TO MUCH TO SAY!!!! SO MUCH TO DO!!!!
i love you all and think about you all the time, but I have not the brain power or time to write and I'm sure I'll pay for that when I get home.....Chiapas is overwhelmingly fantastic and the end of this trip is overwhelmingly soon and I don't wanna go home but I wanna go home but i don't wanna but I wanna.
I hope to have wonderfully intellectual conversations about Zapatismo with whoever wants to when I return.
love
Emma
Monday, April 14, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Still in Mexico City!!!!
So yesterday my friends and I went to the Coyoacan area of town to wander the market and see the Frida Kahlo Museum (and celebrate our six month IHP anniversary!). The museum was incredible. It is in the house that Frida was born, lived with Diego, and died in. It`s painted bright blue with bright yellow accents everywhere and has a wonderfully pleasant garden in the middle. There were several rooms filled with her randon doodles in journals and on pages of books as well as most of her correspondence with Diego and famous friends of hers (like Pablo Neruda and Leon Trotsky, whose museum is right around the corner, but we didn´t make it there). I also saw her self portraits, which were really amazing. The signs were mostly in Spanish, so I didn´t understand it all and it took me a long time to walk through the whole house. They also had her back braces and clothes and random household items, and a whole room full of books that were in their library and signed by the authors on display. It was really cool. Then we went to the Coyoacan market, known for being kind of "counter-culture." I saw a man standing in the crowd with a box full of puppies. We then strolled down through the historic streets and found Frida's garden (I don´t think it was actually her garden, but it is dedicated to her and has a statue of her sitting on top of a pyramid). The paths in the garden were lined with very scraggly topiaries. There was also a beautiful bronze sculpture of a woman sitting with her head on her knees so we sat in the sun and drew pictures of the statue for about an hour. Nothing like a little figure drawing lesson to get you back into the creative mood. It was really good for me to draw again. I haven´t been getting to do enough art lately.
We ended the day back in Santo Domingo and having a little fiesta with some older host siblings. We played drums and sang a lot and were generally silly. All in all, one of the best days I´ve had in a long time.
Today Molly and Emily and I rode the subway into town center and walked around the Zocalo. We finally got into the Palacio Nacional to see the Diego Rivera murals. They are absolutely amazing. We were there for almost two hours and I took tons of pictures. The murals show the history of Mexican civilizations from the Aztec and Maya, through the conquest, and ending in the Revolution. I am so blown away by the skill and creativity it must have taken to make such amazing art. While I was looking at them I dreamed about how I might go about making a career out of making murals in public spaces. Perhaps colaborative ones, like one we saw in Takaka, NZ that was designed and painted by 40 community members. I just really like the idea of public art. It´s so accessible and can tell really amazing stories about a place and cultural identity. Art for the people!
After the murals we took a stroll through the Catedral Metropolitana (built on top of the main temple of the Aztecs). Oh and we found out that it was palm Sunday `cause there were tons of people there and lots of palm fronds woven into figures of Jesus and crosses and birds. very ornate.
Anyway, tomorrow we are going on a fieldtrip that is described in our handbook as follows: "Alternatives in Sanitation, Architecture and Life in General! We spend a day with Jean Robert and Cesar Añorve. Open time to discuss and visit with Jean and Cesar, two very special men." And Cesar is then described as having "national and international prestige in the field of alternative sanitation. He is also an excellent cartoonist and an engaging storyteller." Topics to be covered: "The politics of shit: dry latrines as a political and ecological proposal." This sounds like a day designed specifically for Emma Jones! I´m so excited. I love talking about the politics of shit. I will save my poop-rant for after we`ve talked to Cesar.
I´ll leave you with a little saying we like to throw around amongst our group:
TATA not TINA. That means " There Are Thousands of Alternatives" not "There Is No Alternative."
love,
Emma
We ended the day back in Santo Domingo and having a little fiesta with some older host siblings. We played drums and sang a lot and were generally silly. All in all, one of the best days I´ve had in a long time.
