Now we're getting somewhere....

We've been in Mexico a little more than a week now, and it seems that we're finally getting things going. We spent the first few days in the first few towns sort of roaming around randomly, aware of the cultural things available to us, but not really doing any of them. Now that we're in Chiapas, in San Cristobol, we're starting to pick it up.

Yesterday we went to Na Bolom. Na Bolom is was started by two people, Gertrude Dudy and Franz Blom. Trudy came to Mexico in the 1940's to escape the perils of WWII. She had been a journalist and held in a Nazi work camp. She began to study the Lacondons, a Mayan group that had been untouched and unconverted by the Spanish. Somehow she managed to make good with the Mayan folks to the point that they allowed her to take pictures of them--something that they're not that big on at all. She met up with Franz Blom, who had been in southern Mexico looking for oil, I believe. According to our tour guide, the spirit of the area came to him and he decided to be an archeologist instead. The two met randomly on an airfield, and moved in together in Mexico City, where they hung out with the likes of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

In the 1950´s, they dropped 1,100 bucks on a big old haunted hacienda in San Cristobol. They used the house as a home base as they continued to study and photograph the Mayan people. Trudy lived in the house until she died in the early 90´s. During their time there they established a foundation to support and educate the Mayan culture. Volunteers come down for six months at a time to work there, working on health projects out in the towns, providing health care to the Mayan people, educating tourists and locals about Mayan customs, and growing and distributin 10,000 trees a year for reforestration. They also print and archive Trudy's 55,000 photographs. Pretty fricking incredible, if you ask me. Check out the website at NaBolom.org. It appears to be all in spanish, but you can navigate around and look at pictures.

Today we went up to Chamula, and indigenous town outside of San Cristobol. It was during carnival, so there was a huge public market and men dancing and playing accordians, and fireworks going off. We saw men wearing white sheep skin poncho type things, and women in dark grey sheep skin skirts tied with colorful scarves. Women and kids were carrying babies around on their backs, which I simply can't get enough of. These little ones seem so content just hanging out and looking around.

Tomorrow we have plans to visit a museum of Mayan medicine which promises a video on Mayan midwifery that is only for the strong stomached. Just my cup of tea.

San Cristobol is very nice. It was really cold and drizzly yesterday, but now it's warm and happy. We spent yesterday evening in a cafe playing snakes and ladders and listening to this duo on guitar and drums. We had red wine and capuchinos with liquor. I swear if a place like this was in the states, I'd be there everyday. The best part of San Cristobol? They serve coffee and alcohol everywhere.