0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Field of Dreams; Fields of Reality
crawl back into our hammocks. I’m awake early and throw back the
netting that is swaying quietly in the flaxen dawn. The forest is barely
an arm’s length away, an entanglement of mutant houseplants search-
ing for the sky. To me, the selva seems disturbingly empty. I’m used
to herds of deer and flocks of turkey competing for lilies and lupines
outside my window, screeching blue jays, chattering finches. In Nahá
we have seen nothing. Heard nothing. Perhaps they come in the night,
like wary Zapatistas; perhaps they are encircling the shaman Antonio
in his millennial God’s house, called to conference. But all I’ve seen
are gaunt dogs and one small, speckled frog. Have all the howlers and
long-tailed quetzals gone, the Lacandón rainforest just the ancestral
memory of both humans and animals?
Three days later, we load up, back into the combis, a little anxious
about the drive. We leave Nahá with a deep sigh. In the trees, there is
an elusive black-and-orange flash, a toucan calling after us: como es-
tas en tu corazon? Days later, we find ourselves invaded by a perva-
sive case of burrowing chiggers. They produce a relentless itch, like
the poor of Chiapas under the protective coat of Mexican neoliberal-
ism. Returning to San Cristóbal, we slather alcohol and Vick’s Vapo
Roob over our tormented bodies, killing most of the microscopic vis-
itors. Weeks later, some seem to remain, a nighttime irritation, which
is how Chiapas works its way into your soul.
It’s chilly in the highlands, three weeks into the program, and the
women are wearing contradictions, ethical dilemmas, stark reality be-
neath their thick Maya sweaters. Some nights are pain-filled. We sit
in long reflections, reviewing past lectures and field travels, making
connections into and out of our own lives, into and out of a global
abyss that now seems bottomless. The students are consumed by is-
sues as old as the Spanish colonial entrada, and issues more recent,
fruit of this particular conflict. They want to fix everything. Kate re-
minds them: you have to pick your battles. The same message comes
to us in the surreal backdrop of Internet cafés and stereo plaza mu-
sic, the sound of Kenny Rogers’s “You gotta know when to hold ’em,
know when to fold ’em... .”
One morning, we hurry down to the zocalo for an audience with