Today Molly and Emily and I rode the subway into town center and walked around the Zocalo. We finally got into the Palacio Nacional to see the Diego Rivera murals. They are absolutely amazing. We were there for almost two hours and I took tons of pictures. The murals show the history of Mexican civilizations from the Aztec and Maya, through the conquest, and ending in the Revolution. I am so blown away by the skill and creativity it must have taken to make such amazing art. While I was looking at them I dreamed about how I might go about making a career out of making murals in public spaces. Perhaps colaborative ones, like one we saw in Takaka, NZ that was designed and painted by 40 community members. I just really like the idea of public art. It´s so accessible and can tell really amazing stories about a place and cultural identity. Art for the people!
After the murals we took a stroll through the Catedral Metropolitana (built on top of the main temple of the Aztecs). Oh and we found out that it was palm Sunday `cause there were tons of people there and lots of palm fronds woven into figures of Jesus and crosses and birds. very ornate.
Anyway, tomorrow we are going on a fieldtrip that is described in our handbook as follows: "Alternatives in Sanitation, Architecture and Life in General! We spend a day with Jean Robert and Cesar Añorve. Open time to discuss and visit with Jean and Cesar, two very special men." And Cesar is then described as having "national and international prestige in the field of alternative sanitation. He is also an excellent cartoonist and an engaging storyteller." Topics to be covered: "The politics of shit: dry latrines as a political and ecological proposal." This sounds like a day designed specifically for Emma Jones! I´m so excited. I love talking about the politics of shit. I will save my poop-rant for after we`ve talked to Cesar.
I´ll leave you with a little saying we like to throw around amongst our group:
TATA not TINA. That means " There Are Thousands of Alternatives" not "There Is No Alternative."
love,
Emma
Friday, March 14, 2008
Mexico City
Hola!
So here I am in Mexico City. I love it. a lot. Perhaps so much I want to practice my Spanish and come back here for an extended period of time. I´m here until Tuesday when we head out to Oaxaca and then Chiapas, then back to Oaxaca.
We arrived last friday and spent the first two days in the center of the historical section of the city near the Zocolo, which is the big main square with the Palacio Nacional and a big famous cathedral that I can´t remember the name of (all built on top of Aztec ruins of course). I really enjoyed walking around the city and eating tamales on the street. We took a trip on Sunday to the National Museum of Anthropology and saw lots of really interesting artifacts from the Maya, Aztec and pre-Aztec civilizations. THe Museum is in a park with an amusement park a zoo and on the weekends has tons of vendors, so I spent a lot of time walking around and people watching. I also got to experience the subway system here, which is now, by far, my favorite subway. All of the lines have colors and all of the stops have a symbol that represents usually some kind of monument that is at that stop so that people who can{t read can ridethe subway. and it only costs 2 pesos to get anywhere in the city, and you can transfer as many times as you want. and they play music on the trains and in the stations and many of the stations are filled with cool art exhibits and murals. The doors of the trains close really fast though, so getting a group of thirty people on and off without leavinganyone behind is quite an accomplishment.
Now I am in a homestay in Santo Domingo, a colonia (neighborhood, community, also called a barrio) towards the south of the city. It´s the most highly populated colonia in Mexico City and was formed in 1971 through a "land invasion." This means that thousands of families came within a 24 hour period and claimed uninhabited government land. pretty cool right? Then they got all organized and built roads and sewer systems etc. They actually saved the city so much money by creating all their own infrastructure that the city decided to give them money for schools and stuff. The neighborhood is really vibrant. Most people have shops to make a living and there are lots of people in the street all day andlate into the night. All of our homestays are really close together and our classes are held in the livingroom of a house right across the street from where Im staying. My host mom is really nice. She enjoys making popcorn and showing movies, so we do a lot of that. She also showed us pictures of what the neighborhood looked like before there were any houses. Her son and his wife live in the house as well with their two kids Bernardo, who´s 5, and Carolina, who´s 2. they´re adorable and really good to practice spanish with because they talk slowly and use simple words.
