Here I am.  Fighting off a sleepiness that makes me wonder if I should be composing this now.  But looking out to a view similar to the one you see above, my head is clear and ready:

I have to start with my ¨travel well¨ BBQ back in DC, as it´s still on my mind - 

Sometimes it`s hard to remember that we matter.  I often forget that my days affect people, touch people even.  It´s easy to struggle in the world feeling alone; on occasion I find myself with a despair that can eat at my motivation to struggle at all.  That feels distant now, even as I sit thousands of miles from the site of a BBQ that gathered people in DC that I wish I could´ve taken with me. 

These are people who, among others, wanted to say goodbye to me before I left to Oaxaca.  I want them to be here with me because they are fierce organizers, friends and mentors.  They care about their fellow tenants in their apartment buildings, they care about violence against women and racism, they care about me even.  That´s the hard part to remember, the part that makes me feel self-indulgent.  And the part that gives me a chance to stay awake while working and playing for something as big and bigger than myself, something worth caring for.  As I overheard from a friend quoting a Native American punk band´s intersong banter, ¨we think we should all live in communities based on respect.¨ Simple. 

Here´s my list of reasons for coming down here in the first place:

• The organization CASA (Colectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Acción) needs volunteers to do their work supporting Mexican-based social movements based in indigenous communities, and educating international activists.

• The recent genesis of the Popular Assembly of the People’s of Oaxaca serves as a model for broad-based autonomous struggle and I hope to learn lessons that can be applied to movements here in the States.

• My organizing back home in Virginia will benefit from my experiences in Oaxaca – In the Shenandoah Valley small farmers lost ground as industrial-agriculture became king, and real estate developers are now ferociously seizing land for the construction of large expensive subdivisions, and theme parks designed to develop a tourist economy. In connection to this development, state and corporate interests consistently promote the expansion of Interstate 81. If carried through, this expansion would further disrupt Virginia’s rural communities, and expand on the suburban sprawl from Northern Virginia that leaves little room for low-income and working class families. In Oaxaca, there is a proposed superhighway that would similarly serve corporate interests and hurt everyday people; maquiladoras would continue to fill the economic void created by U.S. and PRI supported neoliberal policies hurting small farmers and communities.

• Through a desperate migration north the people of Oaxaca are influencing the direction of the place where I find my deepest roots and commitments; they are also powerful resources and potential allies. I want to make connections with immigrant justice work on this side of the border, and learn how to be supportive upon my return

• My Spanish needs a kick in the butt. I have the mobility and financial privilege at this point in my life to make this trip possible, and with the support of others I hope to make it responsible to change larger than myself.

And some of the concreate goals I´m trying to meet while here:

-Engage with radical organizers here in Oaxaca to get feedback from the questions mentioned in our survey

-Make contacts in the communities here in Oaxaca where many immigrants in the Harrisonburg area are from

-Learn new skills as a trainer and teacher, observing and engaging with the training and teaching going on within social movements here

-Report on ways lessons learned here can be applied back in Virginia

-Use my skills to support the social movements here

-Stay sober (there´s no moment of this I want to miss, and when I´m homesick the temptation to fall back on previous habits is forcefull)

And now that I am here to make my goals real –  through the haze above Mexico City and after 7 hours on a bus driving South (complete with Shaggy Dog dubbed in Spanish), I have a journey to turn around and reflect on, and one ahead to prepare for.

Getting off the plane at the airport the metro is easily found and I make my way to the bus station.  During rush hour there are green signs above two different walkways, one which reads ¨mujeres y niños¨ and another reading ¨hombres.¨ I wonder if this seperation down a gender binary is followed?  I wonder how many white americans see these and think to themselves, ¨wow, things must be bad here¨?  I wonder if I thought that too?  I wonder where the intiative to create these two walkways came from?  I wonder if they´re protected by the same cops that keep women with their children from asking for money outside the subway cars?  I don´t know anything.  At this point I am only noticing.   

Before boarding the ADO bus that will take me to Oaxaca in much more luxory than Greyhound, a man looks at me, turns to his friend assuming that I don´t speak Spanish and says, ¨Not many white folks in Oaxaca now.¨ His friend replies, ¨But it´s good that he´s going then.¨  I  then ask them both why they think there aren´t many white folks in Oaxaca, they answer, surprised and embarassed that I understood them, with the assurance that, ¨oh, they´re there.¨  Once I find my seat this man hands me his card, the director of a resort on the beach in Puerto Escondido.  [looking out the window of this internet cafe there´s no shortage of white american tourists here, and they pass by the wondering riot cops nonchalantly as they take pictures of old churches]

As we pull into the city late at night, a statue of Benito Juarez, ¨independent¨ Mexico´s first president, a Oaxacan,  stands tall and bronze above the quote, ¨the secret to peace is respecting the rights of the other.¨  Simple.

-Patrick