Does anyone know how to pick a yummy turkey when it’s still alive and pecking about in the dirt of a market stall? And then what do you do with it? Is there a way to make a pumpkin pie made from real pumpkin has that good old fashioned flavor like it came out of a can? Do only people in North America eat cranberries? These are the dilemmas that we face celebrating Thanksgiving in Mexico. And though we’re being conscious and critical of the holiday’s legacy of colonialism, and probably won’t end up eating turkey at all (the majority of us are vegetarians) we are still looking forward to the feast, gathering together our San Cristobal extended community and giving thanks.

There are many, many things I am thankful for, but high on the list are our wonderful Mexican and North American friends that know how to cook! It is truly a blessing to be surrounded by a supportive, conscientious, politically active community. This is a difficult place to be- the demanding work we’re doing, the issues we face personally and seeing the structural injustice and poverty all around, our struggles with acculturation. Having a space like the Peace House for reflection and support is a necessity.

This month we completed our workshop on Privilege and International Solidarity. The discussions were intense, processing our role here, how we are seen by Mexicans, the privilege we carry with us, what solidarity should look like. We will continue to struggle with these issues our whole lives, but we concluded on a positive note remembering the reasons we are here, the skills and compassion we have to offer, reaffirming our belief that making these personal commitments and connections towards creating a different world is not only possible, but essential.

This month, Kara and I reflect on our experiences as outsiders and how our work here connects to larger social justice struggles. I am thankful for everyone with big dreams and big hearts.

In this newsletter you will find:


I.Peace House Events in your area

II.New Volunteer Opportunities in Chiapas

III.Chiapas News Update

IV.The Psychology of Solidarity by Kara Hartzler

V.Ongoing Solidarity by Melissa Mundt

VI.Holiday Pumpkin Bread by Sarah McMullen

I. Peace House Speaking Events

Melissa Mundt, Peace House Field Coordinator will be speaking throughout December and January in the United States. More info and other events soon to come. Please email info@chiapaspeacehouse.org for with questions or to schedule and event.


Saturday December 11th, 8pm, Seattle, WA

Sunday December 12th 1 pm, Tacoma, WA

Monday December 13th, 7 pm, Tacoma, WA

Saturday January 1st, Zapatista Anniversary Event, Missoula, MT

Friday January 7th, 8pm, Minneapolis, MN

Saturday January 8th, 10 am, Resource Center of the Americas, Minneapolis, MN

II. Volunteer in Chiapas!

New Peace House organizational partners COMPITCH and OMEICH are seeking volunteers with interest in natural medicine, traditional health care, preventing biopiracy and monitoring transnational corporations with interests in exploiting the rainforest.

Candidates should have strong Spanish abilities, experience with research and analysis, skills in designing educational materials and workshops especially helpful. The Peace House is beginning to collaborate with nonprofit organizations in Oaxaca, Mexico as well. Please contact us for more information. Updates soon to come!

III.Chiapas News Update

The relocation of communities within the Montes Azules Bioreserve continues with relative calm. In mid-November two non-Zapatista communities broke off negotiations with the government, with accusations of corruption, discontent over the poor quality land they were to be given and how that land had been purchased.

The seven Zapatista communities that will be concentrated into one community outside the Bioreserve are preparing and raising money. It is likely in coming months that there will be a call for international civil society to accompany the relocation process.

Twenty two communities, some within the Bioreserve and others in the surrounding jungle (including the Caracol la Realidad), have reported damage to crops, livestock and human health from flyover fumigation planes. In 1998, communities successfully rallied to halt Moscamed from allegedly dropping pesticides to control mosquito and insect populations. Since then the company has continued its operations across the Guatemalan border.

Communities have reported damage to crops (from corn to mangos), and an increase in illness among children and livestock. They have witnessed boxes of snakes, rats, larvas, reptiles, and parasitic worms that get under the skin of animals and humans, being loaded onto and dropped from the planes. They are appealing to President Fox and Govenor Salazar to stop the fumigation once and for all. See La Jordana (in Spanish), for more.

And speaking of overflights...

