Children...

July 19, 2009
San Cristobal, Mexico
Elevation 2349m

There is some sort of fire department demonstration in the plaza today. The fireman rigs the children up in a harness and they are pulled to the higher end and let go, they are essentially sliding down a zip line. There are these two small boys, selling gum and candy out of the little wooden tray they carry, they stand there and watch the other kids go up and down the zip line.

The haves and the have nots. Right there in front of me, as children.

A few days back when I was at Bonampak, there were these three girls running around the ruins. The youngest (5 years old) would ask for money when people want to take her pictures. I sat down in a shady spot for a little bit while waiting for my group and the girls surrounds me wanting to see what shiny things I had with me.

I don't make a practice of giving anyone money in exchange for a photo but if I have any kind of candy or pen or chap sticks on me, I am happy to give it to them. But mostly, I just talk to them, even if its out of a phrase book. I try to make them laugh and try to understand a little bit more.

As we are leaving, the girls are following behind, saying something to me in Spanish and I don't understand them. This American woman who is part of my group asks me if I gave them any money and then started to tell me about how she turned down leopards in India. How sometimes the parents would purposely hurt the child so the child would be better at begging. I know what she is telling me to be true. I tell her that I know but does she not feel bad for them? She says that she doesn't.

They are FUCKING children. How could you not feel bad? Where the fuck is your compassion? Even if there is not much you can do in the situation, you can at least feel, you can at least have compassion.

She Tried to Throw a Broom at Me

July 19, 2009
San Cristobal De Las Casas, Mexico
Elevation 2349m



San Juan Chamula, a village that is outside of San Cristobal. Its market day. It's 6:30 am, I make myself leave my warm bed, grab my cameras and thank god there is coffee at this hour, I get on a collectivo and head out.

The market is the size of the town square. I am the only foreigner here. You can buy everything here. Pots and pans, live poultry, shoes, clothing, yarn, some sort of animal pelt, bread, produce, shoe polish, flowers, just about everything. This market has no structure or logic in the way that its laid out. I think the vendors just arrive, they find an empty spot and they lay their goods down. As the day wears on, it gets harder and hard to walk through the market. I am constantly walking in between stalls or forced to jump over a pile of chiles so that I don´t get run over by the carts, people and poultry. There are children every where; some are crying, some are breast feeding. There are dogs roaming looking for a scrap off the butcher´s table. I saw this one boy trying to shove a giant piece of salted dry fish into his backpack...it made me laugh so hard as the fish is clearly bigger than his bag.

The shooting today is a little easier than it was yesterday. The people are still resistent but there is so much going on here that they pay less attention to me. Although this one woman did try to throw a broom at me. She won´t even let me take a picture of her chickens. Oh well....

I smile at everyone I see, I greet them good day. The men return my smile and are a little easier with me being there, the children seem to respond to my hellos as well. Howeve, the women just look at me and well....they just look at me. I guess my charm only goes so far here in Mexico.

This town, San Cristobal, Chiapas, it reminds me so much of Tibet, I don´t know why. The market is make shift at best; tables, tarps, ropes and nothing more. All of this choas and beauty will be gone by mid-day. The morning is wearing on and I have done 4-5 laps around, in and out, the tourist are starting to arrive, its time to wrap it up. Just as I am about to finish the last few frames on this last roll of film, I see a pile of red delicious apples imported from good o´US of A. Red Delicious apples sitting pretty amongst fruits and veggies that are just in from the hill side. I guess you can´t stop progress/invasion.

I stop at one of the many ¨stalls,¨ grab a seat in the tiny chair and have a hot horcheta and a tamale for breakfast. The warm horcheta makes me think of porridage and it reminds me of home. I guess when you grow up with nothing, your taste for peasant food (as my mother likes to call them) never really goes away.

Out of Focus Frames

July 18, 2009
San Crisotbal De Las Casas, Mexico
Elevation 2349m

The market today was incredible, bright and lively. I think my favorit thing might be how the women tie the chickens by their feet and wear them around their wrists like they are some sort of bracelets as they stand there selling them. I had a little trouble shooting at the market today. I have encountered resistence before to being photographed, but today it seemed harder. For the most part, if they really don´t want their picture taken, I respect that and I walk away. I have read and heard a bit about how the indigenous tribes here in Chiapas do not like their photos taken so I purposely left the Hasselblad and only went out with the Xpan. I thought maybe a smaller camera would let me fly under the radar a bit more (Yes, me, unnoticed as the only Asian in town.) It was difficult today. I would try to pull focus at something that was close to them but not them and then pan back to them and see if I can pull the shot off, this usually works decently in the pass, but not so much today. I ended up shooting a lot of the same frame hoping that maybe there would be one that would work. I have a feeling that I am going to end up with a lot of out of focused frames here.

Tomorrow I will head out to a near by town where market day is supposed to draw a great crowd from all the villages. I imagine it would be even harder then. But I have to at least try.

For Love, For Faith, For Pure Pleasure?

July 18, 2009
San Cristobal De Las Casas, Mexico
Elevation 2349m

When I think of fresh cut flowers I think of hot houses, first world nations, and florists. I was astounded to find so much flowers for sale at the market today. I wondered do they just grow wild? It can´t be grown in a hot house like it is in the US? Then I wonder who buys them and what do they buy the flowers for? For their wifes and their love? For their god and their faith? Or do the good people of Chiapas just buy them because they are pretty and who wouldn¨t want fresh flowers in their homes?