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.