Conservation International has been one of the big players in building pressure to remove populations from Montes Azules. CI's Mexico site reveals a history of funding surveillance flights over the jungle during the past five years. Programs include micro-lending, population control (sometimes euphemistically referred to as "reproductive health"), and receiving funding from U.S. companies such as USAID, Packard Foundation, and Mattel.

Conservation International’s corporate support network includes McDonalds, Disney Company, Gap, Starbucks, United Airlines, Ford Motor Company. Whether these companies are interested in the Selva Lacandona, or only seek to give the appearance of being environmentally friendly, could be debated. CI's description of natural areas throughout the world as devoid of political boundaries or history, without recognizing the people who inhabit these regions, is dangerous and increasingly popular trend.

The famous rebel radio station of the Zapatista communities in resistance, Radio Insurgente, has gone global. Updates, programming , and shows of their short wave radio broadcasts are available online


On November 17th, the EZLN celebrated the 21st anniversary of its initial formation with well attended parties in all five Caracoles. Festivities went smoothly, with Zapatistas and internationals alike expressing gratitude and amazement that the movement is still going strong. Search La Jordana for more.

IV. The Psychology of Solidarity (or How to Be an Ex-Pat Without Looking Ridiculous) by Kara Hartzler

It was how they learned my name. Two weeks after arriving in Chiapas, I was attending a workshop with thirty indigenous human rights activists, playing a game of musical chairs in the courtyard. At the moment of reckoning, with everyone scrambling for his/her respective seating, I spied a chair and homed in on it with all the desperation of a new volunteer trying to prove her devotion to the cause.

Unfortunately, my commitment erred on the overzealous side — I had built up too much speed, and my fellow workshop members were treated to the sight of their new young white female lawyer/consultant overshooting the chair by several feet and doing a full-body professional-wrestling-style dive straight onto the concrete. I soon became aware of just how intense an impression this had made when, in the afternoon discussion, one person remarked how "sometimes in our work we're running too fast to see where we're going — you know, like Kara and that chair." Several other people also referenced the incident as a sort of paradigm for the discussion, and even the workshop leader noted that, in dealing with human rights violations, we have to make sure that we maintain a controlled response — unlike, you know, Kara and that chair. Before leaving the U.S. I had secretly harbored my leftist fantasies of "contributing something" to the struggle of Chiapas, but I never imagined this would take the form of providing a framework for critical discussion by falling on my ass.

And therein lies the common struggle among many volunteers here in Chiapas and, I suspect, in other parts of the world: the way I’d like to see myself and my contribution to the struggle is vastly different than the way I am seen by many people here. I’d like to see myself as a fearless crusader for international justice. I’m seen by many people as slightly ridiculous. To understand why I’m seen this way requires an enormous amount of humility, and learning humility can feel overrated in the moment. Humility means realizing that when I was trying to say in Spanish that I wanted to commit myself, I was actually saying I wanted to compromise myself. Humility means not getting any sleep because I’m trying not to fall out of the hammock. Humility means yelping when I burn my fingers flipping the quesadillas on the fire while all the other women who've long since lost those nerve-endings look at me strangely. It means displaying all the grace of an overweight grizzly when I’m trying to salsa dance. And it means trying to inconspicuously remove and discard from my soup the giant chicken's foot that the cook so proudly and generously awarded me.

But humility also goes beyond the merely trivial embarrassments. It means having the bank teller laugh at me. It means sitting in a meeting where people freely use the term "gringos" and don't care that it makes me squirm. It means absorbing the rage of my co-workers towards the last white volunteer who crashed the computer, misplaced all the files, and left the next day. It means hanging my head and apologizing to everyone the day after the U.S. elections. It means acknowledging that the lower standard of living I’m struggling to adjust to is still several notches above that of the average campesino. And it means always, always, always acknowledging that I’m white, I’m rich, I’m at the top of the food chain, and there are some things I will never understand.

But I knew this coming in, right? I didn't expect to be met at the airport by people waving American flags who would whisk me away to a lavish feast and sit at my feet, disciple-like, listening to my views on global politics. I knew my nationality, skin color, and privilege would catch up with me someday. I knew it was about damn time that the tables turn and I feel the brunt of the world's discrimination, anger, and threats. And I doubt that the existential crisis of a young ex-pat constitutes the gravest humanitarian threat to Chiapas today. So maybe it’s time to learn a little international and personal humility. Maybe it’s to stop wallowing in my discomfort before it becomes vaguely narcissistic. Maybe it’s time to suck it up and deal.

