REVISEABLE LEARNINGS FROM MEXICO

In my blogging to this point I have been writing in an anecdotal and descriptive fashion. I beg patience as I shift to a more analytic and summary style. I am very conscious that there is much for me to learn about Mexico and its people and about being an effective international support worker. Here are a few of my learnings from the Chiapas and Mexico experience:

 Experiential education benefits from appropriate media for expressing and communicating insights. This blog and other social media have been a significant help for me to identify and give voice to my experiences and insights.

 Experiential education is about the transformation that occurs when we experience a bond with other people. We reach a point of empathic insight when we can imagine what it feels like to be poor and shunned, or joyful in family relations and fiesta, music and dance. Mexicans and Canadians with this bond can then say truthfully, 'mi casa es tu casa.'

Transformation withers without ongoing support. An ongoing community of those who share that transformative experience and its new set of meanings and values can provide support.

It is worth making the effort to learn the language of the people we engage. People from our International Support Worker program expressed frustration in not being able to communicate in Spanish and expressed a sense of fulfillment when communication happened.

Since 1994 and the Zapatista uprising indigenous issues have come front and centre in Mexico. At the very least, indigenous people today report more of a sense of pride in their histories, languages and cultures. No more do they have to step off the street to give way to mestizo and other peoples. We might connect this with revitalization movements globally and in Canada.

The archeological sites such as the Maya cities contribute significantly to the sense of Mexican identity and to the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the Mexican identity. They also undermine the notion that the Americas were an empty land waiting to be occupied by culturally and technologically advanced European peoples. For Canadians, one implication is that treaties with our First Nations should be taken seriously.

Tourism is a big income earner and Mexico is a destination with many grand recreational and cultural sites. Cathy and I spent a wonderful, warm week in Zihuatanejo, state of Guerrero. Tourism is the major source of income for the state of Guerrero. A desperate search for employment drives people north to the U.S.A. 300,000 people from that state live in Chicago. 

Democracy is fragile in Mexico (and Canada?). There is a question of who benefits? Will it be moneyed elites or local and indigenous groups? Big projects such as the Mesoamerican highway from north of Chiapas through to northern Colombia are being pushed forward. Environmental controls on polution from mining are undermined [Oh, oh under-mined] by the NAFTA process.

There are significant differences among areas of Mexico. The drug wars and killings of women are taking place in the north of Mexico. The south of Mexico has other issues having to do with the ongoing repression of indigenous communities.