Dance Dance Revolution

In between meetings with female Mayan entrepreneurs and the professionals who have dedicated their lives to helping these women, we, being the hedonistic American tourists that we are, have found some time for fun! Salsa anyone? Not your cup of tea? Not to worry, this fantabulous city also has reggaeton, ska, meregue, durangense and if that doesn’t float your boat you can do some crazy version of the electric slide to Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart, known here are “Mi Pobre Corazon.”
Our adventures on the dance floor quickly revealed our true personalities. Joel, affectionately coined as “the dark horse,” was the trooper of the bunch, dancing until 3 am, outlasting people 10 years his junior! Kayela, with her sex kitten dance moves attracted all kinds, from 5’2” Chiapan men to 5’5” Texan undergrads who watched one too many Rico Suave videos. James, oh James! When he was not busy ducking to avoid the low ceilings, he tried his hand at Salsa, oh wait maybe that was swing. I guess it doesn’t really matter when you’re a 6’4” “gringo” in a town full of 5’4” dancing machines! As for me, let’s just say that my adventures were limited to a 15 minute toe stepping debacle over an awkward exchange of Spanglish. “Me ayudas bailar?” was all I could think to say. Thankfully, the Mexican culture of politeness extends far beyond the workplace. Luckily, our newly discovered talents, or lack there-of, have only brought us closer together. Watch out Haas dance team, here come the Thundercats!

Junax...Biz-natch!

As the clear stand out for the most high maintenance member of our group here in Chiapas, I (Kayela) feel most qualified to describe the horrors of our first night without the donor group. After a week in the lovely Casa Mexicana hotel complete with lunches and dinners at San Cristobol's nicer restaurants and visits to Aqua Azules and the amazing ruins at Palenque, the honeymoon officially came to a crashing finale on Sunday as the donors took the chauffered vehicle along with them to the airport. At the new hostel, we were shown to our single room complete with 2 bunk beds, which according to the label on the mattress were for "Kids Only" I have to believe it, as they were made of metal in primary colors and the entire stuctures creaked with even small movements of our adult weight. Having just finished a camping trip in Peru, I was definitely prepared to live without the comforts of home, but dirty sheets and a pillow case that smelled of BO, I can do without. The one shower for 20 people came complete with a giant pile of hair in the corner and the sink in the bathroom had a lugee in it that I can only assume had been drying there for several weeks...Not wanting to be a whiner, I was prepared to suck it up and stay there. (The slumber party rooming style was certainly appealing.) However, I have to admit, I was not sad when the other members of the group agreed that the late night partying of our other housemates at Junax made it very difficult to get enough sleep to be fresh for our workdays. (paper thin walls + blaring music and shouting until 4am = losts of coffee (albeit good coffee) and head nodding in our morning meetings)

Through a connection with a friend of a friend of a friend on the Stanford alumni network, we are now staying at la casa de Don Chip Morris who makes us feel as if we are back home in Berkeley. He is an author, a speaker at the local museum, and an expert on Mayan artisania. He's also what you might call "a bit to the left." (James' thoughts:) His house occupies a sizeable chunk of land -- most of it gardens -- next to the well-known Na-Bolom museum on the northeast side of town. The house's five rustic bedrooms are occupied by a motley crew of passersby: a young woman in her mid-20s who has stayed more than a year, a family of traveling artisans and musicians, various other characters who would occasionally surface in the communal kitchen, and now our four-person Berkeley group. The whole house is decorated in art made by either Chip or local Mayan artists, including many fantastic mobiles and light fixtures made from old baskets and gourds. Best of all, the cost is about $4-per-person-per-night, a bargain despite the close quarters, lack of pillows, and occasional water outages. It's hard to think of a more authentic place to stay in San Cristobal, and Chip's vast knowledge of the local Mayan villages and workers helps us further understand the communities that AlSol and microcredit are trying to help in Chiapas.

Micro-Credit in Chiapas

The magic of San Cristobal does not stop inside the city walls. Hidden in the mountains surrounding the city are thousands of tiny Mayan villages where the local culture, food, dress and religion are all preserved. During the first three days of our trip we had an opportunity to visit these hidden gems with an organization called Namaste-Direct. Namaste-Direct (www.Namaste-Direct.org) is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco whose mission is to support the work of micro-finance organizations in Central America and also to educate young people about micro-finance. We, along with a group of donors, staff and board members visited the Mayan "centros" funded by Namaste, witnessing first hand how micro-credit is working to alleviate poverty in Chiapas. The hand made shawls, shirts, scarves, belts and other beautiful works of art were inspiring to see. We will be spending the remainder of our time here helping Al Sol, Namaste's partner MFI, to add a business education program to their current offering. Very cool project!

San Cristobal in da house!

Well, close enough. It's technically known as San Cristobal de las Casas -- but what we do know is that our home for the next three weeks is arguably Mexico's coolest city. And once we recovered from the rocky start of our trip, we started discovering all that makes San Cristobal a truly magical town! It's a colonial town full of rich history, charming narrow streets, gallerias, live music, and great restaurants and cafes. It's difficult to capture the beauty of this town on camera, but here are a few of our attempts...

A Rocky Start

Within 10 minutes of arriving in the Mexico City aeropuerto, Kayela's purse was stolen; within 90 minutes, 4 members of our larger group were refused access to our connecting flight despite assigned seats; within three hours, the camera crew traveling with us to film part of a microfinance documentary found their $100,000 HD camera had been "misplaced" by the baggage handlers somewhere between SFO and the terminal in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas. Two days later, the camera surfaced...just in time to document all 4 Berkeley students struck down by Montezuma's Revenge...aka, the Mexican diet.

Kayela on the purse-snatching: "The team came together in the face of crisis...within seconds, Joel was demanding answers from the authorities while James purchased a calling card and Shirin got on the internet to look up numbers for cancelling credit cards. As for me, my personal contribution to the solution was to stand in the last place I saw the purse and sob hysterically. I am now the recipient of my own little micro-finance loans from my teammates...which actually might be a good thing as I have to get approval from them on how I am spending their money."

Despite a tenuous beginning, we are happy and (mostly) healthy, and expect to have a very memorable experience here in Chiapas.