Well right now I have to go to a little get-together with all of the homestay mothers so I´ll talk more about my classes later.
love
Emma
So here I am in Mexico City. I love it. a lot. Perhaps so much I want to practice my Spanish and come back here for an extended period of time. I´m here until Tuesday when we head out to Oaxaca and then Chiapas, then back to Oaxaca.
We arrived last friday and spent the first two days in the center of the historical section of the city near the Zocolo, which is the big main square with the Palacio Nacional and a big famous cathedral that I can´t remember the name of (all built on top of Aztec ruins of course). I really enjoyed walking around the city and eating tamales on the street. We took a trip on Sunday to the National Museum of Anthropology and saw lots of really interesting artifacts from the Maya, Aztec and pre-Aztec civilizations. THe Museum is in a park with an amusement park a zoo and on the weekends has tons of vendors, so I spent a lot of time walking around and people watching. I also got to experience the subway system here, which is now, by far, my favorite subway. All of the lines have colors and all of the stops have a symbol that represents usually some kind of monument that is at that stop so that people who can{t read can ridethe subway. and it only costs 2 pesos to get anywhere in the city, and you can transfer as many times as you want. and they play music on the trains and in the stations and many of the stations are filled with cool art exhibits and murals. The doors of the trains close really fast though, so getting a group of thirty people on and off without leavinganyone behind is quite an accomplishment.
Now I am in a homestay in Santo Domingo, a colonia (neighborhood, community, also called a barrio) towards the south of the city. It´s the most highly populated colonia in Mexico City and was formed in 1971 through a "land invasion." This means that thousands of families came within a 24 hour period and claimed uninhabited government land. pretty cool right? Then they got all organized and built roads and sewer systems etc. They actually saved the city so much money by creating all their own infrastructure that the city decided to give them money for schools and stuff. The neighborhood is really vibrant. Most people have shops to make a living and there are lots of people in the street all day andlate into the night. All of our homestays are really close together and our classes are held in the livingroom of a house right across the street from where Im staying. My host mom is really nice. She enjoys making popcorn and showing movies, so we do a lot of that. She also showed us pictures of what the neighborhood looked like before there were any houses. Her son and his wife live in the house as well with their two kids Bernardo, who´s 5, and Carolina, who´s 2. they´re adorable and really good to practice spanish with because they talk slowly and use simple words.
Well right now I have to go to a little get-together with all of the homestay mothers so I´ll talk more about my classes later.
love
Emma
Thursday, February 14, 2008
random
ok, so these pictures are kind of random. the first one is me in Christchurch yesterday. we decided to draw on the sidewalk with chalk in the town square. good cheap fun. then the other one is me and my friend michelle in front of the taj mahal. more to come....i finally took the time to figure out this photo technology business.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Christchurch
Hey Folks!
So I just arrived in Christchurch on the South Island of NZ. It's vacation time and my buddy Tanner and I have been bumming around the South since Sunday. we've been doing a combination of camping and staying in hostels meeting really cool people along the way. We spent the 1st night of vacation in Marlborough Sound, camping by the ocean and watching phosphorescent (sp?) algae in the waves on a moon-less night. it was beautiful. Then we made our way though Nelson and then over to Blenheim, where we spent the night in a hostel with a huge crew of Europeans who were there working on the vineyards. We then headed down to Kaikoura, a little town on the coast famous for whale watching. it was a bit of a tourist trap, but the campsite was cheap and the ocean was nice. we saw some seals, but no whales. We arrived in Christchurch with Jossie and Chris, a nice couple we met, well, on the road. We're planning on spending the night with our friend Sam and her mother who is here visiting. Christchurch is flat and big, and not nearly as nice as Wellington, in my opinion. the day after tomorrow we're gonna meet three other IHPers and head down to Fjordland on the very tip of the Island. The scenary is supposed to be fantastic.
So I'm doing well. I'm happy and safe and full of good energy.
