. runs circles around them, always securing its seat as the tolouk, a larger and stronger fowl. Running circles, wrapping the NAFTA nations in a tighter web of (inter)dependence.

The price of cheap American corn, cheap Mexican coffee and cheap maquiladora clothing – stitched together only miles from the American boarder – saves us a few dollars. It saves corporate and agribusinesses, both in the U.S. and in Mexico, tens maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars. But who will buy the unsubsidized, native corn from Jose Adolfo’s father? Or his small bags of organic coffee, nurtured slowly through sun and sweat instead of pesticides and fertilizers? The prices cannot match those of its corporate counterparts. The children of Tzajalchen will inherent the rich earth of the Chiapas mountains, and with it their parents’ communal corn fields and coffee trees … but where will their produce fetch a handsome price? That is, if they can feed their families and then have surplus to sell? Will Jose Adolfo and his friends be able to go to school, when they finish their community education in Tsotsil and Spanish? Will they ever understand the link between the paramilitaries their parents fear, the Mexican government, and U.S. trade interests?

These thoughts dwell in my mind as we ride down the mountains, bouncing like popcorn between the van’s floor and roof as we cross switchbacks and potholes. As I look out the window of Julio’s van, the faint outline of a former EZLN sticker tints the glass, reminiscing of a time when Subcomandante Marcos and his men occupied the very same seats 2006. It is now two years later, and the game has not changed.

“Bech, bech, tolouk …”