Chetumal.... at the extreme of the Mexican Southeast. We arrived here two days ago from Belize...


Belize was really quite beautiful. The beaches are warm, as are the people. There were two things that surprised us- first, the number of Latinos here. We had read that many settlers of Belize came as refugees, either from the Caste Wars of the 1800s (more on that later) or from the civil wars in Guatemala. However, everywhere we went at least at least a third of the people are Latino... and even more in the north.

The other surprise was the state of the infrastructure. We had heard that Belize was relatively well off compared to other Central American countries. Even though everything is more expensive than the rest of Central America and even the US at times, the infrastructure is not as developed as we imagined. Most of the roads are dirt roads that are bumpy and muddy when it rains, there is only one type of bus- 30 year old school buses like the kind we used to take to the Children´s Museum back in the day... only without shocks or struts, electrical power is touch and go, and commerce is almost non-existent. Crossing into Chetumal, Mexico from Belize was like going from sporadic beach villages to the Fox Hills Mall.

Many folks we know who have looked to find ways of bringing together Latinos and folks of African descent, especially after some of the racially motivated violence in Los Angeles and Oakland lately, might think about visiting Belize. It is an interesting place for folks to look at how racial dynamics have developed. To be on a bus traveling the back roads and hearing Kriol, Spanish, English, and indigenous tongues spoken all at the same time is truly amazing!

That said, Chetumal is a wonderful place to end our vacation together.

This is a monument outside our hotel honoring the women of the Mexican Revolution.


Here is the Bellas Artes of Chetumal, which looks like it was built in the 30´s as part of the effort to introduce socialist education throughout the country under the government of Lazaro Cardenas.


This is the front of the *amazing* Museo de la Cultura Maya here...


Here is a reproduccion of what the murals of Bonampak once looked like...

and here is a picture of the original as it is today which we took a week ago...
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3427/1323/1600/SSCN0577.jpg

This city has beautiful surroundings and warm people, set on the Bahia de Chetumal and the Caribbean....






This afternoon Aparna boards a plane bound for Mexico City, and then on to San Francisco. Joel will board a bus taking him to Felipe Carrillo Puerto, a sleepy little village on the road to Tulum, Playa de Carmen, and Cancun. It was here during the last half of the 1800´s and first third of the 1900´s that the largest rising up of indigenous resistance was based... the Chan Santa Cruz (little holy cross).

As Galeano writes, during this time in the Yucatan, "...the slaves are Mayan Indians who until recently lived free in the kingdom of the Little Talking Cross, and Yaqui Indians, from the plains of the north, purchased for 400 pesos a head. They sleep piled up in fortresses of stone and work to the rhythm of a moistened whip. When one of them gets surly, they bury him up to his ears and turn the horses loose on him."

This resistance is called the War of the Castes, and was not finally resolved until a peace treaty was signed in 1930. Until this day there are many Maya in Felipe Carrillo Puerto who do not recognize Mexican sovereignty over their lands....

Hasta pronto...

Aparna y Joel