And there's another equally important crop now bearing fruit in Chiapas. Boys and girls, young women and men are harvesting a cornucopia of knowledge and a wealth of social consciousness. Like the harvest of foods on the mountainsides, this harvest of human hope requires sacrifice, planning, and ingenuity by the Mayan communities. As 2007 comes to an end, please give what you can to support Zapatista education - education for literacy, education for health, and education for ecological agriculture. It only takes $10 a month to provide school supplies for an entire classroom; $100 installs a blackboard, and with just $25 you can provide tools and seeds for a school garden. Your help makes another world possible, TODAY!
Por y para los niños y las niñas, Peter Brownpedrocafe@ schoolsforchiapa s.orgps.
ZAPATISTA CORN SEED
Powerful Mayan corn seed - free of genetic modifications or chemicals - will soon be available for spring planting. We know that many of you have already requested seed for 2008, but seed corn from this year's harvest is still drying in the humble homes of Mayan farmers and should be ready for shipping on about Feb. 1, 2008. We hope that many of you will plant these seeds of resistance in support of Zapatista struggles for sustainable agriculture and against contamination by genetically modified seed. Click here to order your Zapatista seed for 2008. pps.
COFFEE * COFFEE * COFFEE:
Schools for Chiapas is also proud to offer you shade grown, bird friendly, organic Zapatista coffee grown by small farming families in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Click here for the best cup of coffee you'll ever experience!
ppps.The kids in the photo below are attending an autonomous, indigenous primary school in the jungle zone of Chiapas. If you would like to help the children of Chiapas, just click on the photo. Thank you so much for you help and please consider forwarding this email to your family and friends.
pedrocafe@schoolsfo rchiapas. org
Escuelas para Chiapas / Schools for Chiapas is a project of Grass Roots Events, Inc. a Federal tax-exempt, 501(c)3 California corporation with a U.S. mailing address located at 1631 Dale Street, San Diego, CA 92102. Join us! Our cultural and educational work has been supported for more than 20 years by thousands of individual donors including many people of conscience who are members of the National Education Association. In addition, dozens of artists, organizations, and foundations have supported our efforts including Activist San Diego, Agapa Foundation, Amado Avendano, The Big Kitchen, Big Noise Films, Roy Brown, California Arts Council, British Columbia Teachers' Association - Canada, Catholic Worker - San Diego, Committee for World Democracy, CNTE - Oaxaca (National Coordination of Education Workers - Mexico), Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, Global Fund for Children, John Hancox, Jose de Molino, Larson Legacy, Ofelia Medina, Ernie McCray, La Milpa Organica, Jose de Molino, Holly Near, Ocean Beach Peoples' Food Coop, Oceansong Wilderness Center, Gabino Palamares, Peace and Justice Caucus of the NEA, Resist, San Diego Foundation for Change, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Pete Seeger, Solidago Foundation, Sweet Honey in Rock, Tides Foundation, WESPAC Foundation, World Beat Center. We invite the full participation and honest support of people-of-conscienc e everywhere! Join us...you'll be in good company!
December 16, 2006 from a press woman's blog!!
Goodbye, Chiapas
It’s one minute to midnight. I leave tomorrow. I’ve somehow managed to roll and stuff most of my belongings into one small red suitcase. The rest will have to fit, magically, into my carryon laptop bag. And perhaps the very large pockets on my very large coat.
 I’m leaving heavier than I came. And I don’t mean just the two weeks of delicious cheese and no running. Or the chiapaneco coffee, or the ubiquitous Zapatista dolls, or the revolutionary T-shirts (I’m not making a statement, just marking a memory!), or the traditional dress of Chanel, Chiapas, or the woven shawl, or the amber jewelry, or the tourist brochures.
It’s hard to ignore children without winter shoes. Schools without floors. Eight-year-olds as street salesmen. School kids without mothers. Labor without profit. Bitter wind and bare legs. AIDS. Diabetes. Shacks. Racism. Classism. Death. Spies.
Oh, but I leave lighter, too. Because how could I not see blazing blue skies, clouds, breathless canyon walls, soaring heron? Carved torqoiuse, woven blankets, fat babies? Sculpted cathedrals, fluttering papel picado?
Or courage, love and selflessness?
It’s too easy to reduce to a T-shirt slogan the crisis that Subcomandante Marcos turned into a cause. I refuse to be as uncritically sympathetic as some are callous.
I want to return with more than Chiapas the symbol, paid for in pesos and wrapped in plastic. At least now it’s also just somebody’s home. Another square of earth, where people try to root their lives.
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