So I just arrived in Christchurch on the South Island of NZ. It's vacation time and my buddy Tanner and I have been bumming around the South since Sunday. we've been doing a combination of camping and staying in hostels meeting really cool people along the way. We spent the 1st night of vacation in Marlborough Sound, camping by the ocean and watching phosphorescent (sp?) algae in the waves on a moon-less night. it was beautiful. Then we made our way though Nelson and then over to Blenheim, where we spent the night in a hostel with a huge crew of Europeans who were there working on the vineyards. We then headed down to Kaikoura, a little town on the coast famous for whale watching. it was a bit of a tourist trap, but the campsite was cheap and the ocean was nice. we saw some seals, but no whales. We arrived in Christchurch with Jossie and Chris, a nice couple we met, well, on the road. We're planning on spending the night with our friend Sam and her mother who is here visiting. Christchurch is flat and big, and not nearly as nice as Wellington, in my opinion. the day after tomorrow we're gonna meet three other IHPers and head down to Fjordland on the very tip of the Island. The scenary is supposed to be fantastic.
So I'm doing well. I'm happy and safe and full of good energy.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Notes on India from New Zealand
whew. India was very crazy. tiring, intense, life changing etc. I will give you a little glimpse...
so after sewagram we went to Ajay and Yogini's farm which was wonderful and in rural Maharastra. There we had lectures about farmer suicides and the cotton commodity chain. We studied a lot about BT cotton which is a scary GMO that is replacing organic and locally bred cotton all throughout the cotton growing parts of India (and in the US and elsewhere). It has been modified with genes from Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occuring bacteria that produces a toxin that works as a pesticide. so the plants have a pesticude bred into their leaves. this has all kinds of unknown consequences like perhaps genetic contamination of native wild plants or negative affects on pollinators. One of the farmers we visited reported not seeing any bees since he started planting BT and as a result, he hypothesized, the wild fruit trees didn't flower and produce fruit. yikes.
From there we went to Pune and were hosted by Kalpravriksh, an environmental NGO based in Delhi and Pune....learned so much....coolest thing I did there was go on a "nature tour" where we went bird watching at a unofficial bird sanctuary on the nastiest river i've ever seen. really really really full of trash and was flowing hardly at all and smelled like nothing i could describe. the place where we set up to watch birds was on a concrete wall along the river at a crematorium (the ashes go straight into the river along with the deceased's personal belongings and clothes). i took lots of pictures of trash. After birdwatching we walked through a child graveyard/city dump to get to a "nature trail" where we saw some cool plants and a beautiful owl. oh and lots of trash. and people digging through the trash to collect plastic and metal to sell. "bagpickers" they're called. there is a movement in Pune right now to get bagpicking recognized as a legitimate livelihood in order to get them some basic workers rights. interesting. after the nature walk we went to the palace where Gandhi was imprisoned and where his wife died. it's now a museum dedicated to her and a women's organizing center. twas cool.
Oh yeah, we spent Christmas day at Joshi's Museum of Miniature Railways. it was sweet. we had a party with lots of food and music and a secret santa gift exchange. oh yeah and that was after our bus broke down the night before on the way back from a fieldtrip to Amba Valley and we spent 8 hours on the side of the road near a sacred grove and got our palms read by our anthropology professor, sand x-mas carols and had a candle-light ceremony and then played truth or dare. hmmmm.
so THEN we went to Mumbai (Bombay) for 2 days, i think. i was unfortunately hiding in an internet cafe writing papers for most of our time there, so i didn't get to see much of the city.
Dahanu was our next and final stop. a lot happened there. most significant was when we did our summary of learning on the last day in which one group of students invited everyone to participate in an experiment with truth (Gandhi style) by making a fire and each burning a material possesion and talk about materialism. I make it sound trite, but it wasn't. the whole group, including professors and coordinators, was in tears for a good 4-5 hours. then we all went swimming in the river and had a barbeque.
now i'm in New Zealand. it's different and western and clean, and expensive. we are having some really good lectures on climate change and energy consumption and renewable energy and the kyoto treaty etc. good stuff. a lot more environmental policy and ecology and conservation here so far than in Tanzania or India. I approve.
enough for now.
