Word: comitan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...asking for advice from taxi drivers, hotel clerks and a few fellow travelers, I directed myself through the two day journey to Comitan. The three plane flights and four hour bus ride transplanted me into an incredibly foreign environment. I am as far away from the high-powered connection-making summer-after-junior year jobs as you can be. I am seeing how people live in a part of the world that is essentially forgotten. No one hits it big here: the people don't discover cures, write amazing novels, or work 100-hour weeks...
...Comitan doesn't attract tourists. The flocks of Europeans (there are conspicuously few American sightseers in Chiapas) visit the colonial city of San Cristobal or the ruins at Palenque. They usually just use Comitan as a stop-off point to obtain a Guatemalan visa or to take a colectivo to the Lagunas de Montebello, 52 km away. Thus, my being here has become known throughout town. People are curious as to what brought me to Comitan and want to know about life in the United States and try out the few English words they have learned...
There are ways, however, in which Comitan is like life back home. I exercise daily at a gym; I eat Quaker Instant Oatmeal; I can have my photos developed in an hour; I can check my e-mail daily. American marketing is everywhere. Coca-Cola (a.k.a. "Coca") and Pepsi have made inroads to even the most remote towns--towns which still do not have running water. (I even visited a Mayan village where the bubbly has been incorporated into a sacred healing ceremony.) If you walk through Comitan in the late afternoon, you can hear the loud cheers...
...center of town certainly reminds me of the recent strife between the Zapatistas and the government. And at times, there are silent protests by supporters of the indigenous minority. Yet, only once in a while can you feel the tension in social discourse. Life has gone on in Comitan, and in fact, I believe it is a far safer city than Cambridge. Alongside the troops, are people playing the marimba and others sipping coffee at a cafe. Right now, the city is gearing up for its ten-day annual festival...
Nevertheless, the deep structures of social inequity persist. One of my first days here, my supervisor at work said to me, "Americans have the time to worry about everyone else. People in Comitan can't be bothered about events happening half-way around the world; they need to worry about themselves." Newspapers covering events beyond the state of Chaipas are scare here. Individuals have to worry about more immediate, personal concerns: clean water, food and some sort of health care. (At 6 a.m., there is a line outside the only hospital in the area...