The problem is that the psyche can only apologize so many times before it threatens to snap during the most trivial moments of the day. There are times I want to tell the kid on the plaza that if his writing-my-name-in-the-notebook scam didn't work on me the first twenty times, it won't work now. There are times I want to tell people to just show up on time, for once. There are times I want to tell the men in the street who make kissing noises at me where they can go. There are times I want to throw my hands up, eat a Big Mac, drive an SUV, wear Nikes, wave a Walmart banner, and violate international law all at the same time — since I’m presumed to be doing this anyway. But beneath it all, what I really want is what all Mexicans want, what everyone in the world wants: to be given a chance, to be judged as an individual and not by how much money I have or where I come from or the color of my skin. But I already know that's not the way things work. That's what brought me here in the first place.

At such times, it's good to invoke parental wisdom. If my mother were here, she'd say, "In all things, moderation." Meaning that you have to have some humility, but not so much that you despise yourself out of deference to others. If my father were here, he'd say, "We are called to be faithful, not successful." Meaning that all you can do is offer yourself up daily with all the passion and commitment and energy that you possess, trusting that — in some way, on some level, with someone — it will be enough for the moment. And thankfully there are people here who welcome me warmly, who demonstrate a grace and an openness and an acceptance towards me in spite of the name on the front of my passport. Their generosity is what humbles me most. So I laugh, pick myself up off the concrete, and keep playing. At least now they know my name.

V. Ongoing Solidarity, by Melissa Mundt

When Bush was declared the winner of the election, the first thing that crossed many of our minds here in Chiapas is that we should go home.

Like rushing to the bedside of a loved one that is sick, we gringos abroad had the knee jerk reaction that we needed to be in the United States working for change. Not knowing exactly what form that struggle would take, or what I would have to offer it, I thought, for a moment, that my responsibility, my fight, was in the United States.

A few days later, the Walmart on the site of the ancient Teotihuacan ruins outside of Mexico City was inaugurated. I learned that Walmart, with 650 stores, employs the highest number of people in the Mexican private sector, and I remembered that this is a fight that crosses all borders. Some of the biggest players in the efforts to dislocate indigenous populations in the Montes Azules Bioreserve are Ford Motor Company, Conservation International and USAID. The worlds leaders and corporations continue to globetrot in the name of free trade and multinational relations, and thus it is increasingly important that the rest of us “think globally” in the sense of understanding the relationships between our country and the rest of the world, building connections with other social justice struggles. I strive to work in solidarity with communities in resistance because we are facing many of the same enemies and we have much to learn from each other about how to fight.

In preparing a speaking event with the Resource Center of the Americas in Minneapolis, MN, I was asked to provide suggestions for action for the audience members. I was stumped at first. But since then, I’ve been thinking more about what cross-border organizing could look like. I’ll keep you posted on my unfolding daydreams of radical collaboration, but in terms of individual contributions, I think the most important ones are: staying informed, raising awareness, and supporting solidarity organizations.

For more suggestions on ongoing solidarity, see the essay "Suggestions for Ongoing Solidarity", compiled by Jessie Hahn of Global Exchange. We hope she inspires you to keep on fighting, whether in the U.S. or another corner of the world.

There are many organizations and committees working around these issues. Contact Us to tell us what your thoughts are.

VI. Holiday Pumpkin Bread

We had to find a way to use the calabazas from Dia de los Muertos! Sarah discovered this recipe for delicious pumpkin bread that was a tasty fall treat that warmed up the whole house!

1 ½ cups flour
¼ cup oatmeal
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup chopped nuts
¼ cup oil
½ cup honey (or sugar, brown sugar, or fruit juice)
1 cup pumpkin puree (boil calabaza, cool, remove skin, blend)
1 egg , beaten
Sarah’s variation includes a couple handfuls of raisins, pinches of cloves, nutmeg and cardamom and chopped up apple.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine dry ingredients including nuts. Combine wet ingredients and stir into dry mixture until thoroughly combined. This will make a thick batter. Spread into an oiled, floured loaf pan. Baked for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean!

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