I am well. a little confused, stressed, worried, hopeful about life when I get back. but generally good.
love love love
emma
so after sewagram we went to Ajay and Yogini's farm which was wonderful and in rural Maharastra. There we had lectures about farmer suicides and the cotton commodity chain. We studied a lot about BT cotton which is a scary GMO that is replacing organic and locally bred cotton all throughout the cotton growing parts of India (and in the US and elsewhere). It has been modified with genes from Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occuring bacteria that produces a toxin that works as a pesticide. so the plants have a pesticude bred into their leaves. this has all kinds of unknown consequences like perhaps genetic contamination of native wild plants or negative affects on pollinators. One of the farmers we visited reported not seeing any bees since he started planting BT and as a result, he hypothesized, the wild fruit trees didn't flower and produce fruit. yikes.
From there we went to Pune and were hosted by Kalpravriksh, an environmental NGO based in Delhi and Pune....learned so much....coolest thing I did there was go on a "nature tour" where we went bird watching at a unofficial bird sanctuary on the nastiest river i've ever seen. really really really full of trash and was flowing hardly at all and smelled like nothing i could describe. the place where we set up to watch birds was on a concrete wall along the river at a crematorium (the ashes go straight into the river along with the deceased's personal belongings and clothes). i took lots of pictures of trash. After birdwatching we walked through a child graveyard/city dump to get to a "nature trail" where we saw some cool plants and a beautiful owl. oh and lots of trash. and people digging through the trash to collect plastic and metal to sell. "bagpickers" they're called. there is a movement in Pune right now to get bagpicking recognized as a legitimate livelihood in order to get them some basic workers rights. interesting. after the nature walk we went to the palace where Gandhi was imprisoned and where his wife died. it's now a museum dedicated to her and a women's organizing center. twas cool.
Oh yeah, we spent Christmas day at Joshi's Museum of Miniature Railways. it was sweet. we had a party with lots of food and music and a secret santa gift exchange. oh yeah and that was after our bus broke down the night before on the way back from a fieldtrip to Amba Valley and we spent 8 hours on the side of the road near a sacred grove and got our palms read by our anthropology professor, sand x-mas carols and had a candle-light ceremony and then played truth or dare. hmmmm.
so THEN we went to Mumbai (Bombay) for 2 days, i think. i was unfortunately hiding in an internet cafe writing papers for most of our time there, so i didn't get to see much of the city.
Dahanu was our next and final stop. a lot happened there. most significant was when we did our summary of learning on the last day in which one group of students invited everyone to participate in an experiment with truth (Gandhi style) by making a fire and each burning a material possesion and talk about materialism. I make it sound trite, but it wasn't. the whole group, including professors and coordinators, was in tears for a good 4-5 hours. then we all went swimming in the river and had a barbeque.
now i'm in New Zealand. it's different and western and clean, and expensive. we are having some really good lectures on climate change and energy consumption and renewable energy and the kyoto treaty etc. good stuff. a lot more environmental policy and ecology and conservation here so far than in Tanzania or India. I approve.
enough for now.
I am well. a little confused, stressed, worried, hopeful about life when I get back. but generally good.
love love love
emma
Friday, December 21, 2007
Poo
so the other day I was walking down the streets of Pune with some friends to find a coffee shop and with the front of my sandal scooped up the biggest juiciest pile of cow poo you ever did see. i washed it off in the bathroom at the fancy coffee shop. it squished between my toes.
about a week ago I was at an ashram about 2 hours outside of Nagpur. I signed up to do "biogas crew." We walked into the barn after breakfast and Vasant explained how the biogas machine worked then told us we'd be collecting cow poo. no shovels. we used our hands to put it in baskets and take it to the slurry tank. not the end of story. then he showed us the stirring mechanism. it was broken. again with the hands, but with water this time. get all the chunks out! up to our elbows. mmmmmm. but the lights turned on that night...
about a week ago I was at an ashram about 2 hours outside of Nagpur. I signed up to do "biogas crew." We walked into the barn after breakfast and Vasant explained how the biogas machine worked then told us we'd be collecting cow poo. no shovels. we used our hands to put it in baskets and take it to the slurry tank. not the end of story. then he showed us the stirring mechanism. it was broken. again with the hands, but with water this time. get all the chunks out! up to our elbows. mmmmmm. but the lights turned on that night...
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